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    Three Simple Rules: Uncomplicating Life in Recovery
    Three Simple Rules: Uncomplicating Life in Recovery
    Three Simple Rules: Uncomplicating Life in Recovery
    Ebook93 pages2 hours

    Three Simple Rules: Uncomplicating Life in Recovery

    By Michael Graubart

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    About this ebook

    Recovery is hard, but it doesn’t have to be complicated.

    If sobriety were easy, everybody who wanted to be sober would be. And especially for those who are just starting out in Alcoholics Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous, or another Twelve Step program, the prospect of trying to change drinking, using, or other harmful behaviors can seem overwhelming. The good news is there are just three key things we need to focus on. Trust God. Clean house. Help others.

    Three Simple Rules offers a new take on this valuable slogan and explains how these rules can help anyone find fulfilling recovery. Author Michael Graubart also knows that those six short words are packed with meaning and may not sound so straightforward. Luckily, you don’t have to figure it out on your own. Michael uses wit and wisdom gained in more than twenty years of Twelve Step recovery to explain what worked for him so you can figure out what works you. In Michael’s experience, if you follow the Steps, and focus on the three simple rules, you’ll be changed by the process.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHazelden Publishing
    Release dateAug 21, 2018
    ISBN9781616497774
    Three Simple Rules: Uncomplicating Life in Recovery

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      Book preview

      Three Simple Rules - Michael Graubart

      RULE #1

      Clean House

      CLEAN HOUSE? Okay, but which house?

      We’re not talking so much about the physical home, house, or apartment in which we live. We’ll get to that soon enough.

      Right now, we’re talking about another home we have created for ourselves, or perhaps, have neglected for too long. That home is spiritual, and it is always with us everywhere we go.

      Most of us are moving into the future carrying a lot of our past that no longer serves us. Ideas, attitudes, beliefs, prejudices, behaviors, habits, relationships, things. What patterns and behaviors did you cling to when you were drinking and using? How many of those are still a part of your life, your spiritual house, right now?

      No matter what time of year it might be as you read this, it’s time for an internal spring cleaning! It’s time to clean house.

      When the Big Book authors speak of cleaning house, they’re talking primarily about inventorying our attitudes, behavioral habits, thinking habits, and actions or inactions. If you aren’t familiar with the Steps, the basic idea is that alcoholism and other addictions are physical, mental, and (you guessed it) spiritual.

      The physical part is the compulsion to drink or use. The brain disease. This combines with a mental obsession, in which we think more about our drug of choice—whether it’s alcohol, cocaine, food, sex, spending, or whatever—than anything else. Our addictive substances or behaviors ultimately become more important to us than life itself.

      So here comes the spiritual part. The purpose of the Twelve Steps is to create a reawakening of the spirit inside the alcoholic or addict.

      In other words, our spirit is still within us, but it has been buried under gallons of alcohol, ounces of cocaine, years of meaningless sex, and other forms of addictive or compulsive behavior. We have replaced our quest for meaning and fulfillment with a quest for more of those unhealthy things that have given us temporary relief or enjoyment.

      We need to get that spiritual quest back on track.

      The first three Steps are about understanding and accepting the need for spiritual help. We’ll explore exactly what that means and how to do it when we get to rule number three.

      Then comes Step Four, which is the place where members of Twelve Step programs figuratively clean house, and that’s what we’ll focus on first.

      The Twelve Steps are complicated enough. The language of them isn’t exactly easy reading; it’s hard to interpret them without written guidance from literature and lore from fellow sober alcoholics and addicts. To many, the Steps feel so complicated that they scare people off from working the program and getting

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