How to Tell Intuition From Your Addict Brain | Spirituality in Recovery Without Religion

Your gut feeling and your addiction can sound exactly the same. Here's how to tell them apart.

That little voice saying "maybe don't go to that party" is intuition. The voice saying "you've earned one, nobody will know" can feel like intuition too, and it's the addict brain. In this solo episode of Recovering Out Loud, Anthony talks through the "vital sixth sense" from 12-step literature: conscious contact with something bigger than yourself. You can call it God, the group, Good Orderly Direction, the ocean, or nothing at all.

This is not an episode about religion. Here's how Anthony puts the difference: religion is for people afraid of going to hell, and spirituality is for people who've already been there and don't want to go back. If the word "God" makes you flinch, this one is still for you.

In this episode:

• Why conscious contact is a sense you train, not a belief you hold
• Practice first, belief later: "You don't believe your way into conscious contact. You practice your way in."
• Prayer is talking, meditation is listening
• What the research found: spiritual practices partly explain better drinking outcomes in a 1,726-person study; mindfulness-based relapse prevention beat standard approaches at 12 months; body-awareness training reduced substance use and craving in women in treatment
• When the addict voice disguises itself as a gut call, and the justification test that exposes it
• Coming back after a relapse at seven and a half years, and why there's no moderation for Anthony
• Plus a new mocktail: jalapeños in soda water 🌶️

Try this week:

1. Pause and say the Serenity Prayer (or any line that grounds you) before you act when you're agitated
2. 3 minutes of breath focus every morning. When your mind wanders, notice it and come back. The noticing is the rep.
3. 30-second body scan before big decisions: what's my body telling me?
4. Two filters: Is this pulling me toward people or away from them? Would I say it out loud to someone I trust?

Recovery is simple, not easy.

Studies mentioned are linked in the show notes on YouTube. This podcast shares lived experience and peer perspective. It is not medical or clinical advice. If you're struggling, please reach out to a professional or a recovery community near you.

🎧 Follow Recovering Out Loud so you never miss an episode, and leave a rating if this one helped. It helps someone else find the show.

📚 STUDIES MENTIONED

• Kelly et al. (2011). Spirituality in recovery: A lagged mediational analysis of AA's principal theoretical mechanism of behavior change. Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research, 35(3), 454–463. 1,726 adults, 15 months. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21158876/
• Krentzman et al. (2013). Multiple dimensions of spirituality in recovery. Substance Abuse, 34(1), 20–32. 364 adults; only private practices (e.g., prayer, meditation) mediated the effect. https://doi.org/10.1080/08897077.2012.691449
• Bowen et al. (2014). Relative efficacy of mindfulness-based relapse prevention, standard relapse prevention, and treatment as usual for substance use disorders. JAMA Psychiatry, 71(5), 547–556. 286 adults, 12 months. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24647726/
• Price et al. (2019). Longitudinal effects of interoceptive awareness training through Mindful Awareness in Body-oriented Therapy (MABT). Drug and Alcohol Dependence, 198, 140–149. 187 women, 12 months. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30928884/
• Study on prayer, meditation & the Serenity Prayer as spiritual "active ingredients" linked to abstinence: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5293659/

#RecoveringOutLoud #Sobriety #AddictionRecovery