For those in recovery and those who love them

For one more day.

Addiction is not a moral failure to be scolded out of a person; it is an illness that takes hold of the will, and recovery is usually a long series of ordinary days. These prayers are for those days, and for the families living alongside them.

For the Person in Recovery

Lord, I am not asking for the rest of my life.
I am asking for today.

Take the craving when it comes,
or give me somewhere to put it.
Put someone in my path when I am close to the edge,
and give me the humility to call them.

I have made promises before and broken them.
I am making this one anyway, because You have not written me off,
and I am trying not to either.

One day. That is all I am asking for. Amen.

For a Family

Lord, we love someone we cannot fix.

Give us the wisdom to know the difference
between helping them and protecting them from consequences.
Keep us from despair and from pretending.
And hold our own lives together while we wait. Amen.

Alongside Prayer

Recovery generally needs more than prayer: medical treatment, a programme, a group, honest accountability. Twelve-step fellowships, many with Catholic chaplaincy, exist in most towns, and Catholic Charities and diocesan services can point you to help locally. There is no contradiction between working a programme and praying — the programme is often how the prayer is answered.

Patrons

St. Maximilian Kolbe, St. Monica for families, St. Matthias, and St. Mark Ji Tianxiang — a Chinese layman who was an opium addict for thirty years, was barred from the sacraments, kept coming to church anyway, and died a martyr. He is the patron the Church quietly offers to those who cannot stop.