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It used to be that when things would happen I’d decide, “It means this.” This was especially true of negative things, but sometimes also true of good things. I’d place a meaning on something and then continue on with my life as if that meaning was the absolute and eternal truth. Recovery taught me that frequently, I was making things mean things that they don’t.

I came to see that I often don't have all the information about a situation and when I don’t, I fill in the gaps. Typically, I make some kind of assumptions. Given that I had a deeply entrenched victim mentality for the majority of my life, the meaning was about how I’d get the shit end of the stick in whatever situation was occurring. Or if it was positive, the meaning I’d place on the situation would be that I was somehow the hero because of my arrogant nature. Mind you, I don’t want to have these mentalities, but I do. They’ve decreased massively since recovery, but I still think like this occasionally. I now catch those thoughts most of the time, but I don’t think they’ll ever entirely go away.

I really only have my own personal perspective about something. I don’t know what other people’s motives are. Hell – I’m sometimes not even sure what my motives are, so how can I know what other people’s motives are??

Here’s an example of making things mean things that they don’t which you may have heard me share before. One Christmas I got a gift from my sweetheart, and he told me he didn't have time to wrap it. I was fine with that, but in the past, I would have made that mean he doesn't love me or care about me or he’d wrap my present beautifully in Christmas wrapping paper with bows and ribbons. 

What’s cool about recovery is that not only do I no longer make something as benign as an unwrapped gift mean that someone doesn’t love or care for me, but I can also see that that’s how I used to think. It helps me see “my part” in the dysfunction of my life. Prior to recovery, I wasn’t even aware that I thought like that.

Recovery showed me I had lots of distorted thinking and unrealistic expectations. I now understand that the way for me to know how people feel about me is the way they treat me over time. It’s not contained in one simple act.

My inner critic seems to want me to be miserable. One of the ways it does that is it tells me things, in my own voice, to keep others at a distance. My mind still tells me f-d up stuff about people sometimes, I just know not to listen to it anymore.

Here’s more about that unwrapped Christmas gift. It was a microphone with a built-in speaker. I can magnify my voice with the flick of a switch! What's really incredible about that is that my entire life I was told I was too loud. I came to believe that was too much. So to have somebody who loves me give me a gift that validates who I am and gives me the message that I need to be heard, and my voice needs to be magnified, THAT is an incredible gift!

If I had made it mean that the unwrapped gift meant that he didn't love me, I would have been so stuck on that that I would have had no appreciation for the value of the gift. The gift was so much more than a microphone – it was seeing that he knows me and what my wounds are.

This is a great example to illustrate having unspoken standards. Before recovery, I wanted beautifully wrapped presents. But I never told anybody that. I expected them to “know” and then if they didn't do it, I made it mean, “they don't really love me.”

Are you doing that sort of thing? Ask yourself where, when, and with who you might be doing this. that. The best way this kind of thinking can be cleared up is to directly communicate with people. That is if they say something that you’re unclear how to interpret, come right out and directly ask them what they meant. Or say something like, “I don’t know what that means” and let them respond. 

Through recovery, I've learned that I don’t have to assign a rigid meaning to everything, especially when it’s based on old patterns of thinking. Instead, I can seek clarity and communicate directly. This shift has allowed me to build healthier relationships and experience more joy and connection in my life.

If you find yourself making things mean more than they really do, I encourage you to pause and ask for clarity. You might be surprised at how much easier life becomes when you let go of assumptions and focus on understanding rather than guessing. Recovery has shown me that the meaning we assign to things is not set in stone—it’s something we can question and reshape. And that, dear friends, is a gift in itself.

For more posts like this go to: Fridayfragments.news

I know sometimes people gag when they hear the term “affirmations.” I get it. You can’t just sit around saying “I’m rich” and get rich. That’s not what affirmations are for. They’re for clearing up the negative stuff that’s often swirling in the background of our minds – often for decades.

