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Can anyone share their experience and knowledge of 13 stepping? I thought I understood it but am not sure any more.
It seems to be a common theme I am seeing in Alanon and I have such mixed thoughts about it. I lost my sponsor (understandably so) because she and her husband whom she met in Alanon broke up. It has been a little difficult for those of us who shared their common meetings. They were always wonderful about sharing their own esh during meetings, they had separate friends, separate issues, etc. It's a little tough for me 1) because I've lost my sponsor and 2) neither one of them are coming now because they are avoiding the other.
This weekend, two of my very dear friends from another one of my meetings are dating now. I kinda suspected the last few weeks but it is none of my business. As the keynote speaker said in our conference this weekend, she had to finally get a nose job because she had had her nose up too many people's issues (ha ha). Last night, they exclusively danced with each other, another sign. Then this morning he confirmed it during his share that he's beginning a new relationship and it's amazing. It's all in the eyes, the windows to our souls.
So any ESH from some of you who have experience with this would be appreciated,
yours in recovery, Maria
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If I am not for me, who will be? If I am only for myself, then who am I? If not now, when?
I have no direct experience with 13th stepping other than when my now ex-wife stepped out before I found my program and I guess for me, I think no good will come from it. For me, if you "step out", it is a betrayal to yourself and your honor. We all know we are responsible for our happiness and it is an inside job. It can temproarly be found when helping another with their pain and sometimes that helps project our own pain, but in the end, it is a relationship based on something other than "it". I have come out of unhealthy realtionships and suffered my own addition of pain from that. In my opinion, a healthy relationship must start with healthy people at the moment when it begins.
In my understanding, 13th stepping is very different than starting a relationship with someone who is also in the program. It is taking advantage of someone because in program we share an intimacy. Sick people within the program take advantage of that knowledge of intimacy and use it to "get with" the more vunerable person. I suppose it could also be a newbie latching onto an old timer for survival and caretaking. It is taking the 12th step and "sharing" too much. I believe two people starting an honest relationship who just happen to be in program happens and is not the same as 13th stepping. 13th stepping is taking advantage and is a very sick thing to do.
Hubby had an experience of 13 stepping when he went to his AA home group. This woman had her sights on him. She did everything she could to come between us. She took advantage of the fact that I was new to Alanon, and wasn't far enough in my recovery to know any better. He certainly was far enough in his. 13 stepping is taken advantage of someone vulnerable. It's one of the reasons they suggest that sponsor and sponsee be of the same sex. This woman broke his anonymity at meetings, use to call me up and tell me what he was doing when he was at meetings. (She took great delight in telling me that she saw him at the halfway house.) She called my father in law to tell him that he was drinking again! She even came into my work and told people about hubby! I have to remember that she is much sicker than we realize. It doesn't matter if she's had 20+ years sobriety.
This woman is still a sponsor. It's one of the reasons why he has never gone back to his home group. She makes him feel very uncomfortable. The last time she came into my work and asked me why she hadn't seen him at meetings. She assumed he had been out drinking. I told her flat out "Unlike you, I don't break the anonymity of an addict!" She was furious! I called my manager over and explained the situation. He told her that she was not to come back in the store.
A mutual relationship that comes out of meeting someone at a meeting is not the same thing. 13 stepping is much like "emotional rape". There is a victim involved. It isn't about a relationship. It's about power and control. Hope this clarifies things. Love and blessings to you and your family.
Live strong, Karilynn & Pipers Kitty
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It's your life. Take no prisoners. You will have it your way.
The 13th step as it has been mentioned honestly is the taking advantage of a vunerable sick person in recovery. It gets deeper and I feel for you Norwood cause it also happened to me. A 13th step is an attempt to find peace and serenity with a sexual relationship with another member. Trying to get the spritual from the physical and emotional high of a sexual relationship. It is the same as getting "High" from anything and there are some very screwed up justifications that come with it. A 13th step does not take you to the head of the group. It usually takes you out of the program of recovery because you're really back to "using"...just another drug.
It's not listed amoung the 12steps I have choosen to follow today and it doesn't work for me because I have attempted it in the past.
Thanks to my Higher Power for extreem pain and sensitive nerve endings. I'll just stay home in the family.
To me, 13th stepping means pain, as there was some of that in my husband's first year or two of recovery. A way for him to avoid actually getting better, a way for me to realize I really NEEDED this program, as quitting drinking had not brought happiness.
As others have said, it can be a way of the alcoholics taking advantage of those who are most vulnerable - there is a lot of wisdom and recovery in AA rooms, but there are a lot of still sick people, too.
However, the post about dating others in recovery brings another aspect to it. Is it 13th stepping when two people who are free and getting better get together? I know some AA couples - people who got together once they had some time in the program and some good recovery. I could see this being a good and healthy thing.
So, like everything else in life, the answer is - it depends. People stepping out on those they are married or committed to is wrong, I think we'd all agree. Taking advantage of those new to recovery, hurting and needing to trust, is wrong. Two free people finding that they have most in common with those who share such an important part of their lives, could be right.
yeah, this is a great post and it addresses my questions about dating inside the program that I posted earlier. I must be getting a teensy tiny bit healthier because my gut told me it was wrong and here is the justification- we are in sooo much extreme vulnerability and pain when we enter this program...its difficult to know if someone is really consenting from their adult mature self (is there anyone in this program that even KNOWS what this means?!) or not so really folks, its common sense to JUST NOT GO THERE...I agree completely and can totally understand now. Thanks for clarifying all this for me.
