Emotional Sobriety?
Miss Behavin'
Thread Starter
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: regina,saskatchewan
Posts: 966
Emotional Sobriety?
could anyone elaborate on this, I don't know what it means.
it was the topic at yesterdays meetng. even after everyone spoke I didn't seem to hear any answers. It had something to do with yesterdays Daily Reflection reading about Mr. Hyde......i guess while I'm at it I don't understand what an emotional hang over is either
thanx
it was the topic at yesterdays meetng. even after everyone spoke I didn't seem to hear any answers. It had something to do with yesterdays Daily Reflection reading about Mr. Hyde......i guess while I'm at it I don't understand what an emotional hang over is either
thanx
Member
Join Date: Aug 2003
Location: Life Is Short
Posts: 2,017
Hi wantneeda....I hope this helps.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This is the substance of a revealing letter which Bill Wilson wrote several years ago to a close friend who also had troubles with depression. The letter appeared in the "Grapevine" January, 1953.
EMOTIONAL SOBRIETY
"I think that many oldsters who have put our AA "booze cure" to severe but successful tests still find they often lack emotional sobriety. Perhaps they will be the spearhead for the next major development in AA, the development of much more real maturity and balance (which is to say, humility) in our relations with ourselves, with our fellows, and with God.
Those adolescent urges that so many of us have for top approval, perfect security, and perfect romance, urges quite appropriate to age seventeen, prove to be an impossible way of life when we are at age forty-seven and fifty-seven.
Since AA began, I've taken immense wallops in all these areas because of my failure to grow up emotionally and spiritually. My God, how painful it is to keep demanding the impossible, and how very painful to discover, finally, that all along we have had the cart before the horse. Then comes the final agony of seeing how awfully wrong we have been, but still finding ourselves unable to get off the emotional merry-go-round.
How to translate a right mental conviction into a right emotional result, and so into easy, happy and good living. Well, that's not only the neurotic's problem, it's the problem of life itself for all of us who have got to the point of real willingness to hew to right principles in all of our affairs.
Even then, as we hew away, peace and joy may still elude us. That's the place so many of us AA oldsters have come to. And it's a hell of a spot, literally. How shall our unconscious, from which so many of our fears, compulsions and phony aspirations still stream, be brought into line with what we actually believe, know and want! How to convince our dumb, raging and hidden ‘Mr. Hyde' becomes our main task.
I've recently come to believe that this can be achieved. I believe so because I begin to see many benighted ones, folks like you and me, commencing to get results. Last autumn, depression, having no really rational cause at all, almost took me to the cleaners. I began to be scared that I was in for another long chronic spell. Considering the grief I've had with depressions, it wasn't a bright prospect.
I kept asking myself "Why can't the twelve steps work to release depression?" By the hour, I stared at the St. Francis Prayer ... "it's better to comfort than to be comforted". Here was the formula, all right, but why didn't it work?
Suddenly, I realized what the matter was. My basic flaw had always been dependence, almost absolute dependence, on people or circumstances to supply me with prestige, security, and the like. Failing to get these things according to my perfectionist dreams and specifications, I had fought for them. And when defeat came, so did my depression.
There wasn't a chance of making the outgoing love of St. Francis a workable and joyous way of life until these fatal and almost absolute dependencies were cut away.
Because I had over the years undergone a little spiritual development, the absolute quality of these frightful dependencies had never before been so starkly revealed. Reinforced by what grace I could secure in prayer, I found I had to exert every ounce of will and action to cut off these faulty emotional dependencies upon people, upon AA, indeed upon any act of circumstance whatsoever.
Then only could I be free to love as Francis did. Emotional and instinctual satisfactions, I saw, were really the extra dividends of having love, offering love, and expressing love appropriate to each relation of life.
Plainly, I could not avail myself to God's love until I was able to offer it back to Him by loving others as He would have me. And I couldn't possibly do that so long as I was victimized by false dependencies.
For my dependence meant demand, a demand for the possession and control of the people and the conditions surrounding me.
While those words "absolute dependence" may look like a gimmick, they were the ones that helped to trigger my release into my present degree of stability and quietness of mind, qualities which I am now trying to consolidate by offering love to others regardless of the return to me.
This seems to be the primary healing circuit: an outgoing love of God's creation and His people, by means of which we avail ourselves of His love for us. It is most clear that the real current can't flow until our paralyzing dependencies are broken, and broken at depth. Only then can we possibly have a glimmer of what adult love really is.