I wasn’t even aware I had negative self-talk until I was in my late 20’s. I was reading When Food Is Love by Geneen Roth (yes, I was a compulsive overeater even back then, but I didn’t know it). She wrote out some of the negative things her clients said to themselves and when I saw those words on the page I thought, “Oh my God! I say that shit to myself all the time!!!”

I wasn’t even aware all that negativity was playing in the background. I felt like I liked myself and had high self-esteem. I thought, “I guess I have a dual self-image.” I think that’s true for many of us. There are a couple of sayings in 12-step recovery that reflect that experience. One is, “I’m an egomaniac with an inferiority complex” and the other is “I’m the piece of shit that the world revolves around.” So I’m not alone in that. given that there’s more than one saying to describe the experience.

If you’ve spent decades telling yourself what a piece of shit you are, and you want your life to improve, you’re going to have to spend some time replacing those negative thoughts. The replacement thoughts are called affirmations because they’re affirmative, rather than negative.

“A negative mind will never give you a positive life.”

Think about it – if you’ve walked around thinking “I’m not enough” or “I’ll never catch up” or “I can never do anything right” how could you possibly feel like enough, caught up, or like you’ve done something right when these “programs” are playing in the background all the time?!

I’ve been saying affirmations of various kinds for years, and what’s really cool is when they become my “go-to” thoughts. Here’s an example from my life. Unlike most people in recovery who have low self-esteem and think they’re not enough, I tend to be grandiose and arrogant.

I don’t want to have those thoughts, I just do. I really think it’s just the opposite side of the coin of low self-esteem. Instead of not enough, I think “I’m too much.” It’s just another way of saying I’m not the right amount of something. There’s something wrong with me.

For me, the game changer in regard to that particular negative thought was when I was in a Y12SR class (Yoga for 12-Step Recovery) and the teacher took us through an exercise to help us determine our “Sankalpa.” Sankalpa is a Sanskrit word which means an intention or resolution. It’s a vow and commitment we make to support our highest truth. She asked us to write down, in a short phrase, the major issue that has plagued you for most of your life.

For me, it was “I’m too much.” We were then asked to come up with a phrase, a Sankalpa, that is the opposite of that short phrase that had plagued us forever. I fiddled with it for a while, and eventually, it morphed into “I’m just the right amount of everything.” Game changer!!!

When I first came up with it, I said it all the time. Now, I hardly ever say it because I’ve deeply internalized this notion. That is, it’s shifted from something I think to something I believe. And that, my friends, is magic. ✨ 

Beliefs are thoughts you’ve been thinking so long you eventually come to accept them as true: You believe them.

Every time I was in a situation where I felt the need to back off, become small, or not share what was really going on with me, I said to myself “I’m just the right amount of everything.” After saying it very regularly, even when I was not feeling like too much, and as part of my morning routine, I eventually came to believe it. I realized that for some people, I am too much. And guess what? Those are not my people! They get to not be my people, and I don’t need to make it mean anything about me. No one gets to decide how much “enoughness” anyone can or “should” be.

Going from negative thoughts to affirmations is a process. It takes time. You weren’t born thinking you’re not enough or too much, you were programmed! It’s time to change that programming and it’s going to take a while. 

What’s required is that we be persistent with our affirmative statements. You don’t have to believe your affirmation statements at first, you just have to keep saying them. If you simply won’t allow yourself to be consistent because you can’t believe the new statements, you can scaffold your thoughts. That is, you can go from a negative statement to a neutral statement, then eventually to a positive statement. 

Here's an example:

Negative: I’m always broke
Neutral: I have some money
Positive: Money flows to me easily and effortlessly from expected and unexpected sources.

If you simply will not repeat positive statements about things like money, then you can scaffold your way to something from something neutral from something negative.

Ask-firmations: a new kind of affirmation

I was recently introduced to the concept of “ask-firmations” by a client. The idea is that, instead of making affirmative statements, you ask yourself good questions. They’re essentially affirmations in the form of a question. I’ve also heard this called Lofty Questions of Vishen Lakhiani, the founder of Mind Valley. 

