Why Boundaries

In the support group I attend, we’ve been studying the concept of boundaries, which I’ve found challenging to grasp for some reason. An "ah-ha" moment came when I recognized the relationship between boundaries and connection. Isolation, the opposite of connection, is closely tied to addiction. It can lead to addiction, and it’s natural to isolate when struggling with addiction. It’s easy to see how this can perpetuate a cycle. Therefore, connecting with others and establishing healthy relationships becomes crucial for recovery. I’ve often chosen isolation because it’s easier than managing relationships which can be hard for me. Boundaries help to make relationships manageable, linking them to connection and making them essential.

Roughly defined, boundaries are protective limits that we set in relationships. They help define the edges of the relationship and ensure that interactions remain respectful and supportive. Importantly, boundaries are not punishments, ways to exert control, or methods to avoid dealing with pain. Here are some examples:

I have special people in my life who bring me light and happiness, yet they have some unrealistic expectations of me and often criticize me harshly and inappropriately when I don't meet those expectations. I have made it clear to them that when this happens, I will need to change the subject or leave to protect myself from feelings of inadequacy and rejection, which can push me back into dangerous isolation. This has made those relationships easier and sweeter.

Another boundary I'm trying to apply is cutting short long, meaningless, inauthentic conversations. This protects me from feeling trapped, which invokes intense anxiety in me.

I recently realized that even before I knew about boundaries, I had set a 'self-directed' boundary when I began eliminating lust from my life. Fantasizing about women other than my wife and over-appreciating other attractive women are no longer welcome behaviors. Those are part of the self I'm growing out of and not part of who I am becoming. When I recognize that I've crossed this boundary, I quickly take action to stop the behavior. This protects me from triggers that push me back into preoccupation with acting out.

Other self-directed boundaries I'm developing include prioritizing self-care and maintaining connection and accountability. These will look like eating less and moving more, carving out time to rest and recover from life's difficulties, maintaining close relationships with friends, and regularly attending and sharing at support group meetings.

These and other boundaries have helped me keep isolation at bay and have allowed the refreshing benefits of connection to enrich my life. To finish, here are some tips that I've found helpful:

1. Identifying the need for a boundary, like finding the puncture in a bicycle tube, can be tricky. Difficult feelings that push me into isolation are like the bubbles that show me the location of the leak. Tracing those feelings back to their source is helpful, and journaling is an effective tool in that effort.

2. It's important to be clear and specific about where a boundary is. For example, I sometimes need constructive criticism, and I certainly need to know and understand the needs that the special people in my life have in our relationships. So, I’ve made sure that they know they’re not crossing my boundary until they become abusive.

The subject of boundaries can be confusing, but when understood and applied well, boundaries are an essential tool in the workshop of recovery.

By Ty, Writing Team

Why Can’t Things Go According to Plan?

One of the larger struggles in my life has been battling with the gap between what I think is supposed to happen and what actually happens. This was most frustrating when I was just coming out of addiction. A resentment set in, and it was fueled by an unmet expectation that everything should be grand now that I wasn’t acting out all the time. Thankfully I was in an AA Big Book Study Group at the time and learned that an expectation is just a future resentment in embryo, and resentments lead to relapse, since acting out almost always makes that frustration, abandonment, and emptiness go away…at least for a short while. Of course, then those feelings come back with added anxiety, demanding to be soothed again.

Today, however, was one of those markers of successful advancement. We had a plan to get the family out of the house by a certain time but the time came and passed. Those I asked to help disappeared. No doubt because they were used to the way I was when they were growing up - NOT a pleasant guy to be around when packing up for a trip or unloading the car - so I couldn’t blame them.

A former sponsor shared about a time early in his recovery when his family was shocked that he never yelled or got irritated as they prepared to go on a family vacation. They were used to steering clear of his path on packing day, but when they all got in the car, they mentioned to him how nice it was to not have all the pre-trip drama. That account stuck with me and I’ve been working on it ever since. And today, I drove my family away from the house in good spirits without a single cross word being said.

But these examples are small potatoes. What about all the stuff that happened to us when we were kids? And all the oaths we swore that things would be different when we were parents? That our kids would not suffer as we did, that they’d be light years ahead?

For some, those desires become reality. For others of us, to quote about the only thing I recall from high school English, this passage from Robert Burns’ To a Mouse … “The best-laid schemes of mice and men, Go oft awry, And leave us nothing but grief and pain for promised joy!”

