Highlight of Sunrise by eye of einstein.jpg

The feeling I least want to feel right now is sadness. Divorce is generally an emotional tsunami and I have been dealing with most everything except the sadness. I know that I can’t move on until I allow myself to mourn the person with whom  I’ve  have spent the last sixteen years of my life. He left the marriage to be with a new person so I’m sure that that is adding to my feeling of being overwhelmed by the loneliness. I’m a person who has few people in my life by choice. So whenever one leaves or I leave, there is a void there.

I’m sure my sadness is made bigger because I thought we were friends, but his affair and betrayal was compounded by his complete alliance with this new woman. I mean, when did I become the bad guy? Because he uses mind-altering drugs daily, he is able to live in a world of his own creation.

I am starting to focus on the fact that my use of the 12 steps is leading me to seeing my self as a person with rich and full emotions. With that depth comes a depth of feelings that are hard to face and accept. I am working on Steps 6 and 7 to see my part in the breakup. At the same time, by being around people in the 12 step meetings who are looking to improve themselves, I am making an investment in myself and in my future relationships.

So, when the sadness comes, I allow it to linger for awhile and then I move on to letting go gently. I know anything I leave undone today will return if I don’t accept it. And if I ignore feelings I don’t like, they will comeback stronger than ever.

Five suggestions for growing your positive self from explore life blog are:

(1)  Be fully in your body—(feel your feelings). As you wake up each morning fill your heart with light and spread that light wherever you go.

(2)  Take back control from your mind. Enter the stillness of your inner peace each day

(3)  Develop a relationship with your Higher Self (love that!). Each day do the simple affirmation/mantra, “I Am” with awareness as often as you can.

(4)  Relax, take it easy, let go, forgive, have fun, and be playful. Make spreading joy a daily practice.

(5)  Appreciate all you can each day. Keeping a gratitude journal is a powerful way to expand your success in life.

Inside the Nest by cmacubbin

Alcoholics Anonymous started in 1935 and has spawned over 200 different types of twelve step meetings. One of the first to deal with feelings was ACOA–Adult Children of Alcoholics. It was a formula designed to touch on a lot of emotion–adult, children and alcoholic. Our reality is in our feelings. Our emotional patterns are established in our childhood. I believe that addiction starts from these patterns begun in childhood.

Codependency means being part or dependent on someone else for our emotional completion. Being reared in a home with frequent emotional strife means being reared with emotional healing issues.

At some level we have each experienced feelings of abandonment, difficulty trusting others, having boundaries, trouble standing up for ourselves or feeling shameful because of others’ actions. We may have learned these emotional choices in our family of origin.

Feelings are our choice. We can choose positive emotional choices.

Onion House has written the following about ACOA characteristics:
“The problem is that we come to feel isolated, uneasy with other people, and especially authority figures. To protect ourselves, we became people pleasers, even though we lost our own identities in the process. All the same, we would mistake any personal criticism as a threat.”

“We either become alcoholics ourselves or married them or both. Failing that, we found another compulsive personality, such as a workaholic, to fulfill our sick need for abandonment”.

“We lived life from the standpoint of victim. Having an over-developed sense of responsibility, we preferred to be concerned with others rather than ourselves. We somehow got guilt feelings when we stood up for ourselves rather than giving in to others. Thus, we became reactors, rather than actors, letting others take the initiative.”

This is also the classic definition for codependency–the common thread in addiction. Children in troubled homes learn that they aren’t as important as continuing the pretend picture of the family. Actually the family is in an ever-increasing cover-up which continues to eat up most of the family energy.

I recently met a classmate from high school–we graduated in 1958–and I was sharing some of my growing up experiences. She said that it was hard for her to believe what I remembered about my core family as she viewed us as the perfect All-American family. I guess we were better at the cover-up than I thought. I remember feeling so guilty as I cried on the way to school that I couldn’t save my mother from the arguments my parents had. It never entered my mind to wonder why she couldn’t save herself.

By eye of einstein

In 1976, when I came to AA, there were few female members. In my 3^rd month of recovery, I had a profound spiritual experience which I have related in other posts. I quickly learned to shut up about God as many members wanted to talk about alcohol only. Being female and a God person almost insured that I wouldn’t have a lot of group acceptance.

The focus for my recovery took a profound change in direction when I discovered ACOA. I have never “forgot” that I am first and foremost an alcoholic and am deeply grateful to be in recovery. Nor have I ever considered myself as recovered. Why change something that works for me? But ACOA gave me permission to not only feel my feelings but also to talk about them.

