Practicing detachment

When I was living with someone in active addiction detachment was something I really struggled with, not separating the addict from the man I knew in recovery, that part I could do. Well I could hold onto the memories of the man in recovery and hope one day I would meet him again, but dealing with the man in active addiction was a lot harder.

Because of my codependent behaviours and thinking I still find it hard to detach from things that don’t necessarily have my name on it. One of the groups I have been a member of for a few years now, is changing ( as they do). We have had some strong personalities come into the room, and The ‘coziness’ of the group changed. Maybe I changed too but I struggled to let it go to let it evolve. Practicing detachment in this is difficult. Allowing our Higher Powers lead the way practicing our detachment is the only way to be able to recover from obsessiveness of people places and things.

Today I finally think I have detached with love and let the past stay there. I have been able to access information that is more or less from the horses mouth ( Facebook 😂) that my qualifier is definitely alive well and in recovery…I felt an enormous sense of well being and closure. It felt like a weight that had been sitting there had lifted. I felt a huge sense of gratitude that his HP had at last got him where he needs to be, interestingly the panic and dread I usually feel when his name comes up had gone, as early as just a few months ago when I thought I had seen him and hid, that feeling was no longer there. I was able to look at his profile and be happy that he had moved on and seemed happy. It didn’t upset me as I say it was a relief. I have no idea why he unblocked me it was by chance that ‘on this day’ popped up with his name in bold and curiosity got the better of me because he had unblocked me, but my HP guided me to where I am and this was part of my journey. It was time to detach myself from my past with love, I will be forever grateful for this journey and what I have learnt about addiction and indeed about myself but wanted to share even though the journey can be hard trust the program works because it does.

Still here different year!

I’m not sure what has prompted me to write today…I’m doing well and working on my recovery. I now belong to 2 fellowships both dealing with my addiction to people places and things, my warped ideas around placing people to the position of my Higher Power, and putting everyone’s needs and life above my own, whilst being totally self absorbed and being a victim!

It’s hard to fit in when you’re codependent, lack of self esteem and confidence make it difficult to interact, if you do want to interact you say the ‘wrong thing’ or say stuff you don’t mean to. Then you end up feeling shit about yourself and give yourself a hard time because once again youve said something honestly but inappropriate. I don’t know which is harder not working on myself and just continuing in a way that is harmful to me or being aware of the mistakes and facing up to them! 55 years I was unaware, well no that’s not strictly true, I knew I didn’t fit in I was different I had many bad relationships – didn’t know it was because I was codependent, so today I can be grateful to be able to work on this with a face to face group. It’s hard today I introduced myself to a women’s group and probably shared the wrong information but I have learnt from that and now can let it go. I was asked how I was feeling and I told the truth! But that’s life….maybe there’s nothing wrong with being honest? I have no idea of the impact I have on others – due to lack of self esteem…I guess I still don’t value what I think or feel matters enough to make a difference….long way to go then but that’s good, New Year new way of living

Recovery is possible Just for Today

Back to basics

So I sat down with my work book and read it, really read it, I’m am so pleased my new sponsor asked me to start again! When I first did the steps I had completed I think it was all about ‘getting through them’. That somehow the quicker I got through them the quicker I would recover. Of course I didn’t get through them all that quickly to be honest, I found the questions difficult and the things being asked of me hard to do. I struggled for years to honestly find a HP I could believe in. Yesterday I read the questions differently. I understood what they meant, I understood what it was asking me to do. I’m not suggesting they are any more easier but I’m now at a place where they make sense. From this I have been able to see why it was so difficult before. The denial of so many things. Interestingly when I started another fellowships work book a few weeks ago I found the questions much easier, I thought maybe it was CoDA is all about being kind to ourselves, so I thought what was being asked was easier, but now I think it’s more about the fact I have listened. I have heard some things I don’t like recently, others opinions of me. But I listened. As our fellowship says take what is useful and leave the rest. But something’s were highlighted that I can work on. A lot of the negative behaviours highlighted are totally co-dependent behaviours. So I wasn’t really surprised to hear them even if it is never pleasant to experience it. With out sounding as though I’m justifying these behaviours I still feel at the moment that when I displayed them I actually had no idea – no idea of the impact on others or that they were in fact anything but normal. I thought that was who I was. It is who I am but with my programs I can learn a better way to live, and ask the god of my understanding to help me remove them. 

So for now as I restart my journey I am grateful for what I have learnt so far, and with the help and love of my fellowships know I can become a better person. 

