I've learned that you cannot make someone love you. All you can do is be someone who can be loved. The rest is up to them. I've learned that no matter how much I care some people just don't care back. I've learned that just because someone doesn't love you the way you want them
All I need to do today is to take the next right action. I cannot see into the future, I only see what surrounds me at this moment. All I need to do is the task at hand as well and sincerely as I can. When I do this earnestly and daily, the rest takes
I can love my family and hate the disease. I can love myself and hate the disease. I can love life and hate the disease. I will not let this disease poison everything I care about, all that is and should be mine to love. This is disease is big but I, with God’s help,
Events in the present can trigger pain from the past. Sometimes I encounter a situation or a relationship dynamic that makes me feel as helpless and alone as I felt as a child. But the problem is, I don’t know that’s what’s going on, my old pain, humiliation or hurt gets touched but I don’t
Feeling my feelings is what allows insight to emerge organically. Sometimes I want to over intellectualize my emotions rather than feel them. I want to stay in my head because entering my heart just hurts too much and makes me feel too vulnerable. I want to come up with quick answers, to “figure things out
Today I will allow my irrational feelings of helplessness over the disease to shift to a chosen state of powerlessness. Powerlessness is a conscious act of surrender and implies my own recognition that I cannot control people, places and things. Helplessness is part of the trauma response, part of the collapse that any human or
Growing up with parents who were lost in their own dysfunction was scary. I adopted a false self that didn’t rock the boat, I placated and behaved in such a way as to please so that I could momentarily ward my fears of off rejection, criticism and having the family problems projected at me. Being
I will let myself slowly become right sized. Grandiosity and arrogance are part and parcel of this disease, defenses against feelings of helplessness, hopelessness and invisibility. When I feel small inside I try to be big on the outside in order to make myself feel better. Just for today I will let myself feel big
My family may have a disease and it’s not me. My family may drink poison and serves poison up to each other, but I don’t have to. My family may choose to deny the impact of addiction and the trauma that follows it but I don’t have to. My family may defend their right to