Lesson 8 - Sponsor

In this lesson I am asked why is it important for me to have a support team.  It is not just in this recovery program that we need support teams.  We cannot go through life without a support team around us in some form or fashion.  We are made to want communion with others.

What is the job of a support team?  They are there to support.  Why is support needed?  Because the foundation is not strong enough on its own.  A support is needed to hold it up.  That is what our support team does for us.

I struggle here.  I do not have much of a support team.  That is usually because of the position I am in as a wife of a minister.  I've always heard from other pastors' wives how alone they feel because they have no one to talk to or confide in.  That is so very true.  You cannot reveal much if anything because most people take it and tell others.  They remember it during a business meeting.  They forget that the pastor and his family are human and so much alone.  Since I am battling co-dependency I have trouble getting a support team because I have no one to talk to.  They all know him and work with him. 

I need to get a support team, but I have no idea where.  I cannot advance much here if I do not have someone who will eventually become my sponsor.  I'm really going to have to pray about this since it could prove disastrous if I do not handle this properly.

Recovery is Continual

One thing I have learned in this process is that recovery is an ongoing process.  Even when you say that you have reached step 12, in reality you go through all 12 steps each day of your life.  I have to remind myself over and over that it is not about me.  I have to give it all over to God again.  I have to recognize hurt and pain.  I have to forgive and go forward.  I have to face my defects and work on them.

So many people look at recovery as just getting over being addicted to drugs or alcohol.  How wrong they are!  Each and every person breathing needs to recovery from something.  If nothing else, they need to recover from pride.  No one is perfect.  We are all sinners.  This program is perfect in that it does not address only alcohol or only drugs.  It addresses your entire life. 

In our spiritual walks we are to start our day putting back on the armor of God.  We have to almost start over each day as we prepare ourselves for the battles ahead.  That is no different that it is to be in Celebrate Recovery.  We have to gird up and protect ourselves in the same way.  That armor is vital to us.

Shedding bad baggage and influences is what all Christians are called to do.  We are called to grow and mature.  We are called to recover from this world.

Still Trying to Understand

I'm trying to hard to understand how to recover from co-dependency when it seems forced on me.  Most of the testimonies I have found revolve around alcohol and drug recovery.  The few that I have found that involve co-dependency are mainly those spouses our children of alcoholics and drug addicts.  I am not finding anyone who is trying to recover from being married to an ADD spouse.

This is really hard for me as I try to understand how I can get through it all.  I try to go through the steps but I keep finding my life in chaos as he makes decisions without thinking and lives in the moment.  I can see the bridge is out ahead of us but what do I do?  If I yell and try to pull him back, we fight and I get depressed.  If I don't say anything we fall into the canyon.

I remember one testimony in which a wife was recovering from co-dependency with a husband who cheated on her and was a huge alcoholic.  She always felt that if her husband would change all would be well.  She just didn't realize that she needed to change, too.  I feel like that.  But the difference is I know that I need to change, but it is hard when you do not see the other one attempting to change.

Does ADD win?  Do I just give in and my change and recovery involves letting the ADD have complete control?  That is where I feel lost.

We do see a counselor to help him with his ADD.  Where I struggle is that once we leave the office, he forgets about we are to work on and goes back to his normal way of living.  How can I get over my co-dependency when I see no way?

I am not going to give up on my recovery.  This program is wonderful and I am learning so much.  It is great and I would recommend it for anyone.  I just wish I could find more that were in my situation.

Lesson 7 - Moral

Lesson 7 gets me started on my moral inventory.  This can be a difficult lesson.  In fact, this is where many people stop the 12 step program.  It is not easy facing your mistakes or even your successes.

One of the questions asked in this lesson is "List the things you have used to block the pain of your past."  This was a hard one for me.  I have to admit that because I do not drink and do drugs that I took a while to answer this.  This narrow-minded thought process is shameful.  There are so many ways to block the pain.  Alcohol and drugs are just one of the ways.  So now the internal struggle began as I tried to discover what I was doing and why.

