New Life

If you had asked me three years ago what my life would look like down the road, my idea would not have been a positive one. I had moved home several years earlier to take care of my father after my mother died. Then he had a stroke and everything changed in a matter of months. Finally, I was not able to take care of him, and against my heart's desire, moved him into a nursing home. I was living in my parent's home and it hadn't had any repair or improvements in years. So everything that needed to be taken care of was totally up to me, and my income was way below the poverty level even though I was working 40 hours a week or more. I was sick and the doctors didn't know what was wrong with me. I was told over and over it was "just stress." Then I got sick for five months and couldn't get out of the bed, except for bodily emergencies. My family was absent from my life and couldn't be counted on for support or help. Friends didn't get how sick I was, and with several, our friendships fell away. I had one true friend left and she was six hours away. It was a very bleak existence and I was lonely, sick, totally alone and on my own. I was truly afraid and could not see my way past any of the misfortune and pain I lived.


I celebrated my birthday yesterday. Friends met me at a local resturant and we had a wonderful night. I truly just wanted to enjoy an evening with people I like and care about. Even though I told them not to buy anything, I was overwhelmed by the presents and cards. Later that evening I was struck with the vivid difference in how I viewed my life then and now. I have my times of trouble, and I can complain with the best of them, but I truly saw my life as exciting, fulfilling, and wonderful. And it is only getting better.


I thank God for the tough times I have had to go through. Each one has taught me a lesson, and given me a better foundation in faith and trust. I thank God for the good times, and the new and exciting life he has planned for me. I feel safe in his hands. I know that if I do what I am able, he will take care of the rest. And I am happy.

Mac 9/7/2007

The Lightbulb Moment

I remember the day the lightbulb finally began to glow in my head. I finally got Step One of the 12Step program. It had been about a month and a half, and I just couldn't understand why I was supposed to accept the concept of powerlessness. I was already powerless. I knew it. I was powerless in my relationship with my husband. He called all the shots. He was emotionally and psycologically abusive. I already knew I was powerless, so why did I have to accept it again? It just didn't make sense. But my sponsor, the facilitator of the group, kept saying to me, "Pat, you're powerless!" She really irked me. I wanted to reach out and strangle her. But she just kept saying it.

Then, in that meeting, the lightbulb finally went off. I got it. The "ah hah" moment. Yes, I was powerless. I was powerless over him, his behavior, his thought patterns, his values and beliefs, and his ability to make our lives truly miserable. That was the beginning.

Later, I would learn what I had power over, but first I had to accept powerlessness, and let go. Let go of the worry and anxiety over the decisions he was making, let go of the outcome, let go of him and whether he loved me or not, whether he approved of me or not, let go of the continuous anxiety and fear that permeated every second of every day.

Since I began going to CoDA meetings in November 0f 1992 I have grown beyond my wildest dreams. It may not look like much to you now. I have so many flaws that I still need to address. But you should have known me then!

I thank God for the 12Step program, and how it has helped me look into myself, my motives, my habits and hurts, my addictions. I thank God for a place to go where I can actually admit all my faults out loud to someone, and not feel like the odd man out, not feel ashamed, because everyone in that meeting is struggling with the exact same issues as I.

My Higher Power, my God, is a loving, forgiving, unjudgemental God, who loves me so much he has made a way for me to heal, and do it in a safe environment. Thank God for the 12Step program, and for leading me to it. Thank God I was willing to listen.
Mac 9/2007

Eternal Protection

He who keeps you will not slumber.

Ps. 121:3

The first three of the twelve steps of recovery from dysfunctional pattersn provide the basis for the rest of the process. Succinctly stated they are: "I can't, he can, so here goes!" All recovery hinges on the ability to give up our need to control while allowing an all-powerful God to be in charge of our recovery. While many acknowledge this to be true inprinciple, in practice it is hard to loosen the grip on old, reliable controlling patterns.

Behind this often is our fear that God cannot do the trick. We fear that God will desert us if we give up control to him. Rather than take this risk, we continue patterns that are not helpful, and ususally we contribute to the problem rather than fix it.

Not only is God all-powerful, he does not sleep. He is busy watching out for you twenty-four hours every day, making certain that you are safe always as you trust him throughout the entire recovery process. It is safe to take the plunge because God is always there.

Do you fear that God will not be there when you need him? How does this impede your ability to let him be in charge of your recovery?

Setting New Boundaries

We're so careful to see that no one gets hurt.
No one, that is, but ourselves.

Al-Anon member

The Mending Wall

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it
And spills the upper boulder in the sun,
And make gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs.
The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there,
I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
"Stay where you are until our backs are turned!"
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of outdoor game,
One on a side.
It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, "Good fences make good neighbors."
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder

If I could put a notion in his head:
"Why do they make good neighbors?
Isn't it where there are cows?
But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offense.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down."
I could say "Elves" to him,
But it's not elves exactly,
and I'd ratherHe said it for himself.
I see him there,
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me,
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father's saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, "Good fences make good neighbors."

by Robert Frost

Detaching is not detaching from the person whom we care about, but from the agony of involvement. Al-Anon member