It is Christmas Eve here, but I don’t feel like making posts about Christmas or send Christmas quotes, although the fireworks here just fifteen minutes ago made me search for a fireworks quote. I couldn’t find an inspirational though, so I decided to send something else.
Ah yes, and that brought me to forgiveness, something I still have a lot of difficulty with. But that may be related to my codependency, as I understand I need to learn to accept mistakes or something. And today I participated in a meeting of Codependents Anonymous, which at first scared me a lot as it makes me think of alcoholism as it is related to Alcoholics Anonymous. And one of the fears I had was ‘being sick’ as I don’t consider myself sick. And of course alcoholism scares me, as I guess it does many people, as it is no fun being an alcoholic or dealing with one. I had a friend once who was alcoholic and it was terrible to see what was going on. And I couldn’t do anything, I really felt powerless. As I found out that just throwing the alcohol away didn’t make any difference. Or even talking about it or asking my friend to throw it away, which he may have done at that moment, but I don’t remember the details.
But slowly I am starting to see the benefits of participating and indeed admitting to myself and to the group “I am Guus and I am codependent”, as that is how you are supposed to start to share. And it took me a while as ‘I am not just codependent’ and I don’t like labels, any labels, and certainly not of some weird sickness. But somehow I got there and I am starting to see the reason to start sharing like that. As somehow it is very liberating to admit something in that way because then you can start dealing with it. And of course it doesn’t mean something like “I am only co-dependent”. And as one of the group members pointed out to me, everybody has ‘something’, everybody is different and has ‘negative’ things he or she needs to find ways to deal with. And of course it is completely irrelevant if it is a sickness or not: I am very unhappy and have been so most of my life and if these meetings, these steps can help me be more happy, then why not. On the contrary.
And what kept me going and what finally made me kind of participating now are the promises that are given. And somehow something seems to have changed, not a lot, but changed. As I think this is the first time in my life that I belong somewhere, that there is a group of people that just listen to me and seem to have similar feelings and maybe experiences. So isn’t that wonderful, having a feeling of belonging, having a group of people happy listening to you and you listening to them?
Yes, those twelve steps programs seem to be really powerful, as I understand there are many of them. So if there is something you want to deal with or improve, maybe you could look for such a group. And related to the people welcome in Codependents Anonymous are just people with the intention to have better relationships, with themselves and with others. And who wouldn’t want that?
And yes, alcoholism still scares me. But if you have problems with alcohol, and deep within you you know, then you may just participate in one of the programs or groups of Alcoholics Anonymous. As I guess that would be the same experience I have now: finally some kind of a solution for a problem I can’t solve on my own.