Friendships divide our burdens and double our joys.
Having women and men we trust enough to share our deepest secrets with is one of the many gifts of the program. While it's true that most of us already had friends, we seldom told them everything about ourselves. We held back the most intimate details to protect ourselves. We thought if they really knew us, they'd never want to be our friends.
Our understanding of friendship has changed since being introduced to the Twelve Steps. How we act as friends has changed too. Now we know that friends don't judge, they don't try to control, they accept how other people are, and they never betray a confidence. They listen, they love, and they offer hope. And they don't run away when they don't like what they hear. What we have learned influences our old friendships too, and everybody benefits.
To express my friendship fully to someone today means sharing honestly what I'm experiencing and listening intently while my friend shares too.
For my two cents,,, one of the criteria to be a real friend of mine is to be honest and that includes when we disagree, which is inevitable at some point. I find people pleasers who just echo everything to avoid disagreements fall short of this requirement. Not having met with no hope of ever meeting does not prevent people from truly caring about each other. One of the sayings in AA is that we come to love each other in a very special way. Sometimes a friend might disagree because s/he cares, ya know? we are not perfect and it's okay to call me constructively on a mistake,,, and I do the same for my friends. Last night a friend and I had a rough time of it,,, and later both kind of admitted that we'd had other worries on our minds, and an honest disagreement.... so we talked a little, and the issues are resolved and the friendship is even stronger today.
Stan,,, you are one of us.
love in recovery,
amanda
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do your best and God does the rest, a step at a time
