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Post by recovery1st on Jun 14, 2010 18:11:20 GMT -5
Hello, I found help in January. Before January I dealt with a high level love addiction. I acted & looked much like a crazy person. Every spec about me hurt & felt so sick & out of control. I messed up my job & some family relationships over my addiction. I spent many nights in a ball on my bed in agonizing pain because he would not talk to me. His voice alone was my dope. I would try to sleep but could only think non stop about a conversation we had or one we might have, or just watch the clock & wait for morning to be able to call again.
I was scared. I have a few good friends that offered their friendship but could not relate or give any answers. I honestly thought I would be stuck like that. Like I went off the deep end, never to return to functional. The feelings were so intense I could hardly sit by people as my nerves were shot.
Today...I have since found understanding, tips & books on the board. I have been able to read other posts which helped me identify my own unknowns. What I have may be more on the rare side but the solution is not. I learned can be ok again.
I've made progress. Found face to face meetings. Got active in the steps with a group. I have found relief from what used to plague me 24/7.
My life has taken so many sudden turns recently. There are more unknowns in my future now more than ever. It is still my inside reaction to connect with my qualifier when I am uncomfortable with my life. He is my drug of choice. A drug I am working to kick one day at a time with the help of recovery & HP.
Greta was one of the first people to welcome me & I've benefited in many ways from her posts. I am here to support her ongoing work in her recovery & others achieve their own recovery. I am also here because I really need the support myself.
I never want to be where I was in my disease again. I do not wish that on anyone, it was very awful.
LA is a very humiliating disease at times & I'm very appreciative of the people that accepted & understood me.
Thanks
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Post by iwillsurvive on Jun 14, 2010 18:30:07 GMT -5
Thanks for sharing your story, Recovery1st. You have come a long way. It is always encouraging to see other people make progress. It provides hope. Glad you're here.
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Post by knowlove on Jun 14, 2010 19:02:33 GMT -5
Recovery-thank you for sharing your story. I very much relate to your living your POA 24/7. Boy do I! It is evident you have come a long way already in your recovery. Sometimes we may not feel this way ourselves but outsiders see it more clearly. It is wonderful to realize they (POA's) do not have to have this hold on us but it takes awhile and hard work to get to that place. So glad you have joined with us. There so many wonderful caring supportive people here. I look forward to seeing your progress on here.
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Post by g on Jun 15, 2010 6:40:19 GMT -5
hey folks!!! I wanna stay humble so stop it!!!! ;D I'm being a happy little sixteen-year-old today. Having fun in the kitchen rather than on the dancefloor.... So glad you're all here and contributing. G
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Post by primrose on Jun 15, 2010 7:37:58 GMT -5
Recovery1st, very happy for you that you've come so far. I so relate to the intensity of your addiction. I was totally absorbed in my obsession with my POA and I lived for the contact. I'd never experienced obsession like that before and it completely overwhelmed me. Like you, my POA is my drug of choice, so my mind turns to him when life is hard. That's just fantasy now as the reality of my POA is that talking to him doesn't get me high anymore. Which is almost disappointing Great to have you here and witness your recovery. P.
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Post by g on Jun 15, 2010 7:49:07 GMT -5
My obsession was so intense I thought I was possessed. totally unlike ANYTHING I had experienced. I was like an animal on a feeding frenzy and I had no idea what was happening to me.
After a year and a half of trying to go NC , and going thru hellish withdrawals every other week, i hit rock bottom. My marriage, my job, everything was on the line.
Luckily I found Susan's recovery forum and that, along with listening to my HP again, truly saved my life.
But I'm very glad to be here on this forum now and on another stage of my journey towards recovery G
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Post by knowlove on Jun 15, 2010 9:31:06 GMT -5
living, breathing, eating sleeping POA 24/7. Nah I wasn't obsessed. Oh how I relate! Drug of choice most definitely and yes full time addiction.
