A conversation with my Sponsor
Usually, sponsor conversations are incredibly private. In this case, i’m going to reveal a bit of the discussion we had.
I started off giving my sponsor a synopsis of what had happened with Analie. It was a lengthy conversation – we probably spent about two hours on it. You can read more about it here and here.
Definitely a Backslide
There’s really not a way to put a good face on what I did. It was more codependency. I wanted to save her, and reached out and tried to. You cannot save addicts, though. They make their own choices to live and die, use and not use. She is not ready to stop and that was all there was to it. I just opened myself up to mistreatment, more abuse. It was foolish.
I figured out what to do without his help
I was the one who figured things out and denied her the enabling she wanted. I can be proud of that.
I am not in control of when she contacts me
He thought it was funny that I thought there was finality to the last communication. He seems to think that i’ll hear back from her again. More begs for cash, and attempts to manipulate. After all, I was a past source of enablement. She is certain to try again when desperation hits.
I should entertain myself with her
While this sounds fairly cold, my sponsor’s point is that nothing that I do or say will impact her recovery. Since I can’t help her, just hurt her by enabling, I might as well have fun with the interactions. I feel safe now knowing I will never enable again. I should have as much fun as I wish with this, knowing there are boundaries I will never cross.
In fact, he suggested that I may be entirely invalidated from assisting at all with her recovery since I was such a long term enabler. It’s likely if she ever hits recovery that she’ll have a ton of other people that are more recent in her life to offer amends to. I’m unlikely to hear from her in that event. In short, i’ll probably never have a meaningful conversation with her again. Since every conversation with her is manipulative and warped by addiction, it probably hardly matters.
September 8th Discussion of Her
My sponsor was pretty happy about me going to discuss Analie to a joint AA/Al-Anon group on the 8th of September. He seemed to think it a good recovery exercise. Kennett Square, PA, so if you want to meet me, consider attending.
