However, one of the most enduring religious practices, which is common to all great world religions, is prayer and meditation. Because of the alcoholic's and addict's destructive focus of psyche and body on alcohol and drugs, all connection with that internal focus that makes connection with a spiritual source possible is lost. Interestingly, we see in the process of recovery and working the twelve steps of AA that the practice of prayer and meditation in a natural way becomes important, perhaps for the first time in a person's life. I was listening to a noted author speak recently, and she gave additional insight into why prayer is important to recovery. Prayer, she said, is the denial of denial.
Prayer weakens, dilutes our defenses.
Prayer makes it possible for us to more clearly see what is true and what is our defensiveness. Denial is chemical dependency's insidious psychic destroyer. An act of denial either goes into the body doing damage or it goes out into the world where it induces rage and craziness doing even more damage. The solace of prayer is that it pulls us into a current that is greater than the flow of our own self, into a current that connects us with something greater than ourselves. Second, AA teaches that we must constantly strive to lead a moral life, admitting our wrongs and making full amends when we harm others.