Soulshine

Many of us addicts carry around our mistakes. We wear them like the very chains that weighted down the ghost of Jacob Marley in The Christmas Carol .  We need to learn to place all of our past mistakes, no matter how serious they were, under our feet. Once we have acknowledged them, owned them and made amends for them, they are no longer mistakes. Recovery transforms mistakes into wisdom. The wisdom we gain from each mistake then becomes a stepping stone toward new, healthier behavior. When placed into proper perspective we learn from our mistakes and we are then able to better move forward into healthier, happier lives.  So stop punishing yourself with your mistakes. They are part of the past. The wisdom you gain from them ensures a better future.

Sometimes in recovery we may directly or indirectly hit on an area where another recovering person, or even a friend, is in denial about slipping back into old addictive patterns of behavior. This person may react angrily or push us away through silence because we have hit on a wounded part of them that they are not yet ready to acknowledge, much less face. And they have fallen back into an old pattern of emotionally-medicating it away that they don't want challenged. if we experience anger or resentment from them, it's important for us to not take it personally. When the air is charged with unhealed emotions, it's best for us to back off, allow that person to return to a place of peace and to give them space and time to clearly process what we said to them.  This is how that person is often able to break through their denial. It's very typical for a person to emotionally react negatively to what we say when we have hit on an area where they are trapped i...

    All I ever wanted my whole life is to be loved and accepted for who I am. Isn't that what we all want? To know that we are loved and accepted despite our flaws, our failings and our personal imperfections? We've wanted unconditional love and acceptance since we were in our mother's womb. But many of us have never felt loved and accepted for who we are. And sometimes we wonder if the people who do say they love us are only loving us because of what we do for them, what we do to please them, or to get something they want from us; as opposed to loving us exactly for who we are-- for simply being our God-given selves. I want to be loved and accepted for who I am, flaws and all. I know that love and acceptance of me has to begin with me. That's what recovery is all about: reclaiming, accepting and loving our true selves. And through recovery, I have certainly learned to accept and love myself much better-- not perfectly-- but much better than I did before recov...

Codependent addiction to another person is fueled by lack of self-love and because the codependent is "Scared to Be Lonely." The codependent is desperate for someone to hold them just to be able to feel like they're acceptable, alright and maybe even lovable. Unfortunately, the codependent person most often chooses an equally emotionally needy person to temporarily lose themselves in: someone who is also "scared to be lonely." And they simply feed off of each other's neediness, mistaking it for love until reality finally proves it to be mutual manipulation. And the relationship falls apart once denial is replaced by reality. In recovery, we learn to stop confusing addictive codependent/love attraction with authentic love attraction. We stop choosing needy/manipulative people to partner with and start choosing emotionally stable/loving people instead. This is how we start building healthy, successful love relationships. Get to a CODA meeting...