Tag: Recovery

Posted on in Al-Anon, Step Two

Get off the “Crazy Carousel” with the help of a Higher Power: My thoughts on Step Two

Click here to read the introduction to my 12 Step Series and find links to all of my 12 Step posts in one place as they become available. 

Step Two: Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves

could restore us to sanity.

Step Two is about believing a Higher Power could be out there (if you don’t already believe it when you come into the program) and that this Higher Power could help you finally get off the “Crazy Carousel” – because do you really want to go another round on that thing? Let me be honest with you: Step Two was strangely hard for me. I had more than one complaint about this Step and I struggled.

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Posted on in Recovery, Self-Love

A Sword that Heals: Honoring Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. with Personal Nonviolence

“Nonviolence is a powerful and just weapon. It is a weapon unique in history, which cuts without wounding and ennobles the man who wields it. It is a sword that heals…” 

– Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

I used to be a very violent person. I wouldn’t have seen it or admitted it back then but it doesn’t make it any less true. When I would talk to the Alcoholics and Addicts in my life, the pain I felt poured out of me and I used angry, hateful words and mean, judge-y silences with the intent to hurt them. And you know what else? I mercilessly judged, neglected, and mistreated myself…and that was violent too. No one was safe around me – including myself. (more…)

Posted on in Step Nine

Making Amends to my Mom

This is the letter I wrote and read to my mother as part of my Step 9 work. In my opinion, my mother and I have had a very strained and painful relationship for many years. My mother’s alcoholism, drug addiction, codependency, prison sentences, and her personal decision to not work through her own childhood trauma and programming made it difficult for her to parent me. I held on tightly to all of the pain and resentment and anger from my childhood for a long time and I treated her badly because of it.

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