The
CoDA National Literature Committee is once again working on In This
Moment, which will become a 366-day meditation book. I started writing
pieces for possible inclusion in this book before I saw the guidelines,
and these are unedited, but I wanted to write for Co-NNections.
Marcie L. (2000)

We
have all known sadness; some of us know depression even better. Our
disease makes us see the world and other people in a distorted fashion.
We think what we see is real and act on it. The results make us think
everyone else is crazy so we try to make them conform to our way of
doing things. We try to control them. When we acknowledge our Higher
Power and give up trying to control everything and everyone, we
experience all our tears as a rain, which washes away the sadness. We
are protected by a Higher Power who loves us and takes our best
interest to heart. As we walk the road to recovery, as we work the
Twelve Steps and learn to live the Twelve Traditions, we become more
balanced and more in harmony with others and the universe. Sadness,
washed away by a rain of tears, makes happiness the more sweet.

A
hymn of praise, an ode of thanksgiving, what matter the words when you
raise your heart to sing to your Higher Power? The spirit flies until
even words have no meaning. Recovery gives us wings to soar above our
circumstances. The more we work our program, the easier it is to rise
above the worries of daily life to the certainty that our Higher Power
has everything in control and is working things out for our highest
good. Many people go through life without even thinking of examining
their way of living. We who are codependent are blessed to have had to
rethink how we react to people and events. We have learned better ways
to interact with our family, friends and others. Each day brings
challenges, to which we react in ways which bring us a wide range of
emotions. When we work our program, we are working our way to
contentment and joy.

When
we have problems, we can keep them inside and bask in being victims, or
we can reach out to others. Our Fellowship provides us with new family
members of the heart to add to the original set. We cannot deal with
our problems in isolation. It is only by bringing our pain out of the
darkness of our heart into the light of day that we can share with
trusted friends (new family members). Those people can tell us our
problems aren’t as bad as they seem, and they do have solutions or ways
they can be improved. Setting and reinforcing boundaries helps in a lot
of situations. Rainy day friends love us even when we’re miserable and
miserable to be with. Some day, with their example of sharing
experience, strength and hope, we can be there for some one else.

No
matter how deep the darkness of night, the light of morning ends the
darkness. CoDA does much the same in our lives. It identifies our
problems for us intellectually, thus lightening the darkness. Once we
understand the recovery program with our hearts, practicing the Twelve
Steps and Twelve Traditions daily, we begin to see more light. Our
Higher Power removes our defects of character one by one, and we see
progressively more light. It diminishes our joy when we recognize the
disease in our loved ones, but we have become so fond of the light of
recovery that we stay on our path. Sometimes our loved ones change
because we have. That enhances our recovery, too. Either way, our
Higher Power brings us into the light of healthy recovery.