Signs that you are making it truly towards the end of withdraw and healing:
How do we know when we are approaching the end of this stage of recovery? After all, withrdawal does not go on forever (although it may feel interminible). What signposts do we have to indicate to us that we are ready for a new chapter in our sober lives? We would like to share some of these signposts with you, as we have experienced them.
The first signpost was a growing awareness that we were now quite seasoned at dealing with temptations on a regular basis. Those situations which had been so transfixing in earlier phases of withdrawal were now easily, if not always comfortably handled. We had developed a capacity to asses these varied threats, and to deal with them with real consistency. In withdrawal we had foudn or "sea legs;" we had become "street wise." We had been granted freedom of choice over becoming sexually or emotionally involved.
The second signpost that we were ready to leave the withdrawal phase was that we were no longer concerened with HOW MUCH LONGER WE HAVE TO ABSTAIN FROM SEXUAL OR ROMANTIC ENTANGLEMENTS. EARLY ON, MANY OF US HAD EXCLAIMED "HOW LONG DO I HAVE TO WAIT BEFORE I CAN HAVE A RELATIONSHIP OR HAVE SEX?" I WANT TO GET THIS OVERWITH SO I CAN HAVE A RELATIONSHIP. BUT NOW THESE CONCERNS DID NOT PLAGUE US IN THE SAME WAY, OR WITH THE SAME INTENSITY. IN FACT WE COULD LAUGH, RETROSPECTIVELY, AT CONCERNS LIKE THESE. WE COULD SEE THAT THEY REALLY CONSISTED OF THIS UNDERLYING THOUGHT "HOW LONG DO I HAVE TO REFRAIN FROM ACTING OUT BEFORE I CAN BEGIN TO ACT OUT AGAIN??" WELL...!!!
What came to pass is that we refrained from seeking to escape from ourselves through acting out on our sex and love addiction, we began to become intimate with ourselves. Such an experience is difficult to describe. However, essentially we are inaugurating a new, inner relationship. Despite the grueling qualities of dealing with outer temptations and inner insecurities, we began to experience withdrawal not as deprivation, but as SELF-ENRICHMENT. It was not simply a matter of having something taken out of our lives. We were doing the "withdrawing;" we were choosing to take back, or withdraw, the energy which we had been squandering on futile pursuits. This very energy, now back within us, was helping us to BECOME WHOLE PEOPLE.
This deepening awareness of our own inner change buoyed us up. As long as we were on the road to growth, time didn't matter so much. The paradox is that once we accepted that we simply could not know how long withdraw would last, we felt prepared to go on with the process regardless of how long it took, we discovered that we had triumphed! The fear of being deprived of our addiction was the real fear behind our concerns about time. In coming to terms with this fear, the chances were great that we were becoming ready for the withdrawal phase to wind down.
A third singpost that we have come through withdrawal was that we became more aware of personal relationships with children, spouses (or lovers or partners), friends, siblings, and parents. The time of contemplation during withdrawal had brought with it awareness of hour our sex and love addiction patterns had permeated our relationships with most of the important persons in our lives. We were now ready to put some of our new-found energy into the tasks of reassessing these realtionships, reparing them when warranted.
A fourth signpost of being ready to move beyond withdrawal was closely related to the thrid. We began to have new energy available to invest in new, or once abandoned interests. The possibility for personal growth led us to explore new careers, schooling, new hobbies, new circles of friends. Perhaps a new partnership was beginning to unfold. In many areas we found ourselves ready and able to address these new opportunities.
Nor was this energy the kind which had once driven us so obsessively and compulsively. It was as if in the process of having encountered, and passed through, our own inner turmoil and suffering, the rite of passage had changed the very obsessive/compulsive character of our past "energy" into something that was now much more smooth and even. In the spirit of this basic change, we felt that whatever new, real life possibilities were were now awaiting us were different extensions of our inner growth, not diversions or escapes from it.
