Image credit: Photo by funkypancake on Flickr Licensed under Creative Commons Sometimes people ask me (and frankly, sometimes I ask myself) how I went from being very vocal in my rejection of God to someone who now talks about God all the damn time. The short and simple answer is: 12 Step recovery (which is [...]
Posts under ‘12 step’
Just Say No to Reading
Image credit: Photo by paulbence on Flickr Licensed under Creative Commons "Where's the ketchup?" "Don't you remember?" asks Mark, a little exasperated. "We had this conversation," he says as he begins to describe it to me in elaborate details: all the full sentences I said to him in response to what he said to me [...]
Ninth Stepped
Image credit: Photo by spud murphy on Flickr Licensed under Creative Commons I know few partners of addicts who (whatever they may think of 12 Step) don't look forward with breathless anticipation to the glorious day when their addict reaches Step 9. Wonderful, special Step 9. Step 9: making amends to those who have been [...]
Fear of Economic Insecurity
Image credit: Photo by pfala on Flickr Licensed under Creative Commons When I was 8 years old, the company my father worked for underwent a change in ownership and began to purge their payroll. These were the days before the common use of such staid terms as "laid off" or "let go"; the term I [...]
Blame
Image credit: Photo by Fighting Tiger on Flickr Licensed under Creative Commons "Have you blamed others for something for which your own codependency was responsible?" asks the First Step workbook I'm using. I have been working my First Step again through a 12 Step group for friends and family members of sex addicts, and at [...]
Resistance Is Futile
Image credit: Photo by mydearDelilah on Flickr Licensed under Creative Commons During the first year after I discovered my husband's sex addiction, I attended S-Anon, 12 Step meetings for friends and family members of sex addicts. At the beginning of each meeting we would read "The S-Anon Problem." I hated "The S-Anon Problem." I hated [...]
Our Disease
Image credit: Photo by 9stitches11stars on Flickr Licensed under Creative Commons In the first 12 Step meeting I attended, a group for friends and relatives of sex addicts, I heard repeated references to "our disease." And "our disease" — codependency — supposedly compelled us to engage in codependent behaviors: things like spying on and stalking [...]
Summer Solitude
Image credit: Photo by photo71 on Flickr Licensed under Creative Commons I'm not one to keep busy during the summer, at least not in the sense of running the kids from place to place, activity to activity. Yet, not being busy — whether inside inside the house playing board games or (more often) just keeping [...]
Experience, Strength and Hope
Image credit: Photo by jaxxon on Flickr Licensed under Creative Commons A little less than a year ago, I moved my blog to its own URL, and when I did so, I had the opportunity to reread many of my old posts as I updated broken links (still not all fixed, by the way). As [...]
Blocks and Straps
Image credit: Photo by rachel a. k. on Flickr Licensed under Creative Commons An Al-Anon friend and I were talking the other day about how frustrating it can be as we progress on our journeys, to see what that next healthier behavior looks like (just a step beyond where we are currently), but not be [...]
