When a relationship that’s important to us isn’t working, it can feel like nothing is working. Conflict with our loved ones can be traumatic, and a breakup with a lover or a friend can set off an overwhelming wave of emotions. Relationship troubles are hard for anyone, but for addicts they hold particular danger: The pain can be so great that using seems like an option again. If our friends in recovery seem to be taking sides, we can feel so alienated that going to meetings feels unsafe. That old triangle of fear, anger, and resentment can feel like an iron cage, and the antidote—connection to others—seems like the last thing we want. Taking care of ourselves in the simplest ways, like eating, sleeping, and going to work, can be very difficult when we are in pain. The newcomers around us can serve as powerful examples, reminding us to show up and reach out when we’re hurting. Any member at any time is liable to save our lives.
We might find, after some consideration, that a relationship really does need to end. But we can do it in a way that we are comfortable with, instead of acting on impulse and leaving a painful mess to clean up later. Ending a relationship doesn’t mean someone has to be wrong or bad; in fact, it can be the best thing for all involved. We can feel pressure to stay in a relationship—for social approval, the kids, complacency, or fear—even though we know it’s time to go. It is an act of courage to do what we think is right without having to create damage to justify our actions. We no longer need to have an affair to end a marriage; we may have the clarity not to enter that marriage to begin with, or to exit with dignity and integrity. We let go of our schoolyard mentality and allow ourselves to be present with each other as adults, willing and ready to share the experience.
Sometimes as we are dealing with the loss of a relationship, we are surprised by the force of our feelings. Our reaction seems all out of proportion to the loss we are experiencing—and it may be. That’s not a reason to judge ourselves or pretend it’s not happening, though we may be tempted. There is no right or wrong about how we feel. Some of the feelings we didn’t experience when we were using are still waiting for us when we get clean, and a loss in recovery can set off a cascade of feelings from all those earlier losses we hadn’t grieved. Our sponsors can be a lifeline when we go through this kind of experience. If we are willing to hang on, trust, and do the work, we can find real healing in the steps. Relapse is a possibility, but so is making our lives unmanageable through gambling, shopping, sex, or eating—anything to push the feelings away. Some of us repeat this pattern for years in recovery before we are willing or able to push through the pain and take an honest look at what has been happening.
Our ideas about relationships are often based in anything but reality; we want to believe that relationships somehow happen on their own, that we can step into a relationship like it is a carnival ride and it will just take us. Just as we imagined the right combinations of drugs would make everything alright, we sometimes imagine that the right combination of attributes will make a soul mate. We place unrealistic expectations on ourselves and others. We fantasize and project about how things “should be.” Partnership isn’t found; it’s built. We need to show up and participate in its construction. But once we start taking care of ourselves, all kinds of intimacy are available to us.
Conscious Contact
In NA it’s not true that we can’t love others until we love ourselves; in fact, that is exactly what we do. We experience empathy, and it grows into something greater. Gradually we build a relationship with ourselves as well, and we clean up the things that keep us in self-loathing and self-sabotage. We learn to love others, but our relationships with them are a struggle until we learn to have a relationship with ourselves and our Higher Power. In turn, our relationship with ourselves and our Higher Power is enriched and informed by our relationships with other people.
We learn to respect the spirit in one another. We all have our own ways of thinking and feeling. When we acknowledge that each of us is in the care of a loving Higher Power, we can accept one another where we are and see that each of us has our own path. If it is based in spiritual principles, it will serve as a good guide. Learning to step outside our own reactions and accept reality makes us more flexible and able to deal with the challenges that relationships present to us.
Because recovery is progressive, we continue to work steps and to reveal more about ourselves. We come to know our intentions. We get better at hearing our own voice, our own conscience, and listening to our instincts. Addicts who make it to recovery have pretty good instincts, but we’ve taught ourselves over time not to trust them. Learning the difference between the voice of our intuition and the voice of our disease is not something that can be explained; we figure it out in meditation, when we practice listening to ourselves and our Higher Power. We share our experience with our sponsor as it unfolds, and he or she points out to us when our instincts are serving us well. We become increasingly aware of our choices, our motives, and our behavior. We come to know what we were thinking when we made a decision, and we recognize the difference between thinking through to a decision and reacting or acting on impulse. Listening to our intuition means that we can be open to others without being naïve or foolhardy. We learn to trust our intuition and honor our feelings.
The conscious contact we speak of in the Eleventh Step is a relationship with our Higher Power. Intimacy is conscious contact with another human being. We connect. As we get close to others we see the divine in them, and we see it in ourselves as well. We pay attention to them, and to ourselves when we’re with them. When we feel real joy at seeing a struggling member finally get that thirty-day keytag, when we find the words we didn’t know we had in us, when we make a genuine connection with another human being and feel something shift inside of us—we feel love in action, flowing through us, changing us for the better.
