Step 1-CODEPENDENTS

SCOTT@SharingTheBurden.ca

http://sharingtheburden.blogspot.com/
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http://www.sharingtheburden.ca/

Serenity 12 step says: "For codependents, control or lack of it, is central to every aspect of life. As we admit powerlessness, we embark upon the antidote for our CONTROL ADDICTION, an addiction characterized by extremes of both over-control and under-control. For example the workaholic may over-control efforts to achieve and accomplish. What tends to be under-controlled is the quality of spiritual life and the investments of time and emotional intimacy with family members. By admitting powerlessness, he opens the the door to allow God to create a healthy, new balance in which he can lesson the compulsive control exercised in the work arena. He can then begin to experience greater positive control over his contribution to family relationships and his creation of quality private time.

Admission of powerlessness puts our will rightly below God's so that we can become the potent effective instruments we were created to be!

Do I have a problem?

So I say to myself (based on AA's statement in big book P.44 para 1)

"If when you honestly want to, you cannot quit entirely (controlling, REPEATING, involving yourself in other's lives, rescuing, drinking, over-eating, staying busy, performing tasks, sex acts etc etc), you are probably addicted. If that be the case, you may be suffering from an illness which only spiritual experience will conquer."

"OH LORD PLEASE GUIDE US THIS YEAR TO KNOW OUR ADDICTIVE AREAS IN LIFE, THAT WE MAY APPLY YOUR SPIRITUAL TEACHINGS IN 12 STEP WORK TO SPECIFIC PROBLEMS IN OUR LIVES. MAY OUR NEW WAYS BE POWERFUL WITNESS OF YOUR WORK IN OUR LIVES THAT OTHERS WILL BE ATTRACTED TO THIS WAY OF LIFE-AMEN!"