Over the last three years of my married life, many a times, I would never be able to understand why my wife was never comfortable with the fact that I sometimes had to go with the NA boys for an outing or two. My wife is also NA but there were no other NA members of her sex to do the same till sometime back...
I tried to explain her many a times that I have to have this support community, that I need to bond with other members of the same sex at times as part of my nourishment, and doing so actually lends a healthy balance to our relationship etc. The fact remained that she could not do the same even if she wanted to. Still, my inability to think beyond myself would make me think that she is just not fair there, that she must be alright when I do go out for some 'only-men' fun with other NA members...
Now, there are half a dozen women members in NA here by God's grace, and today, they have gone out on their first NA women's retreat outside the town at a hill resort. I'm glad that at last my wife and other women members also get to experience what we guys freely do any time we wanted, that they have someone who can nod their heads in agreement when they share something instead of we guys lifting our eyebrows and creasing our foreheads wondering what the hell is she sharing about... lol...
Now, she is gone only for a couple of hours now and I already feel so very off at my work, and am in no mood to pick even my breakfast yet even though it's way beyond noon here. I have already messaged her thrice, and expect her to keep messaging to me all the time instead of enjoying herself with others there at the retreat
NOW I KNOW... NOW I UNDERSTAND HOW SHE FEELS WHEN I GO ON A SIMILAR NA MEN'S GET-TOGETHER WITH MY SPONSEES OR A FEW BACHELOR MEMBERS HERE WHO DON'T EVEN KNOW HOW TO BE IN THE COMPANY OF WOMEN!!!
Anyways, glad that the women here are also going to start a women's weekly meeting here, and have started fellowshipping regularly. As a result, I see a different person in my wife, she feels more nourished, more glad that she has women in the fellowship too now... A sense of belonging has finally set in her that I so desperately wanted her to get in the local fellowship here from 3 years back when she moved in to India from Copenhagen...
Just felt like sharing
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"If we do an honest examination of exactly what we are giving, we are better able to evaluate the results we are getting."Chapter 10 - Emotional Pain - NA Way of Life.
Thank you so much for your honest share. It's nice to see that lessons can be learned and understandings reached without necessarily hitting rock bottom.
I am learning much from my spouse as well. He just returned from his annual Vipassana retreat and has been sharing his experience with me. It is quite enlightening and has been helping me to see how distracted I am from myself and my spirit. I'm always busy and don't take enough time to feel, to process. When I do have quiet time, it is very difficult to turn off the thoughts that make my quiet time not so quiet. I may just end up joining him in his meditation.
Nice share, Tahir. And I hope you two can begin to get used to eachother's absence from time to time. For me in my marriage, "Absence makes the heart grow fonder". I live in Ohio in the U.S., and am heading to Florida (1,000 miles away) for a week with my dad later this month. I know my husband will miss me and I shall miss him, but I am SO looking forward to getting away for the week.
I did a lot of work years ago on codependency. It was so very much a part of my addictive personality. I read books by Melody Beatty (sp?) and I am no longer in "pain" or "fear" when I am apart from my mate. I have learned how to enjoy the time and recall my own individuality.
So refreshing to hear someone share about codependency in a NA setting, Joni. Thanks. My Sponsor once told me that the next big issue that an addict has to work the steps on after having done it on addiction is codependency. Yet, I don't hear of this inherent problem that is part of many a human beings. Maybe, because we tend to associate the word "codependency" with co-addicts and thus narrow it's meaning much lesser than what it actually means... I've also been part of the 12 Step Fellowship of of RCA (Recovering Couples Anonymous) for more than 2 years now. There as well as the insights passed on by my first NA Sponsor who also has a working CoDA program over the years has helped me work a lot on my codependency - that subtle role-shifting in context of my loved ones from Seducer to Savior to Offender to Victim telling myself that all these are justified virtues that I'm actually practising with my loved ones... lol...
One of my online RCA friends from USA actually took the effort of sending across Melodie Beattie books to me as a gift you know, I so much appreciate that and am really grateful to her for passing on that very vital treasure of information about codependency to me
Very frequently even now I work on the rings of savior complex and sobriety that my first Sponsor passed on to me, very effective tool to work with in context of codependency... In the illness of codependency, it's said that the drug is "people-pleasing" and the high is "Praise"... likewise, sometimes, the drug is also "sacrifice" and the high is "either feeling victimized or offending the other for not acknowledging the sacrifice"...
Somewhere in our NA literature I have read that many of the ideals and principles that we developed over the years in our life, we continue to practise them in recovery too. But when we put these principles through the purifying test of Steps 4, 5 and 6, we realize that actually many of these principles, idealogy and morality that we believed in were disguised dsyfunctional patterns that we had seen others around us speak and do over the years while growing up and started imitating them or which we picked up as a resulting of our traumatic experiences... these need to go as they are actually defects that deceive and manifest us as "good" things... When I went through this process personally, many aspects about me that I thought were very good ones I realized were actually a codependent behavior... I had to retain what stands true after running them through the cleansing steps and discard those attitudes and behaviors that were actually nothing but my disease in another undetectable form
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"If we do an honest examination of exactly what we are giving, we are better able to evaluate the results we are getting."Chapter 10 - Emotional Pain - NA Way of Life.
Codependency does indeed transfer the control part of being an addict onto my relationships. And my recovery suffers greatly any time I cannot "give up control" of my circumstances. I am caught in a cycle of holding others hostage, or being a hostage, without taking a drug. And the person who holds me back is ME.
My drug of choice is "MORE", and when the "MORE" is affection or love or 'good behavior on another's part', I am very much placing my ability to be at peace on something outside myself. And all the while I think I am working a good program, when really I am not practicing acceptance in all my affairs.
Good stuff. Now where are my Melody Beattie books at...? (off to go look for them.)
Hey BigV, that's the most inspiring and motivating chapter of the Basic Text, my favorite one when I'm down and out... Somehow reading "More Will Be Revealed" has always been a magical effect on me, motivating me to continue to work the program instilling and reaffirming a lot of hope, faith and trust in the NA program
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"If we do an honest examination of exactly what we are giving, we are better able to evaluate the results we are getting."Chapter 10 - Emotional Pain - NA Way of Life.
My brother inlaw whos got about 15 years clean in NA says it all the time , what an inspiration he is to me I especially admire him for marrying my sister LOL, we both have high maintenance super runway model girls so now I can REALLY relate to him
Theres a lot of good stuff in that book I hope everyone gets past the first 52 pages and reads on, it explains a lot of things and has valuable teachings.
