ACOA Red Book Step 7

Old 07-03-2014, 12:28 PM
  # 1 (permalink)  
Member
Thread Starter
 
DoubleDragons's Avatar
 
Join Date: Sep 2013
Posts: 2,805
ACOA Red Book Step 7

Humbly asked God to remove all of our shortcomings.

I think this one is harder than it seems even for those of us who have no struggle with our faith in God. There are traits of mine that I know need to be changed, but for some reason I cling to them. I guess my prayer needs to be one of surrender.

BTW, I am sorry I am on late on this as I have been travelling. I will be travelling a lot in the next couple of weeks so please forgive me in advance for any delays.
DoubleDragons is offline  
Old 07-05-2014, 07:41 AM
  # 2 (permalink)  
Member
 
DesertEyes's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: Starting over all over again
Posts: 4,426
Originally Posted by DoubleDragons View Post
Humbly asked God to remove all of our shortcomings.
Around here we take out the word "God" and put in the letters "HP". That makes it more useful to a larger number of peeps.

What got me stuck on this step was that world "remove". I had spent my life practicing the lessons I learned as a child: "Don't trust, don't tell, don't feel." I did not trust anybody to speak the truth, never mind be willing to listen to mine. I had no idea _how_ to tell peeps that my childhood had been a nightmare, nor did I really have a good grip on the damage it had caused me because I could not _feel_ the damage.

All my efforts were focused on trying to figure out my own thinking, as if I were some kind of mechanical contraption that could be fixed by replacing a gear, or a lever. None of my efforts worked. The step does _not_ say "Humbly asked HP to show me how to fix myself." It says _remove_ by something _outside_ of myself.

I am not able to fix myself. It is a physical impossibility. It is like trying to drive to the gas station in order to buy gasoline in a car that has no gas. Fixing myself using a brain that was in need of fixing was not _ever_ going to work.

What did work for me was to find people other than me that I could learn from, and use their experience on my own issues. Those were other peeps in ACoA, and a couple of good shrinks. In listening to them I heard what specific actions _they_ did to heal their "emotional injuries", and when I tried their ideas, it worked for me. The shrinks gave me "exercises" which also worked.

The wole secret to this whole "HP" thing has been the realization that _I_ cannot be my own HP. I have to do something that I never learned as a child. I have to go _out_ there into the world and find others that, unlike my "family of origin", I can listen to and learn something positive.

Mike
DesertEyes is offline  
Old 07-05-2014, 10:30 PM
  # 3 (permalink)  
Member
 
ladyscribbler's Avatar
 
Join Date: Sep 2013
Location: Iowa
Posts: 3,050
What got me stuck was the "hum" prefix. I associated with humiliation, which I'd had my share of and the whole notion made me turn away from any HP who inflicted that on me. I spent a large portion of my childhood being humiliated by adults who were supposed to protect me. The thought that god would do it seemed almost reasonable for a long time. I must have deserved it, otherwise why would it be happening? I hated god, I thought god hated me. No other explanation.
Through my work in Alanon, I found a new HP, one who held out a hand in friendship, to help me when I stumbled. Not one who pointed and laughed and said "Ha ha, she fell, look at that stupid, worthless b!t(h."
I spent my life in terror of shortcomings because they were an excuse for others to treat me like I was nothing. I didn't understand that I could have weaknesses and ask someone for help in overcoming them. That such an exercise would make me stronger and not weaker.
I recently worked through a situation with my older son that required me to choose whether I would resort to my old character defects or lean on my Alanon program. I used my program (mostly) to navigate the situation and was able to see and compare to what the "old me" would have done and what results that might have yielded. The outcome would have been the same, but I would have been crazy, which would have made everything worse.
Once I saw that, I was able to humbly ask my HP to remove those shortcomings and to be grateful for the lesson.
Thanks again DD. These steps threads are really helping me to be a better parent because I'm able to make the connections between my ACoA behavior and my parenting instincts. This has been a great tool in helping me to examine my gut reactions and see where my own childhood fits in to the greater scheme of things.
ladyscribbler is offline  
Old 07-06-2014, 03:01 PM
  # 4 (permalink)  
Member
Thread Starter
 
DoubleDragons's Avatar
 
Join Date: Sep 2013
Posts: 2,805
Mike, I have to ask you, How did you come to fully trust your "shrinks" and others who helped you with their tools? My problem is that I am always second guessing the source and their ulterior motives.
DoubleDragons is offline  
Old 07-06-2014, 06:49 PM
  # 5 (permalink)  
Member
 
DesertEyes's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: Starting over all over again
Posts: 4,426
Originally Posted by DoubleDragons View Post
... How did you come to fully trust your "shrinks" and others who helped you...
I never said "fully"

As an ACoA, one of my "character traits" is that I used to do everything in "black and white". I either adored my job, or hated it with a passion. A person was either the ultimate example of virtue, or the personification of evil.

That is the way a 2 year old thinks. Raised by drunks I was never given the opportunity to learn this whole business of "shades of gray". My "judgement skills" were stuck at the 2 year old mark.

Trusting fully is not fair to the other person. They are human, just like the other 7 billion peeps on the planet. Today I trust "in balance". Some people I trust with some things, other people I trust with less.

I learned that children trust their parent implicitly. It's part of their genetic makeup. Really, they have no other choice. A baby creature that does _not_ trust their parent will wander out of the nest and die. I was a baby creature that was wired to trust the sperm and egg donors that were the biological antecedents of my existence. In my case, genetics fouled up, I should have run away from home the day I learned how to walk.

Adults _earn_ trust. That is where I was mixed up. I was an adult using a childs rule for establishing trust.

I test people. I listen to them for awhile. If they sound good then I tell them one small thing, very unimportant to me, almost irrelevant, and see what they do with it. If they are kind and compassionate they earn 1 point. If they try to give me advice they loose 10 points. If I hear back from some third party gossip merchant what I shared they are written off. They get to 50 points then maybe I will trust them with something important.

I did some "doctor shopping" and found a shrink that was kind and compassionate. I trusted her with some of my issues, just some. Nothing else. Not with my checkbook, not with my apartment, not with my car. She gave me some ideas, some "exercises", and they worked. So I trusted her with a couple more.

That has worked very well for me. I am able to get rid of bad peeps _before_ I have shared too much, or gotten too comfortable. I have also been able to build some deep and long friendships. I have heard it called "baby steps" in some meetings. I did not get injured overnight, I am not going to heal overnight. Likewise, I have learned how to allow people to _earn_ my trust over a period of time, instead of handing it out overnight.

Mike
DesertEyes is offline  
Old 07-07-2014, 04:28 AM
  # 6 (permalink)  
Member
 
Join Date: May 2013
Location: east coast
Posts: 1,332
I feel much more comfortable with Mike's take on this step rather than the exact statement. I hated God for a long time. I begged him on my knees to help me or fix things etc. And felt ignored or abandoned. How else was I supposed to feel as a child? So, as an adult at this stage of my life and recovery I had to come up with a different definition and understanding of God in order to keep my belief in a single creator. That God is not an interventionist God.
happybeingme is offline  

Currently Active Users Viewing this Thread: 1 (0 members and 1 guests)
 
Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off
Trackbacks are On
Pingbacks are On
Refbacks are Off




All times are GMT -7. The time now is 02:15 PM.