I have just come home from a coda meeting. I attended coda acouple of times last year and stopped going as i am already a member of al anon I find it really hard to take it easy and really need to slow down. Now however I am thinking did I stop going because these meeting make me look at my sickness and it scares me. In al anon i have been affected by someone elses disease Coda helps me to see that I was sick becfor e i even met the alcoho;lic. When I get identification in the coda meetings it really scares me. everytime I start to really focus on me and my sickness I painic and get full of fear and panic. Now i know how my partner felt whe I was trying to get him to realise he wasill and he was not ready. i told a lady at the meeting I had attended coda a little but left she said I was not ready. I do want to get better but feel like I was climbing up hill with help of al anon and now have just realised there is a even bigger mountain to climb. Hopefully my Hp thinks I am ready and strong enough.
Good to see you back & getting honest with yourself, Tracy. I know all this awareness isn't easy for me either but sharing it in fellowship with others who are willing to see what's inside themselves & do something about it is really encouraging for me. It's not what my problem is that is the most important thing for me today but what I'm willing to do about it. I joined CoDA after two years in A.A. I wasn't ready for this new program in my early recovery but I've been ready since & it's helped me grow ever since. There's no ceiling on recovery. If I keep doing whatever it takes to become well today & leave the rest to God, I'm in with a chance.
I've not been feeling great just lately. I've been worrying about seeking out a placement for my counselling course & my ego is having a field day with it but I spent some amazing quality time with my female friends today (including Freya!) & I feel a long way to feeling better. It's a day at a time & I'm going to do whatever it takes for me to feel good. I think that means inventory, prayer & female fellowship for me. I'm also beginning to make some phonecalls tomorrow so I can get out of my head & into action :)
Thank you for being here. My ego sure wishes I could but I can't do it on my own either. Thank God for the hope of humility! HP power to you, Danielle x
I can really relate to what you have shared here. I joined a twelve step programme and then left. I told myself all kinds of rational reasons for not going back, but now I can see it's because I wasn't ready to really look at myself. I joined al-anon at the beginning of last year and coda last summer, and have been amazed by the changes I am experiencing in my understanding of myself. I sat here a couple of weeks ago and it finally dawned on me how ill I have been for a very long time, and how I was just at the beginning of a long climb back to sanity. But at least now I know which direction to go in, and where to go to get the help I need, and by following the steps and listening to my higher power, I know that things can be better. I know that I can stop hurting myself unconsciously, I know I've got choices, I know I can ask for help. Before I knew this I was doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results, and I was repeatedly hurting myself, and blaming other people. I was living an unmanageable life with no hope of it being different. Now that I am prepared to look at myself, I've got a sense of hope back, that I lost a very long time ago, and I am so grateful for that.
When I joined this board a few weeks ago, somone here reminded me that it's very important to have compassion for ourselves. It's ok to be afraid and to have compassion for ourselves for feeling that level of fear. A friend told me a while back, "be gentle with yourself", and I try to do that whenever I remember to...
It is a scary process, I agree. I know when I finally whole-heartedly jumped into recovery I had completely surrendered and was ready to do anything to relieve my pain. Made it kind of easy. Felt like I was holding onto a life preserver and working the steps was me paddling to the shore. It hurt, it definitely wasn't classified as fun, but it seemed necessary for me to move on from the incredible pain I was experiencing.
Now that that has passed I still have a LOT of work to do and since I am not in crisis this takes some effort and includes some fear and resistance. What I do to calm my fears is realize that the work I have to do is not going to make my life any worse than it is at this moment. It is not going to hurt my relationships, it is not going to hurt my career, it is not going to be outwardly evident to anyone unless I let it be. It is going to be scary, uncomfortable, painful at times - confusing at others. But all in all this process to date has been nothing but beneficial to my inner peace and my relationships, so based on that factual history I gain some courage and move forward.
The visual I get in my mind is a band-aid covering a wound on my body. I am fearful of taking it off - it is going to hurt. But until I do it is going to irritate me and keep the wound covered and away from the fresh air and light, which slows down or may even prevent healing - or worse - cause an infection. The wound may hurt a little more with exposure - it may get bumped and cause pain as it is not being cushioned by the band-aid - but ultimately - the end result is the wound will do better in the light of day instead of hidden in the dark. The band-aid has purpose and is there for protection from further harm and us bleeding all over everyone else in our life (LOL, that made me giggle) - but it's usefulness runs it's course eventually.
The lovely thing is, you get to go at your own pace and anyone who has advice about when you are ready or not, how fast you should go, and if you are doing it right or wrong - well that doesn't necessarily make it fact. Even if it is your sponsor (IMO). Accepting the role of sponsor does not make us experts or necessarily right. When you are ready- you will be ready. You might be now but you just can't see it or you believe others when they tell you that you are not.
Just do the next right thing. Whatever that is for you. We are here for you.
