WELLNESS

“Experience has taught us that we have only one enduring weapon in our struggle against mental illness: the emotional discovery and emotional acceptance of the truth in the individual and unique history of our childhood.”      Alice Miller

USE THE PAIN

“When there is no way out, there is still always a way through. So don’t turn away from the pain. Face it. Feel it fully. Feel it — don’t think about it! Express it if necessary, but don’t create a script in your mind around it. Give all your attention to the feeling, not to the person, event, or situation that seems to have caused it. Don’t let the mind use the pain to create a victim identity for yourself out of it. Feeling sorry for yourself and telling others your story will keep you stuck in suffering. Since it is impossible to get away from the feeling, the only possibility of change is to move into it; otherwise, nothing will shift. So give your complete attention to what you feel, and refrain from mentally labeling it. As you go into the feeling, be intensely alert. At first, it may seem like a dark and terrifying place, and when the urge to turn away from it comes, observe it but don’t act on it. Keep putting your attention on the pain, keep feeling the grief, the fear, the dread, the loneliness, whatever it is. Stay alert, stay present — present with your whole Being, with every cell of your body. As you do so, you are bringing a light into this darkness. This is the flame of your consciousness.”                         Eckhart Tolle

TRUST

“It is especially hard to trust other people if you have been repeatedly abused, abandoned or betrayed as a child. Mistrust makes it very difficult to make friends, and to be able to distinguish between good and bad intentions in other people. Some parts do not seem to trust anyone, while other parts may be so vulnerable and needy that they do not pay attention to clues that perhaps a person is not trustworthy. Some parts like to be close to others or feel a desperate need to be close and taken care of, while other parts fear being close or actively dislike people. Some parts are afraid of being in relationships while others are afraid of being rejected or criticized. This naturally sets up major internal as well as relational conflicts.”    

Suzette Boon

TRAINING THE MIND

"The untrained mind lacks wisdom. It's foolish. Moods come and trick it into feeling pleasure one minute and suffering the next, happiness then sadness. But the natural state of a person's mind isn't one of happiness or sadness.

The mind gets lost, carried away by these moods with no idea what's happening. And as a result, we experience pleasure and pain accordingly, because the mind has not been trained yet. It still isn't very clever. And we go on thinking that it's our mind which is suffering or our mind which is happy, when actually it's just lost in its various moods.

The point is that really this mind of ours is naturally peaceful. It's still and calm like a leaf that is not being blown about by the wind. But if the wind blows then it flutters. It does that because of the wind. And so with the mind it's because of these moods - getting caught up with thoughts.

If the mind didn't get lost in these moods it wouldn't flutter about. If it understood the nature of thoughts it would just stay still. This is called the natural state of the mind. And why we have come to practice now is to see the mind in this original state."       Ajahn Chah

STAGES OF RECOVERY

“Recovery unfolds in three stages. The central task of the first stage is the establishment of safety. The central task of the second stage is remembrance and mourning. The central focus of the third stage is reconnection with ordinary life.”      Judith Lewis Herman

“I’ll leave you with this: Addiction is a pattern built into the mind-body system. To move beyond addiction one must re-pattern the mind and body. There is no cure. Rather it is a process accessible to any one of us as long as we are willing to surrender to what is, accept help along the way and practice an attitude of gratitude free from complaint and always looking to see how we can contribute to the solution rather than live in the problem.”

Tommy Rosen

SPIRITUALITY

“I first thought of the spiritual journey as a linear path towards a distant goal. Gradually, I came to realize that the spiritual journey is a closed circle of love in which we slowly come closer to the center of ourself, which is always present. In this journey there is no "progress" but a shifting of consciousness that unveils our own essential nature, "the face we had before we were born. "As this spiral path unfolds, so our concepts of both ourself and the journey change, and we come to realize the deeper truth: that the traveler, the journey, and the goal are all one."   Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee

Sometimes people get the mistaken notion that spirituality is a separate department of life, the penthouse of existence. But rightly understood, it is a vital awareness that pervades all realms of our being... Wherever we may come alive, that is the area in which we are spiritual.” ― David Steindl-Rast

