I have a recovery friendship best bud and he is not living his life and prioritizing his recovery how I would want him to. He is not up to my standards, and it looks wrong and dangerous. However, he is ok. I forget he has a higher power too.

 What was revealed to me through several nightly inventories was that I resent him. I feel abandoned … old messages pop up that I’m not good enough for choosing … so then I get critical of him. If he’s gonna leave me, I’m gonna leave first and I’m gonna make sure he feels my absence.

 Resentment gives way to self-pity that no one loves me, then sadness and grief appear which gives way to surrender. Finally, I can do the work of getting two phone numbers at each CoDA meeting and calling them to ask what meetings they go to or how’s their day (this was the way I was shown how to create/build a network). I have come to regard a recovery network to be a highly effective tool and also a very vital foundation for solid recovery. But to be clear, in the beginning I hated it and avoided it because I thought like many a newcomer “oh I don’t want to be a burden” or “oh I don’t like talking to people” or “oh I can do this on my own” or “I don’t need help.” Now the thought of any of these makes me laugh because of how little I actually knew these simple suggestions would change the course of my life; fundamentally I was reborn.

 In review of my responses to him living his life I saw it as a tightening on our friendship, as a sort of control pattern that my system thought I needed for protection (because when I was experiencing childhood trauma this is what I needed). It reminded me that my core wound is fear of getting left/being abandoned/getting kicked out of the “tribe” … that he has needs to ebb and flow, to learn and to lose, just like I do. The bond is not gone, the love remains … in fact we have been through these cycles before and when we came back together the friendship was stronger and more vibrant than ever.

 With things like this and many more lessons in my CoDA recovery, I don’t know why it works but it does work no matter where I apply it. Loving detachment is so hard but generally when I focus on myself (work my program and do the next thing in front of me – one day at a time) when I release them and my perception of control over them … I find peace, harmony, and freedom.

Anonymous 05/23/2023