Piecing it together
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Thread Starter
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: The Jungle
Posts: 5,435
Piecing it together
I had a nice long chat with a friend the other day. She asked a lot of questions about what I thought about various things within a 12-step program. She was conflicted. I think she may have been surprised by my answers and surprised to find out that I spent a lot of time "conflicted" but I stuck with it until I could piece it all together.
Most of the stuff in the 12-steps made no sense to me at first....well...for quite a while. I felt very conflicted about many things but I was getting great f2f support and that was what I needed initially. I needed the kindness that they demonstrated and just the knowledge that I was around others who were (or had) experiencing addiction in with a loved one was comforting. I couldn't find a sponsor....none were available in Nar-Anon at that point in time......and I wasn't sure WHY I was supposed to have a sponsor anyway.
People kept telling me.....work the program you wish your son would work. I didn't get that either...but I began doing just that. I felt it was hypocritical to "expect" someone to do for themselves what I was unwilling to do for myself. I put down the microscope (looking at other people--including the addict) and picked up a mirror to look closely at the person looking back at me...lol....and I used one of those horrendous 10x magnification mirrors that make the hair on your upper lip look about the size of a fir tree. lol
I joined a step study group....that was my lifesaver. And it was from within this group that I found a sponsor. In some ways, I believe that I had six sponsors because all of the women in the group provided the type of guidance and accountability that a sponsor provides. We met weekly for a year and a half. I realized that all a sponsor really does is keep someone on track and provide feedback.....the mother-load of the work is done BY THE SPONSEE! Imagine that.
I didn't know what the heck detaching with love meant......detaching didn't sound "loving" to me. It took me quite a while to "get it". And it was the best thing I did for myself and for my son.
I didn't immediately connect with the "Higher Power" thing. I was raised in an extremely fundamentally Christian home and I had conflicting feelings about that upbringing and some of the principles of Christianity. I was relieved to be able to use my own thoughts on a Higher Power without feeling that it had to conform to a specific religion-based concept.
I REALLY didn't get the format of the meetings at first. It seemed strange that I couldn't pummel people with questions and that I needed to sit and listen. IMAGINE THAT! I had to SHUT UP AND LISTEN! lol I found that time spent with friends after the meetings was the time that I could pick their brains.
I didn't understand why I needed to look at myself.....after all.....I wasn't the one using drugs and messing up the lives of everyone around me. lol Once I "got that" and began my own self discovery (and boy was that difficult), I began to see that I could change me and affect change around me.
I didn't understand the 12-steps AT ALL until I studied them in depth. I couldn't just read them and get it. I meet many very lazy people in the groups.....they don't want to do the work. They want to just "get it" within a meeting or two -OR- for someone to just give it to them. I studied those 12 steps in depth for 1-1/2 years. It was a slow and methodical process that got me where I am today. It did not happen overnight and I had a whole series of "awakenings"......there wasn't just one GRAND AWAKENING when the clouds parted and I became some kind of enlightened individual. I have come a long way.....but I believe that I have a long way to go!
I finally realized that the saying "take what you need and leave the rest" really means....just that. I can evolve and change without doing it exactly like ANYONE ELSE! It was MY recovery from the affects of traumas throughout my life.....not just as it pertained to addiction. The 12-steps was just a map....a GPS...but I had the choice of how to do it and which "route" to take.
Sometimes people get so tied up into semantics that they can't see the forest because the doggone trees are in the way. And for a long time.....I was one of them.
These are some of my thoughts on my 12-step program experience. I utilized many other tools (not exclusively 12 steps) and melded them into my own recovery program. I hope sharing my experience will help others understand that 12-step programs are not anything more than a guide or method to achieve an individual goal.
I'm not done with my own self-discovery. I will continue to look inward for my serenity rather than outward and will continue to see the areas that I can improve ME....rather than how I THINK I can improve someone else. I stick around on SR to share what I've learned...not to get someone to think like me or believe what I believe.....that's not my concern.