My take on why these work is this: ask shitty questions, get shitty answers. Ask good questions, and get good answers. If you keep asking, “Why can’t I ever get things right?” you’ll search for answer to that question. But if you start asking questions like, “Why am I continually getting things right?” your subconscious mind will go about the job of searching for answers. As it’s said, “Seek and ye shall find.” When you look for good things, you’ll find good things. When you look for shitty things, you’ll find shitty things. This is why a gratitude practice is so helpful in turning your mind and your life around. You look for good things and find them.

If you’d like to start on some affirmations, you can listen to this podcast episode for a whole bunch, or you can listen to some askfirmations I created for people who are working on their boundaries.

For more posts like this go to: Fridayfragments.news

The Ely Center of Contemporary Art, in downtown New Haven, has an opening effective November 2024, for a Treasurer, when its current Treasurer completes his term.

https://elycenter.org/employment23

Please see link with details. Nominations and expressions of interest may be sent to Board Secretary Dan Burns.

daniel.burns100@icloud.com Subject:  ECOCA Board Treasurer Inquiry.

Thank you. 

We Love What Makes You Unique

Your perspective fuels our mission-driven work at United Way of Greater New Haven. We are committed to building a team that is inclusive across race, gender, age, religion, identity, and lived experience. As an organization, we are committed to addressing systemic racism and injustice in our community, our partnerships, and our practices. 

Who We Are Looking For

Are you passionate about community building and bringing people together for good? Do you enjoy executing fun and engaging activities that will inspire members of our community to provide their time, talents, and resources to further our mission?

If so, our Volunteer & Engagement Coordinator position may be perfect for you! United Way of Greater New Haven is in search of a new Volunteer & Engagement Coordinator who will primarily help execute volunteer events within our 12-town service area, along with tabling at community events and providing additional support across the Marketing & Engagement team. This position will also help provide tech support for our new 30|30 Experience, a virtual financial hardship simulator.

What you’re great at:

• You are a great communicator and well-organized. At volunteer activities and tabling opportunities, you will be the point person for United Way. As part of this role, you will be expected to speak to groups of up to 25 volunteers and community members to share United Way’s work. You will help craft and send volunteer email communications, solicitations, and thank you cards.

• You are tech savvy. You are comfortable with technology and will use your skills to update volunteer postings on United Way’s website, manage volunteer registrations, and communicate with volunteers to share key details about each activity. You will help maintain an organized United Way volunteer database. You are comfortable using Zoom, can manage the backend of a Zoom meeting/webinar, and can help meeting attendees troubleshoot tech problems.
  
  
• You are comfortable with social media. We’re looking for someone who can navigate social media and highlight our volunteers’ impact on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, and LinkedIn. By showcasing our various volunteer projects, you will help raise community awareness and expand UWGNH’s reach.
• You’re a team player. The Volunteer & Engagement Coordinator will collaborate with different departments within the organization to develop new ways to partner with community organizations, local businesses, and individuals looking to give back to the community. As part of the Marketing & Engagement department, you will be a part of weekly team meetings and will report to the Volunteer Manager. And of course, there will be other duties as assigned.

What You Need

• Experience in event coordination, fundraising, volunteer engagement, community engagement preferred or 2+ years related professional experience.
• Excellent organizational skills and a sharp attention to detail.
• Ability to manage many concurrent projects, prioritizing and planning for highest productivity.
• Skills to establish and maintain high quality relationships with a variety of stakeholders and create a consistent, positive experience for volunteers and organizations at every touch point.
• Experience connecting community outreach to fundraising success.
• A positive, team-focused, can-do attitude with a commitment to excellent customer service.
• Comfortable speaking to groups. Experience working with volunteers preferred.
• Video conferencing/ webinar tech support and set-up (particularly Zoom experience).
• Proficient with MS Office365, including Word, Excel, and Teams and demonstrated comfort in learning new software/ online tools as needed.
• Experience with CRM databases and online giving platforms; Salesforce experience a plus.
• Knowledge of various social media platforms including Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, TikTok.
• Experience with Canva preferred but not necessary.
• Ability to work with diverse staff and volunteers.
• Personal qualities of integrity, credibility, and dedication to the mission of UWGNH. 
• Valid driver's license and reliable transportation required.
• The ability to lift 40 lb. boxes to a height of 3-4 feet and load them into and out of vehicles as necessary for volunteer projects.
• Occasional evening and weekend availability required.