We were beginning to be able to feel a sense of direction which was now pointing beyond the withdrawal process toward what our lives might come to look and feel like as our inner experiences were translated into partnership, activity in a community, and career. The energy which had been devoted to the inner experiences of withdrawal was now freed up, the better to enable us to address what life offered. This represented another major signpost that the withdrawal phase was drawing to a close. Strangely, we often found that events or circumstances which provided either motivation or opportunity for us to live out more of our potential as sober people would just "happen." These situations or events seemed to appear providentially at just about the point when we felt our own readiness to explore and respond to these opportunities. Where we once seemed to be swimming upstream against the currents of Fate, we now felt ourselves moving with the flow. Fate was starting to work with us, and a sense of having a personal destiny was starting to emerge.
And what can be said of the final signpost that withdrawal is ending? Well, this signpost was really after-the-fact. It showed itself at that time when we knew that our lives in sobriety and withdrawal were, in fact, due to change. Perhaps a marital reconciliation was scheduled to commence, or a new partnership was being explored, or a change in career status was imminent, entailing a major shift in personal responsibilities. Life tasks, whether personal, relational, occupational or academic, were due to be taken up again. No longer a mer possibility, the time had been specified: the date was set.
As we approached the point of enacting this change in our life circumstances, we usually became aware of a range of surprising feelings. We realized that the time we had spent in withdrawal - and the whole withdrawal experience itself - had been a precious, singular period in our lives. With all the pain and ache of the early goin, with all the difficult and dangerous challenges to our new and vulnerable sobriety which we had faced and throughout all the gut-wrenching we had undergong over our crisis of personal identity and meaning, we somehow knew that we would miss this period once it was behind us.
Amidst all of the difficulties and uncertainties, a simple intimacy had come into being for us: we had met ourselves, and found ourselves worthy. We had become "beloved" to ourselves. We had discovered a whole new relationship with God and life. As we contemplated our changing lives, we actually felt longing for a future time in which we might once again come to experience the magnificence of our own solitude, and come again to know directly that well-spring of inner dignity of wholeness which was filling us, and which was now to flow, through us, on into our lives in the world outside.
We knew we had experieced a Grace.
How do we know when we are approaching the end of this stage of recovery? After all, withrdawal does not go on forever (although it may feel interminible). What signposts do we have to indicate to us that we are ready for a new chapter in our sober lives? We would like to share some of these signposts with you, as we have experienced them.
The first signpost was a growing awareness that we were now quite seasoned at dealing with temptations on a regular basis. Those situations which had been so transfixing in earlier phases of withdrawal were now easily, if not always comfortably handled. We had developed a capacity to asses these varied threats, and to deal with them with real consistency. In withdrawal we had foudn or "sea legs;" we had become "street wise." We had been granted freedom of choice over becoming sexually or emotionally involved.
The second signpost that we were ready to leave the withdrawal phase was that we were no longer concerened with HOW MUCH LONGER WE HAVE TO ABSTAIN FROM SEXUAL OR ROMANTIC ENTANGLEMENTS. EARLY ON, MANY OF US HAD EXCLAIMED "HOW LONG DO I HAVE TO WAIT BEFORE I CAN HAVE A RELATIONSHIP OR HAVE SEX?" I WANT TO GET THIS OVERWITH SO I CAN HAVE A RELATIONSHIP. BUT NOW THESE CONCERNS DID NOT PLAGUE US IN THE SAME WAY, OR WITH THE SAME INTENSITY. IN FACT WE COULD LAUGH, RETROSPECTIVELY, AT CONCERNS LIKE THESE. WE COULD SEE THAT THEY REALLY CONSISTED OF THIS UNDERLYING THOUGHT "HOW LONG DO I HAVE TO REFRAIN FROM ACTING OUT BEFORE I CAN BEGIN TO ACT OUT AGAIN??" WELL...!!!