I am one that tries to please everyone.  There is that darn co-dependency again.  The pain I felt from all those type D personalities was masked by me trying to gain their approval.  I tried to dress to please them and prevent negative comments.  I tried to do everything to appease them.  I had to realize that I would never do that.  My haircut was never going to be just right.  The way I disciplined my children was never going to be correct.  The way I cooked was never going to be above "OK".  I was never going to succeed.  I blocked my pain in denial and in striving to be someone I was not.

I once told someone in our small group discussion (I can repeat this since I was the one saying it) that my organization and anal tendencies were not the real me and not my nature.  Now those same type D people would say that I was not organized enough, but my immediate family would say that I was on the road to being too anal.  Why is that if that is not the real me?  Because I spent my life trying to be what others said I had to be.  I used to work about 50 hours a week in downtown Milwaukee.  My husband was home more than I was and the kids were always beating me home by about an hour.  One day a relative stopped by to visit.  She asked where the broom was so that she could sweep up a mess that was just made.  I answered honestly that I did not know.  Where I would place it was never where it could be found when I got home.  She looked at me in shock and dismay.  It was my responsibility to know where that broom was she informed me.  It was my house, right?  When I said that with me being gone at work so much, that there was a lot that I did not know.  I was informed that that was beside the point.  I should always know.  That weighed on me for years.  I put so much pressure on myself to work full-time and to be in control of a house that I really had no control over.  I mentally beat myself daily on how much of a failure I was because I did not have control of my house.  This also strained my marriage and my relation with my children.  I became an ogre and began to yell a lot.  Why weren't things left where I put them?  Why couldn't I do it all?  I was supposed to.  What others did not realize was that I was to work, manage a home, follow behind my children and my husband and still meet other responsibilities as they arose.  I began to melt down.  I could not do it all so why should I?

I hid my sense of failure in striving harder.  This made the number of failures increase and be more obvious.  I could not do it anymore.  The day this realization hit was painful.  I'm learning to be me.  I'm learning to look at others and say, "I don't care."  I will not live my life to please them.  I will live it only to please God.  If they don't like it, take it up with Him.  I cannot please everyone.  I will not try anymore.  I will not agree to things just so that they will think better of me.  I will not give up my family time to appease others.  I will not re-create myself to be what they want.  I will be what God wants.

Lesson 6 - Action

One of the questions asked in Lesson 6 is "What have you been able to turn over to God?"

This was a hard one for me.  After all, I am co-dependent which means that I do not have anything that I have control over to turn over.  Well, I might not have control over anything, but I do still have my clutches on things that I need to relinquish to God.  I'm trying to control it.  Though I never seem to have control.  I need to turn my day to day schedule over to God.

One night at about 2 am God and I had a very long and deep discussion.  I was about to pull my hair out.  God is not a ruler or creator of chaos.  So why is my day so chaotic?  Come on, God.  I'm trying to put order in my life.  Why does it seem that You are fighting against me and allowing the chaos to reign?  I could not get past these statements.  I repeated them over and over.  It was then that wonderful James rose up and spoke.

"Now listen, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money."  Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow.  What is your life?  You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.  Instead, you ought to say, "If it is the Lord's will, we will live and do this or that."  As it is, you boast and brag.  All such boasting is evil.  Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn't do it, sins." (NIV, James 4:13-17)

I was trying to determine my day and what was going to happen.  There is nothing wrong with planning and making sure that crucial things are not missed.  What was I doing wrong?  Not dedicating my day to God and looking to Him about what I should and should not do.  That was my problem.

Do you know how hard this was for me?  I am not naturally an organizer.  I like to get up and go about my day doing whatever is before me.  The world around me forced me to change.  I was an accountant for 20 years.  Much of my job involved a multitude of tasks that had to be scheduled and could not be missed.  Lists became my best friend as they helped me to remember duties that had to be done.  This spilled over into my personal life.