If we examine every disturbance we have, great or small, we will find at the root of it some unhealthy dependence and its consequent demand. Let us, with God's help, continually surrender these hobbling demands. Then we can be set free to live and love: we may then be able to gain emotional sobriety.
Of course, I haven't offered you a really new idea --- only a gimmick that has started to unhook several of my own hexes' at depth. Nowadays, my brain no longer races compulsively in either elation, grandiosity or depression. I have been given a quiet place in bright sunshine"
Bill Wilson
Attitude is Everything
http://home.earthlink.net/~insure/emotional.html
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This is the substance of a revealing letter which Bill Wilson wrote several years ago to a close friend who also had troubles with depression. The letter appeared in the "Grapevine" January, 1953.
EMOTIONAL SOBRIETY
"I think that many oldsters who have put our AA "booze cure" to severe but successful tests still find they often lack emotional sobriety. Perhaps they will be the spearhead for the next major development in AA, the development of much more real maturity and balance (which is to say, humility) in our relations with ourselves, with our fellows, and with God.
Those adolescent urges that so many of us have for top approval, perfect security, and perfect romance, urges quite appropriate to age seventeen, prove to be an impossible way of life when we are at age forty-seven and fifty-seven.
Since AA began, I've taken immense wallops in all these areas because of my failure to grow up emotionally and spiritually. My God, how painful it is to keep demanding the impossible, and how very painful to discover, finally, that all along we have had the cart before the horse. Then comes the final agony of seeing how awfully wrong we have been, but still finding ourselves unable to get off the emotional merry-go-round.
How to translate a right mental conviction into a right emotional result, and so into easy, happy and good living. Well, that's not only the neurotic's problem, it's the problem of life itself for all of us who have got to the point of real willingness to hew to right principles in all of our affairs.
Even then, as we hew away, peace and joy may still elude us. That's the place so many of us AA oldsters have come to. And it's a hell of a spot, literally. How shall our unconscious, from which so many of our fears, compulsions and phony aspirations still stream, be brought into line with what we actually believe, know and want! How to convince our dumb, raging and hidden ‘Mr. Hyde' becomes our main task.
I've recently come to believe that this can be achieved. I believe so because I begin to see many benighted ones, folks like you and me, commencing to get results. Last autumn, depression, having no really rational cause at all, almost took me to the cleaners. I began to be scared that I was in for another long chronic spell. Considering the grief I've had with depressions, it wasn't a bright prospect.
I kept asking myself "Why can't the twelve steps work to release depression?" By the hour, I stared at the St. Francis Prayer ... "it's better to comfort than to be comforted". Here was the formula, all right, but why didn't it work?
Suddenly, I realized what the matter was. My basic flaw had always been dependence, almost absolute dependence, on people or circumstances to supply me with prestige, security, and the like. Failing to get these things according to my perfectionist dreams and specifications, I had fought for them. And when defeat came, so did my depression.
There wasn't a chance of making the outgoing love of St. Francis a workable and joyous way of life until these fatal and almost absolute dependencies were cut away.
Because I had over the years undergone a little spiritual development, the absolute quality of these frightful dependencies had never before been so starkly revealed. Reinforced by what grace I could secure in prayer, I found I had to exert every ounce of will and action to cut off these faulty emotional dependencies upon people, upon AA, indeed upon any act of circumstance whatsoever.
Then only could I be free to love as Francis did. Emotional and instinctual satisfactions, I saw, were really the extra dividends of having love, offering love, and expressing love appropriate to each relation of life.
Plainly, I could not avail myself to God's love until I was able to offer it back to Him by loving others as He would have me. And I couldn't possibly do that so long as I was victimized by false dependencies.
For my dependence meant demand, a demand for the possession and control of the people and the conditions surrounding me.
While those words "absolute dependence" may look like a gimmick, they were the ones that helped to trigger my release into my present degree of stability and quietness of mind, qualities which I am now trying to consolidate by offering love to others regardless of the return to me.
This seems to be the primary healing circuit: an outgoing love of God's creation and His people, by means of which we avail ourselves of His love for us. It is most clear that the real current can't flow until our paralyzing dependencies are broken, and broken at depth. Only then can we possibly have a glimmer of what adult love really is.
If we examine every disturbance we have, great or small, we will find at the root of it some unhealthy dependence and its consequent demand. Let us, with God's help, continually surrender these hobbling demands. Then we can be set free to live and love: we may then be able to gain emotional sobriety.
