Spirit Rock Dharma Teacher, Kevin Griffin, author of One Breath at at Time, and A Burning Desire, gave Good Orderly Direction during his retreat “Buddhism and Recovery” in Victoria. He helped people in recovery straddle the traditional 12 steps of AA with their Buddhist faith. He managed to bring a middle way between the two without alienating people in the 12 step tradition by showing us how the Buddhist teachings intersect with the 12 steps. He skilfully led us through the steps showing us that step one: “We admitted that we are powerless over our addiction and that our lives have become unmanageable”, is the vision and transformation that weaves throughout the other 11 steps, similar to that of the Buddhist 8 fold path. Many people who have been in the rooms have struggled with the concept of Higher Power and God. He points out that the Buddhist Higher Power is the understanding that there is suffering internally and externally, that everything is impermanent and that there is no self. These are known as the 3 lakshanas, the three marks of existence of the human being. When a Buddhist sees through these, they have broken the first fetter (mental bond) of believing in a fixed self. Griffin calls these higher powers because they are the door way to enlightenment – an awakened mind. He said that “addiction is the avoidance of suffering, but also the door way to change. If everything was permanent there would be no opportunity for change, seeing that everything changes liberates us. If we cling to the identity of the addict we will fix the self. When we can see clearly that there is no self, we can see clearly that we can transform”. He also spoke of mindfulness and loving kindness as powers greater than ourselves that can restore is to sanity. Those people who attended the retreat who were in recovery were moved when Kevin reminded us to apply loving kindness to step four when we are taking a moral and fearless inventory of ourselves.  He said: “Important to make a list of all the good and positive things we had done before we became addicted.”  He also explained to us that when a Buddhist turns their life over to a God of their understanding, they are turning their life over to the three jewels: The Buddha, the ideal of enlightenment; the Dharma, the teachings of the Buddha; and the Sangha, the spiritual community. This whole retreat for me was about how we as Buddhists, in the eleventh step, seek through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understand him. I believe that the easiest part of recovery is abstinence, abstaining from our choice of addiction. The tougher part is finding sobriety of mind, which is when we as Buddhists can turn our lives over to the three jewels. This, I believe, is when, in step twelve, we begin to have our spiritual awakening.