Dear Friends and "Friends of Friends" who are in recovery from addictions like alcohol, drugs, nicotine, gambling, sex, food, shopping, pornography, etc.
As you may know, I am writing a 365-day recovery devotional for a major publisher, and I need your help to include 52 insights (one per week of the year) in a section entitled: Recovering Addict Insight. Any of the following types of intros would be ideal, followed by your anonymous initials and descriptor of your addiction, as shown below:
� What works for me time after time....
A.L., recovering alcoholic
� What saved my life was when I began to....
S.T., recovering food addict
� What pulled me through my darkest hour was that....
P.H., recovering drug addict
� What I learned from my sponsor was to....
B.K., recovering shopaholic
� What helped me the most was my....
J.W., recovering sex addict
� What amazes me as a key rehabilitation method is....
E.F., recovering gambler-addict
� What continues to work for me is....
C.Q., recovering pornography addict
Would you prayerfully consider sending me a 25-50 word (max) response? I'm not able to use generic answers, like "Jesus gave me the strength." The fact that Jesus is the key to all recovery is a given in this 400-page book! Your insight must be a specific method, tool, technique (etc) that has blessed your recovery process.
Email me, Katie Brazelton, directly with your response, noticing the "s" on Centers in the address below. I will confirm receipt of your contribution. Please feel free to share this information with any close friends who are recovering from addictions and have had any type of success in their ongoing struggle.
I do not need the specifics of your addiction, only the general category (i.e., alcohol).
BTW, if you also have a favorite short quote from a book (by a Christian author), which has helped you in your struggles, I'd love to consider including it. Here is a sample of what I would need from you regarding your reference source-in addition to the quote:
(p. xx) Author's first/last name, Name of book: Subtitle. (City name: Publisher name, Date of publication).
Or, if you have an incredible illustration based on your personal testimony that you would like to share with my readers about any of the topics listed below (Sample Topics to Guide Your Testimonial Illustrations), feel free to include a brief paragraph (ONLY) for me to review-and I'll get back to you about any further details I would need for your anonymous entry.
Sample Topics to Guide Your Testimonial Illustrations
�Consequences I've faced
�Best personal qualities
�Character strengths (that have helped me or that have turned to weaknesses)
�Excuses I've used
�Fears that have previously been a big problem
�Forgiveness
�Generosity
�God's timing
�Grace
�Gratitude
�Group I'm called to serve (i.e., teens, elderly, actors, orphans)
�Guilt
�Healthy passions (i.e., motorcycles, ecology, computers, sewing)
�Healthy relationships
�Honesty-it's role in my recovery
�How God uses x to inspire me
�Humility
�Importance of exhaling-breathing
�Joy-what it looks like to me
�Leverage (life advantages) God has given me
�Levity-laughter-healthy forms of relaxation
�Life values
�Listening to critics
�Ministry & mission experiences that have equipped me
�Miracles in my life
�Motives-pure and impure
�My Life Message-what God has given me to say to the world
�My Life Message-what method God wants me to use to deliver it to the world
�Old "Life Scripts" that can trip me up
�Opportunities I've been given in the past or that I am now prayerfully considering
�Patience
�Peace-how to get it
�Perseverance
�Personality type-that supports my life purpose
�Prayer-what it's done for me
�Regrets
�Saying yes to God about living out my life purpose
�Spiritual giftedness God has assigned me
�Spiritual habits that have helped me grow spiritually
�Surrendering
�Talents, abilities, and skills
�Threats/roadblocks to my recovery
�Weakness that God has turned to a strength
�What's confusing to me
�What's missing in my life
�Who I am in Christ
�Worry/anxiety
�Step 1-We admitted that we were powerless over our problems and that our lives had become unmanageable.
�Step 2-We came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
�Step 3-We made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of
�Step 4-We made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
�Step 5-We admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
�Step 6-We were entirely ready to have God remove these defects of character.
�Step 7-We humbly asked God to remove our shortcomings.
�Step 8-We made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all.
�Step 9-We made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
�Step 10 - We continued to take personal inventory, and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it.
�Step 11-We sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, praying only for knowledge of God's will for us and the power to carry it out.
�Step 12-Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to others, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.