In accordance with organizational policies, this position requires a criminal background check as a condition of employment.

United Way staff are currently working hybrid, this position is expected to work at least three days per week in our office in New Haven.

The pay range for this role is $42,000 – $45,000.

About United Way

United Way of Greater New Haven brings people and organizations together to create solutions to Greater New Haven’s most pressing challenges in the areas of Education, Health, and Financial Stability grounded in racial and social justice. We tackle issues that cannot be solved by any one group working alone. We operate according to these organizational values.

United Way is an Equal Opportunity Employer.

Don’t check off every box in the requirements listed above? Please apply anyway! Studies have shown that marginalized communities - such as women, LGBTQ+ and people of color - are less likely to apply to jobs unless they meet every single qualification. United Way of Greater New Haven is dedicated to building an inclusive, diverse, equitable, and accessible workplace that fosters a sense of belonging – so if you’re excited about this role but your past experience doesn’t align perfectly with every qualification in the job description, we encourage you to still consider submitting an application. You may be just the right candidate for this role or another one of our openings!

To apply: Careers | United Way of Greater New Haven (uwgnh.org)

City Gallery is pleased to present ABSTRACTIONS, a collection of new work by member artist Judy Atlas. The show runs September 6 – September 29, with an Opening Reception on Sunday, September 8 from 2-4 p.m. The artist will be in the Gallery on Saturday, September 28 to meet with visitors and answer questions.

There are two approaches in creating abstract art: representational abstractions which have some reference to physical reality, and nonrepresentational abstractions, which are more intuitive in approach and process, involving exploration and discovery.

There are examples of both of these approaches in ABSTRACTIONS. Atlas's Mykonos paintings are representational, inspired by the natural beauty on the islands of Greece. While her collages and other paintings are great examples of nonrepresentational abstractions.

For the collages, Atlas “deconstructed and tore apart some of my old paintings and monotypes and used these pieces to reconstruct the new abstract art pieces.” In a separate series of paintings, she explores the use of lines, color, shapes and texture to intuitively create an expression of sensations, emotional and physical.

Atlas has studied with Lora Lee Bell, Graziella De Solodow and Barbara Harder at the Creative Arts Workshop in New Haven, and also attended intensive workshops with Steve Aimone in Maine. She taught painting, abstraction, and collage classes at the Creative Arts Workshop for 20 years and has recently retired from teaching. Her work has been included in numerous solo, group, invitational and juried shows in Connecticut. She has been a member of City Gallery since 2008.

The ABSTRACTIONS exhibit is free and open to the public. It runs September 6 – September 29, with artist events on Sunday, September 8 and Saturday, September 28. City Gallery is located at 994 State Street, New Haven, CT 06511. Gallery hours are Friday - Sunday, 12 p.m. - 4 p.m., or by appointment. For further information please contact City Gallery, info@city-gallery.org, www.city-gallery.org.

Photo Credit: Getty Images

Mentoring has been practiced for millennia. It’s a fantastic way to build community, groom new leaders, forge ties between various groups, pass on institutional knowledge and culture, and feel connected to others. I’ve learned a ton about both being mentored and being a mentor in 12-step recovery through what’s called “sponsorship” in recovery. The most basic model of sponsorship in recovery is that you “find someone who has what you want and ask how s/he got it.” If the conversation goes well, you ask them to be your sponsor, and if they say yes, they take you through the 12 steps.

In some 12-step recovery programs, people are told that if someone asks, “Will you sponsor me?” you must say yes. As a former people-pleaser and rescuer, that doesn’t work for me. I’d have 50 sponsees if that was the case! So the main message I have for you here is:

Whatever mentoring relationship you get into, it needs to work for YOU!

