Welcome to my world, as the saying goes, "If you haven't walked in my shoes, please don't judge."
I had the thought that I have a lot more pairs of shoes than I had when I came into recovery. So often we keep the old and the comfortable, because we don't want to break into the new. Yet when we get the new, we wonder what took us so long to make the change.
We would rather hang onto something that is old and run down, and not looking at the picture it portrays about ourselves. A new pair of shoes may mean a few blisters, but when you look at the picture, the results was worth the pain. As they, "No pain, no gain."
My son informed me that he was talking to his aunt, my sister on Thanksgiving. He said they agreed that my thinking was off, and found all kinds of things to cause them to point their finger at me. I am glad I didn't go there for the day and gave them the opportunity to talk. My sister doesn't realize she is just as much an addict as my son who admits to his addictions (pot, beer, crack, cocaine).
She is a great candidate for Al-Anon. The caretaker who doesn't do for herself because everyone else comes first. Continuing babysitting at the age of 67, to fill up her house, even on weekends they have kids over night, generally for free, because she and her husband have a problem with the emptiness of their home when no one else is there.
She puts off her own issues and pain, ignoring everything until she has to finally give in and ask her husband for permission to go. She lives in the country, she doesn't drive, and thankfully, her church is about three blocks away. Even though she is Sunday School Superintendent, sings in the choir, holds missionary meetings, and goes to prayer meetings, her actions often belie a closeness to God, and what I find to be an isolation of the spirit, because it is done in rote and what she feels she has to do. Don't get me wrong, if it makes her happy, that is good. I just don't see the happiness, in her face or her actions.
She lives her life through her kids and her husband. I did the same thing, though it was my son, and he was my everything and gave to him and didn't do for myself, yet he doesn't see that. As my disease grew, I was guilty of leaving him alone in his early teens. I detach from him and myself. I isolated in my dis-ease, hoping that if I didn't acknowledge it, it wasn't there. It was everyone else's fault and if they had only done what I thought they should do, everything would be just fine. F.I.N.E. Frustrated, insecure, neurotic, and emotional.
You can't always judge, if you are going to judge, by it's cover, pain and wounds go much deeper. You have to get to the root of things, i.e. My sister has a lot of hatred for our mother. She remembers every little thing and can not forgive or forget. I don't recognize the things she remembers, so maybe I was locked up in my own little world, unable to see what was around.
I know that I blamed myself every time my parents had an argument, I believed it was my fault. The same thing when my sister had to get married, it was my fault according to family, that she got pregnant because she was living with me, and she would go out to meet the boyfriend I didn't know she had and would sneak into my place before 7 when my alarm went off. She told me when I was in recovery that she was often fully dressed under the covers when I woke her up when I was leaving for work so she could go to hairdressing school.
Again my dis-ease, was looking outside of myself to find something that made me feel better. I was addicted to service, filling my life up with others, then I realized that I needed a life.
Religion can be an addiction as well, especially if it takes you from looking within, and you look out and judge others by the lack of what they have, or they don't walk in your path, or they don't do what you think they should do. For me, that is why recovery material says, "God as we understand God." My understanding changed and grew, and yet my Christian beliefs are still there, only made richer by the fellowships in the rooms of recovery.
For me it is about applying the spiritual principles to my life. Don't talk about others and put them down to make yourself feel better. Don't think because you have a house to live in that you are better than those who don't have, or are homeless. People are not always homeless because of addictions. Rich people can be addicted just as much, in fact easier than someone poor. Don't raise yourself up, so you can look down on others. We are all God's Children and He loves us all, no matter what shape or size or colour we come in. We are all under the cover of His Grace and the spirit of life and freedom is open to all. All I wanted when I came into recovery was the freedom to be myself, no matter who or where I was in the moment, always knowing everything was subject to change, as long as I stuck with the program. Without you, there is no me. You are my reflection, my hope, and my strength.