ACOA (Adult Children of Alcoholics) has gone through several name changes. In 1977, (one year after the beginning of my recovery in 1976), a group of Al-Anon members realized that they were all children of alcoholics. In later years, ACOA became ACA and/or COA.

Up until 1983, any Al-Anon meeting I attended was to help heal that child inside me who grew up in a very troubled family. But when I shared at Al-Anon meetings about my alcoholism, I felt a subtle change in the group of some members feeling that I didn’t belong in an Al-Anon meeting.

In ACOA or ACA meetings, I immediately knew that I belonged because they talked about feelings. I continued to be completely committed to my recovery with AA groups. But the AA groups were male-dominated groups whose members seemed to be proud of how far they had fallen to their bottoms. So I started attending ACOA and Codependents Anonymous as well as AA.I probably didn’t win any friends by reminding everyone in AA that you don’t have to be hit by a train to hear the whistle blowing.

I can’t find any CODEP meetings here in Ft. Lauderdale but I notice that several of the AA meetings include AFL (affliated with family) so maybe some CODEP went there. CODEP meetings were the most fun because the had many counselors who were there to lead the rest of us. They, of course, were well.

Right!

9-11 Lights by tony-the-misfit

Alcoholics Anonymous has revolutionized the way alcoholics are perceived by their peers. The shame of having a problem has been made much easier by the respect given to those who change their lives by giving up an addiction.

After I came to recovery in 1976, my daughter (who was five years old at the time) told me that she had been telling the neighbors that I was an alcoholic. I was somewhat surprised because I didn’t know my neighbors very well. So I sat down and asked her to tell me what an alcoholic is. She said, ” Oh, Mommy, you know. It is someone who doesn’t drink and smiles a lot.” The only alcoholics she knew were in AA.

In the early 1980′s, the adult child/codependency recovery solutions began to appear in many reading sources. The media figures who helped launch the recovery movement were Phil Donahue and Oprah Winfrey. Betty Ford brought a high level of acceptance to the recovery field as well as a treatment center that worked.

Codependency Anonymous was started in 1986. The field of addiction was learning that the early recovery is about giving up the main addiction. What follows is another addiction; then sometimes, another, and another. After giving up alcohol, I eventually had to give up all dating,and ,eventually I quit smoking.

In the middle of all that, I learned all I could about codependency as I was starting to believe three things.

(1) That quitting drinking alcohol meant giving up all that I was addicted to because I believed that any holding on to something that enabled me to not face reality would lead me back to drinking.

(2) I would not pursue romantic relationships among recovering people. I was so grateful for AA that I was afraid to lose it.

(3) I knew that I had a predisposition to alcoholism as I had seen my father advance in his drinking career. The only time in my life that I learned from someone else’s choices was when I saw that my father’s drinking never got better.

But I was also learning that living in a home with such a major problem and no one educated about the solution certainly contributed to my addiction. For much of my childhood, I had to parent my parents. This is often the role assigned to the eldest child in troubled families.

I went to AA after Thanksgiving 1976. Two months later, I checked into a home for alcoholic women in the town I lived in–Jacksonville, Fl. The home was not attached to anything like mental health but the founder believed in Jesus Christ. We prayed on our knees morning and evening. I had a radical conversion in that home. So there I was–2 months sober, born-again, female, high-bottom, and a “lady”.

But AA was my only choice. Needless to say, I didn’t have much support there. But I kept going back and eventually I took the 13th step–giving up support groups as the only way to live. That was years later after I had clinical depression for 2 years. When I had clinical depression, I was 10 years sober–sponsoring 13 people but no one in AA said why don’t you seek professional help. I guess I looked too well. But I did notice that persons with long-time sobriety were committing suicide. I didn’t want to do that anymore than I wanted to drink.

I deeply believe that there is no recovery without a spiritual experience. Many people have a gradual awakening which can take years. During that time, s/he becomes gentler, kinder, more thoughtful, more relaxed, etc. These qualities are the fruit of the Spirit. When I see these qualities, I know that God is working in that person. In fact, the fruits of the Spirit are the only indicators of someone’s recovery that I use. Recovery is an inside job that shows on the outside of a person.

Ethereality of Eternity by hamed-saber

Anyone who has much experience with addiction recovery knows that there are many aspects to recovery. I think most of them will help someone. But each person has an individual path which he/she will learn as they travel the journey.