It doesn’t matter if that’s a sponsorship relationship in 12-step recovery, career mentorship, spiritual mentorship, or a right-of-passage program. If the mentoring relationship doesn’t feel right to you, you don’t have to stay in it. It doesn’t matter whether you’re the mentor or the mentee. You get to be in a mentoring relationship that fits you, feels right, and you’re getting something substantial out of it.

I’m going to share my experience of sponsoring and being sponsored with some recommendations. Just as with everything I share, take what you want and leave the rest. My way is right for me, it might not be right for you.

Recommendations about mentoring relationships

If you're the mentor and feeling completely drained because you have too many mentees or other responsibilities, or your mentees need more from you than you’re willing and able to give, you can let people go. You could also change the way you do things. Perhaps start a group mentoring situation. Being a mentor should enhance your life, not detract from it. If you decide to let them go, you might try to help them find another mentor.

If you’re a mentee and feel like your mentor is just not getting you, not helping you, or you feeling crappy every time you talk to them, you can let them go. It's okay to do that. It's likely that over the course of your life, you’ll have multiple mentors. Some could be in different areas of your life, some could be in different stages of your life. In fact, having a coach is much like having a mentor except that mentors are typically not paid. Sometimes people work together with the same mentor for decades, and some people go from mentor to mentor. It's an individual thing, there’s no one right way for everyone.

If you’re the mentee, you get a say in whether the person mentors you or not. If someone says, “I’m going to be your mentor” you don’t have to agree. It’s unhealthy for people to foist their help onto others. We get to consent to whatever types of help we accept.

Getting started with mentoring

In choosing who might be your mentor, it’s good to look for someone who has the kind of life you want. This could be the kind of career, family, spiritual life, or recovery that you want. Whatever the area is that you’re seeking mentorship, they should be doing well in a way that you admire. When you find someone like that, speak to them and tell them what you admire about them, and ask if they’d be willing to be your mentor. Consider trying it out on a temporary basis, which might be best for both of you to get started. It will also be easier to let the relationship go if necessary when you start with an understanding that it’s temporary. 

Whether you decide to try out the mentorship temporarily or on a longer-term basis, perhaps check in at the 30-day point and again at the 90-day point to make sure it’s working for both of you. I recommend putting the onus on the mentor to do the check-in and to do it via email to make it as easy as possible for the mentee to bow out of the relationship if they choose to do that.  

Personally, I think it’s important to wait to get a mentor until you find one you really like. That way it’s much more likely to be a good match than if you just get a mentor to get a mentor. However, in 12-step recovery programs for addiction to substances like drugs or alcohol, you could possibly die if you go one more day without a sponsor. Keep that in mind. 

Take what works and leave the rest

The way the person gives you guidance is also important. You’re an adult and get to make your own decisions about how to live your life, so if someone is telling you to do something that just doesn’t feel right, you don’t have to do it. In fact, I prefer people who say things like, “Here's what I’ve tried that might work for you…” or “If I were in your shoes, here’s what I’d do…” rather than someone who says, “You need to do this.”

Think of it like this: they’ve been on this metaphorical staircase before you. They're ahead of you with a flashlight and they know which stairs creak but are still strong, which one's got a nail sticking out, and which one is broken. They're not there to tell you “You must go this way” but instead, “Here’s what I recommend” or perhaps “Here's what I've seen work in such situations.” They're there to guide you, not dictate to you. 

My personal experience

Now I’ll talk about my personal experience with sponsorship in 12-step recovery. When I met my first sponsor in OA, she said, “I’ll take you through the 12 steps, and when we're done I'm going to move on and get a new sponsee and you're going to move on and get a new sponsor.” That is, she set up the expectations for both of us from the start. That way, the entire time I worked with her, I knew it was going to end. I knew to start looking for another sponsor as we got toward the end of step 12. I found another sponsor soon after she and I finished the 12 steps. 