Take what you need......and leave the rest.
gentle hugs
ke
Most of the stuff in the 12-steps made no sense to me at first....well...for quite a while. I felt very conflicted about many things but I was getting great f2f support and that was what I needed initially. I needed the kindness that they demonstrated and just the knowledge that I was around others who were (or had) experiencing addiction in with a loved one was comforting. I couldn't find a sponsor....none were available in Nar-Anon at that point in time......and I wasn't sure WHY I was supposed to have a sponsor anyway.
People kept telling me.....work the program you wish your son would work. I didn't get that either...but I began doing just that. I felt it was hypocritical to "expect" someone to do for themselves what I was unwilling to do for myself. I put down the microscope (looking at other people--including the addict) and picked up a mirror to look closely at the person looking back at me...lol....and I used one of those horrendous 10x magnification mirrors that make the hair on your upper lip look about the size of a fir tree. lol
I joined a step study group....that was my lifesaver. And it was from within this group that I found a sponsor. In some ways, I believe that I had six sponsors because all of the women in the group provided the type of guidance and accountability that a sponsor provides. We met weekly for a year and a half. I realized that all a sponsor really does is keep someone on track and provide feedback.....the mother-load of the work is done BY THE SPONSEE! Imagine that.
I didn't know what the heck detaching with love meant......detaching didn't sound "loving" to me. It took me quite a while to "get it". And it was the best thing I did for myself and for my son.
I didn't immediately connect with the "Higher Power" thing. I was raised in an extremely fundamentally Christian home and I had conflicting feelings about that upbringing and some of the principles of Christianity. I was relieved to be able to use my own thoughts on a Higher Power without feeling that it had to conform to a specific religion-based concept.
I REALLY didn't get the format of the meetings at first. It seemed strange that I couldn't pummel people with questions and that I needed to sit and listen. IMAGINE THAT! I had to SHUT UP AND LISTEN! lol I found that time spent with friends after the meetings was the time that I could pick their brains.
I didn't understand why I needed to look at myself.....after all.....I wasn't the one using drugs and messing up the lives of everyone around me. lol Once I "got that" and began my own self discovery (and boy was that difficult), I began to see that I could change me and affect change around me.
I didn't understand the 12-steps AT ALL until I studied them in depth. I couldn't just read them and get it. I meet many very lazy people in the groups.....they don't want to do the work. They want to just "get it" within a meeting or two -OR- for someone to just give it to them. I studied those 12 steps in depth for 1-1/2 years. It was a slow and methodical process that got me where I am today. It did not happen overnight and I had a whole series of "awakenings"......there wasn't just one GRAND AWAKENING when the clouds parted and I became some kind of enlightened individual. I have come a long way.....but I believe that I have a long way to go!
I finally realized that the saying "take what you need and leave the rest" really means....just that. I can evolve and change without doing it exactly like ANYONE ELSE! It was MY recovery from the affects of traumas throughout my life.....not just as it pertained to addiction. The 12-steps was just a map....a GPS...but I had the choice of how to do it and which "route" to take.
Sometimes people get so tied up into semantics that they can't see the forest because the doggone trees are in the way. And for a long time.....I was one of them.
These are some of my thoughts on my 12-step program experience. I utilized many other tools (not exclusively 12 steps) and melded them into my own recovery program. I hope sharing my experience will help others understand that 12-step programs are not anything more than a guide or method to achieve an individual goal.
I'm not done with my own self-discovery. I will continue to look inward for my serenity rather than outward and will continue to see the areas that I can improve ME....rather than how I THINK I can improve someone else. I stick around on SR to share what I've learned...not to get someone to think like me or believe what I believe.....that's not my concern.
Take what you need......and leave the rest.
gentle hugs
ke
Nature Girl
Join Date: Mar 2002
Location: By The Lake
Posts: 60,328
I was one of those "heels dug in" people who took forever to even walk into a meeting. It wasn't so much that I had a desire to go, it was more that I had run out of options and this was a last ditch effort to put some kind of sanity back into my life.
I went reluctantly to my first meeting and I knew 5 minutes after I walking in the door that I was in the right place...a place where people just like me understood people just like me. I wept and cried through my first three meetings and that was okay, they handed me tissues and hugs when I needed one and let me just listen as they share their sad stories and talked about what helped them get through the trouble and find peace again.
