More on motives

It rained last night which brought some relief from the heat.  And this morning the raccoons are running up and down their tree out in the wetland.  I have a feeding station where all kinds of animals come to eat. A little doe has been coming to feed in the morning and evening.  She now has started to lose her spots.  It's peaceful to watch the animals and know that they have a safe haven here.

Last night's meeting was on motives and how we are driven by fear, anxiety, past experiences, control, and manipulation when dealing with others.  I don't think that I looked at my motives in a conscious way until about two years ago.  I reacted to situations without a thought of what I was doing.  I have come to realize that my negative reactions in the alcoholic situation were about ego based shame and past experiences. 

Fear for most of us is a huge issue around active drinking. It manifests as nagging, questioning, berating, and outbursts of anger.  Not being able to relax in social settings because I was counting every drink builds up a lot of resentment.  Examining my motives was an extremely powerful tool in discovering why I did what I did and said what I said.   I would blame my anger and sadness on the alcoholic, never bothering to look at what I was doing. 

When I undertook the job of checking my motives and focusing on myself I discovered that my motives were far from honorable.   They were self-serving because I was trying to manipulate others into loving me and being the way that I thought they should be.  I didn't understand this behavior before Al-Anon because I believed that these actions were justified and the tools of survival.  I still slip at times and want to punish instead of let go. 

Self-examination is an important tool. All of the old motives can be replaced by courage, humility, love and compassion for myself and others if I remain aware and willing. 

Hope that you are having a good Wednesday.  So far so good for me.

Guilt

"Perhaps the most severe damage to those who have shared some part of life with an alcoholic comes in the form of the nagging belief that they are somehow at fault; they were not up to it all, not attractive enough, not clever enough to have solved this problem for the one they love. They think it was something they did or did not do. These are their feelings of guilt." from Understanding Ourselves and Alcoholism

The meeting topic last night was on guilt. I'm feeling spectacularly guilt free these days. But I haven't always felt that way and every now and then there will be that nagging little feeling of guilt that starts to creep into my head.

I can remember a friend in graduate school who apologized for everything. He said "I'm sorry" about 100 times a day. He said it so much that it became meaningless.

I don't have a desire to hoard up guilt. But like my friend in graduate school, I still have a tendency to take the guilt from someone else to make sure that they don't have any. And sometimes I don't realize what I'm doing. It seems like an automatic response when someone hurts my feelings. I seem to revert back to that little boy who wants to make sure the other person feels okay, so I take their guilt.

But I'm learning in the program to pay attention and notice when I start to pick up something that isn't mine, like guilt. I've heard to "screw guilt". Another good one that I read is "guilt is like herpes: its the gift that keeps on giving."

I don't want guilt to cloud my vision of the facts. I don't want to become enmeshed with my own emotions to the point that I lose the true motive of guilt which is to remind me of wrong and right and the humanity of each of us. I know that in spite of my character defects, I'm one of God's creatures.

In this program, I've learned that I can acknowledge my wrongs (Step Four) and set the wrong right by making an amends (Step Nine). I also know that through the second and third steps that I can surrender to my Higher Power all of my guilt, earned and unearned.

Here are some questions that I can ask myself if I feel the need to have a guilty moment:

Is this guilt I am feeling about a direct action of mine?
Did I do something out of spite, revenge, meanness or cruel intent?
Did I not do something because I simply forgot or was otherwise occupied?

If I answer NO to these questions, then I am probably taking on guilt that I don't own. I might need to look at my sense of over responsibility and seek guidance from my HP for healing and letting that go.

If I answered YES to these questions, then I can seek my HP's guidance in what amends need to be made. Holding onto guilt isn't going to solve anything. Ultimately, I need to remember to "Learn the Lesson, Let go of the guilt".

The standoff

I have noticed one of the peculiar things about being in recovery is that my control meter has moved into the "below detectable limits" zone. And sometimes this results in a standoff between me and the alcoholic around planning things.

It's not unlike the impasse featured in those old western movies, when two people have their guns trained on each other knowing that neither person can make a move without endangering their life. Our standoff isn't so drastic but sometimes it does feel like a challenge.

Here are some examples:

Say if we have talked about going out to dinner. I will ask, "Where would you like to go?" She will say, "Oh wherever you like." And that puts the control of things right in my lap where I don't really want it to be.

Or maybe we are discussing what to do for the weekend. I want to go out on the boat so I will ask if my wife wants to go along. Sometimes I'll get a definitive answer while other times I might get an answer such as, "Let's wait and see how I feel about it on Friday."

And when these non-answers occur I let them drop like an alien object that I'm curious about but don't want to touch. I may inspect it with my eyes and long to put my hands on it to turn it over and look for an opening, but I make myself leave it alone. It's like both of us are eying this thing that is there in front of us, and each is waiting for the other to pick it up.

So therein lies the standoff. I really want an answer and to firm up some plans, but I'm not going to go into controlling mode to choose the place that we go to eat or force an answer about weekend plans.

Frankly, I'm tired of being in charge. I get tired of suggesting things to do. So after a while, I quit suggesting. And yes, we still go out to dinner and on the boat. Because after a while, one of us will decide to make a move. My solution is to not force that move until the very last minute. And then I will say something like, "I would like to go to dinner at _____. Would you like to join me?" Or, "I'm going out on the boat this weekend and would like to have you come along." If I get a negative then I still go.

I think that this may be some kind of passive/aggressive stuff about control. I'm not sure, but I am much happier with the idea of not forcing my agenda on another. And apparently that makes her a lot happier as well.

