Sunlight81

Remember what life was like before all the drama?

It's interesting to see how many people have warmed up to Taz's message of "throw him out." You would not normally hear that at a CODA meeting or an Alanon meeting. They don't give that kind of advice. It's up to you.

If love=intimacy=honesty then I can't be intimate with a dishonest person. It might be obsession or pity or infatuation but it's not love.

Why do some people choose to live without love?

An addict's primary relationship is with their addiction.
In my disease I loved things and used people.

In recovery I have had to learn to love people and use things.

So if I throw him or her out, I will be OK, right?

Maybe not, I might still have to deal with the damage that was done with them.

Or maybe I might get to deal with what attracted me to them in the first place.

As usual the focus eventually comes back to me every time.

This is the advanced course, please be gentle with yourselves.

denny57

I like this question. I think I believed I WAS living with love. I was not.

mallowcup

Love makes us vulnerable, our vulnerabilites reveal our weaknesses. Living without love hurts less than wanting love and not having it. Not loving leaves us less vulnerable. We also receive alot of help to believe we are unloveable. We know full well how to survive not being loved, it's familiar. We are givers and we don't really know much about love. It is a concept.

mallowcup

Maybe if any of us really knew what real love felt like we'd move heaven and earth to have it. I'm hoping that each fo us knows a deep and true love once in our life. I mean that we know what it feels like to be loved with the same depth that we have loved. I'm not sure it's possible.

TexasGirl

I understand this and agree with it. Where I get stuck is what on earth does "working on you" look like? Everyone says it....work on you, fix you, you'll attract the right kind of person when you're the right kind of person, blah blah blah.

Back on the comments thus far....I too thought I was in the deepest "love." I guess I'm just flat confused these days. I struggle with understanding whether I reacted to the alcoholism the way anyone would or if I brought myself into that situation. If it's the latter, I just can't figure out the whys.

SaTiT

That'll be the 68 dollar question..
No contacts because it's intoxicating...for the codi.
72 hrs body chemistry after sex.
It progress from make up sex to break up sex.
Love is blinde ...stupid blinded for a codi.

A brief moment of closeness then on to love hunger.
Enabling, denial. Well...this is where the alki goes on a drinking spreed.
And this were the codi gose...wtf ???
Then the halo comes out.

It's always easier to give advice, becuase there's no emotional attachment.
However that is the key. A codi will make more sane decisions if there were
no emotional attachments.

Of course it's possiable...We start loving ouself...well, at least i did.
We learn to accept ourself..the good and bad.
we learn to forgive ourselve
we learn to have compassion for ourselve
We learn to have patients with ourselve
We learn to stand on our own
I dosen't happen over nite...

Can't give what you don't have

yeap the focus comes back to ouselves.

mallowcup

We can't move on to love and intimacy if we are in a mode of survival. First things first.

MsGolightly

i'm right there with ya, TG! even now, i can still look back on my relationship and think i was in the deepest "love" - despite being hurt and everything else that's happened.

DesertEyes

That's good TG. I was flat _convinced_ I knew what I was doing, and got myself in all kinds of trouble cuz I didn't know I was a codie. Confused is _good_ for me cuz that way I won't go blindly stumbling into trouble thinking I know what I'm doing. Confused means I ask my sponsor and my friends _before_ I do something important cuz I _know_ that I'm confused.

Did I make any sense? or did I just confuse things even more?

Mike

chero

First things first....No! Life before drama?? I think I hear laughter??

That statement stopped me cold in my tracks a few minutes ago. I had just been thinking earlier this afternoon that I couldn't even be honest with my AH much less intimate with him and I felt like such a dishonest person because of it. Then when I read this it dawned on me....it should start with me.

If I can't be honest with myself and love myself then what business do I have looking elsewhere?

I'm not choosing to live without love but I have been replacing the idea I have of what love is with other things that never last.

I love what Mallow said: I believe that. If we only knew.....

Sunflower

OK---how do you define Love?

minnie

I like how Scott Peck defines Love - "The will to extend one's self for the purpose of nurturing one's own or another's spiritual growth."

It's active and it's not dependent, parasitic, possessive or without boundaries.

As for intimacy, I believe that comes from two people truly connecting from the heart. And many of us human beings are so disconnected from what our hearts are telling us, and in fact some people choose to use substances or situations to ensure that they don't listen to their hearts and souls. I can be, and am, intimate without it being romantic or sexual, however I think it is impossible for me to be romantic or (truly) sexual without intimacy.

chero

How do you define love???

Wow, Sun, that is a good question! Intimacy I understand...and agree that it takes honesty and openess but love?? What is that??

I'm going to think about this one....

Sunflower

is it a disease????? hahahahaha---just kidding!!!!But it is hard to define isn't it?

chero

Okay, I know this is silly but you know what I've always thought of when I think of unconditional love.

Melody in Gone with the Wind. She had it going on didn't she??

Sunflower

Yes she did--she was strong--but where did she end up???she lost...

minnie

Don't even start me on unconditional love........Or Melanie Wilkes either. Although, I think I need to revisit GWTW as I bet I see it with a different eye now.

I have always struggled to understand how we as a society ever came up with the concept that romantic love = unconditional love.

Sunflower

the only thing that ever loved me unconditionally is my dog!!!!
And I was thinking Scarlett not Melanie--LOL

minnie

Chero? Who are we talking about?!

chero

?? I'm not sure...Melanie was the sweet one who loved Scarlett no matter what she did to her.

Of course, Melanie died in the end.....

What are we talking about???