From: scp8340@ocvaxa.cc.oberlin.edu
Subject: Re: i do it for myself
Organization: Houck Computing Center, Oberlin College, OH USA
Date: Thu, 23 Jul 1992 22:11:00 GMT
X-Posted-From: ocvaxa.cc.oberlin.edu
X-Posted-Through: sol.ctr.columbia.edu

Couple of things I guess.  I didn't read alt.recovery for about a week.  I 
didn't even get on usenet at all for that time.  Mostly because I was spending
as much time as I could w/my SO before he left & then I had to get up the nerve
to start reading again--I've gotten really paranoid this week & really afraid
of people.  But I just caught up w/the past week...my post right before this
one I wrote when I wasn't caught up with the last week of alt.recovery.  and 
there were a few things I wanted to respond to.

sorry that I don't have the exact quotes or who they are attributed to, I'm
just responding to what I remember reading.

Somebody mentioned wanting this to be alt.aa  and I can understand that, from 
a lot of the posts here a lot of folks feel like that, there seems to be a lot
of hostility directed those who don't fit into AA, who have differnt things to
recovery from & different recovery programs.  I for one, find a great deal of 
support & good things in this group..maybe someone should create an alt.AA for
those people who don't want to deal with non-AA people...just a suggestion, but
please don't turn this into something only for AA members.


I first started a twelve step program through ACoA...even though my parent
isn't an alcoholic, but rather my grandparents.  And what I took the first step
of admitting my powerlessness & helplessness to be was admitting (with great
relief!) that all that SHIT in my life wasn't my fault.  That I didn't have to
keep blaming myself & lack of will power for feeling miserable, for not being
able to communicate, for being scared all the time.  Before that i had *felt*
helpless and been convinved that I really *should* have the strength to not
actually be helpless, that the reason I felt so awful was because I was bad, I
was wrong & I couldn't control myself.  But admitting that no matter how strong
I was or how hard I tried to control my behavoir & control my feelings I was
still going to feel miserable & alone & awful .. then knowing that the reason
for my feeling like that was how my mother was, how my mother had treated me...
and then knowing that if I stopped trying to control myself so much & let go
I would feel better...it was just amazing.  I believed in the program because I
listened to other women at meetings talk about having the same feelings that I
had always lived with, of feeling lost, not knwing how to react in unfamiliar
circumstances (I hated missing school because the day I came back I felt like 
the whole fabric had changed & I hadn't been there & didn't know the new rules)
well, those women had felt that too & through letting go of trying to control
everything, of trusting in a higher power they started being able to not panic
& feel less miserable...that blew me away.

And i wasn't real keen on the idea of a higher power, especially not when I saw
some ACoA literature & it said 'God' and 'He' and all that crap of the
Christian God that I hated & that some family had tried to shove down my 
throat...I liked reading 'Higher Power' much better...lots of time I think of 
my higher power as the little seed inside me that really wants to be healthy,
that little part of me that is good & healthy & actually does have a clue of
how to lead a healthy and happy life (I think I got my idea of my higher power
from incest recovery things...probably from reading The Courage to Heal, I know
it talks about how every child initially grows towards being healthy & how 
being abused twists that natural growth, but that there is still a little part
of you, maybe buried way down inside that wants to be healthy & knows how to
get there...that little part of me is often my higher power...maybe that will
help some in seeing a higher power in a different way)

Admitting that I am powerless & looking to my higher power for guidence isn't
about self-abuse, about putting myself down, about eroding my self esteem. 
It's about recognizing my limits, about letting go of trying to control
everyone and everything around me, (and then getting angry at myself when I 
fail to manage that control)  It's about sometimes saying 'I can't do this' and
knowing that that is okay.  It's about not continually blaming myself for my
failures, but accepting that because of lots of stuff in my past, that wasn't
my fault, I often can't do things.  It allows me to forgive myself.

I hope this is helpful to other people.  And because of some of the reactions
that I expect from this, I am not speaking as an alcoholic, or a member of AA.
I am an ACoA, I'm in Al-Anon, and I'm an incest survivor...that is the main
basis of my program/healing.

-christina
-------------------------------
Any real change implies the breakup of the world as one has always known it,
the loss of all that gave one an identity, then end of safety.
						--James Baldwin
Newsgroups: alt.recovery