...I don't need you.  Aloha Family...just felt like I should bring that on the board as my HP resurrected that experience in my mind as I was reading the ESHs.  The title comes from a learning event long ago during the crazy to sane to crazy period and it came thru a good friend of my alcoholic wife at the time.  I was struggling with detachment and hooked on old beliefs and practices that kept me tied to enabling the alcoholic and anyone else who my sick mind told me needed my intervention.  My nickname in youth was "The Lone Ranger" ...not for the rescues and saves but for the running away from the family of origin.

My friend was telling me of another friend of her's who had been speaking to her husband during a separation who wanted to come back home and told him this..."I love you and I like having your here but I don't need you."  My reaction to that new philosophy caused me to bolt and run from my friends home and I got several blocks away before my Al-Anon self had to pull over and think about what I had just heard.  Only one word kept bouncing off of the walls of my head...NEED!! and then I would flip back to "love" for a second and then back to "NEED".  I was just then learning that I didn't know anything about Love and had only been practicing need. I was following my addiction or else I could not live with myself and I "NEEDED" to be able to live with/with in myself and not continue to sacrafice my life for someone elses fixing.

I had work to do; real  work, hard work, constant work, good work if I was to find the balance in my life and not trying to get to balance while holding a sick person responsible for it.  I turned the car around and went back to my friends home and thanked her and discussed it a bit more to get the fuzzy edges off of a new idea which would change my life forever.  It affected everything and everyone I came into contact with from that day on.  I had to take care of "my" needs...God first, me next, others after...that is the real, sane, natural order of life for me today.  Today I love you and I don't need you.  Today I am a part of you and not you entirely and you are a part of me and not me entirely.  My life is my responsibility and there is no limit to the number of choices and assets that are available to it to find peace of mind and serenity and those assets work as I pass them on and watch others use them in success.  In the context of enabling..."need" is the addiction word or thought or behavior.  

Done...thanks for the opportunity...Love you  ((((hugs)))