Of course, I haven't offered you a really new idea --- only a gimmick that has started to unhook several of my own hexes' at depth. Nowadays, my brain no longer races compulsively in either elation, grandiosity or depression. I have been given a quiet place in bright sunshine"
Bill Wilson
Attitude is Everything
http://home.earthlink.net/~insure/emotional.html
the girl can't help it
Join Date: Apr 2004
Location: splendraville
Posts: 5,599
wow Justme!
So in a nut shell emotional soberiety could mean maturity and dependence on our HP rather than on something outside of us. To give rather to to be expecting to receive.....
So in a nut shell emotional soberiety could mean maturity and dependence on our HP rather than on something outside of us. To give rather to to be expecting to receive.....
doing the inside job
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: planet happy
Posts: 542
Like falling in love. It's like a rush , a high or hydralent
And sometimes lover do the damness things to keep that rush going.
Then one day it comes crashing down like the air has been let out.
Drain or depressed(hang over) dyfuntional,
then do the damness thing to try to get that rush
again. It becomes addictive, becuase the brain needs constant input
of this high and everything other feelings or emotions becomes
dull or borning. Some of the actions taking can be unhealthy or to
the extreem.
Even healty situations becomes unhealthy becuase of lack
of a balance life style
Living life in the fast lane
The same in anger
The same as being happy all the time
The same in feeling depressed
having an afair
steeling
shoping
gambling
making money
What help me was my sponor had my make a list
of all the feelings/ emotions that a human might have.
Do writien excerzice of " I feel like this becuase of_______.
The more I was able to identified my emotions the better I got.
I also had to try disciplin myself to feel these emotions and not
try to get out of them. If I felt sad ,I should feel sad for a while
so I knew what sad felt like. Or happy, sereen, scared,or guilty..etc
I didn't want to be fixed anymore. Or run out of my way to do
or take stupid actions becuase I didn't felt quite right.
If we don't work the steps, we'll add on more crazy stuff in recovery
without using drugs or alcohol.
Working the steps helps in getting rid of my guilt, shame, trama
so I didn't have to carried those emotional bagages around
any more. The more thourogh I am , The lighter I feel.
I'm also a recovering emotional junkie. Not perfect of course.
I still do crazy stuff.
And sometimes lover do the damness things to keep that rush going.
Then one day it comes crashing down like the air has been let out.
Drain or depressed(hang over) dyfuntional,
then do the damness thing to try to get that rush
again. It becomes addictive, becuase the brain needs constant input
of this high and everything other feelings or emotions becomes
dull or borning. Some of the actions taking can be unhealthy or to
the extreem.
Even healty situations becomes unhealthy becuase of lack
of a balance life style
Living life in the fast lane
The same in anger
The same as being happy all the time
The same in feeling depressed
having an afair
steeling
shoping
gambling
making money
What help me was my sponor had my make a list
of all the feelings/ emotions that a human might have.
Do writien excerzice of " I feel like this becuase of_______.
The more I was able to identified my emotions the better I got.
I also had to try disciplin myself to feel these emotions and not
try to get out of them. If I felt sad ,I should feel sad for a while
so I knew what sad felt like. Or happy, sereen, scared,or guilty..etc
I didn't want to be fixed anymore. Or run out of my way to do
or take stupid actions becuase I didn't felt quite right.
If we don't work the steps, we'll add on more crazy stuff in recovery
without using drugs or alcohol.
Working the steps helps in getting rid of my guilt, shame, trama
so I didn't have to carried those emotional bagages around
any more. The more thourogh I am , The lighter I feel.
I'm also a recovering emotional junkie. Not perfect of course.
I still do crazy stuff.
Member
Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Jasper, GA
Posts: 239
When I think of emotional sobriety, I term it emotional maturity.
As alcoholics/addicts, our emotional development pretty much stops when we begin drinking abusively or taking drugs. For most of us that is pretty early in life. For me, that was in my mid-teens.
Sometime later...a few years for some, longer for others (33 years for me)...we decide that we have had enough and begin our recovery journey. We are physically older, but emotionally we are still at the point where we were when we began. I may have been physically 49 when I began this sobriety journey, but I was still a teenage male in my head, with all it's attendant "junk".
Teens want instant gratification, they want things their own way, they know it all, they pout when things don't go their way...all of that stuff that makes up a normal teen's psyche. It is not bad, it is being a teenager.
That is fine when you ARE a teenager, but it causes problems when you are older and still act that way. As my therapist told me, I am a perfectly normal teen male, but I really suck at being 50...LOL.