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Post by primrose on Jun 16, 2010 8:41:49 GMT -5
It's so weird the intensity of obsession. At times in active addiction I'd catch sight of myself, I'd have a moment of detached clarity and I'd think "Why this man? He's just an ordinary man" And my feelings wouldn't make sense to me at all. Men are usually quite simple creatures (sorry guys, I think I'm simple too, I think people are simple, women and men) I think people are simple and live simple lives, they work hard, they have kids, they grow old. Life is quite ordinary. But for me my POA was a god. A super-human, not a man, a god. And capable of making me intensely happy or suicidal. He was the world. I became a devotee, just a disciple. I worshipped him. And really.. that's pretty mad. I was clearly unhinged to make a simple man my god. But my feelings were so powerful that's how it was. To turn away from that in recovery was incredibly hard. To turn that obsession over to a HP when I didn't believe in anything spiritual at all wasn't easy. What do you do with a 24\7 obsession? Thinking about it, I'm grateful I've had this experience in my life, because it's been the making of me. I don't think I've done anything this hard before, and I did do a lot of different things emotionally, but to really turn away from my POA felt like tearing myself away from the only thing that mattered in my life, even when I knew it was destroying my life. And I'm grateful because I found out about surrender through this experience and I worked the steps. I'd never have done that if it weren't for ending up in the hell of active love addiction. So I guess for me it's really been worth the pain, because the pain made me teachable. I'm such a narc it was going to take an emotional war of the worlds to get through my defenses. I did find someone who could be that for me, so I'm glad of that. Although it hurt like hell. P.
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Post by knowlove on Jun 16, 2010 8:48:06 GMT -5
I love how you write Prim. Always have such great insight and your words are always words of wisdom. I feel I have learned an awful lot about myself in these last several months but I sure have a long way to go. In some ways I too am glad for this chance to "find" myself and see who I really am, see how strong I can be and I know in the end I will be a much happier person. None of us asked for this and it is a hard addiction to break free of. No one would ever understand it if you had to explain. Those of us in it are the only ones who truly understand how much madness, heartache and sometimes torture come with this addiction.
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Post by primrose on Jun 16, 2010 11:23:28 GMT -5
Love your posts too KL. I think in time people will understand what it is to recover from a process addiction, but at the moment it's not really common knowledge. I know a lot of people in SLAA who say their drug addiction and alcohol addiction never came close to how painful their withdrawal from LA was. I haven't experienced a substance addiction myself, so I don't know what that's like, but love addiction is certainly the worst thing I've had to recover from in my life. And do my friends understand that? No! No one but other LAs understand. Glad I know people who do get it. It's such a huge thing to have gone through. P.
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Post by recovery1st on Jun 16, 2010 11:56:06 GMT -5
I've like the posts, it was inspiring to see that people can get better.
The first time I saw face to face a person that explained where they came from & how it is "now" my entire being dropped to my knees & cried with gratitude. It was like being held captive not knowing if I'd ever see the daylight again & then being rescued. Sure I had to , learn, heal & adjust but the answer was there...I could be free.
Recovery showed up, HP & all!!
I have such a long way to go, so many things to discover & strengths to find but my progress today is something to be extremely thankful for.
I'd like to encourage any LA suffering today, to put things of recovery 1st. Regardless of how you may have acted out today. It's going to hurt & it may hurt for a long time but you can get passed this.
Don't wait to... Feel Better Get Angry Fall out of love The Big Bad Thing they do to end it Another to show up & make it better Others to understand A perfect faith ..... To recover.
Do all that you can do today...reading, writing, connecting with LAs in recovery & HP inspite of your inperfections & falling short of how you may think things 'should be'.
May we all know healthy love, first within & then around us.
Onward.
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Post by kelleyboy on Jun 16, 2010 13:10:23 GMT -5
I got LA. And other substance addictions. LA far and above the most painful to me...and possibly the least understood.
KB
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Post by knowlove on Jun 16, 2010 13:28:57 GMT -5
absolutely agree KB. Not well known addiction and like Prim, have not had any other type of addiction so cannot compare to drugs, alcohol or such but with those there are no feelings of love, abandonment or insecurity. Obsession and attachment maybe. For me this is one of the toughest things I have ever had to face but of course my whole life I never faced anything anyway. Addiction was my escape. So, not only am I trying to let go of my addiction but my way of coping with anything difficult I did not want to face. It never seems to be just one thing with LA. So much more intertwined.
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Post by recovery1st on Jun 16, 2010 16:09:33 GMT -5
Added pressure is how much of this disease operates from inside my head. With substances we can distance ourselves from them most of the time. True an addict can think their way back to a substance but with us, our thoughts alone are often the substance...that eases pain & takes us from our own reality. So the challenge is to ostain from a drug that generates & exist within. Thankfully there is hope...but wow...it's a very hard thing to kick.
I am thankful every moment that I am free, they rarely come naturally but the work is worth it.
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Post by quinn on Jun 17, 2010 0:17:27 GMT -5
Recovery, Excellent list. The thing about waiting for "The Big Bad Thing they do to end it" is that one keeps thinking—well that wasn't THAT big. Maybe I need to wait for an even bigger Big Bad Thing. And life just keeps getting worse and worse. When I count up the really intolerable, VERY bad things my POA did, I get to something like twenty things before I followed through with leaving. So don't even go down that road people. Get out when you start seeing little bad things.
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