That person worked on something different with me using 12-step literature rather than doing the steps. But the work was still specific to the recovery program we were both in. My current sponsor and I read personal development literature together and talked about it. Sometimes it’s 12-step recovery literature, sometimes it’s not. I also share with her any difficulties I’m having and how I’m using the steps and my other recovery tools to handle things. I ask her for advice when necessary, and vent to her if it comes to that (which is less and less often as the years go by). I have a bi-weekly call scheduled with her, but if necessary, I reach out to her in between calls when I need support.

In terms of being a sponsor, I have several sponsees between my two recovery programs. In my ACA program, I’ve been working with the same sponsees for years. Once we completed the steps, we moved on to other program literature. Most of them I meet with bi-weekly at this point, though we met weekly for the first couple of years. I have one sponsee who’s taken the summer off from sponsorship work and another who’s currently on “pause” but texts me daily that she’s meditated for 10 minutes that day. That was something we both agreed would be helpful to her in her early recovery and she continues to do it. That way we’re still in touch a bit. At some point in the future, we’ll likely pick back up where we left off in the literature we were working through. 

When I started sponsoring, my sponsor told me I might sponsor 10-12 people before I finally take a sponsee all the way through the 12 steps. That was really helpful to me because I worked with people who’d dropped out of recovery, who decided our relationship wasn't working for them, or they weren't willing to do the work. Knowing that it doesn’t always work out the first time (or the second or third…) was so helpful. For me, it was my ninth sponsee that I got through all 12 steps. I had the intention of continuing to work with her after we finished the steps, but she decided to move on so I got another sponsee after in that program. The same could be true in any mentoring relationship – the relationship may not last as long as you’d hoped.

The other thing that I do in terms of how I work with my sponsees is that I have them scheduled ahead of time. If we meet weekly, it’s the same time each week. If it’s biweekly, it's the first and third or second and fourth weeks of the month on the same day and time. That’s what works for me and my sponsees. Some people gag at the idea of being the scheduled like, and that’s okay. That’s what works for me. It also ensures that I don’t lose track of any of my sponsees and that they stay in the work. If someone can't commit to being on the phone with me at a prescheduled time, I’m not the right sponsor for them. If they need to speak with me between calls, they text me to find a time to talk soon.

If you’re someone who has been around in recovery for a long time, or in a career or other position for a long time, I hope you’ll consider mentoring others. People are thirsty for connection, especially post-COVID, and this is a great way to give back to others.

The incident that landed me in a 12-step recovery was that I hit a codependent bottom. It happened as a result of inviting my homeless friend Dan from church to stay overnight at my home during a really heavy snowstorm in January 2015. He accepted my invitation, of course. Then he stayed another time and another time, and within a few weeks, he was practically living with me. 

He was an admitted addict and an alcoholic. Now I think it’s possible he also had some kind of personality disorder. This guy messed with my head in a way I’d never experienced. He made me question my reality, and my motives and generally wreaked havoc on my life. And yet I continued to allow him to say. 

One time he was super high on this stuff that was going around in New Haven at the time. It was called K2 and it was almost like PCP in its effects. The high made the person have super unpredictable behavior and be really “out there.” During one of these highs, he was stumbling around my apartment and just wrecking the place. I was really scared. My nervous system lit up just by writing that. 

I had no idea what to do so I took out my phone to video record him. My brilliant idea was that if I showed it to him when he was sober, he’d “see the error of his ways” and stop getting high. I thought I could manipulate him out of his addiction. I didn't know any better back then, which seems rather obvious since I invited a homeless person to stay in my home!

Instead of him seeing the error of his ways, he lost his shit when I showed him the video. He said, “That's exactly the kind of thing that my father did to me!” By then I knew how much he demonized his father. When Dan’s mother was alive, she’d allow him to sneak into the family home to get food and sleep sometimes. His father was the one who kicked him out because he wasn’t willing to enable him, which is why Dan demonized him.

When I showed Dan the video, he turned me into the villain. He acted like I was a horrendous person because I recorded his escapades. This strategy took the focus off of HIS behavior and put it on ME. He blamed me as if I’d done something wrong by making a video when he’d just trashed my apartment. 

