Sobriety vs. Trying to please everyone....
 

In my reading on the forums and in books, is it not best to attempt to make myself happy before trying to please everyone else...even when it comes to relationships in an attempt to get and stay sober?? Kinda struggling a little today with this....

Are we not to LOVE OURSELVES??

The way I see it is in drink we were trying to plug a hole in our very fabric of existence....something that wasn't right. When we stop this we are still left with the hole, and we need to work on ourselves to allow this to heal. Part of this is learning to love ourselves. Once we have healed we can then share this love and recovery with others. If you are in AA that is what Step 12 is about, but equally we can do this by just being a better friend, partner, parent, etc. but it has to start with us becoming a whole person again.

We often try to please others because we fell inadequate or guilty. This needs to be addressed, in my opinion if we are to get and remain sober.

My sponsor and most have told me sobriety comes FIRST. Although, this is not always easy with jobs or family etc.. I do believe it to be true.
It can certainly be tough.
Best to find a way you can balance. I am cutting ties temporarily with my family, unfortunately I can't quit my job but just not speaking with my parents is going to be a huge stress reliever.

My theory on pleasing others is that doing the best I can every day to be a good husband, father, employee, son, is as good as I can do to "please" other people. As long as I know that I did my best work, i could really care less if someone else doesn't think it's good enough or "pleasing" to them.

My drinking of course did not allow me to do my best, but I still tried. Now that I am sober I am trying even harder.

The bottom line is that if you solely try to please people, you will fail miserably every time. Set your own goals, work to achieve them, and if that's still not good enough for some folks, then it's their problem..not yours.

Not just love, but respect for ourselves and our personal journeys too.

Most recently, my youngest sister called and asked if she could hang out with me-that in itself was amazing, considering how much I compromised our relationship when I was drinking. I explained to her that I couldn't, as I had plans to get to a meeting. She later told me (I called her the following day) that she was having such a hard time, she hung up the phone and burst into tears. I wasn't fully aware of her situation at the time.

She wanted to see her big sister, but understood fully that meetings are so important for me that she was OK. The more I work on myself, the more emotionally available I am, even if I can't always be literally available. She said to Mum "It's cool, I don't mind if Quinne has a meeting and we can't do stuff together-I know she needs to do that for herself"

What I'm learning is the more I respect myself and what I have to do, the more respect I get from those closest to me. That includes setting healthy boundaries to ensure I'm surrounded with positive people and that recovery doesn't waver from being #1.

It takes a lot of practice-but it does get easier :)

Xx

Our sobriety is not an excuse to not deal with our issues and how they affect others. It is a time to start to deal with ourselves and our feelings, and to start dealing with our relationships straight up. If they are toxic then we have no choice but to walk away. But it has been my experience that I was very much overly selfish, and with the help of a good counselor, I learned how to stop trying to change others, and truly take care of myself. See I found I was too close to my other and was as much at fault for my control issues. Once I got a grip on that, life became soooooo much easier. See, I only had to change me, and that I could do regardless of how long it took. Seems I did not want to venture too far into change, so was using another to procrastinate. I was complaining about the mote in her eye, to avoid dealing with the beam in mine. Oh she is no saint either. But she is doing her part, and I am much happier doing only mine, instead of doing both.

We have to be gentle with ourselves at times, and brutally honest with ourselves at other times. At no time sober or drunk, is rudeness excusable simply because it is true and hurts. We seem to get back what we put out.

If you can, see a good counselor and see if they can help you put things in perspective.

"When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change"
Wayne Dyer

Weeelll, it can get a little tricky. When we were drinking we WERE trying to make ourselves "happy"--and often at the expense of other people.

But in sobriety, although sobriety comes first (because without it we are no use to anybody), we have to start putting other people's needs (not necessarily their "wants" but their NEEDS) ahead of our own immediate gratification.

Sometimes it's difficult to sort out our motives and whether what the other person wants is reasonable. That's where a sponsor or other objective, sober, third party can be helpful. We have to take care of ourselves, but not simply indulge ourselves at the expense of others.