Get Rid of Drug Addiction With Effective Drug Rehab Program–discusses the effective treatments for stages of recovery.

Who Should Women Lean on for Support in Their Recovery from Addiction–“Elizabeth Tracy and a team of researchers will follow 420 women who are receiving help from three local social service agencies over their first year in recovery to understand what kinds of individual social networks women need to build to support a healthy recovery.”

The Second Road Family–In Which I Wish Addiction (and Recovery) on the World–”I wished that everyone could hear the pain and the shame and the compulsivity behind years of sexual encounters. I wished everyone could hear the remorse and regret for the pain caused. But most of all, I wished everyone could hear the gratitude, the joy and hope of recovery, the promise of change.”

From improveourconsciouscontact.blogspot.com, posted by Sugah who writes about “Beginnings of Prayer in Recovery” with this: “When my moment of clarity arrived, I wanted so desperately for release, and at every turn, I encountered resistance. I was told that there was not a handicapped-accessible detox facility in my entire state. I finally threatened to kill myself if someone wouldn’t help me. I could no longer live with the symptoms of my addiction, and I could find no one who was willing to help me try to live without them. The nurse who removed the patch from my arm was a psychiatric nurse. I was involuntarily committed to a behavioral health ward. My journey had begun.”

Gary Zukav from Thoughts from the Seat of the Soul

Preparing your soul for forgiveness both for yourself and others is a vital foundation for true self-acceptance. Some current writing about forgiveness includes:

Enchanted Oak writes:  Do It Before It’s Too Late

7 Ways to Love Yourself

Jesus Did Not Say “Forgive and Forget”

A wonderful mind map by Paul Foreman: Forgive Forward

He’s Got a Ticket to Ride, But He Don’t Care (Great writing by David Dean Bottrell–I especially liked: “In order to avoid a panic attack, I did what I always do — I applied a nice thick layer of denial over the whole situation.”

In A Soulworker’s Companion, Betty Clare Moffat recommends these steps toward forgiveness:

“Seven Steps to Forgiveness:

1)  Recognition and acknowledgment

We recognize a problem, situation, event, relationship, or emotion that alerts us to the need to forgive. We acknowledge the problem, situation, event, relationship, or emotion that needs forgiveness.

2)  Desire, definition, and decision

We desire to forgive. We define the parameters of the problem, situation, event, relationship, or emotion. We then make a clear and conscious decision to forgive.

3)  Meditation and prayer

We go within and with prayerful inquiry and an open, receptive mind, we ask for truth, help, and guidance in the forgiveness situation. We ask how best to proceed to heal the problem, situation, event, relationship, or emotion requiring forgiveness.

4)  Inner and outer action

We act on the guidance we have received in prayer and meditation. We do what needs to be done to clear up the problem, (etc) that requires forgiveness.

5)  Surrender and release

After taking appropriate action in the outer world, we release the

Entire the entire situation into the hands of our Creator. We ask for the

Highest good of all concerned. We ask, “Thy will, not mine, be

done.”

6)  Understanding and awareness

We look for an increased understanding of the dynamics that led to the problem, (etc) that required our forgiveness. We look for the spiritual lesson. We determine to go forward in forgiveness with

Increased awareness.

7)  Healing and change

We accept that the situation has now changed. We accept that the lesson has been learned. We choose to look at the situation, and the world differently. We welcome healing and change through the process of forgiveness. We allow the energy of healing and change to spill over into other areas of our lives. We are changed. We give thanks.

By Squeaky Marmot

A

ACOA: Guess what normal is; Just Be Real; Understanding My Son

Addiction Recovery Help: Nicole Wick; The Spiritual River; Barefoot Bob’s Collection of Writings

Al Anon:Chic Mama; From New Ultecht to Figurea Avenue; I’m Just F.I.N.E–Recovery in Al-Anon; Through an Al-Anon Filter

An Alternative Path in Addiction Recovery that Produced Amazing Results

Artists in recovery: Attitude of Gratitude

Autism: A Room of Mamas Own, Stony River

B

Bipolar recovery:Sophie in the Moonlight

Books: http://lynnes.wordpress.com/

C

Child abuse: Child Abuse Survivor; Writing

Christian journey: Blessed…is she who believed; Covered in Dust; Glass House Ministries; Highway 41: Life in the Fast Lane

Christian living sober: reflections of a ragmuffin; sobernuggets; This Sober Life

Codependency: Sophie in the Moonlight

Committed fathers: The Rabbit Room

Cooking: Find Your Balance; Irish Gumbo; Mama Hollioni’s Kitchen

Creativity: 1 door away from heaven

D

Depression: Beyond Blue; Rusin Roundup; This Sober Life

Domestic abuse: This Sober Life

Dual Addicted: Enchanted Oak

E

F

Faith: A Churchless Faith

Food addiction recovery: Actively Arielle: A Voice With a Commitment; Sassle! My Journey to a Healthier Life!

