Learning how to surrender and open up to healthy activities affirmed that he belonged. My name is Ryan, and I am a child of my Higher Power. As a former SA sponsor once humorously suggested, “You qualify to be in the program, you are one of us!”
Sobriety has helped him deal with the highs and lows of being single. I am single. I am not always happy, joyous, and free. It can be lonely. Divorce is painful. I don't feel happy, joyous, and free.
This period of being single has given him time to work a rigorous program. For most of my life, I’ve been looking for someone to connect with me and make me whole. I felt “inadequate, unworthy, alone, and afraid” (SA 203), always comparing my insides to the outsides of others. I was terrified of people seeing me for fear that they’d reject me—which was why I never learned to date. It felt too risky.
She came to accept Higher Power’s plan for her. I had to learn to love myself, not in the way a conceited person does, but as a precious child of God. I had to learn to enjoy my own company and to remember I am a precious child of God. Not a perfect one, but a work in progress with my Higher Power molding me to His will. I am not in charge of my life; my Higher Power is in charge. I have to accept that Higher Power knows what is best for me. I accept that Higher Power's plan for me is to be single. Being single is not a failure. I am grateful for the lessons my Higher Power has taught me about loving and liking myself as a precious child of God.
By repairing the past, through working the program, he found the freedom of being single. Throughout my lust addiction, romantic relationships became a golden calf to me. I thought an attractive, emotionally compatible girlfriend would fulfill and complete me. Having a girlfriend became a persistent fantasy, but every time a woman would say yes to my proposition for a date, I would run from the relationship as soon as it took off.
God’s love and will in her life are all she needs, and anything else is extra. I grew up with an urge to be a grandmother; I just loved the idea of having a family and children. I would name my daughter after the girl who sits on the last bench in my class. I was in first grade, and I looked at my crush and thought, "If we had a daughter, I would name her after my classmate who's at the top of our class." Cute, right? I chuckle because I was only five when I did this.
He discovered that being single allowed him to devote his whole life to God. I was not put in this program by a spouse. I put myself here of my own volition. I don’t have to get found out or exposed because I have the opportunity to expose and find out about myself here in safety and connection with others, united in fellowship all across the world. I may not ever marry. It is possible that I could live a neo-monastic life in spiritual practice and connection with others under God all across the planet, and I’m okay with that. Lotta pain still, but pain when fully processed becomes wisdom.
Time being single and sober has allowed her to hear Higher Power’s will for her. I have been sober for several years now, and have taken my first steps toward recovery. By “recovery,” I don't just mean working the Steps, but that I am literally “recovering.” I'm talking about healing and restoration.
I broke up with my last girlfriend when I came to the program, after a two-year relationship. The reason was my shocking admission to the truth about myself—that I used her, trying to find a sense of self-worth at her expense, satisfy lust, and not feel lonely. This realization was painful, but honest and therefore healing.
אני בר מזל שיש לי מטפל מנוסה שהוא בגילי ובנוסף לכך עבד את 12 הצעדים באופן אישי על מנת להתמודד עם בעיות ההתמכרות שלו. הוא תומך באופן עמוק בתוכניות 12 צעדים. גיליתי שסוג זה של עזרה חיצונית מקצועית מהווה השלמה חיובית להחלמה שלי ב-SA.
