Aloha Mark...Marvelous post and inventory and search for understanding...Been here and done this myself and came to understand...alot.  Left to my own devises I got the understanding of love wrong.  Learning about love was a reaction to name some of the intense feelings I had for others and the intense feeling of wanting to be loved "my" way back and then I come to understand how wild of an expectation that was for me.  We do not stand on the very same spot and the very same time at all and so part of the lesson was acceptance that others are not me and I am not them and then "close" became the aim or goal of giving and accepting love.  I learned I was in love with being in love and then I learned that I had rarely ever been in love and that mostly I had been in "need".   You covered all of my questions in your share here.  I got the solutions in Al-Anon which I carry with me still today.   What is love?  Passed on to me by another member at a Thruday night meeting after she shared how she "loved" her alcoholic and I didn't understand.  "Love is the complete and total    acceptance   of every other human being for exactly who they are.   Complete and total...without condition; acceptance...receiving, of every other human being...without bias; for eactly who they are...face value...warts, halos and all.  Her definition didn't even include the word, he, them, alcoholic or boundary.

Self Love...my counselor at the VA Alcoholism Center once asked me "What do you suppose it is like to be loved by you"? and I wept out of reaction.  What I felt was pain and loss and I learned that I was a "lover of" however had left myself out of the behavior.  I couldn't suppose because I didn't know and I didn't know because I hadn't practices self love.   The lessons I had on self love were more with my Higher Power than my sponsorship.  I was being taught by the entity who's name is Love.  The name of God is Love and therefore the teacher.  When I learned how much and how continuous I was loved by my Higher Power with out condition I now understood how to love myself and others.  Some of the lessons helped me to understand my relationship with God...I asked God..."Who is my Father"?  My first father died when I was six and my mother remarried a man 9 years her junior...he wasn't a father (my mother was also a fixer) he was alcoholic.  After I asked the question HP responded..."I am your father and I am your father's father, your step-father's, father and your mom's father and...." I got the lesson...Love is the father of us all.  My sponsor worked the greatest commandment angle with me.  "Love God with your whole heart, mind and soul...and your neighbor as yourself".    I came to understand and I came to love unconditionally. 

I also got a lesson about the difference between "need" and "love" from a person I never met and whos words were given to me by a person who didn't know what it would do for me.   A woman and man were seperated in marriage and he was wanting to come home badly.   He called her at work (where my friend worked) and told her so.  The wife said in response...."I love you"..."I like having you here"..."and I don't need you".   That statement and idea so deeply rocked my perception of love that I left my friends place and took off down the road and could only get 4 blocks away before having to pull over and rethink it to myself...and then "I got it".   Love is not need of others when I know how to love myself completely without condition.  It means I am complete already in who I am and how I am warts, halos and all.  When I learned this I let go of my alcoholic entirely and loved her more than I ever had and at the same time I loved every others human being and myself for exactly who we are.   So now you know you are loved by someone you have never met...unconditionally and you are not needed to complete anyone elses life (that might not feel too good initially)...you can build and manage your own life.

Love??  for me it is more a behavior of character than a warm fuzzy for someone or something I have a compulsion for.  Gonna end it here and listen.   Mahalo for your open honesty.  I "love" to see and listen to other men who are this vunerable, humble and honest.  (((hugs))) 

Hi Awaken

It certainly sounds as if you have  had a "Spiritual Awakening"

I  agree completely with your thoughts on love and appreciate the clarity, wisdom, courage and honsety of your share.

Thank YOU

-- Edited by hotrod on Saturday 11th of January 2014 08:44:34 AM

Thanks for your very thought provoking share, I can relate to your idea of unconditional love. I know as a mother I thought I would love my children unconditionally. I had very little examples of unconditional love or healthy love growing up so my idea of love in most forms was not healthy, it was about control, I thought I had the power to love someone happy or sober or whatever I desired really. Since coming into alanon over 1 yr and a half ago I have changed so much of my thinking that love has been a biggy for me. I realise that I have not loved anyone unconditionally. I loved parts of my ex and my children and the parts I didnt I desperately tried to change and control, never satisfied with anyone in my whole life really. The parts I did love, I wanted to only see those parts and when I never got that from anyone resentment woukd build up. My whole life really, spent feeling disappointed with everyone. It took me until coming into this program to begin accepting people for all their shortcomings, loving them without expectations and this is the closest I have came to loving, not sure about completely unconditionally but healthy love that can let them go and its not all depedant on only the good bits. Could go on about this topic, really interesting.x

Well I was amazed by your share, Mark is it? A newbie maybe but well grounded out of the gate it seems to me.

No apology necessary for bouncing thank goodness...its the glory of how Al-Anon works by sharing and requesting experience, strength and hope for this is how we help one another in Al-anon. Fascinating topic. One of my favorite sayings in the program is "we don't love other people, we take hostages." This seems so true to me. Not once in all of the dysfunctional relationships I've had, and they are legion, did anyone perceive my unilateral decision to sacrifice myself for what I decided they needed as anything other than manipulation. If someone had asked me point blank to kill someone else to help them would I have said oh sure, no problem. But I was perfectly happy to kill off myself because that's what I thought I needed to do to deserve to be loved. My martyrdom was purely self-inflicted and it taught the people I "loved" to use and abuse me since clearly I didn't think I was worth being treated with kindness and respect.

I think everyone comes in the door of alanon believing that self-sacrifice would make others love me. It doesn't. It makes them loathe me as much as I subconsciously loathed myself. Doing everything for so many other people, I never had time to mind my own business. Eck. No wonder no one ever loved me. I need you to need me is the real message I was sending. So I taught them exactly how to treat me.

I don't, however, think I never loved anyone. I had a blazing love for my son that I knew instinctively from his birth though doubted from time to time when it got really rough when he was acting out in the disease. I love my higher power beyond measure and so on these two legs I could balance the stool while I built the third leg of loving myself.

Before recovery I just got love all mixed up with need, and codependency and a sickness of emotion that could only end one way. It has now been a very long time since I had someone to love and I miss the small comforts that brings in life. But its better than being an object of abuse by the disease of alcoholism. I have the love of God and a tiny cohort of f2f friends and a multitude of online friends. Keep coming back. It works if we work it and it sounds like you have made a great head start on it.

Thank you all. I really appreciate your input. I am a newbie I guess, however I started coming to this site and f2f 10 years ago for around a year...and then I fell for quite some time. Thinking I was not really ready back then to accept the fact that I was not in control. Thank you for the warm welcome back and I am hoping that this time around I am a little wiser (definatly older lol) and more open and willing to work towards the change I desire in myself.

Thanks Again

Mark