Step One - Part 1

I started learning about steps and recovery and addiction many years ago. I didn't get my own Healing Through Christ manual until about 6 months ago. I've read it here and there and worked my own recovery through  many other methods but I haven't taken the time to read and implement the 12 steps in order, thoroughly. I decided to keep working on that because I believe only good things can happen from the principles in these steps! I'm working the steps in the Healing Through Christ manual, which is a 12 step adaptation for loved ones of addicts focused on Christ and His teachings.

Step 1 - Come to understand and accept that we are powerless over the addiction of a loved one and recognize that our lives have become unmanageable.

ADMITTING THAT I AM POWERLESS

1) How does an understanding of the powerful disease of addiction help me recognize that I am powerless to control my loved one's addictive behaviors and choices?

In the first year of marriage I didn't understand this well at all. I just couldn't wrap my head around why he kept choosing to look at pornography and masturbate when he said he loved me! As I learned more about addiction and learned just how much this behavior has become ingrained in the life of an addict, and how there are things deeper and more hidden contributing to his impulses I saw how I was powerless. I was able to stop trying to stay up all night so he wouldn't act out, or throw resources in his face to make him see how much he hurts me and should therefore stop, or any of the other countless methods I tried to control him and his addiction.

His brain is literally broken. Learning about the science behind what pornography does to the brain, re-wiring and diminishing impulse control, and so on, helped me see how powerless I am over his addiciton.

If I am powerless over the addiction, then I am powerless to stop it, or keep it going, and affect it in any way. Therefore: losing weight, more sex, less sex, make-up, shaved legs, compassion, affection, anger, hurt, selflessness, selfishness, leaving, staying, watching, staying up at night, yelling, being a doormat, and all the other things won't change the fact that my husband is an addict. How freeing. This means we can stop beating our head against a wall because we are only damaging ourselves and the wall will not come down from these efforts. The addiction is  more than curiosity, a bad habit, or looking elsewhere because I'm not _____ enough.

An understanding of addiction helps begin the process of healing for me by freeing me from continuing down roads that are futile.