Category: Recovery From Addictions

All the way back at the very beginning when I first starting writing this blog, I made mention to a person that had once been a very big part of my life. He was someone that I had formed a codependent bond with for many years where I consistently found it too difficult to break from. That all changed though almost two years ago when I began separating myself from every unhealthy attachment I had in my life, most of which were codependent based. Unfortunately, my sister informed me of some information yesterday indicating that both she and this former friend might still be struggling with fully letting go of their codependent behaviors.

For those who don’t know what being codependent means, it’s defined in Wikipedia as a psychological condition or a relationship in which a person is controlled or manipulated by another. It also can refer to the over dependence on the needs of, or control of, another and can involve placing a lower priority on one’s own needs, while being excessively preoccupied with the needs of someone else. Sometimes, as in the case of what my sister informed me, it even deals with the inability that people have at times to let unhealthy connections permanently go.

I know that pattern very well as I kept this person in my life for four years, three of which would have never occurred if I had been working through my codependent behaviors. I’m grateful to say though that I’ve been able to maintain my distance from him for the past twenty-three months. It’s a good thing too because I know there’s a good chance I would have fallen back into those behaviors again if I hadn’t. Codependency is a lot like an addiction in that I don’t believe it ever goes away completely. It’s more like it goes into a state of remission once its behaviors are curbed but it could resurface at any time given the right conditions. This is something that I cannot afford to have happen in my life again with God at my helm these days. I just wish that would be the same case for this former friend and my sister.

What transpired earlier this week with them was that my sister received a large Harry and David Christmas basket from this former friend at her new address in Tennessee. The initial irony I found in this was that my sister could not remember ever giving my former friend her address once she moved. She too was trying to let the connection go knowing it was unhealthy for her on some level as well. It’s not really that important anymore to talk about what transpired all those years ago that made my connection with this former friend so unhealthy for everyone. But to put it simply, the drama we created in our connection with each other affected everyone gravely including my family, his family, and all of our friends. My personal connection with this man ended for good because of that in January of 2012. At the time, I also chose to end any communication with his friends and family because I knew I had to if I was going to start letting go of my own codependent behaviors. Unfortunately, he didn’t do the same.

When the first holiday season rolled around, he gave my sister’s family $250 in American Express gift cards. That was when it started to become evident to my sister that he wasn’t letting me go. When they moved out of the area a few months after that, she began to distance herself from him and rarely did anything but say hello when he tried to contact her. I was convinced that this would finally help him get the point and start letting me go on all levels. That was until my sister told me about this large Christmas gift basket she received from him the other day.

While it’s obvious to me that this former friend is still struggling on some level to let me go, I was also saddened to hear that my sister fell back into some of her own codependent behaviors because of his gift. Prior to receiving it, she had no intention of giving him anything this holiday season. But because of her own guilt and worry, she bought something in return and sent it to him. Not only did that action reinforce her own codependent behaviors, it’s did for him as well. It gave hope to my former friend that he’s still connected to me in some way and it kept my sister maintaining a connection that she really doesn’t wish to have anymore.

Breaking free of codependent behaviors is a lot of hard work. Sometimes it means letting go of the people we might have once cared about greatly. And sometimes it means having to overcome those feelings of guilt or shame by not reacting to them. There are many reactions that my sister could have had to his gift that would have been moving her towards a life free from codependency. But sadly, buying a gift in return wasn’t one of them. While she could have done a return to sender for his gift or donated it to someone else, the one action that would benefit her growth the greatest is the one she keeps avoiding. It’s the one where she contacts this former friend and cuts the cord to him for good.

This is what I have had to do each time I wanted to break free from codependency and it’s brought me great freedom each time I have. I definitely know it would do the same for my sister. Even more importantly, I also know it would help this man to let me go once and for all.

While deep down I know he probably wishes that I’ll come back in his life one day down the road, I have already accepted the fact that it can’t and won’t ever happen. Codependent relationships robbed me of a life devoted to serving God. They hurt my health and healing processes. And they prevented me from growing healthy and loving connections with anyone else, including myself. Because of these things, it will never be worth the risk to even reach out and say hello just once to him or anyone I was once connected to like him.

It’s my hope and prayer for this former friend that he will completely let me go one day and end all attempts to keep me around in some fashion, including through my sister’s family. On the same level, I pray for my sister too. When both can fully let go of their codependent behaviors, I know they will begin to experience a much deeper and fuller relationship with not only themselves, but also with the God of their understanding.

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson

It is well known in most 12 Step recovery meetings that when a person finds recovery from their addiction, that they will then start to share their experience, strength and hope to those still suffering in order to help them. Yesterday, I spoke about the experience side of this so I thought it might be best today to write about the strength and hope parts as well.

Strength and hope are two words that describe why so many continue to find recovery from their addictions through 12 Step programs. I truly believe that this is what motivates all those who end up doing the 12 Step work and who come back week after week to recovery meetings.

When I began doing the 12 Step work and attending AA meetings regularly, I didn’t have much strength and I definitely had very little hope. My first sponsor on the other hand, had a tremendous amount of both qualities and she became a guiding light of them, for me to strive after.

The first thing I noticed about her strength was that she had learned how to remain free of many other addictions in addition to alcoholism. I knew I was cross-addicted and had fallen into other problems such as gambling and sex and love issues to name a few. That is why I initially didn’t believe that anything could keep me free of succumbing into at least one of the many addictions I had. I just couldn’t see early on how I could live a life free from all addictions because I was so used to living with at least one of them active at any given time. But it was this sponsor who showed me in her 25 years of continuous sobriety, that she found the strength through her recovery program to do just that.

