Co-Dependents Anonymous Step 3:
"Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understand God."
Co-Dependents Anonymous Promise 3:
"I know a new freedom."
Fake it til you make it keeps running through my mind as I wake up everyday to the realization that things will never be the same as they were before.
I found myself writing that like Jack in The Shining; "Things will never be the same as they were before." Over and over and over. It was scary at first, one of those moments where you start to think you might actually be tip-toeing towards some serious meltdown(s). But it's all part of the healing/recovery process. Denial, bargaining, anger, depression, and acceptance. Now that I look over some old notes like the one mentioned above I start to see the acceptance kicking in.
And I have no idea how to describe it; for once in my life I don't know how to word something and it's probably because I've never experienced anything like this before. It's the definitive name/reason/source of my behavior and all the crazy shit I'd been doing up until a few months ago. It's like someone breathing new life into me. There's actually a reason, no matter what that may be, worth looking forwards to in my life.
The best I can do to describe what's happening to me is to say that it's...abstract. Like looking at a shattered glass on the floor and knowing that each shard belongs to one another; that the concept of autonomy no longer applies. You know it can be a glass once more, whole again. But picking up all those pieces takes a long time and as a friend recently reminded me...it hasn't been that long since I dropped that glass. I'd say I'm just now figuring out how to assemble the big broken pieces.
It's good, bad, painful, relieving and so much more. Occasionally I figure out another connection between one event and another and sometimes I get overly eager and cut myself on those pieces of glass in my zeal to understand the why. That's when I have to start over. I have to do my step work, stop looking at pictures, and pick up the 2000 pound phone and call my sponsor, family, or friends. It takes strength to know when you need help and to accept it.
The third step isn't an active process, or if it is, it's only a small percentage. It's probably the easiest step I've experienced thus far. All you have to do is make a decision to surrender control over the things we think are completely ours. That's it. Just say "yes" or "no." It's like taking the blue pill or the red pill. You can go deeper, experience pain and fear you never thought you were capable of alongside contentment and joy...or you can just go back to the safe, cozy, and inevitably chaotic life you once lived.
There's dogma within CoDa but it's as supple or rigid as we allow it to be. Nobody said I had to believe in some bearded dude with sandals or all 8,439 different version of messiahs and gods. Just "as we understand God." My understanding is changing everyday, and I don't need to share that with anyone. It's mine and I treasure it too much to try and word something that just is. Suffice it to say that my God doesn't throw lightening or raze entire cities. My god just...is.
A new freedom. There is, I'm slowly finding out, a small glimmer of hope in my world. And the scariest thing is...it's working.
I used to hate it when people preached in my support group about the energy or love they felt in the room. That's not tangible. I can't smell love, I can't hear it being carried by the wind. Some may argue that you can taste it and I'll just leave that one alone. But as I was leading the support group (something I volunteered for for the month of June)....goddammit if I didn't feel just the tiniest little spark go off.
It was quick, like a grey blur in your peripheral vision. I saw something but I can never prove it actually existed; just that I felt it for a moment.
I sent an email to a person who is important to me. I asked for an address so as to send a graduation gift. It was difficult; having to initiate that conversation. I just swam around in this little pool by my home thinking it over and over. All the possibilities my amazing mind can imagine....right. But then I remembered a few words from my sponsor: "thinking's what got us into this mess in the first fucking place." All the over-analyzing and intellectualization of things so as to try and place my flag in that emotional unknown. T call it mine and feel safe & secure for once.
It-never-worked.
So as I was swimming tiny laps, a big fish in a little pond, I just stopped thinking and, floating there with a clear blue sky overhead, I surrendered a little bit of that control I thought I had. I asked for help. It takes strength to know when to ask for help even if it's from something bigger than myself but is of myself all at once. Love. That's all I got. Just a word and it...seemed right. I got out of the pool, wrote the email without trembling through the process and sent it off.
I still haven't heard from this person and while a part of me feels saddened by this I've also decided not to let myself be carried away by that irrational emotional mind that can creates the most emo novels out of my present circumstance. Because I love myself... for once. I can live with the outcome. It doesn't change how I feel but it allows me to live my life without partitioning bits of myself to others, hoping they'll save me.
I simply don't know why this person hasn't responded. Maybe she's moved on, decided we shouldn't speak anymore? Could be that she's so busy that she simply hasn't had the time or any other thousands of possibilities. The point is that, while I still check my email to see if that's changed, I no longer obsess about it. I surrendered that part of me.
The sleeper awakens and knows that he's been living a dream and a nightmare at times. With that realization comes the privilege of truly living ones life as it was meant to be; precious & free.
There have been few "aha!" moments in my recovery. It's been slow, gradual, and cellular but it's good to see that it's actually working. That only 4+ months of CoDa has changed my life. 6+ months of sobriety and being on my own have given me a new kind of strength I never knew I had.
I was so afraid of heights when I was young so I decided that someday I'd jump out of a plane. Having done that twice now I no longer fear heights like I used to. I guess it's the same with emotions to some extent. I was so scared of being alone for so long and when I volunteered for the experience I found my fears heightened, new degrees of anxiety, and a depression so severe I almost took my own life over it. It's sorta like the risk I take when I jump out of a plane, maybe the chute won't open this time? But fuck it; better to have tried and failed smiling all the way down as opposed to never knowing how great you can be.
All this feels strange and new. Still scary as shit and I have my bad days like any other person but it's getting better, I am getting better. I'm becoming healthier. Despite all the things I want, I'm starting to learn to surrender.
And there is a difference between giving up and surrendering. Giving up means you never even tried before submitting. Surrendering means you stormed the gates, besieged the ramparts, and withdrew when you saw that you'd engaged in a battle that you could never win. Then it is time to surrender having done the best you can ever do. How else could you be?
So I surrender, I'll parlay and bring my ceremonial sword to the enemy-in-me and say I've had enough. There's nothing within that place worth fighting and dying for. All the gold in the world won't change a mans soul and neither will any one person. Become your own treasure, become something worth fighting, loving, and surrendering to with grace and integrity.
The Sleeper awakens.
-Ian