So, to me, emotional sobriety is as much about finally growing up as it is about anything. It's about learning patience. It's about realizing you aren't always right. It's about learning the difference between wishful thinking and logical expectations. It's about learning I have a place in the world, but I'm NOT in charge of that world.
As I said, at least for me, it's about growing up.
BubbaBob
Man plans...God laughs
As alcoholics/addicts, our emotional development pretty much stops when we begin drinking abusively or taking drugs. For most of us that is pretty early in life. For me, that was in my mid-teens.
Sometime later...a few years for some, longer for others (33 years for me)...we decide that we have had enough and begin our recovery journey. We are physically older, but emotionally we are still at the point where we were when we began. I may have been physically 49 when I began this sobriety journey, but I was still a teenage male in my head, with all it's attendant "junk".
Teens want instant gratification, they want things their own way, they know it all, they pout when things don't go their way...all of that stuff that makes up a normal teen's psyche. It is not bad, it is being a teenager.
That is fine when you ARE a teenager, but it causes problems when you are older and still act that way. As my therapist told me, I am a perfectly normal teen male, but I really suck at being 50...LOL.
So, to me, emotional sobriety is as much about finally growing up as it is about anything. It's about learning patience. It's about realizing you aren't always right. It's about learning the difference between wishful thinking and logical expectations. It's about learning I have a place in the world, but I'm NOT in charge of that world.
As I said, at least for me, it's about growing up.
BubbaBob
Man plans...God laughs
Miss Behavin'
Thread Starter
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: regina,saskatchewan
Posts: 966
hey Bubbabob, thanks, that made even clearer, i sure appreciate your help people...you guys rock!!!! So i guess then emotionally i have grown up some. that makes me feel better and also i can work on the areas i need to grow. Lolol ya,I'm not even a teen, I'm still a baby, taking baby steps, but at least today I think they are in the right direction., Even if its simply that I don't drink or drug today, THAT is a step in the right direction. thanx again \\// peace
Member
Join Date: Aug 2003
Location: Life Is Short
Posts: 2,017
Personally I'm just plain old emotional lately.....oh great so we gotta grow up now :tongue3: ...ok ok will work on that one....not making any promises....and wishing you all the luck in the world on it.. 
Member
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: London
Posts: 448
I have to be a little bit careful with the term 'emotional sobriety', that's if I acknowledge it at all.
I can use it to judge you and judge me. It can start that train of thought were I, you and everything else just isn't good enough.
If I can look at it without feeling guilty because I won't measure up, then for me it would be about growing 'out' as much as up. I used to think courage was fighting several people at the same time or telling an employer just what I thought of them (very useful attributes), but it is not. My emotional maturity would be extending myself beyond what I am comfortable and secure in. Reaching out to what is really frightening, that I may become the person I am meant to be. And that I might achieve all this. That I can sit somewhere with you as an equal. That I will pretend less. That I might even face the world with what I am.
I can use it to judge you and judge me. It can start that train of thought were I, you and everything else just isn't good enough.
If I can look at it without feeling guilty because I won't measure up, then for me it would be about growing 'out' as much as up. I used to think courage was fighting several people at the same time or telling an employer just what I thought of them (very useful attributes), but it is not. My emotional maturity would be extending myself beyond what I am comfortable and secure in. Reaching out to what is really frightening, that I may become the person I am meant to be. And that I might achieve all this. That I can sit somewhere with you as an equal. That I will pretend less. That I might even face the world with what I am.
Member
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: San Jose, CA
Posts: 77
I'm 38 and started at 22. Personally I have to disagree though--just for me that is. I've changed from the days of chasing women and bar hopping. That used to be my life. Then to partying at home but still dating a lot. Now a recent breakup and I don't plan on dating for a long time.
Also, what about responsobilities? Life has not let me forget my age or the responsobilities that go with it. Every year I am expected to know more, do more, be more.
What about work? Each year we are given more and more responsobility and MUST learn to deal with it. There are no options. When I was 22 if someone, including my boss because I did this once, told me something I did not want to hear I would slam him. I can't do that now. I would never work again or at least not have a decent job.
What about all the problems addiction has caused for us? Me at least. How about all the trips to jail? Like the boss thing. I haven't been to jail for 10 years and don't plan on going back. I've been too many times and am told the next is for a nice long stay in prison, not jail.
