On this page we asked current TSSR members to offer their experience, strength and hope from their twelve step adventures in TSSR. We hope these candid shares will inspire other newcomers to try these powerful tools for change. As a few of the folks below have written as our friendly invitation- Come play with us!
(If you too would like to have your experience, strength and hope with your own TSSR program included, please send it to [email protected] Your share will be identified by your first name only.)
"Before TSSR I didn't want to trust anything because of the life I had prior to finding this program. By working these steps and going to meetings I was able to Let go & Let God/Higher Power take the wheel and trust that things happen for a reason. I let go of the things that I am powerless over. My path In this life is only getting better as I continue to practice the tools in my life to helps others and share my joy and now an even deeper understanding. The past is left there but the future is mine to grab ahold of and run with!"
April aka Sunnie
"TSSR has quite honestly turned my life upside down. After 8 years of addiction and losing myself I wound up in treatment."
"In treatment my counselor said another counselor had "this book" and "this spirituality group" and while it took me a few months to figure all of it out, it has helped me tap into something I never knew was possible."
"I am now living my best life, as happy, joyous, and free!!!"
"I will be forever grateful to TSSR and Christopher for gifting me my recovery in my spiritual wellness. This journey has been the most fulfilling, meaty, juicy , path I've ever been on!"
"If you want what I got, you're in the right place!! Stay right here, and nestle!!"
"It's a wonderful life, come get you some!!"
Cindy
"I'm new to TSSR, though not new to recovery. I began my journey over eight years ago not even knowing what I was searching for. What I found was incredible - the Twelve Steps led me to a relationship with my Higher Power. Over time and through various events in life, more was revealed in the way of past trauma, emotional baggage, and a dissociation like I'd never known. I needed something deeper. Something that would foster a greater connection to my Higher Power, to my purpose, something that could blast any block to deeper healing and expose me to my core. I went searching and "stumbled" upon Twelve Step Spiritual Recovery. From the very first paragraph of the book I knew my search was over. A new search had begun - a soul search. TSSR presents the Twelve Steps in such a way that I'm compelled to delve into the darkest depths of me and decide what is true and what is false. Welcome to choice. Welcome to your soul. Welcome to hope!"
Jessica
"I had just celebrated 11 years in recovery before I found TSSR. I started out in the rooms of AA and explored a couple other programs such as Al Anon and Celebrate Recovery. While I did find benefit working the 12 steps in those recovery spaces, I did still feel like something was missing for me. I was wanting to level up even more. I have always felt that the steps could benefit anyone on their healing journey and had wished that there was something inclusive just like TSSR. I just didn't know it existed."
"I heard about TSSR the first time on The Spiritual Underground Podcast and it peaked my interest immediately. I was so excited to hear, that finally, there was a group that was inclusive to anyone that wanted to work the steps so they could have "more or better" out of life and I was seeking additional healing from codependency and CPTSD after experiencing a toxic marriage and its ending. I jumped right into the inviting community and instantly felt welcomed and like family. I have met the kindest, most sincere, vulnerable people in my life. The men and women in these rooms excite me in a way I haven't felt in a very long time. I feel the juice everytime I'm around them. It's a super jolt of energy and its infectious."
"After had experienced working through the TSSR steps and being and active part of this community, I can truly say my life is full of miracles and I feel happy, joyous and free most days. I'm tapping back into the child I was supposed to be and I'm now living my passion and purpose. I'm so excited for what the future holds for not only me and my family, but truly what the future holds for TSSR. I so believe in this mission and I'm so glad I said yes to the invitation."
"So I say to you...Will you come play with us? All of You is welcome here."
Holly
"I hit a bottom in 2011, for four years I struggled, the consequences of my life kept getting considerably worse and worse, and there were periods of sobriety. Then one night, destiny landed me in a traditional 12-step recovery meeting with Christopher, who would become the author of 'Twelve Step Spiritual Recovery'".
"When I landed in that meeting, I was facing multiple years in prison for burglary, my 17 year marriage had ended, my children were afraid to stay with me, and I was on the verge of losing the job I had held for 23 years. Amazingly, my gut told me that the answers I was looking for were to be found in the 12-steps, but my experience in the meetings I was attending told me otherwise. Since that night when I met Christopher, many miracles have occurred in my life, the night he and I intersected has come to be the springboard for all of them."
"I had been through the steps with a sponsor early in that four year period, and I did receive a one year sobriety token in 2012, still, the improvement in my quality of life was not enough to prevent me from falling back into chemical solutions."
"There is a bit of a story, and I'll spare you that here, but ultimately Christopher took me through the work using AA's Big Book and the 'tribal knowledge' he had obtained from his many years of 12-step life, and his extensive experience as a substance abuse counselor (this was before the publication of "Twelve Step Spiritual Recovery")."
"My life immediately began to change for the better, even before completing the work, my life took on a new trajectory simply by taking up the path. The most impactful was my multi-year prison sentence being reduced to one year on home incarceration, words cannot describe what a relief that was."
