ok I don't get it I used to make friends so easy and now that is hard for me to do Ihave so much on my plate I am barely keeping my head above water and I am growing weary What is a healthy way to make friends??? well actually I can meet ppl just fine keeping them around now that's another
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Failure will never overtake me if my determination to succeed is strong enough. Og Mandino
I only have a few people i'd call friends . The few i have I share interests with and usually only get with them now and then. I have a couple that i share intimate details with and a few I share the common ground of addiction with.
I'm not really very close to anyone I live a life of solitude mostly LOL
Dear Manon, here's something from 12-Step literature that I regularly read and make use of. Sharing this with the help that it might help you too... As usual, as per the freedom we each have found in the fellowship, take what you think or feel you can make use of... AND LEAVE THE REST
"While investigating our social lives, we found that our social circle was limited to a very small group of people.
Some of us were not satisfied with the limited social network in our lives and were constantly on the hunt to get new people into our lives, letting our old relationships die, hoping that our lives would improve this way.
However, we discovered that our relationship problems were similar and recurrent be it with our old social circle or the new ones we replaced them with.
Thus we realized that even the death of old relationships and the birth of new ones did not guarantee or secure a successful and satisfactory social life for us.
Eventually, we had to stop seeking new people all the time, and begin working on our relationships with the people who were already there in our life.
As a result, our social life deepened, and we began to feel safer in our social life, letting others get to know our real self.
Gradually, as we let go of our dissatisfaction with the fact that we were powerless over the people in our life, we realized that we needed to learn to accept that the ones we wanted to be part of our social circle may have a path in life that excludes them from our social life, and others that we do not want as a part of our social circle would be there for us instead.
Many times, we discovered that a person we did not want in our social circle gave us exactly that information which was vital for our existential growth.
From these experiences, we understood that we were ignorant about who among our social circle were beneficial for our life.
Some of us hoped that if only we could find and unite with our significant other, our soul mate, all of our existential problems with our humanity would disappear.
But those among us who actually found such love and were living in such a relationship discovered that we had the same problems in our social life as everybody else.
We neither had control over our beloved nor over our coupleship.
In this way, once again, we came face to face with our dissatisfaction with the fact that we were powerless over other people and our relationship with them even when the love shared was complete and unconditional."
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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.
Here's some more that addresses the defect of Arrogance in Step Four but still is related to our social lives in a way...
When Arrogance gets active in us, we feel above others when our needs are met (Superiority), and below others when our needs are not met (Inferiority).
When we feel below others, we stay by ourselves to hide our vulnerability and our feelings of worthlessness (Isolation), or when we feel above others we fill up our time with people or activities excessively to exhibit our supremacy by the number of people and activities in our lives (Overextension).
When the principle of Truth becomes active in us, we feel that everybody is equally valuable to totality (Humility) even though we are not able to evaluate the full value of ourselves and others (Honesty).
Therefore we dont try to evaluate the value of ourselves or others but instead we find fellowship with others by finding that spot in ourselves where we recognize the emotions of others (Fellowship), while at the same time we accept that we and others may have different reasons to feel the way we do (Individuality).
-- Edited by Tahir on Monday 10th of August 2009 07:49:30 AM
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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.
Hi Manon, i try and keep it simple and within NA terms,
" our people pleasing behaviour carried us deepere into our addiction" and I try to stay concious of situation sn people with whom I display that pattern.
Generalizing is very wrong and each of us will have different needs. As I tried and noted all these years in the NA rooms, AA rooms, social clubs, events and festivals and neighbourhood it seems like many us wil be quite comfortable even if we are not surrounded by people, whereas other needs to have the many in their life, to feel contented on a daily basis.
Another factor is that wealth and success gives us recognition in social circles, and on the converse, if we dont really have too many friends we may feel low self-worth.
I am luck to be one of those who will welcome moments of solitude because I think solitude is bliss, and when I am with family and friends, I cherish those moments too.
I rememebr talking to a previous sponsor about these issues and he'd said " many of us march to a different drummer" and then he went on to say that balance is an intutive thing, we should let our Better Senses inform us when we need to be in our own company and when we need the company of others.
Like this day will be quite balanced too, the entire day was spent in study time and official work, whereas now Im leaving for the train station to meet another addict and together we will visit otherham, a town 10 miles away and do a NA meeting there, and then do some Fellowship after that ! Been quite a good day emotionally .
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Raman an addict clean and serene just for today in NA Worldwide ; live to love and love to live the NA Way !!!
Last nite and this day till 1.30 has been difficult, cannot hope for any sort of social life or going out. Ive been wracked by stomach pains, sleeplessness and vague images in my sleep that do not make any sense at all.
I do however associate that with the time when my younger bro and I were kids. We were in a cousins house, it was a bare house and a small one. There was nothing happening there, and I was overcome by a sense of boredom, of which I was terrified. them Those sort of feelings was what I never wanted to have and staved them ff later in my teens, the using days and in fact even well into recovery. In my teens it was rebelliousness, when I used it was smack, grass,LSD,booze and ganja and then in recovery too addiction manifested as spending unnecessarily,being an emotional person, and other compulsive behaviours in sex and society. Nowadays, Ive come to believe that in the greater schema of things in recovery, all feelings have to be felt. No more running towards social groups to overcome feelings of pain and no more holding great feelings close to my chest. My social life is good, and Im not afraid to be with myself !!!
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Raman an addict clean and serene just for today in NA Worldwide ; live to love and love to live the NA Way !!!
I still fel like an outcast a social leper if you will I can talkto anyone but with the (mental) problems Ihave on top of my addictionssss it makes it really hard to trust. once everything is said and done I will be able to write about what cripples me, till then I have my therapist to talk to and a few choice (real) friends but with them being normies there is only so much they can understand. I am so close to a nervous breakdown it's unreal. My insecurities due to the recent abuse I am going thru (due process is all that left) my mind is so scared to let someone in. I honestly don't know what to do. I met a musican who turned the poem I posted on here awhile back and turned it into music! I never thought I would hear something I wrote in such a beautiful manner. I was amazed. yea and Ilike him kinda the fantasy of our names on the same CD side by side I guess just like all girls Idream. But he and I are clearly not ready for commitment and have fully discussed this, So is it okay to dream a little dream or is it best to stay in today? ya know I wrote that i think I answered my own ? I do that often lol. b4 ???I write abook cause right now Icould so much onmy mind just wanna make sense of it all and I know it's not going to happen over nnight But DAMN forgive the typosI would usually go fix em jus not in the mood. gonna make kyself walk to the mail box love ya family
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Failure will never overtake me if my determination to succeed is strong enough. Og Mandino