At the time I thought, “He’s the one taking advantage of ME here” but I now know that he wasn’t “taking advantage of me.” I opened my home to him, invited him in, cooked, and did laundry for him. I drove him places, bought him cigarettes, and did all kinds of things to enable him so he would not suffer the consequences of his homelessness. And not suffer the consequences of his behavior while high. He was not taking advantage of me. I offered all these things to him.

Then I got resentful when it became too much. This is a hallmark of codependence – we give and give and give, expecting nothing in return. Then we hit a wall and become resentful because of the imbalance in the relationship. 

I didn't have any boundaries. I had a victim mentality, thinking he was doing these things TO me. Yet I’d invited him in, and gave him all kinds of stuff to make his life easier so he could continue using. I can see now what I couldn’t see then: I believed that I could somehow save him. That if I just provided him with enough stuff, care, and attention he’d magically turn things around.

What's interesting about that is he and I had a conversation once time where I mentioned how hard he had it being a homeless person. He laughed and said that I had it so much harder than him because he had no responsibility and I had tons. I was flabbergasted! He was a homeless person in New Haven, CT in a snowy winter with no income, he begged for money and went to 12-step meetings just for the free coffee and to get warm. And he thought MY LIFE was harder!

I lived in an apartment with heat, hot water, had many changes of clothes, a bed, food, a car, and other material items, not to mention a retirement plan and health insurance. He had only the clothes on his back and thought my life was much harder than his!

He said, “I don't have to do anything. I don't have to be anywhere. I don't have to answer to anyone.” What he was saying, which I know now, is that responsibility scared the shit out of him. He clearly did not have the skills to manage life. He shared with me that he’d come to believe that his mother subconsciously kept him needing her. He was the youngest of four children and she didn’t want him to leave. This kept him from not taking responsibility for himself. So the idea of responsibility scared the shit out of him. My guess is that he also didn’t think he deserved much better than what he had.

Back to my codependent bottom. I just didn't know how to make it stop. He’d do things like the K2 episode, lay these heavy guilt trips on me, and make me question what was wrong with me that I would even think about recording him. Now I can see that what was wrong with that wasn’t so much that I recorded him, it was that I thought that him seeing the video of himself while high would be enough to get him to stop getting high.

I can see now that I believed I could do something to intervene between him and his addiction. That's the thing with codependence -  we feel this compulsion to get in between other people and the consequences of their behavior. But we can't because we're not God. Then we get resentful of them, and make them be the entirety of the problem, even though we’ve been enabling them all along.

He was blaming me for being the problem because I recorded him. Yet I was blaming him for being who he was from the day I met him. And I was also taking the blame by feeling responsible for getting him to stop using.

Eventually, it just got to be so painful that it was intolerable. It finally sunk in, “I have to get him out of my house.” My sanity and my safety finally took precedence over trying to save Dan, who I’d only met a matter of months earlier. My compulsion to rescue, fix, and save him was so strong that I acted like it was my destiny to save him from himself.

Recovery truly and deeply showed me we cannot change other people. It doesn't matter how much we love them, how much we give to them, or how much we bend over backwards. It doesn’t matter if we slit our wrists and bleed for them.

We can't change other people.

This is why the Serenity Prayer is such a staple of 12-step recovery. I believe this is one of those lessons in life that we have to learn over, and over and over again: to discern the difference between what we can and cannot change. 

We especially cannot change other people who are addicts. The only thing more powerful than addiction is God. The thing about God is that the addict has to seek God and welcome God's guidance in order for God to interfere with the addiction. God can't interfere without that person's willingness because of that whole freewill thing. Since God is the only thing more powerful than addiction, but only if invited in, then you and I are not going to get another person to quit no matter what you do or don’t do. 

There are things you can do to make it more difficult for them to use, but you can’t stop the addiction, make them quit, get them into rehab, or get them into recovery. Those things essentially boil down to centering yourself in your own life instead of centering them. You can learn more about that in episode 140 of my podcast, “Loving Someone through Addiction” with my guest Jane Mackey. In the episode, she recommends the book Get Your Loved One Sober: Alternatives to Nagging, Threatening and Pleading. It’s excellent.

