The Gifts

Most 12 Step groups have several readings that form a large portion of every meeting. There are preambles, statements of problems, welcomes to newcomers, and of course the reading of the 12 and 12. S-Anon is no different. There are about 6 or 7 standard readings that are "suggested" by S-Anon International, and the two groups I attend read them all.

It sounds repetitive to the newcomer, but hearing these readings every week really provides a touchstone for each week, and I always seem to get something new out of at least one of the readings. In my groups (we have basically the same members at both groups) we get almost childishly excited about our last reading, "The Gifts of the S-Anon Program." It seems to be everyone's favorite.

Gifts of the S-Anon Program

When we approach the process of recovery with honesty, open-mindedness and willingness to apply the principles of the Twelve Steps to our lives, we will soon begin to see the rewards. We will become able to surrender our self-defeating behavior. We will find that we have strength and insight to make good choices for ourselves. Our ability to act positively on behalf of our health, families, jobs and bank accounts will amaze us. We will find that others are doing things for themselves which we thought we had to do for them. Our ability to give and receive love will expand tremendously, and we will become increasingly available for loving relationships with others. We will recover the feeling of joy. We will become more honest with ourselves and experience a new comfort in our intimate relationships. We will feel the security that arises from true fellowship with others in the program, knowing that we are loved and accepted just as we are. Feelings of failure and inadequacy will be replaced by self-confidence and independence of spirit. We will no longer expect other people to provide us with an identity or a sense of self-worth. We will find the courage to be true to ourselves. We will know peace of mind and feel a stronger connection with the Higher Power of our understanding, and our Hope will turn to faith that God is really working in our lives, as we explore the wonders of serenity, dignity, and emotional growth.

These are powerful promises. They are an affirmation, and hopefully a self-fulfilling prophesy. We WILL surrender our self-defeating behavior. We WILL have strength and insight to be able to make good choices for ourselves. All it takes is honesty, open-mindedness and willingness to apply the principles. When I was first coming into the program five months ago, I clung to these promises.

It really helps when we no longer feel so alone in our problems. In the beginning I felt like there was no one I could talk to who understood the situation I was in. I felt a lot of shame for wanting to stay in my marriage because I thought others would view me as weak or dependent if I remained in the relationship despite everything that had happened. Now I realize that staying and working on my own recovery, and supporting my husband as he works on his, takes more strength than most people understand, and it was the fellowship of others who had been through this same fire that helped me see this. Having the open-mindedness to see this situation as something more than just a series of wrongs that were done to me, but rather a pattern of shame-based behavior that both of us had a part in, and both of us could learn from and work through, didn't come naturally, but really as a gift of applying myself to my own recovery.

I have heard other women in my meetings say that their husbands' addictions were a gift to them, and I can see this in my own life now. Without the reality of my husband's addictions staring me in the face, I would not have confronted the parts of my own life and my own behavior that need attention. I could easily have walked away and chalked this all up to Ways That I Have Been Wronged, but that would have denied my own opportunity for growth. Without my own recovery, I would have jumped out of the frying pan and into the fire, continuing my own pattern of relationships with addicts, until eventually one of them might have destroyed me. Fortunately, I ended up with one who is strong enough to face his own recovery with grace and honesty, and this inspires me to face my own.

We will become more honest with ourselves and experience a new comfort in our intimate relationships...no longer using sex to medicate or cover up the problems in my relationship, or using physical intimacy to avoid looking at the lack of true intimacy and honesty that I couldn't face was really there.

We will no longer expect other people to provide us with an identity or a sense of self-worth...learning to be comfortable with my partner's emotions, allowing him to be sad or depressed without immediately feeling it must be something that I did. I am still working on this one. It is still hard for me not to mirror my husband's moods, which means that if I want to be happy, he has to be happy too. This is neither realistic nor fair to him. And although I always prided myself on not needing to be in a relationship to have an identity, I can't deny that being my husband's wife became a big part of my identity. That's okay to an extent, but I think that can easily morph into my requiring him to be a certain way and fulfill certain expectations of mine in order for my identity to remain intact, which isn't so healthy.

We will find the courage to be true to ourselves...again, something that I thought I was good at before. Over time I slowly allowed this to erode, as I denied my own intuitive sense that something was wrong. The more excuses I found myself making for my husband's addictive behavior, and the more excuses I made for my own codependent behavior, the less integrity I had, which creates a lot of shame and allows the behavior to continue.

I am fortunate to already be experiencing the gifts of recovery in my life, although mine is just beginning.