Recently our family has had some heartache. Despite my best plans and efforts, one of my kids did something akin to what I did at the same age. Oy vey, the frustration and hurt and pain. Frustration because I thought by sharing my life stories they wouldn’t have to experience the same heartache and pain. But alas, we each have our agency and some of life’s lessons must be learned by running straight at a brick wall despite all the warnings given.

So then, why can’t things go according to plan?

In my life I’m learning that my plans aren’t all that great despite me thinking so. I’m learning to submit my will to God’s Will, instead of praying for the desired outcome as though God is my servant. I’m learning to pray for the desired feelings of connection with Him, and leaving my mind open to inspiration of what to do to get there. It has taken a lot of practice and I still have much more to learn and experience, but I have seen it start to remold my life. When I co-create with God, the outcomes are far more amazing than the original concocted plan of mine.

So rather than having a plan with prescribed steps all the time, on important things, I’m learning to “let go and let God.” I’m seeking His advice, seeking to create my life with Him. I’m learning to not have much of a plan other than to humbly surrender my will to God and seek inspiration and then get to work on implementing what is shared with me through the Holy Spirit.

By Pete, Writing Team

Spelunker of the Soul

Have you ever discovered a part of yourself that you never knew was there before? In my life this has been a rare occurrence, but it has happened a few times, and each time it’s been a surprising and beautiful thing.

This occurred most recently about half a year ago when I was full of New Year’s resolutions, trying to throw myself anew into living a healthy, disciplined life. One night I was making my plans for the evening when another voice spoke up from within, encouraging me to keep my resolution to get to bed at a reasonable hour. I started up a conversation with that other voice, and was astounded to find that it seemed to have a mind of its own. I had never experienced anything like this, at least not outside of dreaming.

Like anyone else, I’ve had plenty of debates with myself where I provided both of the voices for two competing feelings, but this time I really didn’t know what the inner voice was going to say until I heard it say it. I could ask it questions, and it would come back with answers I’d never thought of before. It was like the voice was part of myself, but a part that was outside of my conscious perception. And best of all, this voice was positive, encouraging, and full of confidence in me. It was like my own personal life coach!

The voice expressed confidence in my ability to keep my commitments, it told me that not only could I succeed, but that I would. It was relentlessly bright and positive, a stark contrast to my usual outlook on self-improvement which had been dour and pessimistic. And that voice didn’t just show up for me that one night and then disappear, it has readily answered my calls for all the months since. I even spoke to it just last night.

I’ve decided that this voice is the part of God that lives in my heart, the part of me that is fashioned in His own image. And that part of me must have always been there, but I simply had never found the room where it lived until that one special night.

This really changed a key perception that I had had of myself. All my life hearing God’s voice had been very, very hard for me. I had always wanted to, but I never knew how to make it happen. I had assumed that daily discourse with God just wasn’t in the cards for me, and I would simply have to do my best without that gift. But then, with the discovery of this part, that belief was completely dismantled.

And this isn’t the only time that I’ve made a new discovery within myself. Over a year ago I had a moment where I suddenly found myself capable of loving absolute strangers. I’d walk into a convenience store and really, genuinely, care about the person behind the counter, whoever they were. I can also clearly remember the first time as a kid I decided to go and confess to my parents about a wrong I had gotten away with. I didn’t know I had that honest streak in me until one day when it just showed up all on its own.

As I’ve meditated on these discoveries, I’ve come to view my heart as a massive cave system. In that cave system I spend most of my time circling around the same, familiar chambers, but now and again I find a secret crawlspace that leads to a massive cavern I’ve never seen before. And this cave system is very large and very complex, which means I haven’t nearly discovered all that there is to find. There is a great and wonderful mystery within myself, and I’m the one who gets to plumb its depths!

I try to remember these notions any time I get caught up wishing that I could have a breakthrough in my self-improvement, or that I didn’t have the flaws that I have, or that I could be more like someone else. Maybe I haven’t seen those good parts in myself yet, but that doesn’t mean that they aren’t there. I do not know what I may yet find. One day I may very well notice a narrow passageway that I’d never seen before, and when I shimmy down it I may come out into just the sort of quality I’ve always longed to have. What was impossible every time before might suddenly become possible. The person I could never be I might suddenly become.

So might you.

By Abe, Writing Team