Happy Endings

As part of my recovery I have joined another fellowship, I can’t get to face to face meetings but have access to a Skype group and an e-group. The e-group has a weekly topic, and people can share through the week. This week’s topic is Happy Endings. I’m not sure I have a ‘Happy Ending’ as such as yet, but I am starting to feel happy. Through one of my fellowship groups I have met some awesome people, these people get it, get me. We don’t have to even speak we can just be. They’ve been there lived it the same as me. That bond is hard to explain, but they will always hold a special place in my heart. So Happy Endings? Maybe be maybe not… anyway here’s my share,

Happy endings? I have thought about what to share on this topic, there was a time when I thought my life would never be happy. But that was when I was placing my happiness in the hands of others, if only he would do this or that, if only I didn’t have to do this or that for work, if only I didn’t have to do…. with the help of my HP and the fellowships I attend I understand that happiness is truly in my hands. I am not reliant on others for my happiness. If I don’t like to do something I don’t have to, because I think or feel I have to to keep others happy. Others happiness is not reliant on me or mine on them.
Yes of course I have to do things I might prefer not to, getting up at 6 to drive 150 miles because work require me to is not something I do with a ‘happy step’ but I have to be grateful that I have a job, and enough money to now enjoy things out of work time, a means to an ends!
I thought if only the addict in my life stopped using we would be happy but the relationship was toxic regardless of whether he was using or not.
I think for me it’s not so much happy endings but happy beginnings, the fellowship,the step work all contribute to me healing myself and becoming a better healthier person. I have started making some truly magical friends that understand me without me having to feel as if I have to ‘make them like me’. I can talk to them outside of group time, we have been down parallel paths they get it! They get me. We can hang out and share our war stories but not for sympathy, which I would have done in the past, but with honesty because we know we get it. If this is happiness I don’t want it to end, because for the first time in my life I feel accepted for me unjudged and not alone. I am happy.
Thank you for reading

Where am I going…

• I feel as tho I have hit some sort of a wall, I have struggled with my program, no not struggled but not got very far, procrastination is a shortcoming of mine, if I have something that I am not happy to do I put it off, no one is forcing me, to do my step work, my sponsor isn’t on my case, so I let it be…why would anyone want to do a fearless moral inventory? I know many stop or falter on this step, it’s a hard one to do! I guess that when you have not had to look at yourself or have been so in denial of all your feelings for so long, being asked to be honest and truthful about all the bad shit you’ve done its hard better to forget about it. It’s not only that tho I realise that the negative feelings I have had stem from the codependency I have, so the bad things the uncomfortable things that have happened have been as a direct result of me looking for love or wanting acceptance. The fear the anger the resentments are all symptoms of the disease. Well I am working it slowly and maybe that’s the way isn’t it? As long as I am giving it thought and changing in positive ways that has to be for the better, twice this week I have stepped back from voicing my opinion. Not my circus not my monkey! I guess their HP will guide them in the right direction.

Well that’s me done for now, it’s late I need sleep

 

One year on

Back to the future! Posted on March 13, 2016 by hopelesslesslyaddicted

Things went as I thought they would, he was open to my fears and concerns but knew the right things to say back! He’s going to try to get somewhere else has agreed to let me find my head (and heart!) but now it’s up to him to prove me wrong. Of course he said the right things he wants to have an easy clean and happy life free of drugs and in recovery ( apparently with me) but where as 6 months ago I would have been well made up hearing his words today I was cynical. Of course I (don’t) know it must be horrible being told that your plans for the future are being changed last minute that you are no longer welcome when just a couple of weeks ago you were, coming off drugs in prison with little or no control over a situation must be very dis empowering and that wasn’t / isn’t my intention. But keeping me safe from addiction is. There is no place in my life for drugs or the drama it brings with it. There is no place in my life for mistrust and the drama that comes with that either. It’s complicated for sure but I will get thro it. With the love and guidance from my fellowship and HP. It might take a little longer than I wanted due to outside agencies needing to be involved but what will be will be. I didn’t back down but have to be reasonable given the shortness of time. We have both agreed that it’s not reasonable to expect him to find somewhere at such short notice ( if his bro don’t help him) but likewise it’s not fair on me to live in constant worry and mistrust. Right now I wish I could just take off somewhere for a couple of months with my dog and come home and just get on with my life in peace…no addicts no dramas no messed up head and heart! It’s not denial, it’s not even running away but I would just like all involved to sort out their shit without me being dragged into it. I like K he can be good company he’s how he was when I met him ( and that is dangerous for me!) I don’t like wishing my life away I don’t even really want to hover over a future that hasn’t come yet but for once I would like to fast forward and see what where and who is in my life in the next 6 months….I don’t want to go back to the future, but I wouldn’t mind if Marty could have a look and tell me 😀 
13/03/17