Here was a room full of people, many who had been through even worst times than I had experienced, and yet they smiled as they shared, they laughed at themselves and they had "something" I wanted. I didn't know what it was but I wanted "it" more than I had ever wanted anything in my life...I found out later it is called "serenity", an inner peace no matter what happens in life.
I wanted it so badly that I found a sponsor and thought I could work the 12 steps in a week....she told me it didn't work that way, that I needed to take time with each step and put it in place like a block of foundation because each step rested on the steps before. She told me that if she was to be my sponsor, she would be assigning homework, writing assignments for me to undertake that would help me bring out the "stuff" that had been buried for years and lead me to getting to know that stranger called "me". And each week we would meet and review my "assignments", talk about life in general and where the next week would take me in my step work.
Working the steps one at a time made so much more sense than trying to follow the maze to the end. Step one brought surrender, Step two brought hope and a little bit of faith, Step 3 brought a path for me to follow as I worked the steps ahead. Each time I worked a step I felt stronger, guided, and ready to face what came my way. Each time I worked a step, I had to take time to "live" the step and get used to the feel of it. It had to become natural to me before I would be ready to move on to another.
Those 12 steps of recovery literally saved my life, not just in dealing with my addicted son but on all areas of my life. Friendships, business relations, family matters...all became stronger as I worked the steps in my life. As I became healthier, I attracted healthier people and circumstances and slowly I began to feel "it", that serenity that I so envied and wanted when I first walked into a meeting.
Today I continue to work the step, I apply them daily in my life and once a year I do a fully work study on my steps as they apply to my life today (my sponsor would be so proud, lol). Today I lean on my steps when my life becomes too busy or too confusing or challenging. Those steps never fail to bring me the peace and serenity that was promised when I began.
This is a long story, but it's been a long recovery and the path has become one of beauty and peace and joy...every single day no matter what life hands me.
I am grateful for this program, I am grateful to all who went before me and showed me the way, and I am grateful for all who walk with me today, good days and bad. That's the wonderful thing about this program, we never ever walk alone.
Thanks Kindeyes, for letting me share this and letting me remember to be grateful each day of my life for the foundation of recovery that has held me up through many storms along the way.
Hugs
I went reluctantly to my first meeting and I knew 5 minutes after I walking in the door that I was in the right place...a place where people just like me understood people just like me. I wept and cried through my first three meetings and that was okay, they handed me tissues and hugs when I needed one and let me just listen as they share their sad stories and talked about what helped them get through the trouble and find peace again.
Here was a room full of people, many who had been through even worst times than I had experienced, and yet they smiled as they shared, they laughed at themselves and they had "something" I wanted. I didn't know what it was but I wanted "it" more than I had ever wanted anything in my life...I found out later it is called "serenity", an inner peace no matter what happens in life.
I wanted it so badly that I found a sponsor and thought I could work the 12 steps in a week....she told me it didn't work that way, that I needed to take time with each step and put it in place like a block of foundation because each step rested on the steps before. She told me that if she was to be my sponsor, she would be assigning homework, writing assignments for me to undertake that would help me bring out the "stuff" that had been buried for years and lead me to getting to know that stranger called "me". And each week we would meet and review my "assignments", talk about life in general and where the next week would take me in my step work.
Working the steps one at a time made so much more sense than trying to follow the maze to the end. Step one brought surrender, Step two brought hope and a little bit of faith, Step 3 brought a path for me to follow as I worked the steps ahead. Each time I worked a step I felt stronger, guided, and ready to face what came my way. Each time I worked a step, I had to take time to "live" the step and get used to the feel of it. It had to become natural to me before I would be ready to move on to another.
Those 12 steps of recovery literally saved my life, not just in dealing with my addicted son but on all areas of my life. Friendships, business relations, family matters...all became stronger as I worked the steps in my life. As I became healthier, I attracted healthier people and circumstances and slowly I began to feel "it", that serenity that I so envied and wanted when I first walked into a meeting.
