Zepp,
First off, Glad you are here! For myself relationships have been one of the harder things to deal with clean. When I first came around when we came to the part of "How It Works" where it says, "there is one thing more than anything else that will defeat us in our recovery,...." there was always a smart a** in the back of the room tht would holler RELATIONSHIPS!!! I understand why it is suggested that we wait 6 months or a year, and truthfully think longer would be better. I made some pretty unhealthy relationship choices to begin with, really not a surprise, because I didn't understand what a healthy relationshipo was. I didn't even have a good relationship with myself, how could I expect to have a good relationship with someone else?

I guess that is where learning to love myself came in. At about 1 1/2 or 2 years clean I was miserable enough due to my relationship choices that I sought out a new sponsor, someone who was willing to deal with more than the simple "Don't pick up the dope" issues. The only way I can describe finding him was that I looked for someone who seemed to be able to have an honest relationship with everyone he talked with, and was never phony, even with those people he didn't particularly like.

I knew right away he was the right one when I asked him why I couldn't seem to find a lady who was trustworthy, and he immediately commented "Where did I think I had learned to make those choices?" With loving guidence I learned that many of what he called my "core beliefs" were not really functional out in the real world. I thought that I was unloveable, unless I "earned" love, which led me to seek out those who thought that people needed to earn THEIR love. Kind of a self-fullfilling / self-defeating deal!

I suppose that what I am trying to say is that this is where the "searching & fearless" inventory comes in. To become ok with me, and to be able to treat myself with respect, required that I look at a lot of stuff from my past that was painful to deal with. However once all of the BS is delt with, we are able to move on and develop our own "core values/beliefs" that are healthier than those we held before. Today, for me, that includes knowing that love is not earned, but is freely given. And that I need to value myself enough to seek out healthier people to interact with, instead of the self-defeating behavior I used to engage in.

I apologize for being so long-winded, but this has been the most important part of my recovery, Digging at the "old beliefs" has freed me from the need to engage in the insanity of "Repeating the same behavior, and hoping for a different result."

Congratulations on 4 years! I know that when I am feeling sorry for myself, I am in a dangerous place, and I need to seek out a new wqay to live.

Lon

PS: Look at the "ACOA" meesage board on http://www.12stepforums.net/, it's that kind of stuff that I needed to look at!

-- Edited by Lon at 15:35, 2006-01-28