Surrender

I talked with a sponsee last night. He has separated from his wife, who is addicted to cocaine, crack and alcohol. The wife is in a local hospital's psych unit because she took a bunch of pills earlier in the week. After taking the pills, she called to tell him. And she blamed her suicide attempt on his filing for divorce. Nice.

Anyway, he is pretty much a mess and is still getting roped in by the master manipulations of the addict/alcoholic. She will call and ask to come back home. He says that he doesn't think that is a good idea. She will then say that she is going to stay clean and that her sobriety will go so much better if they get back together. He finds it hard to stay detached. Sigh.

He wants to know how I finally quit being roped in by the manipulations and repeated promises of the alcoholic. I told him that I finally was laid so low that I gave up my attempts to control or to believe that I could help her. In short, I surrendered. I knew that I was desperately sick myself and that I no longer thought that there was any hope for our relationship. I simply wanted to see if I could save myself. I wanted to live again.

He hears this but doesn't seem to be at the point yet that he is willing to work on his own insanity around the alcoholic/addict. She is still his higher power. He doesn't want to work the steps but calls me to unload when things get heavy. I told him that I found joy and a greater amount of happiness than I thought possible through working the steps. I trusted the process. I trusted my sponsor. And I learned to trust in a Higher Power.

I can only share how it worked for me. He will surrender when the pain becomes bad enough.

Pitfalls

"The primary fact that we fail to recognize is our total inability to form a true partnership with another human being. Our egomania digs two disastrous pitfalls. Either we insist upon dominating the people we know, or we depend upon them far too much. If we lean too heavily on people, they will sooner or later fail us, for they are human, too, and cannot possibly meet our incessant demands. In this way our insecurity grows and festers. When we habitually try to manipulate others to our own willful desires, they revolt, and resist us heavily. Then we develop hurt feelings, a sense of persecution, and a desire to retaliate. As we redouble our efforts at control, and continue to fail, our suffering becomes acute and constant. " from the AA 12 x 12

Reading this from the AA 12 x 12 makes me realize how much my character defects have affected my interactions with my alcoholic. It doesn’t work that way with others that I interact with. I can hear what they say and not feel rejection. But with my SO I seem to feel insecure and that a "no" can be negotiated.

On Friday, I asked her to go to dinner. She had just gone to a meeting. She said that she needed her time alone. I know this about her. I understand this because I need my time too. But I felt rejected and wanted to push her to go. I felt filled with self-righteous anger.

It’s like a compulsion to sabotage my program at these times. My insecurity comes through with self-pity, resentment, anger and remorse. If I lean heavily on people, they fail me because they are human and can’t meet my demands of time or love.

And when I try to manipulate others to my own willful desires, they resist. Then I get my feelings hurt. I seem to want closeness at times that don’t necessarily fit the other person’s time frame. And what helps is for me to respect the other person and their wishes.

We talked it out and let it alone. And in the end we went to dinner anyway…..at her suggestion. I think that the acrimony and hurt convinced us that we both needed to put our self-will on hold and accept our differences. These broaching of boundaries are a clear indication of how much I need this program.

Boundaries

We had a good discussion on boundaries at last night's meeting. I've had to learn hard lessons with keeping boundaries because I've been a boundary breaker. I've been involved in a marriage in which I've had to gradually learn to establish boundaries. Before the marriage though, I knew that the relationship wasn't healthy for me.

In the beginning, I put a lot of time and emotional energy into the relationship. I was willing to sacrifice a lot and give much more than I got. That's definitely not a good thing and indicates my lack of boundaries. I basically let myself experience feelings of caring and love towards a very needy person who was an alcoholic. By not keeping any semblance of a boundary, I lost my own identity by giving so much of myself.

Probably my biggest lack of a boundary came from having an image of the way the perfect relationship is supposed to be. It was a fantasy and reality was far from pretty. This resulted in my giving, with the hope of having the fantasy become reality, but it never did. I had a belief that I couldn't fail and if I persisted, all would be okay.

I would like to think that I had an amazing core of strength and persistence that enabled me to crash the boundaries of others and not make any of my own. I think that the main motivator was fear. The fear that I had was of rejection and abandonment.

Through the Al-Anon program and some hard hitting advice from a close AA friend, I've learned that healthy boundaries will allow me to focus on myself, my own needs, and my personal integrity in relationships. By having boundaries, I'm able to have energy to focus on all aspects of my life instead of focusing on one person. I've also learned that I can't have a healthy relationship with my partner if I'm trying to fix or take care of them.

When dealing with those that I care about, I have to work at healthy intimacy but not over-dependency. I've been guilty of being dependent on another and thinking that I needed them in order to feel fulfilled and happy. By focusing on myself and respecting the boundaries of others, I have become more independent and have accepted responsibility for my own happiness. I can't get that from others. I've also learned that I need to be based in reality and accept my relationships for the way they are rather than the way that I want them to be.

One of the issues that I hear a lot when it comes to the alcoholic is that fear of letting go of the control in a relationship stems from thinking that the alcoholic will drink if their needs aren't met by another. This is particularly hard when the alcoholic makes a threat to do something to themselves if bourndaries are established. Fear makes it hard to establish boundaries because you've become a hostage to someone who is needy, helpless and manipulative. This is where Step One is so important because we cannot control or determine the outcome of the life of anyone else no matter how hard we try. The only thing I can control is my own thinking, feeling and actions. I need to hand my relationship partners' problems and needs and the outcomes of their lives over to the HP. Then, I can hope that the alcoholic accepts personal responsibility for their own life and the consequences of their own actions and decisions.