Here's some NA Literature that continues to help me a lot in my relationship issues... take what you can make use of and leave the rest

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Relationships keep us aware of the fact that we really do need each other. Meaningful and fulfilling relationships are possible. Although isolated by the disease of addiction, we long for friends, companions and lovers. We want to trust and to be trusted. With practice, we learn that taking healthy risks, letting down our walls, and being vulnerable are assets rather than liabilities. Each success strengthens us and each failure instructs. Any time that there is trust between two people a positive relationship can result. Honest communication and respect for one another enhances these relationships. We develop these virtues by working on ourselves with the Steps. We come to know and love ourselves. Our expanding definitions of love cause our relationships to improve. As we grow healthier, we find relief from the aspects of our personality that cause us trouble when we get close to others. One area of learning to live that addicts refer to most frequently and with the greatest pain and confusion is 'relationships'. It is hard to accept the responsibility of getting the stuff out of the way that prevents us from having happy relationships. Before we can enjoy this aspect of humanness, we have to let the changes settle into our hearts and take root there. Otherwise, we can only build our nests by instinct.

As we grow out of an immature need for love to a mature giving of love, we increase our capacity to care about others. When we learn to express our love, we feel loved in return. As we understand more about love, the more our relationships improve. We become less sensitive and suspicious with others. If there are upsets, we find ways to deal with them. We do not just duck and dodge problems. Everything that we did not face from our pasts will surface and magnify in our relationships. It has to become an issue for us in order for us to become willing to walk through it. When this happens, we need a sponsor and a home group to help us walk through the situation and make the necessary changes. Sometimes our members learn to interact like a healthy family. Not harsh or overbearing, they just stick by us and when we are ready for help, they are present, able and willing to help. Some members seem to like to be told what to do by someone they respect. Too often this ends in a predictable let down when the idiot who falls for it fails to give the proper instruction in some way as judged by the 'dependent' member, who then can anguish over how the 'program' let them down and they went back to using. Another, more widespread way of relating, involves sharing what worked for us with a surrendered addict seeking recovery who then strives to put into action the best they can and keeps asking help when they need it. Actually, all we can do is share what works for us. We can pattern after others successfully as long as we are alert and willing to do our part.

Our problems with relationships bring Twelve-Step recovery into the here and now for many of us. This is one more reason we do not hold back when working the Steps. We want our defects to come out so we can identify and get rid of them. Through living the Steps, out defects will not hurt others as often or cause us years of additional and unnecessary pain. This is why we do not share our advice, just honest sharing about what works for us. Even in recovery, our addictive nature forces us to feel hopeless as to whether a true personality change can happen for us. Our commitment to personal growth through prayer, helping others and working the Steps grows proportionally as our desperation fades.

Many of us have avoided relationships as a natural defense mechanism during active addiction. Positive interaction with other people had virtually disappeared because of our anti-social activities. We thought that even if a meaningful relationship could exist at all, it wouldn't happen for us. The more isolated we became; the more we needed a way to feel connected with the rest of the world. Addiction stole our identities. We suppressed our emotions, feelings and dignity slowly and deliberately until we existed only as a shadow of a human being. We sought ways to regain lost dreams and abilities but we only found more loneliness and misery. Nothing that we have tried seemed to work, especially the drugs. We began to question our very existence. The initial step in relating effectively to others is to realize that we do not and can not exist in a vacuum. While we may be dependent on others for much of our sense of well-being, this does not mean that we rely on others to provide our happiness. Knowing and feeling that others care for us reinforces the desire for recovery and encourages us to reach out. The spiritual nature of recovery moves according to a precise and comprehensive plan to secure for us what we need the most. If we are praying to God to work miracles in our lives, amazing things will happen. We have been doing things backwards for so long, that down looks like up and straight lines seem crooked! Although a relationship isn't the first thing that we have to have in recovery, many of us get into one as soon as we can although we are not ready for one. We might miss having a romantic relationship just as we miss not having a car. We have difficulty in accepting that either our license is suspended or we can not buy gas, in other words our responsibility in the situation. When we work the Program, we know that our turn will come when it is time.

Through a combination of many types of relationships with other recovering addicts, our sponsors, oneself, and the God of our understanding, our lives begin to fall into place. Many of us have found it best to develop a relationship with God first. As this relationship grows, we can better relate with all the others. As we pray and develop more faith, our relationship with the God of our understanding improves thereby making it easier to examine who we are. We found peace of mind when we surrendered to the First Step and some of us experienced a glimmer of hope following our first meeting. When we shared with that first person in recovery about our true feelings, we began to break through the fear toward healing our fractured personalities. Looking into another person's eyes and being able to see the empathy and understanding is a precious gift indeed. Perhaps our first positive relationship in recovery began when we simply became willing to listen to others. We faced head on our 'aloneness' and faced our need to change our ways. The next relationship began when we got a sponsor and learned how to have a healthy relationship with another human being.