G

H

Helping others groups: Helping Others Groups

I

J

K

L

Healthy living: Find Your Balance

Living in the positive: AHA Moments; Beyond Blue

Living with disability: So about what I said…

LMTs in recovery: Jill Java and the Garden of Eden

Longer term sobriety: Being Sober; The Rapacious Creditor

M

Mind mapping: I Q Matrix; Idea Mapping; Mind Mapping & Creative Thinking; Mind Map Inspiration; Mind Mapping Blog; The Mindmapping Software Blog

Mobile devices: JK On the Run

Mothers in sobriety: A Passion for Jaywalking; Complications of a Perfect Life; My Recovery; Queens World; Stay-at-home-mayhem

Mysticism: The Website of Unknowing

N

O

P

Parents of addicts: An Addict in Our Son’s Bedroom; Mother of a Drug Addict

Poetry: Yesterday, Today and Forever

Q

R

On the recovery journey: Elegant Blessings; Finding My Wings in Life; He Not Busy Being Born is Busy Dying; In Spite of My Crazy Self; Sober Woman of God; Three Routes

Recovery chef; Adventures of One Sober Woman

Recovering in California: Another Sober Alcoholic; Just a Closer Way With Thee; My Own Road; Prayer Girl

Recovering in Canada: A Song Not Scored for Breathing; Stay-at-home-mayhem

Recovering in Illinois: Wait. What?

Recovering in Texas: higher powered

Recovery support communities: The Junkies’ Wives Club; The Second Road; The Sober Village

Reparenting: Fight of Your Life; Guess what normal is; The Junkies’ Wives Club; Way Station One

S

Sexual abuse: Come Into My Closet; Victory Over Sexual Abuse; Writing

Sexual addiction recovery: A Room of Mamas Own; Love in the Time of Addiction; Making My Peace; Woman. Anonymous7

Sober blogs directory: Sober Blogs

Spiritual journey:  High Energy Life in 12 Weeks

Students in recovery: Another Real Alcoholic

T

12 step help: Recovery Archive; Step12.com

U

V

W

Working in recovery: Stop. Drop. Recover.; The Spiritual River

Writers in sobriety: Letting Go; Stay-at-home-mayhem

Writing: Dooce; Letting Go; Stony River

Writing help: Pictures, Poetry and Prose; The One-Minute Writer; Click Here to Visit Top 100 Sober N Clean Blogs

X

Y

Z

End of the Paved Road by shellorz

After 32 years of recovery, I hit my emotional bottom June 11, 2009. After 15 years of marriage, without a warning, my husband left me for another woman. AND they live down the street from me. But God and AA have healed me once again. I understand why I was in a marriage with an active alcoholic and I have taken a great 5th step about my side of the street.

I’ve included some great material from other recovery friends’ sites. Please visit them.

“A Bridge Back to Life” from Letting Go : Recovery in the Sunlight (one of my favorite blogs and a daily must read) includes this poem:

The Journey

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice—
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
“Mend my life!”
each voice cried.
But you didn’t stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do—
determined to save
the only life you could save.

In one of my favorite blogs, Lessons From a Recovering Doormat, Michelle Germain offers these three steps to changing your inner critics:

(1)  The first step is to just notice that you are engaging in self-critical or fear based self-talk. Most people spend 80% of their time in their minds, either thinking, thinking thinking, or talking talking talking, but not listening. The first step requires that you pause during your day and be silent, stop and listen to what you are telling yourself. Write down five negative thoughts that you are hearing yourself say.

(2)  The second step is to be compassionate with yourself, knowing that what you are hearing is the voice of your wounded inner child. Much of the time we spend putting ourselves under a microscope judging and being critical with decision, behavior, etc. Compassion is a critical step to develop and it will be easy now that you know this self-talk started with the innocent mind of the child.