 One year on and things are so much better. He relapsed sadly but I didn’t. It took another stint in prison for him before I finally got the courage to change the things I can, when blog posts come up on my FB feed I reflect back. With the program on my side I knew I couldn’t change him, that as he spiralled out of control and back into addiction there was nothing I could do to stop it. The program taught me that. It was hard. I was in love with a false image of someone. I was trying to do the right thing – it’s hard when you’re being asked to have faith that the addict will actually succeed this time, that they promise that this time it will be different, so you stay you believe and when relapse happens you stay and believe because you have to have faith they will find recovery! And so it goes. When I said to him I couldn’t stay any longer but did have faith that one day he would find recovery and when he did he could then contact me a small part of me didn’t expect him to stay away. It’s weird and has taken time to get use to the idea, that this time he has actually respected my wishes or maybe thinks he’s burned his bridges, but in the time I have known him he has always always turned to me in times of need. So now I wonder if you ever get over being with an addict. Is he alive? Is he using? Is he in prison? Is he in rehab? I would like to know if he’s ok, but can’t contact his family to find out as that might be misconstrued as me wanting him back. I don’t think he would understand my genuine interest in how he’s getting on as anything else. So there you have it. 

I get comfort from a fellowship member who’s addictive loved one also disappeared offthe face of the earth. She too left wondering, tho she has heard that he’s alive in recovery and that must be so painful for her to know whilst she supported him when using now he’s in recovery doesn’t want to be with her.  I dare say ashamed for what he put her thro, but hurtful all the same. I am grateful for my fellowship and I’m grateful that I can live in peace and serenity. I am grateful to K for respecting my wishes. So a year ago I wondered where I would be? And now I have my answer. 

When things go right

So I am coming to the end of my holiday a week away by myself well me and the dog! Back to a place I have been a few times before. This exact place 3 times now but first time alone and I have loved it! I have enjoyed being here in the past but it was always with someone else and in my codi mind set always putting them first….so this week – that week we work for and save for and give up other stuff for so we can live the dream week this week has been good. I have had a few ‘Karen’ moments lost my purse ( with my bank card and money) lost some shopping got lost driving but nothing so disasterous I couldn’t sort.  When I was with an addict i became ‘ clever’ with money or deceitful if you like. I hid money I hid bank accounts if you have read my story you know this already but if you haven’t it’s just part of being one step ahead looking out for me and my needs – some might call it control? I call it making sure I have enough to get thro the week or month. So when i realised my purse had gone just stopped the card and re orders a new one and transferred the money into another account which I had a bank card for ….I think my HP was looking out for me because I had not long gone to the bank to get some money out but the cash point was broken, other wise I would have been  maybe £50 down. So lost about £15. I had been saving my coins for parking as parking in Cornwall isn’t cheap and was more annoyed about that than anything as I no longer had change. The shopping? I bought a scarf and was given it in a bag, rather than put it in my ruck sac I carried it stopped for tea and put it down and never picked it up! Getting lost – easy when roads are closed and diversions aren’t clear for people that don’t live in the area. But I have enjoyed myself I have reached a point where I can please myself do what I want  to do. I had plans for the week some I have done others I haven’t. The dog has had some influence over what I could do – places I couldn’t go with her.  But all in all I have had a good week. 

Why am I sharing this on here? Not to say hey I’ve been on holiday! Nope I’m saying it because I have a real gut feeling that I am over my past. I have stopped living I hope – no I have stopped living in hopeless addiction – I live in hope always! I hope every addict finds a way out of the torture, I live in hope that every co- dependent realises the truth and works on them selves to be ‘co-dependent no more’* I live in hope that who ever reads this is happy not to take second best putting others in front of themselves in a desperate hope that person will love them more ( see last hope) but more importantly I live in hope for me! I wasn’t sure if I had much to blog about now but maybe I do. I give service for my fellowship and help out with our ‘help line’. I took a call the other day and the lady i spoke to said things I never thought I would hear – that I gave her hope that there was a way out, that I had been thro so much and yet  was willing to give to others and sounded positive and kind. I give service to give back to the fellowship that saved me. I share my experience strength and hope not for praise or nice words but to enable others to see the way – to live free from the life they live bound up in, the hurt addiction brings to them/us. I do not underestimate the pain the addict has to deal with mentally and physically, the torture they live in, but that is for the addict to say enough is enough not us that live with them and see it and try to deal with it. We can’t change it. As I read back through  this I am seeing step one – accept I am powerless over the addict and my life has become unmanageable!  I am living it now – how great is that – I give thanks to the fellowship and my HP for allowing it to happen and for allowing me to give me will over to my HP to guide me. My story is far from over my step work is slow but that is because I have to believe in every word before I can ask my sponsor to listen to my step. But I know I am in recovery and this week has proved it to me. When I came away before by myself to Cornwall I wasn’t happy I had already started my journey into co-dependency and attachment to an addict. I was wrapped up in him and what he thought and had lost my own will to him even though we had only just met. Other things contributed to my unhappy holiday a friend committed suicide whist I was here and it rained most the time but I wasn’t who I am now – of course! So I sign off with hope for you and me xx  