What came to pass is that we refrained from seeking to escape from ourselves through acting out on our sex and love addiction, we began to become intimate with ourselves. Such an experience is difficult to describe. However, essentially we are inaugurating a new, inner relationship. Despite the grueling qualities of dealing with outer temptations and inner insecurities, we began to experience withdrawal not as deprivation, but as SELF-ENRICHMENT. It was not simply a matter of having something taken out of our lives. We were doing the "withdrawing;" we were choosing to take back, or withdraw, the energy which we had been squandering on futile pursuits. This very energy, now back within us, was helping us to BECOME WHOLE PEOPLE.
This deepening awareness of our own inner change buoyed us up. As long as we were on the road to growth, time didn't matter so much. The paradox is that once we accepted that we simply could not know how long withdraw would last, we felt prepared to go on with the process regardless of how long it took, we discovered that we had triumphed! The fear of being deprived of our addiction was the real fear behind our concerns about time. In coming to terms with this fear, the chances were great that we were becoming ready for the withdrawal phase to wind down.
A third singpost that we have come through withdrawal was that we became more aware of personal relationships with children, spouses (or lovers or partners), friends, siblings, and parents. The time of contemplation during withdrawal had brought with it awareness of hour our sex and love addiction patterns had permeated our relationships with most of the important persons in our lives. We were now ready to put some of our new-found energy into the tasks of reassessing these realtionships, reparing them when warranted.
A fourth signpost of being ready to move beyond withdrawal was closely related to the thrid. We began to have new energy available to invest in new, or once abandoned interests. The possibility for personal growth led us to explore new careers, schooling, new hobbies, new circles of friends. Perhaps a new partnership was beginning to unfold. In many areas we found ourselves ready and able to address these new opportunities.
Nor was this energy the kind which had once driven us so obsessively and compulsively. It was as if in the process of having encountered, and passed through, our own inner turmoil and suffering, the rite of passage had changed the very obsessive/compulsive character of our past "energy" into something that was now much more smooth and even. In the spirit of this basic change, we felt that whatever new, real life possibilities were were now awaiting us were different extensions of our inner growth, not diversions or escapes from it.
We were beginning to be able to feel a sense of direction which was now pointing beyond the withdrawal process toward what our lives might come to look and feel like as our inner experiences were translated into partnership, activity in a community, and career. The energy which had been devoted to the inner experiences of withdrawal was now freed up, the better to enable us to address what life offered. This represented another major signpost that the withdrawal phase was drawing to a close. Strangely, we often found that events or circumstances which provided either motivation or opportunity for us to live out more of our potential as sober people would just "happen." These situations or events seemed to appear providentially at just about the point when we felt our own readiness to explore and respond to these opportunities. Where we once seemed to be swimming upstream against the currents of Fate, we now felt ourselves moving with the flow. Fate was starting to work with us, and a sense of having a personal destiny was starting to emerge.
And what can be said of the final signpost that withdrawal is ending? Well, this signpost was really after-the-fact. It showed itself at that time when we knew that our lives in sobriety and withdrawal were, in fact, due to change. Perhaps a marital reconciliation was scheduled to commence, or a new partnership was being explored, or a change in career status was imminent, entailing a major shift in personal responsibilities. Life tasks, whether personal, relational, occupational or academic, were due to be taken up again. No longer a mer possibility, the time had been specified: the date was set.
As we approached the point of enacting this change in our life circumstances, we usually became aware of a range of surprising feelings. We realized that the time we had spent in withdrawal - and the whole withdrawal experience itself - had been a precious, singular period in our lives. With all the pain and ache of the early goin, with all the difficult and dangerous challenges to our new and vulnerable sobriety which we had faced and throughout all the gut-wrenching we had undergong over our crisis of personal identity and meaning, we somehow knew that we would miss this period once it was behind us.
Amidst all of the difficulties and uncertainties, a simple intimacy had come into being for us: we had met ourselves, and found ourselves worthy. We had become "beloved" to ourselves. We had discovered a whole new relationship with God and life. As we contemplated our changing lives, we actually felt longing for a future time in which we might once again come to experience the magnificence of our own solitude, and come again to know directly that well-spring of inner dignity of wholeness which was filling us, and which was now to flow, through us, on into our lives in the world outside.
We knew we had experieced a Grace.