SEXUAL ABUSE

“Little did anyone know what addictions and sins I was subjected to as a child from a similar ‘fallen angel’. I couldn’t bear sharing what had happened to me at the group AA meetings—too humiliating. I only shared the secret with a select few and requested it be kept confidential. More than the special attention the priest received, I was overwhelmed with the eerie resemblance he had to my abuser. His pale freckled skin and strawberry-blond hair made me uncomfortable in his presence. I could feel my abuser’s satanic touch when in the same room as that man. But I was in a mechanical state, staying the course, hoping something miraculous would pull me out of my miring in the past. This perseverance contributed to being the turning point of my recovery, that being when I told him what had happened. “What’s the name of this priest, Marco?” Father Todd said. I told him. To which he replied, “He was arrested for molesting another boy, and he did some prison time.” “I did hear about that, Father,” I said. “You should go to the diocese. They’ll appoint a therapist to you. I’ll give you the contact names,” he said, pulling out a pad of paper with all the information I'd need.”    Marco L. Bernardino

SENSITIVE PEOPLE

“Highly sensitive people are too often perceived as weaklings or damaged goods. To feel intensely is not a symptom of weakness, it is the trademark of the truly alive and compassionate. It is not the empath who is broken, it is society that has become dysfunctional and emotionally disabled. There is no shame in expressing your authentic feelings. Those who are at times described as being a 'hot mess' or having 'too many issues' are the very fabric of what keeps the dream alive for a more caring, humane world. Never be ashamed to let your tears shine a light in this world.”    

Anthon St. Maarten

SELF-AWARENESS

“As you go deeper into yourself, you will naturally come to realize that there is an aspect of your being that is always there and never changes. This is your sense of awareness, your consciousness. It is this awareness that is aware of your thoughts, experiences the ebb and flow of your emotions, and receives your physical senses. This is the root of Self. You are not your thoughts; you are aware of your thoughts. You are not your emotions; you feel your emotions. You are not your body; you look at it in the mirror and experience this world through its eyes and ears. You are the conscious being who is aware that you are aware of all these inner and outer things.”  Michael A. Singer

“You are not your mind, your emotions or the circumstances of your life. You are the peaceful observer of your mind and emotions that allows life circumstances to pass through and around you for your evolution to finally come to a place of total acceptance of all that is. Only the peaceful observer remains after all else fades away. Only the peaceful observer in total acceptance of what is can take action towards effectively changing anything. You are only this peaceful observer – everything else is as fleeting as the blink of an eye, choose happiness and don’t buy into it.” Jackson Kiddard

SELF ESTEEM

“My feelings are that a person is born with innate characteristics, such as a sense of self-worth. As the person grows, environmental factors such as society, family, teachers, or peers can help the person’s self worth either grow and develop fruitfully or be weakened.”

“Self esteem, like so many other characteristics, can be learned or unlearned. Yes, we are born with our personalities, but through time, growth and experience, these can be altered through learning, attitude, motivation and inspiration when external forces work on internal forces.”

“In the event of a person being born with a chemical imbalance, which predisposes him/her to anxiety or depression, we must make a shift in thinking. A person with an anxiety disorder or depression may have to work a bit harder to find happiness and a sense of self-worth, but these certainly are treatable conditions and the person can still live a wonderful life of high quality.”    K.C. Kelley

“Feelings of worth can flourish only in an atmosphere where individual differences are appreciated, mistakes are tolerated, communication is open, and rules are flexible.”       Virginia Satir

“The source to low self-esteem is the lack of control you feel you have in your life. If you spend your life competing with others, trying to make right the wrongs done to you, or waste your time trying to look right, you will never achieve contentment and emotional balance. People you encounter in life can’t be controlled by you. You only have control of yourself. Build your life around a relationship with a higher power and achieving what you’re passionate about. When you let go of what you can’t control, true peace can then enter your life. This is the path to achieving emotional balance.”   Shannon L. Alder

SELF DISCOVERY

“It is almost as if we are all playing a big game of hide-and-go-seek. We all hide expecting to be found, but no one has been labelled the seeker. We stand behind the wall, at first excited, then worried, then bored, then anxious, then angry. We hide and hide. After a while, the game is not fun anymore. Where is my seeker? Where is the person who is supposed to come find me here in my protected shell and cut me open? Where is that one who will make me trust him, make me comfortable, make me feel whole? Some people rot on the spot, waiting for the seeker that never comes. The most important truth that I can relate to you, if you are hiding and waiting, is that the seeker is you and the world, behind so many walls, awaits.”            Vironika Tugaleva

“The traumatized person is often relieved simply to learn the true name of her condition. By ascertaining her diagnosis, she begins the process of mastery. No longer imprisoned in the wordlessness of the trauma, she discovers that there is a language for her experience. She discovers that she is not alone; others have suffered in similar ways. She discovers further that she is not crazy; the traumatic syndromes are normal human responses to extreme circumstances. And she discovers, finally, that she is not doomed to suffer this condition indefinitely; she can expect to recover, as others have recovered...”       Judith Lewis Herman