*Melodie Beatie 

The day that changed my life

4 years ago I went out had a few drinks with friends came home had an accident and bam ended up in hospital! In the week that a dear friend died apparently from what I can ascertain an accident, I am blessed that at that time I had someone looking out for me and got me to the hospital, I say am blessed but 4 years ago in the hospital I met K! Who would have thought everything that has happened since came from a chance meeting in a hospital waiting area! In 4 years I have gone from living a carefree life ( ok not totally care free but happy with my lot!) to one that was difficult at times ( to say the least!) made me into a codependent ( or at least brought it to the forefront) brought me to a fellowship Where I had to make some serious changes about what I thought about myself and the addict. And if I think about it what I thought about addiction. I have met some fantastic people on my journey, I now have a new family – not that there’s any thing wrong with my birth family, but I now have a family that have lived this too have done the steps understand with out explaination. Don’t get me wrong I know my journey has affected my family too  they too will have felt the powerlessness I have when they have had to watch from the sidelines as their  Daughter/sister got dragged into a situation I had no understanding of and became sicker and sicker. I am blessed tho! I am blessed because most people don’t have to do the steps in their life. I am blessed that I now do. They are hard work they make you reassess everything in your life, most people just get on with life, living the chaos living in pain not knowing they have to change. Not realising there is another way. I have seen many come and go not understanding or maybe understanding but couldn’t do it, didn’t want to do it. Yes I am blessed! So I post this tonight to remind my self on our 4th anniversary that even tho I am not with him, no cards flowers meal out, I now have something far more important – my fellowship my God as I understand this my step work and a focus on finding serenity. 

My name is Karen – I am an addict…

I suppose this is a follow on from last night…you know I am coming to a difficult time I am getting ‘opinions’ from many right now. I had to miss my fellowship tonight because I HAD  to attend a training session for work. I missed my fellowship the experience strength and hope I so need right now. Today I felt like an addict I mean I felt how an addict must feel – yesterday I talked about faith, having faith in my ability to do what I have said I am going to do. But today that was questioned I felt as though the person in question didn’t believe me believe I could do what I said I was trying to do. Whilst I understand their concern it actually made me feel angry, sad, it made me feel as tho I couldn’t deliver, disempowered as though I was some stupid kid that couldn’t do what I said I was going to do….before my programme I would have reacted but I didn’t ok I am now but I would have reacted and accused and made a fuss. I am now just voicing my thoughts about it but  more importantly understanding how it feels for the addict when we constantly disbelieve they will say what they say they will do, when they have MADE that decision. It’s horrible. Yes the addict in my life has relapsed yes I have relapsed so many times since coming to my fellowship for the last 2 years 😕 I don’t need  to be told that you don’t think I can do this, I need you to say I know it’s difficult I know K can be very persuasive but I have faith that you can do this,  stay strong, but if you can’t we are here for you! 

Some thoughts & thanks on my journey

I am still overwhelmed by my programme and the other 12 step programmes people follow. No not overwhelmed humbled. I have met a few addicts on my journey especially on my blog. Some struggling some in recovery. The one thing that stands out is those following the 12 steps willingly give their time to support others. Giving service is part of the 12 steps. Helping others. Not saving not enabling but sharing our strength and hope so that they might recover too. One blog I follow is by a recovering addict. He has done so well he shares openly and I see so much of K in his posts it gives me hope that maybe one day he too will come to realise there is another way. The programme works. But you have to work it. It doesn’t just magically happen. We have to change our thinking we have to change years of habits, mindsets, we have to learn to live a different way of life. A different way to live. I had been resistant for a long time it was only when i gave my will over to a God of my understanding that I could start my programme with vigour. As I said in a previous post we are not born bad but are moulded by the environment around us. We are all dependent on what happens to us though life and whether we have the tools to deal with that. Today I am grateful for my fellowship, for coming to WordPress and meeting some great people, for following your journeys, the good times and the bad, I am grateful there is always hope – for all of us.

This was a small reminder this morning that even in the storms we endure in life there is always some beauty x