Recovery Lectio: an Ancient Christian Approach to 12 Step Recovery

"We 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." Step 11




I have been told over the years, by conservative Christians, that following the 12 Steps of addiction recovery is something that I as a practicing Christian should stay away from because the 12 steps:

  • are not based in scripture

  • don't require that you believe in Jesus

  • don't even mention Jesus

  • are a gateway to occult/pagan/satanic practices


    • You can probably imagine the look on their faces when I tell them that if it weren't for the 12 steps that I wouldn't be the Christian that I am today. What follows in this book are the tools that I've used in my own recovery from alcohol and drugs over the last 19 years. It is also the story of my spiritual journey.

    It all started in the summer of 1984 in the parking lot of a bar. I was a couple of months out of rehab and aftecare when I got down on my knees and said "God help me! I don't want to go back to the way I was!" That prayer was from the gut. The feeling and emotion behind it came from a place that I didn't know existed. In rehab I'd "done the steps", gone to group and attended A.A. mettings. After rehab I went into an aftercare program for 180 days and did 90 meetings in 90 days, not only was I starting to feel good about myself I was starting to *feel* again.

    One night some "friends" asked me to be their "designated driver" for the night so that they could go out partying and I said "OK". After about an hour of sitting in this bar smelling the booze and staring at my buddy's beer bottle I knew that if I didn't get out of there I was going to get drunk. I realized that I didn't want that anymore so I got up and went outside. That's when that prayer came out of nowhere, from a place I didn't know existed. The desire to drink left me that night and hasn't returned and I left my "friends" at the bar and haven't returned.

    I knew that something had happened that night. I had talked to God, he had listened, and responded. I knew that I wanted to talk to God more, but I didn't know how. I had never been raised in a church as a child and I thought that all "church people" were hypocrites. I started frequenting a "new age" bookstore and reading books on meditation and spirituality. Then I bought a Bible and a 3 year bible study called "Search the Scriptures" by Alan M. Stibbs. I started praying in the morning, thanking God for a new day and asking him to help me get through it and at night thanking him for getting me through the day.

    It wasn't until I'd joined a church in the early 90's that I discovered that prayer is more effective if you take time to LISTEN to what God has to say to you. In other words, meditation. I knew about meditation (the eastern/buddhist type) from earlier reading but it didn't seem to fit with the christian turn my spiritual journey was taking. It wasn't until I read two books by Richard J. Foster, "Celebration of Discipline" and "Prayer: Finding the Hearts True Home" that I learned of the ancient christian form of bible study/meditation /prayer called "Lectio Divina", or sacred/divine reading.

    Lectio Divina is made up of the two most powerful elements ever created for change, prayer and meditation. With Lectio Divina a person reads the bible NOT to gather information, but to hear the Word of God. Lectio Divina is an ancient, prayerful, and devotional way of reading the bible. Through Lectio Divina we, as christians, encounter the living God through scripture, allowing us to experience the beauty of prayer, which is the inner life of Christ. It's through the discipline of Lectio Divina that I follow the 11th step practice of "improving my conscious contact with God." With daily practice you will be changed forever.

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