lc1972

Hello All

This is my insight of the day.

A dog loves to chase his tail he will run and run and run in circle trying to catch it. Every so often he gets a hold of it and bites down and lets go quickly. Biting your own tail I would imagine hurts. Only he does not learn or change his behavior and off chasing his tail he goes again. He repeats this over and over and over this running in a circle never getting anywhere and never getting a different outcome, but all he can see is catching that tail.

I have found this is not much different than watching an addict try to get themselves free without proper help. This is my life with AH summed up to today. I am sure I will have more to say but this gets my feelings across for now.

Sending love and prayers out to you all

Kindeyes

It was funny. As I was reading your post, I was thinking of the codependent......not the addict.

gentle hugs

lc1972

Kindeyes when I went to bed last night and the post was still in my head the same thing came to me. I was wondering if someone would post it and went to bed thinking someone would. The only difference I thought was I am watching it and not doing anything. If it was my dog I would at least try and through him a toy to distract him.

Kindeyes

Well.....that's what we do as codependents though......we throw the ball trying to distract the dog (the addict). It may disrupt it temporarily but never really solves the root of the problem. In fact, the short term distractions (enabling) may only entrench the dog (the addict) further in their tail chasing activities. And.....speaking for myself here.....I WAS the dog....chasing my tail trying to get the addict to change. It doesn't work.

I finally had to realize that the icky way I was feeling was because I kept doing the same thing over and over and over and thinking that one of these days I would get the result I wanted. Surprise. I never did.

Once I (the dog) realized that I was going to make myself crazy chasing my tail, I began to absorb the things that Naranon (and other reading) had to offer. I realized that I was the root of my own problem.

To take your thought one process further........

The addict and codependent are BOTH like two dogs in the same household chasing their tails. If that isn't crazy making stuff for others watching it, nothing is. When one of the dogs (the co-dependent) stops chasing their tail, realizes that they FEEL better now, and they can detach and simply be an observer of the other dog (the A) without trying to intervene.....that's when the other dog may look and see that the first dog has stopped.

That is when the crazy making activities of the remaining dog (the A) becomes really obvious. Not only to the first dog (me) but to others and most importantly.....themselves. Thus giving them the best opportunity to work on themselves (recovery).

I loved this. Thank you for sharing!

gentle hugs

steve1840

perfect timing for this one. i was dog codie for a while and stopped chasing and saw the craziness of dog a, but when dog a came back into my yard i started playing again around and around. i am stopping today, at least for now

Freedom1990

I was too!

Soph

I really needed to hear this today. Thank you all. I was dipping into the sea of sadness yesterday, missing my XAH and only thinking of good times. So I forced myself to re-read old emails and old journal entries to remind myself of the misery I had been in. And it was true, real misery compared to this weird addictive longing feeling I sometimes contend with. Real tail chasing.

Fell asleep reading Melody Beattie! And now today this post continues to inspire me, and I am a codie and the person responsible for my own life.

Thank you for your words!

devastated

Wow! This post sure sums it up!

I've been doing this for years! Nothing changes if nothing changes is right!

Hugs, Devastated