AND, I gotta say its really tough. BECAUSE of this horrible disease, we need to be extra careful to keep our noses clean and we need to be very careful to honestly look at our motivations.
I will not date in the program. I get it. I do not need that kind of living hell in my life- that choice could make the only safe family I know become instantly weird to my distorted mind. I would never jepardize my serentity that way or alienate myself from this precious family. Hugs, J.
I dunno I have to get really clear that I can't moralise about what others "should" do or shouldn't do. John Bradshaw in particular has written a lot about being inappropriate in the program.
For me there are a few rules. I try not to date people who live right next door to me or in the proximity. I once married my boss! I am the queen on inappropriate in relationships after all I stayed with an active A for 7 years. I stayed through thick and thin. I stayed when I had the money to leave then I stayed when I didn't have the money to leave either. I stayed full stop.
For me there are certain moralities around people with children that I don't count out. Abuse a child and I'll certainly tell you that its absolutely inappropriate.
For adults in meetings its very different. Sick people interact with sick people. I had no boundaries most of my life, no ability to set limits, no ability to say no. No one in a meeting, be they a chair, participant, whateer was responsible for that. I had to learn to be responsible for it. Sure, certain people absolutley took advantage of me all my life. What were they, probalby very ill themselves. I don't think anyone who has a modicum of health goes out of their way to take advantage of others. Why attract that kind of interaction to you?
I know certain people in my life "should" know better like the roommate who "ambushed" me on my way out of the door this morning. For me personally its important I see SSS (Sick Sick Sick) on her foreheard to interact with her. If I thought she knew better I'd have a different interaction, the fact is she doesn't.
For most of my life I lived within a veil of desperation. I felt if someone paid any kind of attention to me it was the greatest thing on earth. I'd discount everything else. I did not have much discrimination about who I ended up with. And I ended up with an addict who in the end lost everything his home, his health, his self worth, his vehicles, you name it he lost it. I was no discerning, self protective, kind, loving or sensible and certainly far from responsible.
I have to live in a world that's far from perfect. If I go to meetings with lots of shoulds and coulda's and woulda's I just stand in judgement and I don't get much from that. I get a lot out of learning ESH but not judgement or what anyone "should" do.
For me 13 stepping is probalby what saved a lot of people. I've read Bill W and Lois W's biographies. They were certainly incredibly human people with tremendous failings and at the same time they were absolutely doing the best they could.
Labels are useful for me but I have also to label myself as pretty seriously dysfunctional to have behaved as I did with an active A for so long and to the degree I did even when it was absolutely killing me.
For me its so so key not to be on some podium deciding what some people should or shouldn't do and for right now dealing more than 75% of the time with me and what I need to do. I can wish for a perfect world but I'm not going to get it. I have to find a way to live in a very very very very dysfunctional world and not be sucked dry by the process.
I don't think I could date a fellow Al-anoner (if I were in that position - I'm married, though!)
Like others have mentioned, I imagine it could create a lot of tension if things don't go well. Tension within the Al-anon family group, tension between each other (but Monday's meeting is MY home group!).
And, I recognize immediately that ridiculous need to "rescue" someone in the form of creating a close, sometimes sexual relationship with them. "Oh he's so sad. I can show him he can be loved."
I found myself thinking that same thing the other night at a meeting where AA and Al-anon members intermix. I see this AA guy sharing his emotional trauma, and I get this sympathetic urge welling up in me wanting me to run to him and form a close bond with him so he can see he can still be loved.
WHOA there! No, no, NOOOOO! Bad idea!
It's like the blind leading the blind as far as that's concerned.
Life isn't black and white, though, and I'm sure there are many people who've managed to form close relationships with other Al-anon members and maybe even live "happily ever after", but that's one place I just don't ever want to go if things ever ended with my AH.
I strongly feel the Al-anon program is MINE. I shall selfishly guard it because this is one place where I can go and be able to vent my issues between me and the people I know and feel safe doing so.
I guess I look at my Al-anon relationships as work relationships. I just won't "go there" with these people. My Al-anon friends are my Recovery Co-workers.
I just found this forum today. My AW was 13th stepped in July by someone older in leadership of the group with 8 years sober. She had 3 months at the time. In terms of vulnerability she was the poster child with a lot of stuff going on in her childhood. She was totally obsessed with with him and couldn't think of anything else. She because the aggressor in the relationship. Luckily and to her credit she realized what was going on and it stopped after about 4 or 5 months.
Fortunately I realize how vulnerable she was and as said earlier "much like an emotional rape". While I have a lot of other issues causing depression not directly related to this event she has been affected by it in a negative way. Making the decision to get in the car and drive to a liqueur store is no different than making the decision to bee with someone under this situation once you are "under the spell of the disease"
I've thought of 13-step as just plain putting another person in replace of recovery, putting them so high on a pedestal that working the program seems to be put on the back burner. I had a sponsor in al anon who was put on such a high pedestal, purely based on the fact that she sponsored a lot of people, and it became dangerous. Suddenly it wasn't about al-anon, it was about their program their recovery and trying so hard to make other people work their program too much.
I have a LOT of trouble with this in program, in face to face meetings. Being a co-dependent i become overly enmeshed with someone and our steps seem to get intertwined. I haven't been to a meeting in over a year, but i want to go back for the right reasons. To work MY recovery, ask for help when I need it.. not purely for "entertainment" purposes; ie: to make friends. I've been very careful when it comes to guys.. there was only one my age and it almost happened and thank god i was sane enough to say no. not that its horrible or anything but it just gets confusing and overwhelming. Trying to draw that line between them and me, especially when we have something so huge in common.
