Sunday Morning TSB
“Show me that the good in life does not depend upon life’s length, but upon the use we make of it; also, that it is possible, or rather usual, for a man who has lived long to have lived too little.”
— Seneca
READER QUESTION THIS WEEK
I feel like my AA program has kind of stalled out this year after baby #4 and all kinds of life stuff with my husband and kids. I’m having a hard time doing the things I used to do to stay healthy and take care of my sobriety. My AA sponsor has brought up Al-Anon to me a few times and I’ve been to a couple of meetings but never worked the steps (I grew up in an alcoholic home so definitely qualify!) She’s pointed out recently how I lose myself in other people and my codependency is keeping me from doing the things that keep me growing and sober and healthy. I definitely feel off and like I’m so externally focused on my family and job that I don’t know how to hold proper boundaries and take care of the inner stuff that is the source of serenity.
I’m GREAT in a crisis because I can detach from my feelings and DO everything and project manage the whole show, and I get organized and focused on what needs to happen to take care of whatever, but then I crash, and this whole year, I’ve been waiting to be able to turn off crisis mode and I can’t! My latest conversation with my sponsor has me thinking that I’m waiting for everyone else to be ok before I can be ok, and with four kids, a husband, two cats, and two jobs someone is always having some sort of thing or crisis. She’s suggesting Al-Anon! I definitely think it may be time to address this.
You’ve talked about your Al-Anon program, and I was wondering if you’d share a little more about that? How did you know you needed to go to Al-Anon? Did you hit some bottom with codependency?
Thank you!!
Answer:
Not a bottom, per se, but I did have an awakening. Let me preface by saying I didn’t search for Al-Anon, it found me. There was a non-descript men’s meeting a few blocks from where we used to live and I originally thought it was an AA meeting. I talked a bit about what it was like in that tribute to my Al-Anon sponsor I wrote a few months ago:
“I didn’t set out to become part of Al-Anon, but I accidentally walked into a men’s meeting at a spooky-looking Theosophy church in Beachwood Canyon one day almost five years ago. About 50 men were in the room, all handsome and seemingly successful and well-adjusted, but it didn’t take very long to realize that most of these dudes were busted up. If there was such a thing as radical vulnerability, it was happening here at 8 a.m. Yet, it didn’t make me uncomfortable. In fact, I found it quite thrilling: whatever place these men wanted to push themselves toward, I wanted to go there, too.”
So, it wasn’t AA at all. AA never offered me what I saw happening in that room.
One of my biggest, most frustrating problems throughout my life was I never asked for what I needed from anyone–parents, friends, girlfriends. I wouldn’t get it, so why bother asking, right?
And here was another important discovery–I didn’t even know what I needed to feel better. And everyone in that meeting shared the same quiet suffering.
Then I also discovered I needed to work on self-confidence and boundary-setting. But again, another eureka moment: I had no idea what “boundaries” were. Evidence of this is readily available throughout the TSB archive, but particularly in this essay called “How to Play Dead.”
“What are boundaries! It was both a horrifying but welcome discovery. I had no boundaries and I didn’t respect other people’s boundaries and that tore me up. If I looked at a map and you asked me to point out the boundaries I would point at the ocean – but where it began, where it ended, where it fell off the earth, man, I don’t know. Everything else between the landmasses is meaningless. There were only imaginary lines.”
But the part that was really bringing me down was self-forgiveness. That was impossible. I was used to dragging around an old, heavy, stinky shameful past. I need to be sufficiently punished before I can forgive myself, right? I didn’t feel ready to drop that shit. But, I had to. If I was going to stay in Al-Anon/ACA I had to see that as the ultimate goal. I’m not fully there, but much closer than when I started four years ago.
Maybe these problems sound familiar to you, but I think that’s a good place to start: what do you need that AA or individual therapy can’t provide for you? Also: the books “Courage to Change” and “Paths to Recovery.” Maybe find someone to help guide you through those questions. You may not find exactly what you need there but you’ll get a new map.
Have a question for me? Email me here. Ask Me (Almost) Anything.
Daily Morning Prayer Routine: Third Step Prayer/Our Father/AA Morning Prayer/Freestylin'
“Let your thoughts be my thoughts, let your words be my words, let your actions be my actions.”
DAILY READINGS THIS WEEK
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Readers
* A Calendar of Wisdom by Leo Tolstoy
* Epistles 1 – 63 by Seneca
* Courage to Change
* Poetry 180 by Billy Collins/Pome by Matthew Ogle
Daily Journals:
* One for gratitude list and fears
* Three individual journals for each of my children.
Favorite Poem:
Night and Day
by William Bronk
At night, Freud says, we hide things from ourselves:
dreams wear disguises. All right. But also there's
an intimacy and acceptance there: we take
it all as it comes. We don't explain away
or correct the irrational, we believe the real
terror, the horror, the sweet tenderness.
[via Pome]
MEDITATION PRACTICE: 10 MINUTES PER DAY MINIMUM
NUMBER OF SESSIONS: 11
LONGEST SIT: 15 minutes
THERAPY SESSIONS: ONE
RECOVERY STEP WORK SESSIONS: NONE
OUTREACH CALLS: FOUR
MEETINGS: FOUR
SERVICE: Secretary Friday meeting, Literature person Tuesday Al-Anon meeting.
EXERCISE:
4x Run
4x workout
- Notable list of Daily Fears:
* Mortality. Driving. Parking. Flying. Yelling.
- Notable daily Gratitude List:
* Motherland.
* “10”.
* Cayenne pepper keeps the squirrels away.
* Working with Swamp.
* Return to TSB meeting.
* Hangout with Lock and Julia.
* Easter egg hunt in the backyard.
* Purple and yellow flowers on the outdoor terrace.
* Talk w/ Colleen
* Mom and Dad’s 53rd Anniversary.
* Wonderful day at the Deeps with Julieanne.
“Be attentive to the appearance of evil. There is an inner voice in your soul that always tells you about approaching evil. You feel unpleasant, you feel ashamed. Believe in this voice; stop and seek to improve yourself, and then you will defeat evil.”
– Tolstoy
Total Sobriety Rating for the Week: 4/5
Improvements needed: Better sleep, less yelling.
*****
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