SHAME

“Shame is guilt in overdrive. If it helps think of the difference between shame and guilt as this: shame says "I'm bad, I'm flawed", guilt says "what I did was harmful to myself and/or others, and I can do better than that". Thoughts of healthy, unbiased guilt are how you converse with your conscience, while feelings of shame don't even let the conversation begin.”  Renee Bledsoe

BEING FRIENDS FIRST

“You learn to be friends with someone, get to really know them before you get all excited about the guy. You have to keep it tempered and figure out if you even like him, for who he is, not how he feels about you. I know it's not easy. Believe me, I know. But this thrill you feel.. is probably only there because things are new and uncertain. It's not about him. It's you, caught up in you. Your mind craves anxiety, the good exciting kind and the bad I-can't-function-at-work kind. You need to deprive your body and recognize that your propensity to chase codependency is leading you toward a fat, greasy life of miserable.”            Stephanie Klein

“In fact, the moment that judgment stops through acceptance of what is, you are free of the mind. You have made room for love, for joy, for peace. First you stop judging yourself; then you stop judging your partner. The greatest catalyst for change in a relationship is complete acceptance of your partner as he or she is, without needing to judge or change them in any way. That immediately takes you beyond ego. All mind games and all addictive clinging are then over. There are no victims and no perpetrators anymore, no accuser and accused. This is also the end of all codependency, of being drawn into somebody else’s unconscious pattern and thereby enabling it to continue. You will”       Eckhart Tolle

RELATIONSHIP THOUGHTS

Change

“You shouldn't go into a relationship expecting that he or she will change. If you pick your mate wisely, you will both make adjustments, but it's unfair to expect your future mate to make basic changes. Put yourself in his or her shoes. Would you want to be overhauled or would you expect your mate to love you as you are?” Dr. Zev Wanderer and Erika Fabian

Disruptive Family

“Often, our misunderstandings about love are born in disruptive family relationships, where someone was either one-up or one-down to an extreme. There is an appropriate and necessary difference in the balance of power between parents and young children, but in the best situations, there should be no power struggles by the time those children have become adults - just deep connection, trust, and respect between people who sincerely care about each other. In disruptive families, children are taught to remain one-up or one-down into adulthood. And this produces immature adults who either seek to dominate others (one-up) or who allow themselves to be dominated (one-down) in their relationships - one powerful and one needy, one enabling and one addicted, one decisive and one confused. In relationships with these people, manipulation abounds. Especially when they start to feel out of control.” ― Tim Clinton

Gender Fears

“Men’s fears focus around loss of what we experience as our independence and women’s around the loss of significant relationships. We most fear engulfment—anything that threatens to rob us of our power and control. Women most fear abandonment, isolation, loss of love.” Sam Keen

Intimacy

“Intimacy that’s too good to be real ought to make you stop and take heed, especially when it happens fast. No matter how much you want to believe it can happen quickly, real intimacy takes time. Sharing yourself, as opposed to losing yourself, is a delicate procedure that evolves step by step.”   Susanna Hoffman

Our Society

“Because of the pervasive nature of the problem, our whole culture can be called codependent.  When one looks at the problem from a cultural perspective, it becomes obvious that major institutions in our society support codependent behavior. The social structure we have created may be actually dependent upon this behavior continuing.  Throughout modern history, most societies have been structured so that some groups are ranked above others, such as men over women and management over labor. With one group more powerful and in control of the resources, codependent relationships can be easily created and maintained. If people begin to change their codependent patterns, it will bring changes to the larger social structure.” Barry and Janae Weinhold

Relationship

“When two codependents enter a relationship, they often overtly or covertly try to manipulate the partner to provide the love and approval needed to fill what John Bradshaw calls the “hole in the soul”. Both partners attach themselves to the other for a sense of completeness, a strategy that stunts personal growth and development. By surrendering responsibility for our happiness to other people, we create power struggles, arguments, and ultimately broken promises, expectations, and hearts. We can break out of the codependent trap….by working through the pain of our unmet childhood needs and by cultivating an inner life.” Ronald S. Miller

RELATIONSHIPS

"Some of the biggest challenges in relationships come from the fact that most people enter a relationship in order to get something: they're trying to find someone who's going to make them feel good. In reality, the only way a relationship will last is if you see your relationship as a place that you go to give, and not a place that you go to take."   Anthony Robbins

“When two codependents enter a relationship, they often overtly or covertly try to manipulate the partner to provide the love and approval needed to fill what John Bradshaw calls the “hole in the soul”. Both partners attach themselves to the other for a sense of completeness, a strategy that stunts personal growth and development. By surrendering responsibility for our happiness to other people, we create power struggles, arguments, and ultimately broken promises, expectations, and hearts. We can break out of the codependent trap….by working through the pain of our unmet childhood needs and by cultivating an inner life.” Ronald S. Miller

SELF CARE

“It is only when we feel deprived that we resent giving to others. Self-care does not mean you stop caring about others; it just means you start caring more about you. Start thinking about yourself more and others less. Since you have a choice between taking care of someone else, or giving to yourself, try choosing yourself sometimes.”