The second thing I noticed about her strength was how she had been able to make it through every trial and tribulation in her life clean and sober from all her addictions. When my father took his life, I didn’t have much strength and gave into my addictions to cope with his death. When my mother fell down the stairs and broke her neck dying instantly, I didn’t have much strength then either and gave into my addictions once again to cope. The same held true when I lost a seven year relationship, when my business failed, and when just about every other tragedy took place in my life. But she showed me through her recovery program and the strength she had gotten from it that none of her tragedies in life ever drove her back into any addiction.

The third thing I noticed about her strength, and probably the most important one for me, is how she had an incredible connection to the God of her understanding and gained incredible strength from that connection every single day. I was the opposite of that when I first met her as I had been acting quite godless throughout my life. I also didn’t believe that God could forgive me for all the bad things that I had done in my addiction prone life nor could I understand how God could save me from the wreckage I had created. She shared with me how she felt similar when she first came to 12 Step recovery, but in time all that changed as her relationship to her Higher Power grew. Eventually she knew God forgave her of all the unspiritual things she had once done and God also helped her to completely clean up all her wreckage as well. Seeing all this is what started giving her incredible strength in recovery and maintaining that relationship to her Higher Power is what sustained it.

There were many other things I noticed as well about my sponsor’s strength in recovery the more I did my 12 Step work and attend those AA meetings regularly. But I also saw another quality in her that I wanted for myself and knew I had so little of, and that was hope. When I met her and began my recovery work, I was seriously broken, suicidal, and found it difficult to smile. She gave me hope every time she shared her joy in life and every time she smiled and laughed. Eventually, I started to meet others who shined just as brightly and they all shared one thing in common, they had hope.

I’ve been going to recovery meetings regularly now for over six years and I’m grateful to say that I have a lot more of my own strength and hope now. I thank my first sponsor in AA for being the one to initially guide me in this direction, especially because it led me to the growing relationship I have with my Higher Power. Through that connection, I have been able to remain clean and sober from all addictions even when life’s trials and tribulations try to break that. Now it’s my desire to offer this strength and hope to those still suffering, like I once was, hoping they too will one day find those very same qualities present within themselves.

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson

Six years ago I walked into a Friday evening AA meeting in desperation hoping to find recovery from a life that had become riddled with various addictions. Although I had remained sober from alcohol and drugs for 12 years by that point, it had been achieved mostly through self-will and it showed. I learned a lot that night about what being in recovery meant and looking back on my actions I took during that meeting, it was pretty obvious that I had very little of that, if any at all.

All of this began that Friday evening when I walked in the door of the church where the meeting was being held. There I was cheerly greeted by one of the few friends who had remained in my addiction-filled life. As I hugged him, I knew he could tell how broken I was inside. The only thought I had in those moments though was that I needed to share what I was going through with everyone attending the meeting that night. When my friend informed me that wouldn’t be possible, I inquired as to why. He told me they had this thing called an incoming commitment where another group’s members came in to share their experience, strength, and hope in recovery. I had never heard of such a thing because I had rarely attended enough meetings to know such things existed. In fact, the few meetings I had ever attended were the ones that anyone could raise their hands and share whatever was on their minds. Upon hearing this new meeting format, my ego took over, which at the time was quite large. It was then that I told my friend I had a lot of experience, strength, and hope, even though deep down I knew I didn’t. I said it was a life or death matter for me to share and that I needed him to do what was necessary to have me be able to speak that night. After he saw that I wasn’t going to back down from pressuring him to do this, he gave in and went to speak with the chairperson of the incoming group. Sometime later during the meeting, I was called up to the podium by that chairperson where I stood nervously in front of over 100 people who were sitting there waiting to hear my experience, strength and hope in recovery. But what they got instead was a big pile of tears and a slew of experiences. What I didn’t have though was any strength or hope which was easily demonstrated by my torrent of tears that poured out of my eyes in front of all those strangers. So as I shared at length about the horror stories from all my addiction filled days in life, I didn’t discuss any of my efforts I had made or found toward true sobriety and recovery because I truly had none. All I really had to share that night was nothing more than a long drunk-a-log.

A drunk-a-log is really just a slang term used these days in most recovery meetings to describe a situation where a person shares and focuses solely on the days and experiences from their active addiction filled days. And this is precisely what I did when I stood at that podium on that Friday evening over six years ago. Unfortunately, in doing so, what I said had little to no benefit for anyone in attendance as it only solidified the fact that I was extremely miserable from all of my addiction-based experiences.

Today, I find it’s actually for the best to focus very little on these experiences as none of us are very different from each other when it comes right down to where our addictions took us. By choosing to share one addiction story after another, the only thing it really shows is how screwed up we all were from our disease of addiction. What it doesn’t show is a path to recovery for those still suffering from them. The only reason why I kept coming back to AA and other recovery meetings wasn’t because of hearing drunk-a-logs. It wasn’t because of listening to people share their “war” stories with addiction. And it definitely wasn’t because I heard some amazing experience about someone’s battle with addictions. I kept coming back because I heard people share about the happiness in their life that came from doing the 12 Steps and finding God.

Thankfully, I now practice the 12 Steps and maintain a close relationship with my Higher Power on a daily basis. This has helped me to be able to laugh now about the absurdity of my actions on that Friday night meeting all those years ago. I realize today that the only experience I really ever need to share in any meeting I attend is that I drank, I drugged, and I lost. I also realize that a drunk-a-log isn’t going to help anyone, especially a newcomer. As it is they, like I once did, who need to hear a lot more about the strength and hope in recovery and nothing else…

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson