The material presented
here is not Al-Anon Conference Approved Literature. It is a method
to exchange
information, ideas, feelings, problems and solutions on a personal
level.
She is a master manipulator. Right now you aren't a match for her skill. She doesn't have the tools to get where you are today.
This is feedback from my sponsor regarding my end-of-relationship woes due to continuing contact with my ex. It pains me to hear my sponsor say it, but I know it to be true. I really want love to triumph. The truth is that contact with my ex costs my serenity. It takes from me instead of adding value. I am hurting now and I am in pain. The pain does not stop me from hoping for a future together. For today, I cannot hope for her to change, nor can live day to day in hopes that we will have a future together. Today I have to choose recovery and my Higher Power's will over my own.
I would think this is like most As can't walk into a bar and hope to keep sober until after there has been a lot of successful recovery. We can't go back to the things that make us sick until either we are strong enough, or they have changed. If neither of those have happened, I think it makes sense.
I'm clinging on to Melody Beattie's Beyond Codependency book right now, and the chapter about relapsing (or 'recycling' as she would rather put it), is saving my sanity and serenity. Here are some things from the 'tips' section that bring me back to center when I start to veer off again:
- "Feelings of guilt, pity and obligation are to the codependent as the first drink is to the alcoholic. Watch out for what happens next".
- "We cannot simultaneously set a boundary and take care of the other person's feelings".
- "Self-Will doesn't work any better during recovery than it did before".
- "If it feels crazy, it probably is. Often when we run into a crazy system, our first reaction is still to wonder what is wrong with us...we can trust ourselves".
I consider myself relapsed when I go back into that dreadful bargaining stage again, the 'if only's. "If only I were further along with my recovery, we could make it work. If only I were more nurturing, it would work. It's surely not THAT BAD, is it?". I have to remember I am nobody's HP.
Your sponsors a wise person, I have been coming to this conclusion with alcoholism. I am no match for it, the manipulation and deviousness of it, its too much to try and outwit, I surrender that control that's for sure. I suppose its about us using the tools in order to keep our own serenity that keeps the disease from chewing us up and spitting us out. Thanks great post.
Hmmm in recovery we learn to manage rather than control. This requires people skills which we do learn in Alanon...
can we transmit them to people not in the programme? Well I think we can lead by example, but it is up to other people whether they want to pick up on that. If they can't, or won't, then I think that is a crying shame...
...and it might be time to feel some of that grief...