― Beverly Engel

“Before you can live a part of you has to die. You have to let go of what could have been, how you should have acted and what you wish you would have said differently. You have to accept that you can’t change the past experiences, opinions of others at that moment in time or outcomes from their choices or yours. When you finally recognize that truth then you will understand the true meaning of forgiveness of yourself and others. From this point you will finally be free.”     Shannon L. Alder

“Yet I also recognize this: Even if everyone in the world were to accept me and my illness and validate my pain, unless I can abide myself and be compassionate toward my own distress, I will probably always feel alone and neglected by others.”      Kiera Van Gelder

REFRAMING CHILDHOOD

"It requires a tremendous leap of faith to imagine that your own childhood—punctuated with pain, loss, and hurt- -may, in fact, be a gift. Certainly the unhappiness you felt was not, in itself, a blessing; but in response to that pain, you learned to cultivate a powerful intuition, a heightened sensitivity, and a passionate devotion to healing and love that burns deep within you—and there are gifts that may be recognized, honored, and cultivated. You are not broken; childhood suffering is not a mortal wound."   Wayne Muller

“Experience has taught us that we have only one enduring weapon in our struggle against mental illness: the emotional discovery and emotional acceptance of the truth in the individual and unique history of our childhood.”      Alice Miller

“Why do you want to shut out of your life any uneasiness, any misery, any depression, since after all you don't know what work these conditions are doing inside you? Why do you want to persecute yourself with the question of where all this is coming from and where it is going? Since you know, after all, that you are in the midst of transitions and you wished for nothing so much as to change. If there is anything unhealthy in your reactions, just bear in mind that sickness is the means by which an organism frees itself from what is alien; so one must simply help it to be sick, to have its whole sickness and to break out with it, since that is the way it gets better.”

Rainer Maria Rilke

“The process of recovering from addictiveness happens at a deeper level of consciousness and through feeling our pain without using old addictive fixes. There is no escaping that getting in touch with our original pain is the touchstone to mental, emotional and spiritual wellbeing.”  Christopher Dines

REEDUCATED

 The mind needs to be reeducated to feel physical sensations, and the body needs to be helped to tolerate and enjoy the comforts of touch. Individuals who lack emotional awareness are able, with practice, to connect their physical sensations to psychological events. Then they can slowly reconnect with themselves.”

― Bessel A. van der Kolk

“For many, negative thinking is a habit, which over time, becomes an addiction… A lot of people suffer from this disease because negative thinking is addictive to each of the Big Three — the mind, the body, and the emotions. If one doesn’t get you, the others are waiting in the wings.”                       Peter McWilliams

MOTIVATION

“There's a peculiar thing that happens every time you get clean. You go through this sensation of rebirth. There's something intoxicating about the process of the comeback, and that becomes an element in the whole cycle of addiction. Once you've beaten yourself down with cocaine and heroin, and you manage to stop and walk out of the muck you begin to get your mind and body strong and reconnect with your spirit. The oppressive feeling of being a slave to the drugs is still in your mind, so by comparison, you feel phenomenal. You're happy to be alive, smelling the air and seeing the beauty around you...You have a choice of what to do. So you experience this jolt of joy that you're not where you came from and that in and of itself is a tricky thing to stop doing. Somewhere in the back of your mind, you know that every time you get clean, you'll have this great new feeling.

Cut to: a year later, when you've forgotten how bad it was and you don't have that pink-cloud sensation of being newly sober. When I look back, I see why these vicious cycles can develop in someone who's been sober for a long time and then relapses and doesn't want to stay out there using, doesn't want to die, but isn't taking the full measure to get well again. There's a concept in recovery that says 'Half-measures avail us nothing.' When you have a disease, you can't take half the process of getting well and think you're going to get half well; you do half the process of getting well, you're not going to get well at all, and you'll go back to where you came from. Without a thorough transformation, you're the same guy, and the same guy does the same shit. I kept half-measuring it, thinking I was going to at least get something out of this deal, and I kept getting nothing out of it”     Anthony Kiedis

“To stay in recovery, you must be responsible for finding your own motivation. Remember, motivation may not be easy to come by at first. It will probably be a very small, timid part inside of you. When you find it, let that part be in charge. Let the minority rule and lead you to a life you never dreamed was possible”    Jenni Schaefer

“Recovery unfolds in three stages. The central task of the first stage is the establishment of safety. The central task of the second stage is remembrance and mourning. The central focus of the third stage is reconnection with ordinary life.”      Judith Lewis Herman

MEN

“When I consider the men (like my father) I have treated in psychotherapy, I recognize the challenge I face as a counselor. These men are in counseling due to an insistent wife, troubled child or their own addiction. They suffer a lack of connection with the people they say they love most. Chronically accused of being over controlling or emotionally absent, they feel at sea when their wives and children claim to be lonely in their presence. How can these people feel “un-loved” when (from his perspective) he has dedicated his life to their welfare?

Some of these men will express their lack of vitality and emotional engagement through endless service. They are hyper aware of the moods, needs and preferences of loved ones, yet their self-neglect can be profound. This text examines how a lack of secure early attachment with caregivers can result in the tendency to self-abandon while managing connections with significant others. Their anxiety and distrust of the connection of others will manifest in anxious monitoring, over-giving, passive aggressive approaches to anger and chronic worry. For them, failure to anticipate and meet the needs of others equals abandonment.”          Mary Crocker Cook

PROCESS

I’ll leave you with this: Addiction is a pattern built into the mind-body system. To move beyond addiction one must re-pattern the mind and body. There is no cure. Rather it is a process accessible to any one of us as long as we are willing to surrender to what is, accept help along the way and practice an attitude of gratitude free from complaint and always looking to see how we can contribute to the solution rather than live in the problem.

Tommy Rosen

PERSEVERANCE

“As I faced each tragedy in my life, I learned to reach into the depth of my soul for strength and determination. Through this healing process, I discovered perseverance and resilience. I could not go into the past and use White-Out to erase any events; instead, I had to find a way to use my pain to help me heal and grow. I had to stare darkness in the face and accept that I could not change the past, but I could build a better future.”   Erin Merryn

PAIN

“When there is no way out, there is still always a way through. So don’t turn away from the pain. Face it. Feel it fully. Feel it — don’t think about it! Express it if necessary, but don’t create a script in your mind around it. Give all your attention to the feeling, not to the person, event, or situation that seems to have caused it. Don’t let the mind use the pain to create a victim identity for yourself out of it. Feeling sorry for yourself and telling others your story will keep you stuck in suffering. Since it is impossible to get away from the feeling, the only possibility of change is to move into it; otherwise, nothing will shift. So give your complete attention to what you feel, and refrain from mentally labeling it. As you go into the feeling, be intensely alert. At first, it may seem like a dark and terrifying place, and when the urge to turn away from it comes, observe it but don’t act on it. Keep putting your attention on the pain, keep feeling the grief, the fear, the dread, the loneliness, whatever it is. Stay alert, stay present — present with your whole Being, with every cell of your body. As you do so, you are bringing a light into this darkness. This is the flame of your consciousness.”                         Eckhart Tolle

“Why do you want to shut out of your life any uneasiness, any misery, any depression, since after all you don't know what work these conditions are doing inside you? Why do you want to persecute yourself with the question of where all this is coming from and where it is going? Since you know, after all, that you are in the midst of transitions and you wished for nothing so much as to change. If there is anything unhealthy in your reactions, just bear in mind that sickness is the means by which an organism frees itself from what is alien; so one must simply help it to be sick, to have its whole sickness and to break out with it, since that is the way it gets better.”  

Rainer Maria Rilke

“The process of recovering from addictiveness happens at a deeper level of consciousness and through feeling our pain without using old addictive fixes. There is no escaping that getting in touch with our original pain is the touchstone to mental, emotional and spiritual wellbeing.” Christopher Dines

“When you have a persistent sense of heartbreak and gutwrench, the physical sensations become intolerable and we will do anything to make those feelings disappear. And that is really the origin of what happens in human pathology. People take drugs to make it disappear, and they cut themselves to make it disappear, and they starve themselves to make it disappear, and they have sex with anyone who comes along to make it disappear and once you have these horrible sensations in your body, you’ll do anything to make it go away.”         Bessel A. van der Kolk