Each of our relationships teaches us how to make our other relationships better, stronger, more meaningful—if we stop and listen for the lessons. And all of these relationships, in turn, bring us back to our relationship with ourselves. We cannot say that one is more important than another, any more than we could say one side of a pyramid is more important than the next. In fact, the pyramid that is in our symbol is made up of relationships: with self, society, service, and God. Rooted in a base of goodwill, these are the relationships that bring us to a point of freedom. Our capacity to love grows in proportion to the effort we make to show love, and our willingness to accept it. And with that capacity for love—something so many of us never even thought we wanted—we begin to feel that our lives have meaning and purpose. The harm we’ve done, the pain we’ve suffered, the loss we’ve experienced all deepen our compassion for others, and our understanding of their struggles. Our real value is in being ourselves, not in spite of what we have been through, but because of it.
A New Way of Life
Our literature tells us that we become “acceptable, responsible and productive members of … society,” but it also cautions, that “Social acceptability does not equal recovery.” Both statements are true, but they are not mutually exclusive. We each measure being a productive member of society in our own way.
Our ideas of success are as individual as we are. We start at different places and our destinations are just as varied. We know how to do some things very well and others not at all. We may enter recovery with a career still in place, or it may be that getting a steady place to live is a big step. We have this in common: We want to be free. We want to feel accepted and respected without pretending to be anything other than who we are. No matter what our accomplishments, the principles by which we live will sustain or destroy us.
We progress in this journey by applying what we learn in recovery to the rest of our lives. Step Twelve calls this “practicing these principles in all our affairs.” The freedom we are seeking is not some abstract thing. It’s how we live. Our Basic Text goes on to tell us, “The steps do not end here. The steps are a new beginning!” NA offers us the principles that will transform
us and the laboratory in which we practice applying these things before we take them into the world.
The work we do in the steps helps us to define our values and teaches us to work toward our goals. It doesn’t matter how many times we have taken the steps; there is always something new in the work and in the reward when we do it to the best of our ability. But when we stop halfway through, we don’t just miss half the gifts of recovery; we miss the point. Oddly, it’s just when we come face-to-face with our most painful character defects that we stop surrendering. Our commitment to work the steps has consequences whether or not we follow through. When we stop in the middle, we leave ourselves with too much awareness and not enough hope. When we see the process through, we notice that doing the work takes much less energy than avoiding the work.
We surrender, accept ourselves in the moment, and graciously allow our lives to unfold. Finally, we can stop seeking the piece of the puzzle that will make it all okay. We practice living a principled life, and our journey into the world shapes itself from there. We let go of our fear of change and come to realize that we are all changing all the time. We can embrace that change and truly believe that we can stay clean no matter what. The process gets simpler; doing the right thing comes more naturally.
We try new things, exploring deeper layers inside and higher levels outside. As our values change, we change our lives. The process is like a spiral staircase. Again and again we come to the same view, only each time we are seeing it from a different perspective. Being open to one another’s viewpoints helps us to clarify our own thinking. When we put love, effort, and commitment into action, our lives miraculously change.
Moving Beyond “Social Acceptability”
When we get here, we are told that “we are not interested in … who your connections were, what you have done in the past, how much or how little you have, but only in what you want to do about your problem and how we can help.” Years down the line, this statement remains true. No matter where we are heading, we go about building our new lives in the same ways. With time we learn that how we get there matters more than the destination itself.
One of the benefits of our experience is that we know our participation in society is a choice. How we engage with the world around us is our decision. Whether or where we want to fit in is our decision, too. Integrating into the world in a way that is comfortable for us is part of our journey, not the destination. Finding our place in society isn’t the goal; it’s a means by which we achieve our goals. The idea of achieving social acceptability can distract us from the goal of awakening our spirits.
Many of us ask ourselves to what society we want to be acceptable. Some of us understand “society” to be NA itself. We find a way to make ourselves at home in NA, even if we have always been loners, skeptics, and outsiders. When we think about finding our place in the world, though, we may confront additional challenges. If we got our identity from being outsiders, the idea of joining anything can seem a little fishy. Coming back to society is a difficult step, and there may be risk involved. No one can make that decision for us. “I always felt like an outsider when I was growing up. I found acceptance in drug culture,” a member shared. That feeling of belonging can be a powerful draw for us; the lifestyle is sometimes harder to let go of than the drugs.
When we take a look at what compels us to put so much emphasis on things outside ourselves, we often find that what is driving us is fear. We are afraid of ourselves, afraid of the world, and afraid someone will find out how afraid we are. We hide behind all sorts of screens, from rigid social conformity to outright hostility. For people who have been through so much, we can be extraordinarily sensitive. We mistakenly believe that social acceptability can give us immunity from the pain that seems to come with caring about what other people think.
