Our RSS feed
Troubled
Hello. I'm really struggling with surrendering to the whole SLAA concept. Have been in serious therapy for the last eight years and in that time i have been pretty fearless, i've made it through an ego shattering nervous breakdown and have made an enormous amount of progress in my personal development, without any medication and with little or no collateral damage! However, a recent relationship i've become involved in (with a memeber of another fellowship) has thrown up some real issues i have in the area of love addiction. I have been checking this site for a while but after a disasterous attempt to try and unconsciously control the anxieties i was having around the unknown future of this new relationship, i decided to take the plunge and have been to three meetings this week - but i was completely unable to talk. At the first one i turned up terrified and confused, literally shaking. I honestly felt like if i opened my mouth to share i would come apart and end up a sobbing mass on the floor, a lot of stuff was and has been in my mind since then about why i couldn't let go - firstly the therapy i have been doing is an in depth one to one jungian analysis, it's taken me ages to create a safe space there where i can and have talked about anything and can and have been on the floor, many times - this meeting was so different, all these people i had no connection to and i almost felt the room couldn't take it, everyone seemed so relaxed and like they'd known each other for years, no-one seemed emotional, it was all really upbeat and positive - and then there was me and my mess! I felt like a total baby, covered in s**t and shame. The second meeting was much the same but i realise i had started to shut down a bit by this time and then the third meeting, a 'HOW' meeting, was both the best and worst - best because the level of sharing was so coherent and peaceful - worst because i felt so very far away from coherence and peace on my issues of love addiction and seperate from all the people in that room. I didn't know how or where to start or to connect and i just split without speaking to anyone. There was so much talk about surrender and connecting with God, it really scared me, (i think i'm pretty angry with God/life actually). Do i need to do this i'm thinking, i just don't know how. Maybe i'm way too proud of having done everything on a solo basis, maybe that's what works for me and i do not want to exclude my therapist from this process but perhaps i've developed too much strength in solitude and live in coping mechanisms rather than life itself. I have no other addictions other than smoking, never done serious drugs, can take or leave alcohol, although i have had some problems in the past with pornography but again in working closely with my analyst, being honest, open and searching for and experiencing the feelings which drive the desire to use it, that problem has receeded and i have been able to recognise and contain any difficult feelings myself and build further responsibility for my own actions. The whole surrender and God talk seems aimed at turning me into a robot, just trolling out a prescriptive formula, but i also can't deny that at this point i have no answers for what is troubling me and there is a lot about the fellowship i find attractive. Perhaps i just don't know how to ask for the help i need and more importantly, don't actually have the skills to accept any help and change offered. My primary issues are around abandonment, i was severely neglected/punished/abused as a child, quickly learnt to bury my needs/self and over time developed no trust that things would be alright unless i made them alright - i'm self-employed have a natural tendency to isolate, engage in anxiety related mental machinations to stave off feelings of emptiness if in solitude and have a very natural desire, (although i challenge this regularly), to control, again to reduce my exposure to anxiety/vulnerability/pain/injury/the unknown/not being good enough or loveable. This isn't the whole story about me though and people who know me would say that there are many up-sides to any of these down-sides and in general my life is not a disaster, i have some good friends (although not a wide, varied group) i'm fairly mindfull, self-care well on many fronts and my actions in general do not hurt or injure those close to me. But in this area of relationships, abandonment and panic of etc, i definitely have issues and feel like i'm right back at the beginning, a big baby and really, as a forty year old adult, i'm not very happy about that! Apologies for the length of this but i would really appreciate hearing from anyone who can relate. Thanks.