"Somewhere along the way, Christopher started sharing with me that he was writing a book, and this book would contain the 'tribal knowledge' he used to turn my life around. It was not lost on me that many of the processes he was guiding me through were not found in AA's Big Book, there was certainly a direct correlation, it was certainly "working twelve steps", but I could not find everything he was teaching me in the pages of the Big Book - still, I did not have the guts to question it, it was working for me and I frankly didn't care if he was making the whole thing up as we went along, many of the problems I had been facing were shedding away, and that was all I cared about at the moment."
"Christopher began to share chapters of this book with me, stacks of copy paper which I started putting in manila folders, I would finish a chapter and we would trade folders outside AA meetings like two special agents trading dossiers."
"I began sponsoring guys using the methods Christopher taught me, plus I had been reading the material - and it was working in the lives of these men just like it had for me. At times, I had a waiting list of men wanting me to sponsor them, the results were evident."
"Fast forward to the book release and the inaugural TSSR meeting... we had a grass roots group formed, folks were buying the book, we were off and running - we were not restrained by some of the more traditional customs of typical 12-step meetings, we could use our own group conscious and our own connection to higher power to guide us - and just like that, the lives of a bunch of earth's children are improving."
"No longer are these powerful tools limited to those who have an "ism" (Alcoholism), you don't have to be an addict, a gambler, or a compulsive eater - this is available to ALL."
"Of the many miracles that have occurred in my life since practicing the 12-step, being on the ground level of this TSSR movement tops them all."
"Come play with us!"
Dan
"I was eighteen years into my recovery from abusing chemicals and utilizing the twelve step program and other twelve step fellowship groups, thinking that everything was just fine and dandy about my sobriety path. Then, out of nowhere, I had two very advanced teachers come into my life and take me through the twelve step process with what I now call deeper-dive tools. These tools were the result of over eight-five years of 'tribal knowledge' acquired through millions of souls across our world practicing the twelve step principles since they were published way back in nineteen thirty-seven. I could not believe the difference! I was able to achieve a level of healing and growth I did not know existed! After which, my entire life's path changed, and I have not only recovered my pure original self/soul before the damage this world and its sick inhabitants caused to it, but am now able to honestly walk it and share this truer authentic self with others!"
"My very first reaction to the many miracles I received that I previously did not know were even available was, 'Why in the heck didn't anyone tell me about this sooner?!' Immediately followed by, 'Why isn't this stuff written down somewhere to help everyone obtain these extra-stellar results from the twelve steps?!'"
"Thus began my six year journey of documenting this wisdom-rich process and tools into a book, "Twelve Step Spiritual Recovery". Again, here are all the tips and tricks we've learned over several decades that one could usually only obtain by listening to hundreds of speaker recordings, attending countless conventions and workshops, and even then it would not be pulled together into one concise, easy to follow manual."
"I wanted so very much to share what I had found with my fellow recovery brothers and sisters, but then Higher Power said these tools needed to be also expanded and shared with everyone who is suffering in our spiritually sick world today. Hence, the book was designed to be a detailed, step-by-step guide for any person to go through the entire twelve step process with a personal 'Sponsor' at your side. After which, my good friends in recovery helped us to start TSSR meetings where any curious and seeking soul may come and get what we call, 'The Juice!'"
"Our world is so ill right now and people are hurting so deeply, but there is a solution! Like I always tell my patients, "Recovery is the gift of a lifetime that only your ego will not allow you to give to yourself, or even try." How many of us want change, and more, and better? Yet, we keep doing the same exact things expecting different results. The twelve step adventure is the game-changer you've been looking for!"
Christopher
"I had been in and out of AA for 13 years when I found TSSR. I had worked the steps numerous times and had years here and there of sobriety, but NEVER has it been like this, nor have I ever been in such a state of freedom as I am in my life right now."
"My life was rather shitty when I first came upon TSSR. The second worst time of my life shitty. The circumstances didn't magically change and things were no less shitty after becoming involved in TSSR, but it certainly didn't feel like it. I separated myself from the shit. It no longer owned me. My life, day-to-day, and happiness were no longer tied to people, places or things I had no control over. I also learned how to recognize my part in the shit, feel it, heal it and move on."
"Describing the vast change within myself is nearly impossible and all I can say is if you want to change everything, sink yourself into TSSR. Not only was the depth of change so profound, but the quickness in which it happened. It was weeks and months, not years. There is a depth, acceptance and unique adherence to principles organically created by and within TSSR. There is a solution based mind set made so obvious in the reading that you would have to be unable to understand english to miss it. The wonderful side effect of this is that the people who stick around in TSSR are the ones doing the work and growing. They are people who want to be better for themselves and others. I am surrounded by people who recognize they are spiritually sick, face the hard truth with total honesty and run toward and through the yuck arm and arm with one another to be cleansed and finally find freedom and their true selves."
, path I've ever been on!"