How Step 11 NA Helps You Embrace the Drug-Free Lifestyle

Step 11 – “Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.”

The 12 Step program approach emphasizes the importance of spiritual growth and awareness throughout. While not all steps deal directly with spiritual issues, those that don’t still incorporate some form of healing and growth all the same.

Step 11 NA combines the spiritual principles and practices addressed in previous steps, which helps those in recovery maintain a strong connection with the ideals that support continued drug-free living. As daily practices, prayer and meditation keep this connection open with one’s Higher Power and the ideals that make for a clean and sober life.

Through Step 11 NA, recovering addicts work to strengthen their foundation in recovery. In the process, healthy, drug-free living becomes second nature as opposed to the daily struggle that characterized the start of the recovery process.

Call our toll-free helpline at 800-781-0748 (Who Answers?) to ask about 12 Step program treatment.

Settling Into the Recovery Process

Step 11 of NA focuses on spiritual growth.

Over time, people struggling with drug addiction fall into a way of life that’s designed to encourage drug-using behavior. In like manner, people recovering from drug addiction must develop a way of life that’s designed to encourage drug-free living, according to Governors State University.

Whereas the addict “falls into” an addiction-based lifestyle, someone in recovery must make a conscious effort to develop and maintain a drug-free existence. In this respect, the practices prescribed by Step 11 NA work in helping you maintain a drug-free existence for the long-term.

Building a Relationship With Your Higher Power and Higher Self

The notion of a Higher Power plays a central role in the 12 Step program approach. In effect, building and maintaining a relationship with a Higher Power provides the level of faith and motivation needed to maintain continued abstinence.

Incorporating a daily practice of meditation and prayer strengthens this relationship and provides an ongoing source of guidance and direction. Since one’s Higher Power represents the types of values and motivations that sustain drug-free living, Step 11 NA practices work to keep you focused on recovery.

What Can I Learn from the 12 Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous

Nurturing a Spiritual Awareness

While the effects of drug addiction do take a toll on a person’s physical and psychological health, his or her spiritual well-being also suffers damage, according to Alcoholism Treatment Quarterly. The 12 Step program approach address this need along with the psychological dysfunction that addiction leaves behind.

Step 11 NA focuses on nurturing this spiritual growth as a means for staying connected to the things that really matter in daily life. In effect, one’s spiritual well-being becomes just as important as his or her physical and psychological health when it comes to leading a clean and sober life.

A Self Actualizing Process

Self actualization entails attending to one’s basic needs first and foremost, and then strengthening the parts of self that can enhance your overall quality of life. From this standpoint, Step 11 NA helps you develop practices that support ongoing growth and healing while enhancing the quality of your everyday experience over time.

For more information on 12 Step treatment approaches, call our helpline at 800-781-0748 (Who Answers?) to speak with one of our addiction specialists.