Soulshine

“Never, ever sacrifice what you want the most For what you want the most at that moment .” James A. Owen, Drawing Out the Dragons Addicts live for the moment. We tend to be obsessive-compulsive. And we are too often anxious to get a fix for all of our needy feelings-- here and now. Unfortunately, this leads many of us to sacrifice what we want most in life for what we want most in any given anxious moment. For example, codependents often accept sex when what they truly want is love. It’s my guess that the average person, from the time that they were a small child, has wanted to love and be loved by one extremely important person in their life. Unfortunately for many codependents, finding that all important soulmate has been a nightmare; primarily because one essential ingredient has always been missing from our codependent love formula. And that missing ingredient is us. Codependents—and all addicts for that matter—want to be loved and accepted for who they are, b...

“If you really, really want to do something, no one can stop you. But if you really don’t want to do something, then no one can help you.” James A. Owen, Drawing Out the Dragons When it comes to recovery, there is certainly great truth in what James A. Owen says above. The day we decide we really, really want a better life for ourselves is the day that we can make the choice to start building that better life—and no one can stop us aside from ourselves. Of course this means we have to “really” want a better life bad enough, and for most addictive personalities, wanting a better life “bad enough” usually means we have hit bottom. The day we hit bottom is the day that life becomes so painful and so unmanageable we are finally willing to say “I surrender.” It’s the day that we finally acknowledge that we can’t make it on our own any longer. It’s the day we finally reach out to a Higher Power and to others who can help us piece our lives back together. Back in Octob...