(3)  The third step is where you begin to update your inner child by reprogramming and putting in positive thoughts. This is like putting your inner child on your lap and saying that what she/he thinks is not really the truth of who you are, it is bringing self-love and understanding and the positive viewpoint which is updating the old into the new thinking.

Misty Days by Lensburgchandru

Periodically, I have felt the need to retake the 12 steps of recovery. Because I seem to be stuck in one place and have been using procrastination for a long time now, I started asking for God’s help in identifying what character defects I needed to be willing to surrender.

The emotion I now know that has dominated my choices for over 15 years is guilt. Because I had a need to punish myself, I have kept my expectations very low of how much love I deserved to receive.

I have been in a large extended family so have been able to have my affection needs met by the wonderful children as well as my daughters-in-law. Since this is not the family I was born into, I have chosen to have little to no contact with anyone in the family during the duration of getting a divorce. I made this decision for two reasons: (1) I have too much respect for most of the family members to in any way make them uncomfortable with anything my husband and I decide in the divorce, and (2) it shuts off all communication except direct communication. I know this has been the best decision for me.

In order to have my emotional needs met, I have stepped up my AA meetings, groups and activities. I am presently looking for a good Al Anon meeting because my husband of the past 15 years is an active drinker. He probably drinks 5 out of 7 days. So communication with him has been filtered through a brain that thinks it is in control of the world. We call them “King Baby” in AA because their self-centered, arrogant and cowardly deeds impact and damage most relationships he/she has. Not exactly what I would call “direct communication”. We each have lawyers now so my messages can be filtered to him from someone else.

Step 6 of AA states that we become entirely ready to have our character defects removed. We can’t remove them—only God can. But He needs our willingness to complete the process because He gave us self-will. I am now completely ready to have all my imaged and projected guilt removed. I only want to feel guilt if I do something wrong in the present. The guilt helps me to remember to treat others as I want to be treated.

Two months ago when he left, he took my Rolodex so I have been scrabbling to try to get everything done that was in the Rolodex. He also took all my small frame picture collection. I have been creating that collection for over 30 years. Included in the pictures he took ware pictures of my grandmother as a young girl, pictures of me 20-25 years ago, pictures of my parents, my daughter’s wedding picture. I have carefully documented the growth of his family and have created many beautiful montages of everyone in the family. I had planned to give him many of them but he stole from me the opportunity to give him any. He just took them all. I have pictures of all he took so hope to be able to retrieve them in the settlement. These are choices made by someone arrogant enough to believe there will be no one stopping him.

Two Realities by Morbch

I love to organize what I call quick links. These links are organized around a specific topic of my own choosing. Today’s links are addiction recovery articles from my favorite daily news blog, The Huffington Post.

Irene Rubaum-Keller writes “What is Recovery From Addiction? She defines recovery as “It involves trading the easy drug/sex/gambling/food/shopping/alcohol high, with something more difficult to attain that is also more meaningful and lasting. Recovery does not just mean sobriety. It is a more holistic experience that involves improving one’s life in various ways.”

Jamie Lee Curtis has been clean from painkillers for almost 10 years. She recommends letting your hair go grey and to stop wearing heels. The complete article is reprinted from NY Daily News.

David Carr’s memoir on crack cocaine with an excerpt from his book’ “The Night of the Gun: A Reporter Investigates the Darkest Story of His Life.”

Maia Szalavitz writes: Obama Drug Czar Pick: No Recovery from War on Drugs?

Stanton Peele in “What is Addiction?”, he writes about the civil war going on about the crafting of the DSM-V which is the principal diagnostic manual in the United States.

In Warring Philosophies Regarding Drug Treatment: To Jail or Not Jail for Relapse, Tony Newman addresses this topic. He writes: “It may or may not surprise you that a majority of Americans support treatment instead of incarceration for people struggling with drug addiction. That’s the good news. What you may not know is that there is a raging battle within the treatment community and society at large about how much carrot vs. stick we should use to help people who need treatment.”

Kathie Kane-Willis writes: “The Real Road to Recovery: My Journey from Heroin Addiction to Helping to End the War on Drugs“.

Trey Anastasio, Phish Frontman, Tells Addiction Story on Capitol Hill, Lobbies for Drug Courts, in which he testifies:”My name is Trey Anastasio, and I’m a recovering alcoholic and a proud graduate of the Washington drug court program,” he tells a gathering of drug court professionals and supportive members of Congress. “Yeah, Trey!” yells a Hill staffer in the audience, as if waiting for Anastasio to whip out his guitar.”