[nandm]

Day 2

Same old song

"Cast your bread on the waters and you get buttered toast." anonymous

In Step Ten we want to pay special attention to those who have been dominated by our past disorders. We need to demonstrate a great deal of patience and understanding with them.

In Step Nine we spoke of the leaners and the leanees and how that kind of enabling relationship affected our personal lives. As we continue to take our daily inventory, we want to look at who we behave toward those people right now. Are we still being demanding? Impatient? Condescending? Critical?

Old habits are very hard to break. Once we've established a pattern of interaction with others, it's extremely easy to fall back into that old, familiar routine. Sometimes all it takes is a sight, a sound, a smell, a remembered phrase from a song or even a familiar gesture to trigger our reaction. And there we are, behaving in the old familiar manner. Like Pavlov's dog, we've been conditioned to responses which we develope as protection against criticism during the progression of our disorders but which are now totally inappropriate.

In the past we might have convinced others that they were responsible for our irresponsible behavior. Now we want to be sure that we're not continuing this same type of emotional blackmail.

Today's Step: My daily inventory reminds me to change my old relationship patterns

Step by Step. Muriel Zink