No relationships for a Year!

No relationships for a year…so they say in AA.

 

 

Rehab relationships usually end up in a train wreck.  It’s time we stopped looking at relationships as a way to fix our addict lives.  If we don’t clean up the wreckage of our past we are incapable of being in a truly honest and loving relationship.

Don’t get into a relationship for at least a year when beginning sobriety.  What are the reasons for this ardent suggestion?    The purpose of the suggestion is that we alcoholics tend to get distracted from doing the work that recovery requires if we dive into a relationship that temporarily makes us feel good.  For a time it will be a lovely distraction, we won’t have to look at our lives and the mess we have made of it.   That is until our torturous feelings return or our next bender happens and we blame our actions on our new found mate.

“He hurt me so I had to drink over it”.  We say or, “He betrayed me, he did me wrong!”  That’s the tune most addicts play after the relaitonship surpases the ninety day probationary period when we are both on our best behavior.  One thing sure, addict are great at finding the sickest person in the room to start a relationship with and then they wonder what went wrong.

They say in the room that our “pickers” are broken.  Meaning we pick the most dysfunctional lovers we can find.  We never take the time to get to know them before we hand our lives over to them.  Please make my choices for me so I won’t be responsible for the outcome.  Please take care of my financial burdens.  Please be my comforter instead of a Higher Power who really does have the power to comfort my soul.

Yes the intimacy and reliance and burden of choice making should all be done by us and our Higher Power not some person who talks a good talk yet his/her actions tell a different story.  If we are in a new relationship we most likely will not fervently seek God like we would if we were alone.  The 12 Steps and recovery is all about learning to rely on God.  If we are busy relying on a man or woman for our well-being, security, choices, finances then we are not learning what recovery and living responsibly is about.

Sometimes we come into recovery married already in which case we should not make any major changes in the first year.  Sometimes also early recovery relationships do work if one of the people has a number of years sober and will allow the newcomer to learn and grow on their own.  Furthermore, even re-hab relationships sometimes are a match made in heaven and both parties stay sober.  It does happen.  Remember!  God does not have to go by man’s rules.  Sometimes providence likes to play its little tricks and reminds us that we do not have all the answers.  Every AA [suggested] rule has its exceptions.

 

 

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