RACISM

“Originally, he'd wanted to focus his work on the convict leasing system that had stolen years off of his great-grandpa H's life, but the deeper into the research he got, the bigger the project got. How could he talk about Great-Grandpa H's story without also talking about his grandma Willie and the millions of other black people who had migrated north, fleeing Jim Crow? And if he mentioned the Great Migration, he'd have to talk about the cities that took that flock in. He'd have to talk about Harlem, And how could he talk about Harlem without mentioning his father's heroin addiction - the stints in prison, the criminal record? And if he was going to talk about heroin in Harlem in the '60s, wouldn't he also have to talk about crack everywhere in the '80s? And if he wrote about crack, he'd inevitably be writing, to, about the "war on drugs." And if he started talking about the war on drugs, he'd be talking about how nearly half of the black men he grew up with were on their way either into or out of what had become the harshest prison system in the world. And if he talked about why friends from his hood were doing five-year bids for possession of marijuana when nearly all the white people he'd gone to college with smoked it openly every day, he'd get so angry that he'd slam the research book on the table of the beautiful but deadly silent Lane Reading Room of Green Library of Stanford University. And if he slammed the book down, then everyone in the room would stare and all they would see would be his skin and his anger, and they'd think they knew something about him, and it would be the same something that had justified putting his great-grandpa H in prison, only it would be different too, less obvious than it once was.”

― Yaa Gyasi

RECOVERY

“Recovery is a resumption of the work that was not completed when the woman was a girl. It is a coming into her own. It is an opportunity to resume the normal process of development that was sidetracked, perhaps first by constrained roles, perhaps by trauma, and then multiplied many times by hiding in the addiction. Her development was sidetracked by not accepting her needs as legitimate and not finding healthy ways to meet them, by not even knowing her needs. And so this is what recovery is: a developmental process of finding and building a new self. Recovery is a process of radical growth and change. When you are in recovery, you give birth to a new self. [...] Many women initially think that recovery means a move from bad to good. They think that being addicted is evidence of shameful neediness, of deep and lasting failures. Recovery is not a move from bad to good, but from false to real. [...] It is reality, being real, that now guides her rather than her efforts to be good or bad.”         Stephanie Brown

“I heard an old man speak once, someone who had been sober for fifty years, a very prominent doctor. He said that he’d finally figured out a few years ago that his profound sense of control, in the world and over his life, is another addiction and a total illusion. He said that when he sees little kids sitting in the back seat of cars, in those car seats that have steering wheels, with grim expressions of concentration on their faces, clearly convinced that their efforts are causing the car to do whatever it is doing, he thinks of himself and his relationship with God: God who drives along silently, gently amused, in the real driver's seat.”

― Anne Lamott

RECOVERY IS HARD

“Fear of breaking family loyalty is one of the greatest stumbling blockages to recovery. Yet, until we admit certain things we would rather excuse or deny, we cannot truly begin to put the past in the past, and leave it there once and for all. Unless we do that, we cannot even begin to think of having a future that is fully ours, untethered to the past, and we will be destined to repeat it.”      Ronald Allen Schulz

“There's a peculiar thing that happens every time you get clean. You go through this sensation of rebirth. There's something intoxicating about the process of the comeback, and that becomes an element in the whole cycle of addiction. Once you've beaten yourself down with cocaine and heroin, and you manage to stop and walk out of the muck you begin to get your mind and body strong and reconnect with your spirit. The oppressive feeling of being a slave to the drugs is still in your mind, so by comparison, you feel phenomenal. You're happy to be alive, smelling the air and seeing the beauty around you...You have a choice of what to do. So you experience this jolt of joy that you're not where you came from and that in and of itself is a tricky thing to stop doing. Somewhere in the back of your mind, you know that every time you get clean, you'll have this great new feeling.

Cut to: a year later, when you've forgotten how bad it was and you don't have that pink-cloud sensation of being newly sober. When I look back, I see why these vicious cycles can develop in someone who's been sober for a long time and then relapses and doesn't want to stay out there using, doesn't want to die, but isn't taking the full measure to get well again. There's a concept in recovery that says 'Half-measures avail us nothing.' When you have a disease, you can't take half the process of getting well and think you're going to get half well; you do half the process of getting well, you're not going to get well at all, and you'll go back to where you came from. Without a thorough transformation, you're the same guy, and the same guy does the same shit. I kept half-measuring it, thinking I was going to at least get something out of this deal, and I kept getting nothing out of it”     Anthony Kiedis

LOVE

Everyone in your life is loving you right now, to the best of their ability.

Their hearts are as closed or as open as they can possibly be right now.

Everyone is dealing with sorrows, fears and joys you may never know. Seeking love in their own way.

When you're trying to get love from others, it really matters how open or closed their hearts are today.

You go to war with them, trying to crack them open.

