From this site, as well as a few other sites, and the face to face meetings I attend it never ceases to amaze me how many people continue to live out a life that is comfortable. It may be entirely dysfunctional and toxic but it is comfortable.

I grew up with two alcoholic parents. So what do I do?  Not only do I become an alcoholic, but my first love becomes an alcoholic. She literally drank herself to death by age 45. My first wife was an extremely violent drunk. My second wife an extremely needy person who found comfort in the arms of other men when I couldn't fulfill her needs.

Till the day I quit drinking my friendships were built around alcohol and drugs. If they didn't party they weren't friends of mine. And I couldn't figure out why my life was always in the pits.  I played the part of the victim.  I loved the role. I cherished it and nurtured it.

The first gift I received from sobriety -  well actually it was an order from the judicial system - was that I had to move out of my house.  I lived in a little rag-tag home for two years and I learned a lot.  First, I learned that it was OK to be on my own.  I didn't need a family to give me self-worth. I wanted it, but I didn't need it.

I lived in that house for two years with the goal of someday moving back home.  But it wasn't meant to be and we got a divorce.  And that was OK, because my Higher Power began providing me with more gifts. One is doing what I am doing now - sharing.

And instead of cherishing and nurturing my victim hood, I began cherishing and nurturing my ESH.  And I began to realize that I had a gift for finding the purely dysfunctional and needy people in this world.

You could put me in a room with a 100 people and by the end of the night I would gravitate to the one who is an alcoholic/addict or who has been abused. I realized that if I found comfort in someone early on in a relationship then it was time for me to run. The reality was that I was comfortable with unhealthy people. I had to find comfort with those that I was uncomfortable with because they were, I believed, the healthy ones.

Below is a video I created from a poem I wrote about this phenomenon which I believe has been experience by more people then just myself.  It was from Illusions that reality came alive.