We take an honest look at our regrets, resentments, defects and assets. We recall our lost hopes in writing about our past dreams, daily accomplishments, and future goals. By maintaining the awareness of our gifts and assets, we get a picture of ourselves that is honest and accurate. Sharing the vision of who we think we are with someone we trust is a key to our ongoing growth. When we share all of our weaknesses as well as strengths with at least one other person, we gain a new perspective. The more people that we interact with only helps this perspective to grow. Self-examination gives us the willingness to surrender our character defects and improve our character assets. We accept that others are blameless for our problems when we take personal responsibility for our lives. We learn to forgive ourselves as well as those who may have harmed us and we ask the forgiveness from those that we have harmed.

The ability to recognize when we are wrong and admit it to another person is an important quality in strengthening our relationships. When we only pray for knowledge of God's will, miracles will happen. The knowledge of our personal purpose plus a sense of that mission prepares us for whatever action is necessary. As we begin to feel worthwhile and fulfilled, we awaken to the fact that we are not alone in this world. Many of the self-imposed barriers to intimacy disappear as the grace of our Higher Power restores our spirit. From that point forward, we are ready, willing and able to live life. Whatever we lack inwardly can most quickly and painfully surface in our relationships. There isn't any doubt that love offers us the ultimate experience of affirmation and joy as well as the potential for depression and desperation. In other words, the possibility that character defects that we may yet be unaware of could devastate our relationships. These defects are some of the issues that we deal with in our ongoing recovery. Amends we cannot acknowledge or initiate create other internal barriers to pain or advancement. Only our NA 12 Steps can root them out.

Many of us have apparently developed a pattern in that all our serious relationships turn out to be only temporary love affairs. From these experiences, we sometimes learn more about ourselves than we care to know. We pick lovers who are emotionally unhealthy and even abusive or we may display these same traits ourselves. The experience of others is there to help us but we usually do just as we please based solely on whether we feel like the victimizer or the victim. When we realize that the relationship isn't working, we have already committed or we are so deeply involved that it is difficult or impossible to walk away. We hang in there trying to make it work and manage to convince ourselves that we are sticking with it long after we should have ended our love affair with dignity. It is then that we ask ourselves "Is this God's will or our ego?" Most of us realize that we have an inner voice that gives us direction but it takes commitment and practice to follow it. Some call this inner voice God and others call it instinct but it does not matter what we call it. We benefit when we listen to it.

Some of us have learned to support our weakened egos by tearing down those around us. In recovery, we have a chance to consider what we are doing and decide if we want to keep doing it. For instance, a lady who knows only how to chase and catch a man, may be quite lost when it comes to staying with them, sharing their lives and dealing with the many little things that come up. They know how to 'get' a man, not how to 'keep' one. They may make themselves feel ok by homing in on the failures or imperfections of the men they are with. If this ever made sense, what happens today is our concern. A person can never have a good mate if they systematically undermine them. It just can not happen. Learning a new way would be to take stock several times a day of our recovery, asking for the help of our HP and trying out things we see other ladies - who are happy and successful - doing.

Loving and depending on others for certain things is not in itself wrong or unhealthy. Taken to an extreme, we will try to push our responsibilities onto another person and that is terrible wrong. When we think we are free to avoid doing our part, we sabotage our own happiness. The love of another is empty if we do not love ourselves. Love cannot give us an identity. Over-dependency, exploitation, domination and subservience will cave in the strongest love. If we lack a HP, we will fear being alone. If we make peace with our life and world by coming to believe, all else will start to come together. It is the two keys of surrender and belief that open the doorway to a new life.

The longer we stay clean, the more we see how addiction interfered in our relationships. Most of us have grown slowly and we have experienced some painful mistakes even when we tried to do everything right. Seeking out those who are having successful relationships can provide us with guidance but the only way to learn about having a relationship is to have one. It is like learning how to drive because until we get behind the wheel, we can not get down the road. Often, we addicts are only vaguely aware of our defects and not yet able to see the actual impact that they have on our lives. Probably, the only accurate measure that we have in knowing that these defects are a problem is that things go wrong. Today, we understand that if something is wrong there are defects involved and that we are not necessarily unloving, uncaring, or unfeeling people. We must take care though to maintain our responsibilities and not cop out. These defects helped us avoid pain in the past by preventing others from getting close enough to hurt us. These defects need dismantling before we can reasonably expect relationships to work for us. Otherwise, we may end up hurting someone and then begging them not to leave us. We may want to ask ourselves, "Hey! What would happen if we were to stop hitting or yelling at our partners?" They might just stop fleeing from us!