We all change emotionally but maybe don't realize it. If someone would want to fight me right now I would walk away. That is a man--being strong enough to have the courage to do that. To not have an ego problem later and think I was chicken. I've learned the world has no place for an ass kicker nor does it want one. It has plenty of room though for people who try to be good members of society. Who try to learn and better themselves. We've all done. Why is Hope in school? Because when shee gets out she will get a better career. What will happen then? She will not stay in the same position, she will move up the ladder. When we move up the ladder we make more money. When we make more money we pay more taxes. If the taxes are not squandered we live in a better United States. In theory at least.
Knowing what to do and when that is emotioanl growth. We all learn that if we act on our feelings we usually regret it so we learn to hold back emotions--except for drinking of course. At least for me. I still haven't figured that one out. But such is life. Everything that happens to us is an emotional building block. We either learn or continue to do the same.
This is a quote that I will probably misquote but here it goes.
"Insanity is to repeat an action that caused pain or harm and to expect different results the next time from the same action." Drinking for example is my insanity. I used to think I was not good at choosing women either because I always choose the wrong one. Now I realize all those women can't be so screwed up--must be me and my alcoholism. More growth!
Well this all seems true for me. I am 38 and feel like 58 lately. I've learned a lot on my trip to 38 though and have grown. I know this is not my only problem but alcohol, and lack of it, do cause me a lot of emotional distress. Most other things I have dealt with and grown from. At least I sure do hope so cause this one is a real b..ch!
Well that is my two cents.
Probably only worth two cents but what the heck?
Also, what about responsobilities? Life has not let me forget my age or the responsobilities that go with it. Every year I am expected to know more, do more, be more.
What about work? Each year we are given more and more responsobility and MUST learn to deal with it. There are no options. When I was 22 if someone, including my boss because I did this once, told me something I did not want to hear I would slam him. I can't do that now. I would never work again or at least not have a decent job.
What about all the problems addiction has caused for us? Me at least. How about all the trips to jail? Like the boss thing. I haven't been to jail for 10 years and don't plan on going back. I've been too many times and am told the next is for a nice long stay in prison, not jail.
We all change emotionally but maybe don't realize it. If someone would want to fight me right now I would walk away. That is a man--being strong enough to have the courage to do that. To not have an ego problem later and think I was chicken. I've learned the world has no place for an ass kicker nor does it want one. It has plenty of room though for people who try to be good members of society. Who try to learn and better themselves. We've all done. Why is Hope in school? Because when shee gets out she will get a better career. What will happen then? She will not stay in the same position, she will move up the ladder. When we move up the ladder we make more money. When we make more money we pay more taxes. If the taxes are not squandered we live in a better United States. In theory at least.
Knowing what to do and when that is emotioanl growth. We all learn that if we act on our feelings we usually regret it so we learn to hold back emotions--except for drinking of course. At least for me. I still haven't figured that one out. But such is life. Everything that happens to us is an emotional building block. We either learn or continue to do the same.
This is a quote that I will probably misquote but here it goes.
"Insanity is to repeat an action that caused pain or harm and to expect different results the next time from the same action." Drinking for example is my insanity. I used to think I was not good at choosing women either because I always choose the wrong one. Now I realize all those women can't be so screwed up--must be me and my alcoholism. More growth!
Well this all seems true for me. I am 38 and feel like 58 lately. I've learned a lot on my trip to 38 though and have grown. I know this is not my only problem but alcohol, and lack of it, do cause me a lot of emotional distress. Most other things I have dealt with and grown from. At least I sure do hope so cause this one is a real b..ch!
Well that is my two cents.
Probably only worth two cents but what the heck?
Miss Behavin'
Thread Starter
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: regina,saskatchewan
Posts: 966
I found this on the net today
Emotional Sobriety is when:
1. I am free of resentments, jealousy & envy--and free to forgive quickly
2. My emotions are not so violent that they cause me to go or be on a dry
drunk.
3. I am able to make normal everyday decisions without my vision being
Unduly influenced by my emotions.
4. I am able to idientify & live by my personal values without compromise
to emotional pressure.
5. I am able to enjoy life as spiritual principles would dictate-such as being
properly revolted by ugliness, sin and suffering, and positively rewarded
by happenings of love, beauty and principle.
6. I am happy when others do things better or quicker than I have done them
7. My emotions are in sync with my intellect and both are in sync with
God's Will.
8. I can live freely without being emotionally subservient to another human
being.
9. I can move freely between the emotional states of child, adult and parent.
10. I derive genuine healthy pleasure from helping others without thought of
reward, money, prestige or station.
well,, ya i have a long way to go!!!!!! Almost sounds like the perfect person to me!!!! But I guess I'm striving to be the best person I can be not perfection. A good guide though to show me where my strengths and weaknesses are and where i can strive.
