Codependent No More Workbook (20 page)
Read Codependent No More Workbook Online
Authors: Melody Beattie
The Promises are more than words on a page, a carrot on a stick to keep us going to meetings. People may have lied to us in the past, but these Promises will manifest in the lives of people who do the work. If you work the Steps diligently, the best you can, one day you’ll look around and see that they’re becoming real for you. That’s when
working a program, doing our work,
and
working the Steps
gets good.
I’ve seen more miracles as a result of people working these Steps than I’ve seen anywhere else. Treatment is good. Going to Twelve Step meetings and enjoying the fellowship is helpful too. But I’ve seen people go to groups and only talk about their problems. If you’re looking for long-term change, the kind that comes from the inside out, work the Steps. They’re the heart of this program, and they’re the work we do. Then when you go to meetings, you can talk about the solutions too.
Activity
- Make the amends on your list as you’re guided to do. You may want to make notes on your list about what happened. This list is private. It’s meant for nobody’s eyes but your own. If you’re doing the amends for the right reason, you’ll come away from making almost every amends with your head held higher and feeling better inside. It’s a natural high. If some don’t go so well, shrug them off, as long as you were sincere and honestly did your part.
- Don’t forget to put your name on the list of people whom you’ve harmed.
You don’t need to add these two Steps to your tool kit unless you want to, because the next Step is a shortened version of this. It doesn’t matter whether you work these two Steps for the mistakes you make on a daily basis or whether you work Step Ten. The idea is that you don’t want to accumulate another huge glob of guilt.
Activity
- Write about how it feels when you drop false pride and make amends for what you did wrong.
- You can make all the amends on your list, but if you don’t forgive yourself, you won’t be free from guilt. If you’ve done your work and ongoing guilt presents a problem, look in the mirror and look into your eyes and say, “I love you and I forgive you. God forgives you too.” Do this three times a day until your guilt disappears.
Sometimes we’ve genuinely been hurt by someone’s behavior, and we truly don’t owe the person amends. That person may have stolen from us, lied to us, or did something else that caused deep pain. The closer we are to this person and the more we love him or her, the more the behavior can hurt. But there’s only one person’s program you can work: yours.
Go too deeply into trying to get someone to make amends to you, and you’re getting close to crossing into the codependent zone again. If someone owes you amends and doesn’t make them, it’s that person’s loss, not yours. If you’ve done your work, and worked hard at your program, you’ve made a large investment in recovery. That’s how we make recovery our own.
Being of service, sharing your story, and going to meetings are similar to putting money in the bank. When you need to make a withdrawal from your codependency recovery account because you’re thinking about getting involved
with someone who isn’t good for you, will you be able to go to your account, make a withdrawal, and get what you need to take care of yourself? Is your account empty or full? It’s different from denial. When you see a situation that you know is bad for you, will you make a conscious choice to avoid it? Or are you going to learn another approach?
Activity
- Keep a list of your wise choices and actions that make your recovery yours.
- Keep another list of things that help you feel good about yourself when you’re down. It might include going to a meeting, reading recovery literature, working a Step, getting involved in sponsorship (either having one or being one or both). Then the next time you feel the codependent crazies, before you call someone and moan and complain (unless that person is your sponsor), do at least two items on your list before you call. If you call your sponsor, that’s probably what your sponsor will suggest you do. You may feel so balanced and centered that you don’t feel the codependent crazies now. That’s when it shows that you’re learning how to take good care of yourself.
Keep It Clean
“Much of recovery is finding
and maintaining balance in all areas
of our lives …as we measure our
responsibilities to ourselves and to others.”
—Codependent No More
Suggested reading: chapter 20, “Learning to Live and Love Again”
STEP TEN: Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it.
—from the TWELVE STEPS OF CO-DEPENDENTS ANONYMOUS
T
he longer you’re working a program, and the more you’re aware of yourself and your interactions with other people, the more you’ll see that someone taking responsibility for his or her own behavior is a rare and precious thing. It’s far more common to see people passing the proverbial buck. “No, not me,” someone says, looking right in your eyes and lying. “I didn’t do that.”
We may be afraid of losing our job or losing self-esteem if we admit we made a mistake. But usually, most people have a fairly good idea of who did what and when. When we don’t own up, the person we’re kidding the most is ourselves. We don’t want to embarrass ourselves by admitting we made a mistake, but not taking responsibility for what we did—lying about it—is truly an embarrassment. To the person we’re lying to, it’s a slap in the face.
The ancient saying
The truth shall set you free
remains profoundly true.
You’ve gone to all the work of looking at your past and making amends. It’s easier to spend some time each day or every few days taking an inventory and cleaning up your mistakes than it is to accumulate another big mess that will take months to clean up. Why not pick up after yourself as you go along?
The same caution applies here when it comes to admitting mistakes that applied in Step Five. When you contemplate admitting to something you did wrong,
remember to use the qualification
except when to do so would injure them or others.
We can’t buy peace of mind if someone else pays the price.
When is the best time for you to take inventory? At night, before you fall asleep? In the morning, when you first wake up and before your defense mechanism sets in? Or would you prefer to continually monitor your behaviors throughout the day? How you continue taking inventory isn’t as important as getting the job done.
Then, suck it up. Yes, you may feel embarrassed for a moment, especially if you lost your cool. Our Higher Power wouldn’t have given us this Step if, in His wisdom, He didn’t know we’d need it. We’re going to make mistakes from time to time. Some mistakes will be big ones—huge. Some mistakes will be little. No matter the size of our errors, whenever we make mistakes, we have two choices: We can close our heart and mind and detach from our conscience—piling up the guilt—or we can go to the person or people involved, and tell them the words so rarely heard on planet Earth: “I’m sorry. I was wrong. Will you forgive me?”