Unfortunately, it is all too common for us to jump into a sexual relationship when we first get clean in an attempt to replace the high that we found with drugs or to avoid the pain of withdrawal. If we are not serious about recovery, we will not be able to stay clean through these behaviors. We get into these relationships for many reasons: orgasm, personal acceptance, as well as control issues but no matter the reason for getting into them, we may find ourselves in trouble. We discover that it is more important to know who we are so that we can initiate relationships with people who really care about us. We need to practice safe habits in all of our relationships and not merely in our sexual encounters. We do this by continuing to spend time with our friends and our sponsor. We shouldn't abandon our hobbies, interests or goals to impress our lover or to keep peace. Our relationships do not ensure our happiness or provide positive self-esteem especially if we have those expectations. By relying on our Higher Power and the NA Program, we can maintain self-reliance. We eventually realize that we have to work on ourselves if we want our relationships to get better. Our personal recovery depends on NA unity because we believe that we have a spiritual connection with each other. This belief motivates us to treat everyone with love and concern whether they are inside or outside the Fellowship. If we want the best for ourselves then we must give our best to the world.

One NA member shares, "I came into the rooms of NA about March 11, 1998, twenty months ago, for my second attempt to get clean. In September of 95, I came to NA after going through treatment and only achieved approximately sixty days clean time and decided I wasnt an addict and went back out there. I didnt follow any suggestions, work steps, etc. But most importantly, I didnt understand anonymity.

"When I came back into the rooms this time I was in total desperation. I was also in a relationship with a man who was in active addiction. I had been in this relationship for 2 ½ years. I realized I had a drug problem and sought help through treatment. He, on the other hand, was in total denial and vowed he could quit using anytime. I started going to meetings. I was serious about my recovery. I listened. I shared in meetings. I got a sponsor. Did 90 in 90. But this relationship was not working out. People in the rooms suggested, at the very least I needed to set some boundaries. I did. I truly believed he wasnt an addict. He honored my boundaries (or so I thought). But I still found us growing in separate directions. I continued this relationship for approximately four months.

"People in the rooms told me when the pain got bad enough I would either do something about it to better my chances at recovery or get loaded. I knew I didnt want to use. I discovered that this person whom I trusted and thought was changing his life too, was lying to me the entire time I had been clean. I had to make a choice. I prayed about it a lot. Then, one day, the answer came to me clear as a bell. I couldnt continue to save this relationship with an addict who was in complete denial. For the first time in my life, I put my needs first. I trusted the people in the rooms of NA who told me if I take care of myself, stay clean and come to meetings things would work out the way they were supposed to. I was terrified! I loved this man with all my heart but I knew until he could get honest about addiction that we didnt have a chance. He left and suddenly I found myself alone for the first time in my life. See, I always felt I needed a man in my life to make me feel whole. However, the friends and support I had found in NA saved my life. They were there to hold my hand, cry on their shoulder, and help me through this trying time.

"Even though I knew that I had done the right thing my heart was still broken because I loved the man and, since I had been coming to NA, I started learning about the disease of addiction, and how it takes over lives. The denial and self-deception are part of this disease of addiction. I felt bad for him but I knew that he had to hit rock bottom and realize on his own that he needed help. I didnt call or communicate with him at all after the break up. I continued to pray every day and night for God to help me get through this and to do the next right thing. Then after a short time apart, I realized that I was pregnant with this mans baby. I didnt know what to do.

"I leaned on my support from my friends in NA. I finally called him to let him know about the baby. He said some hurtful things and then hung up on me. I called his mother and informed her about the situation. I gave her a meeting schedule to pass onto him, and hung up the phone. I was devastated, however I knew that all that I could do was turn it over to my higher power, not use, and accept whatever happened. That night I went to a meeting. I was a little late and the meeting had already started when I got there. When I walked in the door, I saw him sitting there at a meeting. My heart sank. I sat in the back where he couldnt see me. Then after the meeting, we talked. He told me that he was sorry and that he realized he had a problem and wanted help.

"My first thought was to hug him and tell him that everything would be fine and lets go home. But I knew that if this was ever going to work out I had to know that he was doing this for himself and not to get me back. Since we were having a child together, I did make an effort to try and save this relationship. He had to prove to me that he wanted a new way of life and was willing to do whatever necessary to stay clean. We didnt move back in together for a while. He went to meetings, got a sponsor and stayed clean. After a lot of prayer and thought, we did get back together.

"Today we have a beautiful eight-month-old daughter. I now have 27 months clean now and he has 16 months clean. We both attend meetings daily, are involved in service work, etc. Most importantly, we make NA our life. We are both learning the true meaning of love. Our lives today are good. I do realize that this is probably an exception to the rule about early relationships. However, I do believe that my higher power knew that I was willing to go to any length for my recovery and eventually so was he.

"I truly believe that we are supposed to be together. Putting our recovery first before anything else and having some faith that by doing the next right thing that our higher power will take care of us and things will end up the way they are supposed to be was a lesson I learned early in my recovery. This relationship may not last forever, but this program has taught me Just For Today I am happy and it is working. And thats all we really have is today. And if tomorrow things all went to hell, I know that with the help of my higher power, and the love and support of NA, that as long as I put my recovery first everything is going to be ok. For that I am eternally grateful."