Figuring out our strengths and weaknesses can be tricky; sometimes they look a lot alike. All of us are missing pieces and parts. Some of us have a long way to go just to learn the most basic principles of appropriate behavior, while others have mastered the art of covering whatever might be wrong with a coat of lipstick or leather. We can get caught up in looking good, or projecting an image of who we wish we were. If we allow things outside ourselves to define who we are, we end up like a tree with no roots. At the first storm we are liable to come crashing down. When seeking approval becomes more important than recovery, we are more vulnerable to relapse than we recognize.
Getting the outsides right is not only about wanting approval, though. We are learning to respond appropriately to life. Many of us mask low self-esteem with inappropriate behavior. Often we assume that other people will do what we did in our worst moments. We push people away for fear they will see us as we see ourselves. Allowing ourselves to appear in the world as we are is a big step. We are mindful of our behavior and our surroundings without giving up our individuality. But we also begin to let our guard down, let people in, and share who we are. What we find, of course, is that when we are less afraid we tend to be less frightening to others. Ultimately, the issue isn’t how society accepts us, but whether we accept society and our role in it.
Our priorities change over the course of our recovery. In the beginning, simply not using is a full-time job. When we transition out of this desperation, many of us get preoccupied with material things. We mistake success for security. When our priorities shift again, it may be a result of a different kind of change: a gradual realization that a deeper satisfaction awaits us. “I believed I was acceptable as long as the bills were paid. I worked hard, but forgot to take care of myself physically, mentally, and spiritually. Gradually, my understanding began to develop. As the connection to my Higher Power deepened, I came to a clearer vision of what I wanted. I was no longer willing to let labels hold me back or define me. I stopped thinking about social acceptability in terms of status. I wanted to be a person people were comfortable being around. After finding my way to the surface and taking that breath of life, I wanted to share it freely, with no false motives.”
Finding Our Place in the World
We start with the goal of not using, and our dreams and goals grow as we recover. While some of us crave material success or social status, others want no part of that. Ultimately we define social acceptability for ourselves. Even so, it’s a moving target and it changes over time. What we consider an acceptable life in early recovery may seem inadequate or even embarrassing later on. “Just being able to bathe and get through the day without a felony was a big deal for me,” said one member. However much or little we have, our feelings of fear or comfort, security or scarcity have more to do with our perspective than anything else. We always remember that a day clean is a day won, no matter how far we have come or how far we have yet to go.
Dreams really do come true, but that’s almost never the end of the story. Achievement takes us out past where our planning or projecting ends. We can mistake a goal for an ultimatum: There’s only one way it’s supposed to be, and anything else is failure. We need to remember that we have only a fleeting glimpse of our Higher Power’s will for us. Our desires may set us in a direction, but the journey takes us somewhere that never occurred to us.
Some of us are naturally dynamic and thrive on a lot of color and excitement. We might worry that life we are comfortable with might not be very exciting. Letting go of our attachment to drama makes it possible to enjoy simple things without feeling we must constantly make something happen. We discover that we can be passionate about our lives as they really are. We learn that the kind of work required to live a good life is not nearly as difficult as the kind of work that results from sabotaging our own efforts.
We spent years creating wreckage, damage, and drama; and then cleaning it up to make room for more. When we are spinning our wheels in chaos of our own making, our sponsor might ask us, “What are you running from?” After we stop this destructive cycle, we can see how much it requires of us. We find that we can be radiant without being radioactive. When we’re finally ab
le to settle down and breathe, our lives get much easier. That space gives us room to look around and ask ourselves what we love about our lives, and what we might want to change.
Part of what shifts for us is our perception of what constitutes a crisis. Many of us spend much of our early recovery on “high alert.” We are so much more aware of the wreckage of our past than the miracle of our recovery that we seem to be in a chronic state of emergency. Addicts are funny: We tend to get very dramatic about little things, but we deal with catastrophe better than most people do. We come to understand more about the scale of our experiences as we live life on life’s terms. Experience gives us the ability to put events and situations into proper perspective.
The fewer secrets we have, the less we tend to be concerned about what others are saying or doing. It’s our secrets we are afraid of. We hide because we are ashamed. Telling the truth without embellishment or judgment limits drama. Our own willingness to meet the truth and deal with it takes a lot of the air out of the drama in our own minds—and on the gossip circuit. Ongoing step work takes the denial and deception out of our actions. As we learn compassion, we get less pleasure from magnifying the struggles of others.
When we work hard and earn a victory, we certainly can be proud of ourselves. However, there is a big difference between feeling good about ourselves and believing our own hype. We are in trouble when we start mistaking outside success for recovery. When we allow our humility and integrity to decay, we are a danger to ourselves and everyone around us. If we confuse our priorities, we can lose more than we thought we had at stake. And when we try to fill up the empty places inside us with material things or lofty positions, we find that we are emptier than before. When our gratitude is gone, we forget where we came from and no longer relate to the newcomer. We are so lost in delusion that we don’t even know there is a problem. Many members have died as a result of such arrogance. Net worth does not equal self-worth. We have all seen members achieve great success and still use or want to destroy themselves.
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