Recovery

All my friends tell me that I seem strong, positive, and hopeful. Both friends who are far away and reading the blog and people close who talk to me or see me say that I seem different. All I can attribute this difference to is my growth from my short time in Nar-Anon.

I can feel it in myself, too. While I'm sometimes feeling like I'm going to drown in stress, I don't have that feeling of hysteria that I had a few months ago when I didn't know what was going on with my husband and me. The ideas of detachment, boundaries, and learning to protect myself from his addiction has helped me to grow, and I'm grateful. I'm not grateful for the pain this experience has caused me, but I'm learning to appreciate this growth and strength. I've been in therapy for years...and nothing has worked so well as participation in this support group.

It's kind of miraculous--sitting in a room full of people who I don't know and with whom I have only one thing for sure in common, without anyone being an expert or a specialist, we are guiding each other towards growth and healing just by talking, telling our stories, and sharing our successes and failures. It's really cool, and I was so skeptical about it working or not.

One thing that always shook me about 12 steps was the reliance on a higher power. I am not sure what my higher power would be--for many years, I was an avowed atheist. As I've gotten older, I've softened on that hard-core stance. I used to feel like the universe was a pretty cold, infinite space, with a certain scientific order, but nothing so lovely as a divine plan. I've started observing ways that things just feel RIGHT sometimes though--like the way my job worked out to fit so perfectly with my husband's and our new life--and other times when I just feel like there's something bigger than me--like in the presence of great art. There's this feeling I get, not exactly spiritual--but spiritual...kind of like a calming, exciting, peaceful and exuberant experience of the presence of something bigger than just me, or just this world, or just the art in front of me.

I don't know. But there is something special that happens "in the rooms," and maybe just acknowledging the small miracle of how great I feel after leaving there and how much stronger I've gotten for attending a few meetings can work for me. I'm willing to turn my life over to this experience if it will continue to help me this much.

I had dinner with a friend last night, and she said that my "aura" was different--maybe purple now instead of wildly red. Silly girl.