The book and Jane’s episode teach things you can do to lessen the likelihood of them using, that is, to stop enabling them. You can create conditions where you’re not making it easier or more pleasant for them to use. You’ll learn to make it more difficult and less pleasant. The main way you’ll do that is by centering yourself in your own life. I typically refer to that by saying, “Keep the focus on yourself.” You’re the only thing you can control, so the endless drain of energy that comes from trying to control people, places, and things will end when you keep the focus on yourself. They may or may not recover, but at least you will no longer be endlessly drained, and resentful and you’ll learn to actually enjoy your life. 

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The application deadline is August 16, 2024.

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Reflecting on my journey through the 12 steps of recovery, I can see that I previously expected the world and the people in it to meet my needs. I mean for things like validation, love, and acceptance. That seems pretty normal. But what I’ve learned is that if I give those things to myself first, I don’t go to the world to get those things in a clawing, needy way. I want your validation, love, and acceptance, but I don’t need them like I used to. Because I give them to myself

I also wanted the world to adapt to my ideas of how it should run. I thought people should be kind, thoughtful, trustworthy, dependable, and follow through on what they say. It’s fine for me to have those expectations for myself. But I’m going to be continually disappointed if I expect that from everyone, especially people who have shown me they are not those things. 

Very early in my recovery, someone said to me, “Barb, the world was not created to meet your needs.” I couldn’t even wrap my mind around that! I had no idea what that meant. I wrote it on a sticky note and left it on my coffee table for about a year so I could contemplate it from time to time to try to make sense of it.

Now I understand it. Deeply. I was going out into the world to meet my needs and because it wasn’t created to meet MY needs, I was disappointed, let down, resentful, angry, and frustrated. I was full of all those difficult feelings, which I then brought out into the world. 

I tried to hide all that stuff, of course, being the people-pleaser I was. So I kept it all to myself, which meant from time to time I’d explode. My explosions typically happened at times like driving alone in the car when someone wasn’t going fast enough for me, or someone pulled out in front of me. I’d spew out all those shitty emotions while alone in my car, which meant I was the only one affected by then. In fact, thinking back, I think I sort of kept all this FROM myself, not just TO myself. I really didn’t know how much anger and frustration I had until it was gone. 

When I got into recovery and went through the 12 steps, I was able to clean up the wreckage of the past. I learned how to manage my life going forward in ways I just wasn’t taught growing up.  I took full responsibility for my actions and was no longer blaming the world, the people around me, my family, or anyone else for my difficulties.

All that crap that had been spewing out of me is no longer there. I'm emptied of it. Now have peace and serenity most of the time. Most of the time I’m happy, joyous, and free. Which means I'm no longer looking to the world to meet my needs. I now understand it’s up to me to meet my own needs.

I have a quote (on yet another sticky note) on the mirror in my bathroom: 

“It’s a delusion that the outside world could give us satisfaction
if only things went our way.”

It's not the outside world that's going to get me the things that I want and need. It's my internal world, what’s going on inside of me, that will do that. How I treat myself matters. My relationship with my Higher Power that matters. Those are the things that are really going to transform my life. And they have, dramatically. And they’ll continue to do so. 

Now, instead of trying to go to the world to get my needs met in some clawing, desperate, needy way, I go to the world to give. My codependence, which looked to the outside world like giving behavior, was really about getting: getting affirmation and approval. But now that I give those things to myself, I don’t need them from you. I want them, but I don’t need them.

I now give from a genuine place of caring rather than from a desire to get your approval, feel like I matter, and belong. Now that I have love, happiness, joy, peace, and serenity inside of me most of the time, and I'm able to give that to the world. 

I can go to the world and give to the world without needing something in return. I can be of service to God and my fellows which is my purpose here. Thank you 12 steps of recovery and thank you Higher Power!

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