Juris S. - Happy Joyous and Free: One mans journey and guide to ultimate Spiritual health

Abundant Life

When I was five years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down happy. They told me I didnt understand the assignment, and I told them that they didnt understand life.

John Lennon

H appy. Joyous. Free.

All my life I wanted to be happy. When I was younger, I did not really think about being joyous and free; but as I stand today, I know that all three of these things are dependent on one another. I do not remember ever having a conversation with anyone specifically about how to be happy, joyous, and free as a child and young adult. I merely knew that deep down inside, all I really wanted out of life was to be happy.

Growing up, I looked around at the people in my life and tried to figure out how to accomplish this. The message I received from my parents and others, TV and movies, was that in order to be happy, one had to be successful. Success became defined for me in my childhood as having a prestigious occupation that earns a lot of money and a nice house in the suburbs with a wife and kids. Most of my adult life has been spent in the delusion that achieving those things would finally grant me happiness. Simply put, a delusion is a false belief. This false belief drove my actions and behaviors for many years.

I chased happiness in all the things that the world promised would bring me to it. I sought fulfillment and satisfaction from life in my image, career, fame and notoriety, sex, drugs, alcohol, and relationships. I had the American dreambeautiful wife, kids, nice house, fancy cars, respected status in my career, and money. And yet somehow, some way, I was not satisfied. I had momentary feelings of happiness, but I did not have continual abundant joy and inner peace. To the world, it appeared as though I had it all, and yet I was disenchanted with life. I wondered why I felt there had to be more when I had attained everything I thought I ever wanted.

No matter what I obtained, it was never enough, even when I met or exceeded the goals that I set for myself. There was always something greater that I wanted, and all my successes ended up falling flat. It was never enough.

I grew up atheist. My parents never talked about God. We never went to church. My life was mostly centered around academics, which is probably my strongest gift. However, being intelligent is also my worst enemy.

Because I excelled in school, I felt superior to the people around me. I was particularly adept at math and science. This drove my belief that science could explain everything in the universe. If it had not been explained through science yet, I believed that it was certain that it would be. I came to believe that it is not scientifically plausible that there could be an ethereal being called God. It was not logical, so therefore, He must not exist. I was not quiet about my atheistic beliefs and often used my intellect to belittle and berate those who would present me with the concept of God. The truth is that I never investigated God. I just dismissed Him because I was my own god and was succeeding in most everything I set my mind to.

Why did I rail against God for most of my life? The answer is simple.

If there is a God, then I would not be in control.

Through my journey, I have come to discover that not only is there a God, He is fiercely interested in me and my life and has plans for me that are beyond what my limited human mind even had for myself. The issue of whether or not God exists is not an evidence problem. For me to come to believe in an almighty God, I made a thorough investigation into the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. What I found turned my life upside down, and for the better. Not just better, but the best life I could possibly have. The evidence surrounding these events is irrefutable. I realized that faith and science are not opposites; they are inextricably linked with truth. If the man of Jesus could be brought back to life, that proved to me that God must exist. Once I had that spiritual awakening, my entire life and everything I believed was set on a new trajectory.

The paradox that I have discovered is that by relenting control of my will and my life over the care of God, my life is more than I could have expected or achieved on my own. Surrendering control allows me to let God direct my life, and I can enjoy every step of the journey. I am finally happy, joyous, and free as a direct result of me not managing my own life.

Through my long, circuitous journey, I have discovered that true happiness, joy, satisfaction, freedom, and fulfillment in life can only come from living in the truth. Truth applies to all people, at all times, and in all circumstances. Truth never changes, never evolves, never falters. Although it would seem intuitive to me that I would know the truth being educated as a physician, it took me many years to find it.

The purpose of this book is to share my experience, strength, and hope, through my journey to help others be happy, joyous, and free, and find an abundant, extravagant life. Heaven is not a destination. I have found much of heaven and live a life now that I could not have even imagined. Heaven is not just somewhere we go when we die. Someday is too far away for me. Thinking about where I will go when I die does not have any immediacy to me. I am there today.

If you have one foot in yesterday and one foot in tomorrow, you are pissing on today.

In His unrelenting pursuit of an intimate relationship with me, God gifted me with the disease of alcoholism for which the solution is not medical, but spiritual. Alcoholism is a medical disease, classified in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) produced by the American Psychiatric Association. It is the standard classification of mental disorders used by mental health professionals in the United States. Because it is a medical disease, it is something that my medical mind can assess and process. I can study and analyze it in medical terms, and it makes intuitive sense to me.

However, the solution for this medical disease is not medical at all. It is spiritual. There is no procedure or medication that can effectively treat this disease. The most effective treatment for alcoholism is the original twelve-step program described in the book Alcoholics Anonymous. I have read that the reported success rate is 10 percent. Based on my experience and observation as well as recent published Cochrane review, this is not true. The reported success rate is 10 percent because the compliance to treatment is 10 percent. From a medical perspective, the success rate for any disease in which only 10 percent of the patients are taking the medication is going to be 10 percent or less. It is not a fault of the treatment (Alcoholics Anonymous or AA); it is the willingness of the individual to comply with treatment.

God used this specific disease to bring me to Him. Although I had accepted Jesus as my savior in 2010, my surrender to God did not occur until I went to rehab in 2015. In this book, I delineate how the program of AA accelerated my journey toward God through Jesus Christ. What I hope to achieve in this book is to reveal to others how the program of AA can be applied to the Christian life no matter what the individual struggles with. AA gave me the clear, direct blueprint to follow Jesus effectively, which finally brought me to the abundant, extravagant life that I have today. I want this for everyone.

Because of my experiences and background, I incorporate recovery, spirituality, psychology, and medical science. I draw from everything that I have seen and heard throughout my life to practically demonstrate how I obtained the ultimate contentment of life, fullness of joy, feeling of complete security and safety, and freedom from judgment or condemnation in all situations and circumstances. It is the best feeling I have ever had, and it is my prayer that others can find the same by learning from my journey. I share much of what I wish someone would have taught me at an early age.