When you're not seeking love, but instead knowing love as your own true nature, feeling the source of love in your own brilliant heart, you are free, and the battle for love ends.

You can now let others love you in their own unique way. However 'limited' that may seem to the mind.

Because through the eyes of abundance, even limited love is a blessing. An open heart is a miracle, yes, but a closed heart is also to be honoured.

So you can let others love you as much as they do.

You are no longer a beggar for love.

For you know the true source of love:

YOU.                  Jeff Foster

LIFE

“Life isn't like a Full House episode. There isn't going to be an easy out to every conflict. There is no milkman, paperboy, or evening TV. There are good moments and bad moments and not everything will tie together nicely in the end. But that's life, and I think I'm finally starting to get it.”

― Jodie Sweetin

“I look back on my life the way one watches a badly scripted action flick, sitting at the edge of the seat, bursting out, "No, no, don't open that door! The bad guy is in there and he'll grab you and put his hand over your mouth and tie you up and then you'll miss the train and everything will fall apart!" Except there is no bad guy in this tale. The person who jumped through the door and grabbed me and tied me up was, unfortunately, me. My double image, the evil skinny chick who hisses, Don't eat. I'm not going to let you eat. I'll let you go as soon as you're thin, I swear I will. Everything will be okay when you're thin.”       Marya Hornbacher

LETTING GO

“The hardest part of letting go is the "uncertainty"--when you are afraid that the moment you let go of someone you will hate yourself when you find out how close you were to winning their affection. Every time you give yourself hope you steal away a part of your time, happiness and future. However, once in awhile you wake up to this realization and you have to hold on tightly to this truth because your heart will tear away the foundation of your logic, by making excuses for why this person doesn't try as much as you. The truth is this: Real love is simple. We are the ones that make it complicated. A part of disconnecting is recognizing the difference between being desired and being valued. When someone loves you they will never keep you waiting, give their attention and affection away to others, allow you to continue hurting, or ignore what you have gone through for them. On the other hand, a person that desires you can't see your pain, only what they can get from you with minimal effort in return. They let you risk everything, while they guard their heart and reap the benefits of your feelings. We make so many excuses for the people we fall in love with and they make up even more to remain one foot in the door. However, the truth is God didn't create you to be treated as an option or to be disrespected repeatedly. He wants you to close the door. If someone loves you and wants to be in your life no obstacle will keep them from you. Remember, you are royalty, not a beggar.”       Shannon L. Alder

“As I started to picture the trees in the storm, the answer began to dawn on me. The trees in the storm don't try to stand up straight and tall and erect. They allow themselves to bend and be blown with the wind. They understand the power of letting go. Those trees and those branches that try too hard to stand up strong and straight are the ones that break.”    Julia Butterfly Hill

To be free to roam our own consciousness and be responsible for ourselves, a letting go process is required. We have to let go of how others define us; what damaging messages remain from childhood; how others define our relationship with the creator; and what expectations they may have for us.”

David W. Earle

“Before you can live a part of you has to die. You have to let go of what could have been, how you should have acted and what you wish you would have said differently. You have to accept that you can’t change the past experiences, opinions of others at that moment in time or outcomes from their choices or yours. When you finally recognize that truth then you will understand the true meaning of forgiveness of yourself and others. From this point you will finally be free.”     Shannon L. Alder

“Right now I want a word that describes the feeling that you get--a cold sick feeling, deep down inside--when you know something is happening that will change you, and you don't want it to, but you can't stop it. And you know, for the first time, for the very first time, that there will now be a before and an after, a was and a will be. And that you will never again be quite the same person you were.”       Jennifer Donnelly

“As I faced each tragedy in my life, I learned to reach into the depth of my soul for strength and determination. Through this healing process, I discovered perseverance and resilience. I could not go into the past and use White-Out to erase any events; instead, I had to find a way to use my pain to help me heal and grow. I had to stare darkness in the face and accept that I could not change the past, but I could build a better future.”    Erin Merryn

To be free to roam our own consciousness and be responsible for ourselves, a letting go process is required. We have to let go of how others define us; what damaging messages remain from childhood; how others define our relationship with the creator; and what expectations they may have for us.”

David W. Earle

“Before you can live a part of you has to die. You have to let go of what could have been, how you should have acted and what you wish you would have said differently. You have to accept that you can’t change the past experiences, opinions of others at that moment in time or outcomes from their choices or yours. When you finally recognize that truth then you will understand the true meaning of forgiveness of yourself and others. From this point you will finally be free.” Shannon L. Alder

Everyone in your life is loving you right now, to the best of their ability.

Their hearts are as closed or as open as they can possibly be right now.

