August252015

Great post. As the alcoholic, one of the things I am excruciatingly aware of - and spent a lot of time on during Step 4- is how manipulative I was. "Ouch" does not even begin to describe how much pain I caused, and this single function was a huge part of how I lived and, bottom line, got my way. Pretty much all the time.

Just today, I was having a conversation with my boyfriend, about dependence. I also brought it up as the topic for my home group. He is in recovery too and we are working very hard at our spiritual growth, individually and together, as the foundation of our relationship. Figuring out how to be healthily dependent - not manipulatively advantage taking of someone who can/will/wants to/etc help you, or co-dependently facilitating sickness in another, or any of the ways that reliance, giving, taking etc can play out in destructive ways- is a huge part of recovery. This comes up in so many ways- money being one (he has a lot more), fidelity being another (his ex wife had multiple affairs, I have my own relationship-oriented trust issues), parent-child dynamics (my parents were giving/enabling/trusting/etc and we are still untangling that behemoth) and so on.

I know that many told my parents to walk away from me for a long time. They say that now (I will be 8 mo sober tomorrow) they wouldn't do it differently and my sobriety is worth the pain; yet, we are still rebuilding lives and relationships and there has been a high cost to all of us.

Thanks for your eloquent post- I think all of us in an addictive dynamic can benefit from sharing like this.