Paul, thank you so much for
Paul, thank you so much for your totally open and honest share, I received so much identification and just wanted to pick up on what you said about your experiences in the meetings that you have recently attended. When I first came to SLAA HOW I felt exactly the same, at the beginning the meetings seem very intimidating and as most of us come in to the programme in so much pain and suffering it certainly seems, or it did for me, that I was the only one in the room that was falling apart when everyone else seemed to be so positive! You said that you felt that if you opened your mouth you would fall apart and end up a sobbing mess, I say do just that. In my first meeting I was that sobbing mess, I shared and fell apart and believe me those rooms can take it and, for me, the relief was incredible. There are very few places where it is totally safe to let it all out without judgement but the fellowship is one of them. If you are able to do this not only will you find that you will connect with others but you will also help them. I know that when I hear people in that level of pain its a real reminder of where I have been and helps me greatly. Its so true that when you feel like you do its hard to get identification from those that sound so positive but for me it was my inspiration and the push I needed to keep going, if it had worked for them couldn't it also work for me? This positivity comes from those who keep coming back and working the programme and to hear their recovery was all the evidence I needed that it works. I have been in SLAA HOW now for about four months and the meetings that were once intimidating are now my comfort, my lifeline and my salvation. Those who seemed totally alien to me at the beginning are now my friends and the source of great support. I can't speak for anyone but myself but I just want to say that I know the pain you are feeling because I have been there. Nothing you could share in a meeting would ever be judged or deemed to be more than the fellowship could cope with, thats what it is there for and I myself simply feel priveleged and honoured when someone in pain trusts the meetings and lets it all out. Also, to watch as they slowly but surely get stronger is one of the absolute joys of the programme. Its not easy, and I also relate to the idea that the whole handing over/god side of things can be tricky to get your head around and accept but as the last very wise sharer said, in the end the relief of handing over to whatever it is far far outways carrying the burden yourself. I was advised that, to begin with, I should simply see the fellowship as the higher power and hand it over in the meetings and gradually something closer to your understanding will make itself known.I wish you well paul, keep coming back to the meetings and if you get the chance share how you are feeling, its so hard but its so worth it.
Hi There,Thanks for your
Hi There,Thanks for your share, was very interesting reading about the work you have done on yourself so far, indeed you seem to know what you need to do but it's just letting and trusting your higher power that is creating the conflict within you.When i first came into fellowship in February 08, i also found the constant referneces to god slighlty off putting but i was in so much pain i didn't really care who or what i was asked to hand over my disease to as long as it gave me some relief from the intense yearning for sexual intrigue and romantic involvments. I was so fortunate and iam still very grateful that my first proper meetings where attended by a couple males with long term sobriety in more than one fellowship and i realised that if i wanted to stay sober then i should follow what they do, at no point did anyone tell me what to do, they just suggested...i kept coming back (another suggestion) and slowly but surely i felt my insanity melt away and a sense of serenity replace the madness, which still amazes me as i thought i would never be able to feel anything other than anguish and resentment, regulary blotted out with increasingly risky sexual behaviour and lashings of alcohol. I have been sober from booze since august 08 and haven't acted out on my bottom line behaviours since feb 08. Thats the longest time i have been sober in my adult life and i thank the god of my understanding, higher power, higher self, God, Dave, Bill or Rumplestiltskin, whatever you want to call it, numerous times a day for letting me live a sane, sober, healthy life, one day at a time.Just for today, iam free from the bondage of addiction (miracle) and all god asks for in return is for me to be humble, act with humility and strive to be present in the moment, iam far from perfect; but now if i mess up it's simply because i've forgotten to trust god and my self will has taken over momentarily, it doesn't have the same devastating consequences as when i messed up as an active addict.I guess what iam trying to say is that the pain of recovery is much better than the pain of addiction.Keep going to meetings, listen to the similarities in peoples shares and not the differences, keep an open mind and the answers will come. God bless you. Spender Don't act out and the answers will come.
Thanks so much for your
Thanks so much for your message spender, your final thoughts were really simply and powerfully put and helped bring me some much needed calmness - i found that at a meeting this week the right space was available for me to share and i could hold my hands up, admit that i don't have all the answers and that i do need help to find them. I was definitely emotional but didn't quite become the gibbering wreck, it was a different day and my feelings were more of knowing i was in the right place at the right time, doing the right thing. It was such a relief and a very humbling experience. As with every meeting i have been to but especially on that night, being that little bit more calm and resolved, i could relate to many of things that other people shared and it really began to lessen the sense of my own seperateness. There is so much truth in the advice that you and others have taken the time to give. Thank you.