I married an ADD guy.  Life with him was a roller coaster.  You never knew what each day held.  Unfortunately, that included the bills, where we lived, and other important things.  I began to create lists to help us to remember to pay bills, feed the pets, do regular chores, and such.  Why?  Because if it was not on the list, he would not do it.  Even if it was on the list he might not do it, but I would remember amid all my other "normal" duties and get it done.  This grew and grew to where everything in my life was a list.

Now, I still have to have lists.  My memory is getting way too faulty to cope.  God is not banning lists in my life.  What is He doing then?  Asking me to let Him make the list.  That's right.  Give Him the ultimate control of my life - my lists!

How do I do this?  I go ahead and make out my list for tomorrow as normal.  I never realized how ambitious I was.  When the list is made, I pray and ask God to take what needs to be removed and add what I have missed.  I about cry when He has me remove some items that I really want to do.  But in all honesty, I would not have been able to get it all done.

I feel better each day.  My lists are not as long and when they are they are made up of what He wants me to do and not what I want.  This is a huge difference.  He never fails.  His plans never are wrong.  Mine on the other hand.......

What is so Great About Celebrate Recovery?

One of the greatest things about Celebrate Recovery (CR) is the fact that is for anything.  You don't have to have a drug problem though many come to it for that very reason.  You don't have to have an alcohol problem though many come for that, too.  You don't have to have a sexual addiction though a surprising number come for that.  You can have a marriage problem which almost anyone married has.  You could have an eating addiction or disorder which is a lot more common than you realize.  You could suffer from co-dependency which I’m finding most people have.  You could have a hurt from your childhood or past relationships which I think everyone does to some degree.  You might have issues with your children which any parent does at some stage of their childhood.  You might have a bad habit of stealing.  Or you have just plain old pride that gets in everyone's way.  That hits every single person.  Anyone could benefit from CR because all it is doing is trying to get to the root of your problems and get your walk with Christ right.

What more could you ask for?  It helps to clean out the junk in your life and cleans out those rooms that we lock away and try to look at because they are so disgusting.  But the house will never be clean because the mold and mildew will spread to the other rooms quietly and deadly.  We have to bleach those rooms by allowing God to come in and clean it all out.  He is the ultimate housekeeper.  You don’t have to worry about anything getting missed if you are truly letting Him clean it all out.  CR is one of those tools to do just that.

Our group is growing as more and more realize that CR is for all of life's problems.  We have many with drug and alcohol problems but even they are discovering that that is not their real problems.  They have to go much deeper.  We are celebrating just a week or two of some people not cutting themselves.  We celebrate those “small” victories, because they are not small.  They are huge.  Any day that someone can go through and conquer their demons is a celebration.  Any day they cannot conquer is a day of prayer and support.

I highly suggest that you take a look at the material of CR.  You will be surprised and you will find that you might need this wonderful Bible study that goes so much further than normal studies.

Lesson 5 - Turn

This lesson starts you on step 3 which states: We made a decision to turn our lives and our wills over to the care of God.

Now at first glance, some of us would quickly say that we already have done this.  After all, I've been a Christian my whole life.  Yet, I got into my lesson like a good student does and I realized that there was more to that statement than I first realized.

"How has relying on your 'own understanding' caused problems in your life?"  Ouch!

Maybe I haven't given Him everything.  I have to hang my head in shame.  So many times I try to do it all my way.  I want to be in charge of my daily life instead of letting Him have it.  Have I given my heart and soul to Him?  Yes.  Have I given Him my daily life?  A humbling No.

In James we are told not to plan for tomorrow without conferring with God and relying on Him for whatever comes.  I've tried to trust in Him.  I've tried to start my day asking Him what He wants me to do.  But the rush of the day starts so fast.  I feel like I live in the life of "Cheaper by the Dozen."  Where can I find the peace to find time with God to give it to Him?  Who says I have to find the peace first before going to the Peace Giver?  That doesn't make sense.


I need to rethink this step.  I need to look deep and see where all those hidden corners are that I've kept from Him.  I need to be more honest and humble to give it ALL to Him.