Today I continue to work the step, I apply them daily in my life and once a year I do a fully work study on my steps as they apply to my life today (my sponsor would be so proud, lol). Today I lean on my steps when my life becomes too busy or too confusing or challenging. Those steps never fail to bring me the peace and serenity that was promised when I began.
This is a long story, but it's been a long recovery and the path has become one of beauty and peace and joy...every single day no matter what life hands me.
I am grateful for this program, I am grateful to all who went before me and showed me the way, and I am grateful for all who walk with me today, good days and bad. That's the wonderful thing about this program, we never ever walk alone.
Thanks Kindeyes, for letting me share this and letting me remember to be grateful each day of my life for the foundation of recovery that has held me up through many storms along the way.
Hugs
Member
Join Date: Mar 2013
Location: Midwest
Posts: 11,481
Thanks, Ann and Kindeyes, for this thread and your posts. I didn't really have any resistance to going to Alanon meetings--the only resistance I had was to the idea that I needed to change stuff about ME! However, I'd like to think I was "willing to be willing" and didn't really disagree w/what I was hearing, for the most part.
The last year has seen me bouncing around thru a lot of different meetings due to job changes and further schedule changes within those jobs, so I don't really have a "home group" or any close ties to any particular people in Alanon, despite the fact that I've gone fairly regularly since March of 2013.
I don't view that as necessarily being a bad thing--if nothing else, I've learned that there are a lot of pretty darn good groups in my area, and I feel fortunate for that. I've gotten a nice overview of several different formats that meetings may use and I got a good taste of what Alanon is and does. I also had the opportunity to attend a Buddhist-based 12-step group for a while, which shone its own particular light on things.
However, the work situation is settling down (so far as I know), and I feel I need to pick a single group and try to work consistently w/that for a while now, to get beneath the surface of things more. As seems to happen with increasing frequency of late, the solution might be presenting itself right when I need it. I just happened to check the local Alanon page and saw a listing for a meeting on one of my days off at noon, which is great, b/c I simply can't make a 7 PM or later meeting when I have to get up at 1:30 AM. It's close by, it's a book study meeting, and they just started "How Alanon Works." Well, what could be more perfect?
I've gotten so much out of SR, and I'm sure I will continue to learn and be amazed here for a long time to come. I just feel that I should really try to put down some deeper roots in a f2f situation as well. Maybe that's wrong; maybe I'm trying to work someone else's program. But we live our lives in the f2f world, and while I'm really comfortable relating online, it's a lot harder for me in person. That leads me to think that I should be applying some more effort in that area--and so I shall.
Like they say, "Hi, I'm Honeypig, and I'm grateful to be here today."
The last year has seen me bouncing around thru a lot of different meetings due to job changes and further schedule changes within those jobs, so I don't really have a "home group" or any close ties to any particular people in Alanon, despite the fact that I've gone fairly regularly since March of 2013.
I don't view that as necessarily being a bad thing--if nothing else, I've learned that there are a lot of pretty darn good groups in my area, and I feel fortunate for that. I've gotten a nice overview of several different formats that meetings may use and I got a good taste of what Alanon is and does. I also had the opportunity to attend a Buddhist-based 12-step group for a while, which shone its own particular light on things.
However, the work situation is settling down (so far as I know), and I feel I need to pick a single group and try to work consistently w/that for a while now, to get beneath the surface of things more. As seems to happen with increasing frequency of late, the solution might be presenting itself right when I need it. I just happened to check the local Alanon page and saw a listing for a meeting on one of my days off at noon, which is great, b/c I simply can't make a 7 PM or later meeting when I have to get up at 1:30 AM. It's close by, it's a book study meeting, and they just started "How Alanon Works." Well, what could be more perfect?
I've gotten so much out of SR, and I'm sure I will continue to learn and be amazed here for a long time to come. I just feel that I should really try to put down some deeper roots in a f2f situation as well. Maybe that's wrong; maybe I'm trying to work someone else's program. But we live our lives in the f2f world, and while I'm really comfortable relating online, it's a lot harder for me in person. That leads me to think that I should be applying some more effort in that area--and so I shall.
Like they say, "Hi, I'm Honeypig, and I'm grateful to be here today."
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