Everyone is dealing with sorrows, fears and joys you may never know. Seeking love in their own way.

When you're trying to get love from others, it really matters how open or closed their hearts are today.

You go to war with them, trying to crack them open.

When you're not seeking love, but instead knowing love as your own true nature, feeling the source of love in your own brilliant heart, you are free, and the battle for love ends.

You can now let others love you in their own unique way. However 'limited' that may seem to the mind.

Because through the eyes of abundance, even limited love is a blessing. An open heart is a miracle, yes, but a closed heart is also to be honoured.

So you can let others love you as much as they do.

You are no longer a beggar for love.

For you know the true source of love:

YOU.                  Jeff Foster

“I am continuously struck by how frequently the various thought processes of the inner critic trigger overwhelming emotional flashbacks. This is because the PTSD-derived inner critic weds shame and self-hate about imperfection to fear of abandonment, and mercilessly drive the psyche with the entwined serpents of perfectionism and endangerment. Recovering individuals must learn to recognize, confront and disidentify from the many inner critic processes that tumble them back in emotional time to the awful feelings of overwhelming fear, self-hate, hopelessness and self-disgust that were part and parcel of their original childhood abandonment.”     Pete Walker

“The hardest part of letting go is the "uncertainty"--when you are afraid that the moment you let go of someone you will hate yourself when you find out how close you were to winning their affection. Every time you give yourself hope you steal away a part of your time, happiness and future. However, once in awhile you wake up to this realization and you have to hold on tightly to this truth because your heart will tear away the foundation of your logic, by making excuses for why this person doesn't try as much as you. The truth is this: Real love is simple. We are the ones that make it complicated. A part of disconnecting is recognizing the difference between being desired and being valued. When someone loves you they will never keep you waiting, give their attention and affection away to others, allow you to continue hurting, or ignore what you have gone through for them. On the other hand, a person that desires you can't see your pain, only what they can get from you with minimal effort in return. They let you risk everything, while they guard their heart and reap the benefits of your feelings. We make so many excuses for the people we fall in love with and they make up even more to remain one foot in the door. However, the truth is God didn't create you to be treated as an option or to be disrespected repeatedly. He wants you to close the door. If someone loves you and wants to be in your life no obstacle will keep them from you. Remember, you are royalty, not a beggar.”       Shannon L. Alder

INTERNAL CONFLICT

The conflict between the two sides of self is one of strategy and not of intent. Both the adult and the child long for the love and respect necessary to sustain the human spirit but disagree on how to attain their desire; the child by hopefully waiting in isolation and the adult by rushing into frustrated action. In ACA we learn both strategies lead only to despair.

Ending our inner conflict depends on both the adult and the child recognizing the need for unity in recovery. By acknowledging their need for each other, the adult and the child create the sense of wholeness needed to fully respond to the world.

Mutual acceptance allows the child to see that the ability in trust is damaged but not broken and can be restored by gently and slowly emerging from the protective prison of isolation. The adult becomes aware of the spirit of joy that inhabits every child and recognizes the need for openness and spontaneity in feeling completely alive.      From the ACA Red Book

INNER CHILD

“Inner child is the carrier of our personal stories, the vehicle for our memories of both the actual child and an idealized child from the past. It is the truly alive quality of being within us. It is the soul, our experiencer throughout the cycles of life. It is the sufferer. And it is the bearer of renewal through rebirth, appearing in our lives whenever we detach and open to change.” Jeremiah Abrams

“In the adult there lurks a child—an eternal child, something that is always becoming, is never completed, and that calls for increasing care, attention, and education. This is the part of the human personality that wishes to develop and become whole.” Carl Jung

“It was only when I started to reconnect with my inner child four years into recovery (I was over four years clean and sober off drugs and alcohol) and started to attend a love addiction support group that I was able to trust again and have faith that there are just as many honest and trustworthy women as there are women who are not interested in monogamy.

However, it was after ten years of continuous recovery that I started to really dig deep into my childhood grief work and was finally able to reclaim my inner child. I started to take risks again. On a practical level, you can’t get very far in this world if you resent and distrust the opposite sex and, sadly, many men and women suffer in this area. Rather than celebrating the opposite sex, they fear them. Empathy and self-compassion has helped me in this area too.”        Christopher Dines

“Most survivors grew up too fast. Their vulnerable child-selves got lost in the need to protect and deaden themselves. Reclaiming the inner child is part of the healing process. Often the inner child holds information and feelings for the adult. Some of these feelings are painful; others are actually fun. The child holds the playfulness and innocence the adult has had to bury.”

― Laura Davis