WMJ1012

I was thinking this morning about a boyfriend I had in my early 30s. He wasn't always kind to me - but when I go waaaaay back to the beginning, he was just sitting there minding his business and I brought him into my life.

He was in a Chinese Restaurant and I sent a note over to him via the waiter because I felt sorry for him that he was eating alone. Looking back, the truth is I felt sorry for mySELF because although I was with people, MY loneliness was killing me.

From where I was sitting that day in the Restaurant, he looked ok. He was decently handsome but was wearing 80s jeans...I can fix that, I thought. I can dress him up to MY specifications so I won't we embarrassed to be with him...how selfish.

This guy was troubled like me but had a good heart. He was talented as hell, too. He would cook for me and was a real good painter and handyman...he was so smart. He didn't get far in school or life because he was an addict. This is where I came in!

I always thought I could be people's savior and do for them what I thought they needed to so to be better. I was in God's way...I was in their way.

And this all took the focus off ME and my OWN problems...

I'm grateful this guy and I can be good to each other when we see each other today...we will always care about each other but I let him go when I got myself a program of recovery. As for him? He just can't or won't see our way of life.

I scoured the ends of the earth for a solution and found one...I've had to leave many people behind... God has brought me new ones and my attractions have changed. I don't rescue people anymore so they can rescue ME from mySELF...only the 12 Steps and God could and can rescue me from myself.

Like everyone else I'm trying to grow up on the inside.
I'm kinder to myself today too, I'm forgiving myself, so that those around me may benefit.

lillamy

Those are quite possibly the four most dangerous words in the English language.

When I was in early recovery, another woman at Al-Anon said to me, "I know God, and you're not God." I was insulted -- of course I wasn't thinking I was God! -- but as it sunk in, i realized what she was saying: I was attempting to change another person into who I thought they ought to be. That was never my job.

But I thought it was. I thought my job, since I was blessed with a good brain and a pleasant, stable temperament, was to show him how good life could be. How you don't need to fight with everyone and everything. How you can live a drama-free life where you don't have to drink to dull your pain.

That was never my job.

And I can tell you that recovery has made me more humble, even though in some people's eyes, it may sound like I'm less caring: Adults make their own choices. We choose how to live our lives. While I can share what has worked for me, in my life, the second I start telling someone what to do, I'm overstepping my bounds. I'm not God. And I have no right to tell another person how to organize their lives any more than they have a right to do that to me.