How do you prove to someone you have changed when you no longer speak to them? Should you try, or has your past alcoholic behaviours ruined that chace? Was just curious. I would like to regain a friendship back, but I'm too scared of the rejection. I did ruin the relationship with my alcohol problems, so I'm wondering if its too late?
Edit: As I was reading some of your posts, I noticed tha a lot of you said not to date during the first year to focus on your sobriety. This was sort of an ex of mine. I am not ready to be in a relationship, but I would like one with him later on down the road. Knowing my past there is probably a slight problem with that. But even so, maybe I should keep my distance until I'm ready.
-- Edited by Vividangel1983 on Tuesday 21st of September 2010 11:13:44 PM
hi Vividangel to let you know how i worked on my 8th step, i did not try to mend relationships until that step, mostly because i just didn't know if i should or shouldn't. but it took me over a year to get to my 8th step and so i had over a years sobriety to back up my claim that i don't drink anymore and wanted to apologize to the ones i had felt i hurt and ask them if there was anything i could do to make things right between us. so far each person i have talked to or wrote a letter to asking for forgiveness, i have received positive responses. down the road i may get a negative response, but i will know that i tried to make things right and do the right thing. not everyone who has been harmed will be receptive to an "amends" gesture. getting involved in a relationship in early sobriety can muddy the waters of learning to live in independence from alcohol and the lifestyle we drank over. relationships tend to change our focus from working on the steps to pleasing our partner and forgetting to rely on our HP to show us a new way to live. it is just a suggestion to focus on getting healthy and learning new paths of living before attempting romantic relationships. take care and hugs. sheila/jj
Thanks for the advice, I do need to focus on myself for a while. Maybe I should try to mend the relationship later on during my sobriety. For right now, I shall just leave him be. I can't let anything distract me at the moment. Maybe he will forgive, or maybe he won't. Thats pretty much out of my hands. But for right now, it doesn't matter.
Working the steps ( in the order they are written ) allowed me to repair some of the relationships that were damaged from my drinking. With the guidance of the book and my sponsor I was able to make ammends to the ppl I had harmed. All the while knowing that these ammends might or might not be accepted. The ammends were for me to help me clean up all the garbage I had been hanging onto for all those years. When I followed the directions given in the book exactly the way they are written I obtained the results it said I would.
Thank God for my sponsor who guided me into having a close personal relationship with God and stressed the importance of this relationship with Him. I was totally incapable of having meaningful relationships with anyone until I forged this new one with God. I hated me for so long, there was absolutely no way I could possibly love someone else.
In my drinking I had many times apologized for bad behavior, said "Im sorry" to loved ones and when I got sober I was told that these ppl had heard it so many times that they would be very skeptical of my new found sobriety.
I did not get sober, nor do I stay sober to prove anything to anyone. I got sober and stay sober to stay alive today and live a really good life.
Funny how that HP works. As I worked on my recovery, and concentrated on doing the next right thing the promises started to be all around me. I leave it up to my HP who comes and goes in my life. In early recovery you want so bad for people to believe you are never going to drink again. I found that the only one I had to convince was myself. I don't know how long or where you are in your recovery but I do know more shall be revealed. If your meant to start a relationship with that other person.....believe me your HP will bring them to you~ Have a blessed day!
Good question and solid advice. From my experience we can't prove to anyone how we changed by simply talking. We prove to them over time we've changed by filling the God hole inside of us and acting a different way. We fill the God hole by working the steps which leads us to a relationship with a higher power and change occurs. It's our actions that prove to others we've changed, not the rhetoric they've all heard before. By working the steps with a sponsor who's worked them we discover our part in our defective thinking and make amends in step 9 once our thorough inventory is complete and our relationship with a HP is well established.
I now see why the suggestion of staying out of a relationship for a year is a good suggestion. First off- your focus will and should be 100% on your recovery. Your priorities should be God- AA- You & then everyone else. Selfish? Yes, but we have no choice at this early stage. Also, if worked properly the steps will change the person that came into the rooms. After completion and time in the program what we expect from life and others changes. What we settled for in the past we may not settle for in the future. As we grow; those expectations continue to grow. Good stuff here.
I'll give you an example; My wife was my HP coming into the program. My main focus was getting her back. After completing the steps, finding a HP and time in the program, I'm not sure I want to be with her any longer. Sounds strange but true. I've changed and grown, she hasn't and we're struggling. What I found was she liked the needy person I was and had fully control of me. I was dependent. I'm now independent and she doesn't like it. But my life is good today and I don't want to be someone else's HP. My point being, don't be in a rush to get back with the Ex-BF, you may find that he's not what you looking for after you change.
I eventually came to the understanding that one of my needs was for verification...I needed someone else or others to make me feel complete. Recovery taught me the lesson that having relationships with others came after having a relationship with my Higher Power and then myself first...that was really my need after that I could focus on some of my wants with the understanding that other people also had wills and at times didn't will that I be a part of their lives in the way I wanted to. It has all become acceptable today and contains no justification for rebuilding a relationship with the bottle. I hurt a lot of people in the past...with the program I no longer continue to do that. Keep coming back.
Vividangel...the only point of being careful with your relationships is to put a halt to the pattern of creating unecessary chaos and drama in your life while you gain better coping skill for dealing with your own life. Making amends comes at steps 8 and 9...you should be working those steps several months later down the road...You might feel differently when that time comes...In fact, I can gaurantee you will feel differently. Be still for now and let God handle things while you just do what you are supposed to on a daily basis. Just my suggestion. Don't keep trying to complicate your life.
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I had the same problem too--wanting to try and make amends before really working the steps.
Some I wish I had when I had the chance--because by the time I was really ready to make the amend that person/s had died. 2 very sudden the other sort of knew I wanted to talk to them.
I say now if you are really bothered by the burden--in this case try to make an amend--they can only say not now.
For some I wrote letters and held on to them until the time was right.
Some have moved away and I have no contact whatsoever with them.
Others are understanding, saying the alcohol was doing the talking when I did or say certain things.
I just told them I did not know how to do what I was doing, but as part of the program, I needed to make amends to those I had hurt, and that I felt I had hurt them and here is why. Honestly, I found it freaked them out more than me when all was said and done because it was heartfelt and minimized on drama. I told them a little about the program and its goals and that part of the program was keeping it simple, so I just owned up to everything I felt that I had done wrong and wanted to fix what I could or just acknowledge my wrongs so that they could at least understand clearly that I and the alcohol were the problem--not them. That is one soul purging experience for both parties. I recall some folks just wanted to get off the phone--but with a thoughtfulness that was not all painful and some laughed and rejoiced with me. The experience allowed me to go forward reinforced that brutal honesty was good and that living dishonestly is living in darkness.
-- Edited by turninggrey on Saturday 25th of September 2010 05:12:33 PM
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