1. I am free of resentments, jealousy & envy--and free to forgive quickly
2. My emotions are not so violent that they cause me to go or be on a dry
drunk.
3. I am able to make normal everyday decisions without my vision being
Unduly influenced by my emotions.
4. I am able to idientify & live by my personal values without compromise
to emotional pressure.
5. I am able to enjoy life as spiritual principles would dictate-such as being
properly revolted by ugliness, sin and suffering, and positively rewarded
by happenings of love, beauty and principle.
6. I am happy when others do things better or quicker than I have done them
7. My emotions are in sync with my intellect and both are in sync with
God's Will.
8. I can live freely without being emotionally subservient to another human
being.
9. I can move freely between the emotional states of child, adult and parent.
10. I derive genuine healthy pleasure from helping others without thought of
reward, money, prestige or station.
well,, ya i have a long way to go!!!!!! Almost sounds like the perfect person to me!!!! But I guess I'm striving to be the best person I can be not perfection. A good guide though to show me where my strengths and weaknesses are and where i can strive.
Agnostic with faith
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Lisbon, Portugal
Posts: 94
In my point of view there are two kinds of sobriety:
You're sober because your body is clean of any drugs and/or alcohol and therefore you can act accordingly to your age and maturity.
You're emotionally sober when you're clean and able to recognize the symptoms of a possible relapse, that is you're capable of acting according to your life experience and face your disease, accept it, recognize it when it strikes.
I admit it: easier said than done. But that should be our ultimate goal. Complete control of our emotions, especially the ones concerning our disease.
You're sober because your body is clean of any drugs and/or alcohol and therefore you can act accordingly to your age and maturity.
You're emotionally sober when you're clean and able to recognize the symptoms of a possible relapse, that is you're capable of acting according to your life experience and face your disease, accept it, recognize it when it strikes.
I admit it: easier said than done. But that should be our ultimate goal. Complete control of our emotions, especially the ones concerning our disease.
Member
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: San Jose, CA
Posts: 77
I'm going to go with Blitz on this one.
I have not been happy with my reply and spent some time thinking about it. I was right but I was wrong too. At least for me that is. If I was so emotionally mature I would not have these problems in the first place. -- Something I realized after posting.
I like what Blitz has to say.
I have not been happy with my reply and spent some time thinking about it. I was right but I was wrong too. At least for me that is. If I was so emotionally mature I would not have these problems in the first place. -- Something I realized after posting.
I like what Blitz has to say.
The truth shall set you free
Join Date: Apr 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 5,267
Hi wantneeda
Justme Thank You
Very, very powerful letter from Bill W
My Failure to grow up emotionally and spiritually. Wow.
At the age of sixteen I fail in love . She was my emotional dependency through my teenage and adult life. She was the fairytale story come true. In her I gage every relationship I was ever in.
When our relationship ended, it was the end of the world. I completely shut down. I would never love another, ever. I will never let another human being in to my heart.
Strong words for a eighteen year old. But I kept my promise.
Thirty years later, after numerous failed relationships many bouts with alcoholism and drug abuse, depression, In and out of detox, drug programs and the rooms of 12 step programs.
Today Working the forth and fifth steps.
AND … It wasn’t that fairytale relationship that I was seeking so desperately all my life, It wasn’t her, it was the love that I had with her. The love I had left behind. The feeling of loving, loving someone else.
My failure to grow up emotionally and spiritually.
Thank you Bill W.
Timebuster
Justme Thank You
Very, very powerful letter from Bill W
My Failure to grow up emotionally and spiritually. Wow.
At the age of sixteen I fail in love . She was my emotional dependency through my teenage and adult life. She was the fairytale story come true. In her I gage every relationship I was ever in.
When our relationship ended, it was the end of the world. I completely shut down. I would never love another, ever. I will never let another human being in to my heart.
Strong words for a eighteen year old. But I kept my promise.
Thirty years later, after numerous failed relationships many bouts with alcoholism and drug abuse, depression, In and out of detox, drug programs and the rooms of 12 step programs.
Today Working the forth and fifth steps.
AND … It wasn’t that fairytale relationship that I was seeking so desperately all my life, It wasn’t her, it was the love that I had with her. The love I had left behind. The feeling of loving, loving someone else.
My failure to grow up emotionally and spiritually.
Thank you Bill W.
Timebuster
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