Thank You Dad!

My Dad died today. It was hard watching him die. But I am so grateful for some of the things he taught me. He taught me to love the scriptures. He also taught me that God loved me. Because I knew my Dad loved me, I knew that God loved me. If he taught me nothing else but those two things I would be forever grateful. They have made it so I can make it through life's tough times. Goodbye Dad. I will miss you for a time.

Life Changes

My Dad is dying. I got a call a week ago that he didn't have long to live, so I flew  to my parents home. This new phase of life is another growing experience. The twelve steps have helped me with this too. I don't worry about what I have no control over any more (not much anyway). I'm at peace with whatever God wants to do.

I'm going to give a copy of the 12 step program to my Mom and sisters. If they choose to do any of it, it can help them find some peace. It is amazing how working on something for one area of your life can help in all areas.  Learning to trust God (step 3) is so important in life, I'm beginning to see the bigger picture for me.

Feelings

Wow, I haven't been on for over a month. I have been working on the steps for myself, though just not making the time to write about it. The past month or so I have been working on the workbook, "He Did Deliver Me from Bondage, " by Colleen C. Harrison. She was addicted to food and perfectionism and wrote it to go along with the twelve step program. It has a scripture study that go along with each section. Some thought provoking questions that go along with various scriptures. It has given me new things to think about. It is work though. I'm filling up a notebook. My husband agreed to read and do the work in it. We will see.

We go another draft of the twelve steps last week. This one is much smaller 39 pages. I will have to compare it. I have saved all of the rough drafts so far. There are things I like from each of them. No more Serenity Prayer. I really liked saying that each week it gave me peace. That I know I will miss. They titled Step 1 as Honesty instead of Awareness.

I like the start of Step 1 where it talks about how we sometimes feel controlled by some of our feelings, such as:

• Fear that our addicted loved one would never get better and fear of the real possibility that he or she may even die physically as well as spiritually.
• Helpless to  prevent the harm our addicted loved one might do to others around them, especially children.
• Bitterness, resentment, and alarm over financial challenges as we dealt with excessive spending, treatment programs, legal expenses, fines, and destruction of property.
• Physical weariness as sleeplessness, stress, and anxiety took a toll on our health.
• Confusion as to why our loved ones were behaving so irrationally and why nothing we said or did seemed to make any difference.
• Shame, isolation, and hopelessness as we took responsibility for our loved ones' choices and tried to protect others from knowing what was happening. 
• Sorrow that baptism and temple covenants may be irreparable broken and eternal family ties severed.
• Anxiety that our loved ones' continued addiction somehow reflected our inability to access God's help in their behalf.
• Exhaustion at constantly reacting to the emotional upheaval in our family.

This new twelve step guide is written for all addictions so some of it doesn't fully apply to me, but I could relate with pretty much all of these feelings. When someone new comes to support group, I am reminded of when I first went several years ago. You feel so many feelings that you haven't even identified and and scared to be there, and angry that you are. We feel that we shouldn't have to be there. It isn't our addiction. We don't need to be fixed. If they keep coming back they realize that everyone has need to be "fixed" in someway. They eventually will find peace. I love the twelve steps! They have really saved my sanity. I am at peace even though things in my life are not stable. I'm sleeping better than I have for over ten years. True-fully these steps could benefit everybody.

Have a great weekend!