But I'm NOT the one wth the problem...

Credit

I appreciate your comments so much. I am the worst about getting stuck in my tunnel of experience and opinion and hearing feedback helps me break out of that and try looking at things from a different paradigm. Which is not easy for me, but I'll get to that in a minute.

 

I want to respond to the heartfelt message of Anonymous when she wrote this:

"I just can't get my head wrapped around step 4-8 for the spouses of the addicted. I get step 1-3 but I feel slapped in the face when I get to step 4. I look at my recovery through the eyes of someone who has lost a limb. I feel I am working through the grieving process. I feel that my very human feelings and behaviors should not be couched in language to make me feel I have sinned and need to make amends. I guess I don't like the inference that step 4-8 makes that I have done something wrong and need to repent."

First of all- I'm so sorry for your experience. And I am inspired by the dignified and mature way that you talk about it now. You are amazing.

I think I've mentioned this before but I distinctly remember thinking, at my first family support group meeting when everyone was calling themselves "codependents"

"Don't you DARE stick a label on me. I am NOT the one with the problem."

It's true, I wasn't the one with a socially unacceptable, sprititually devastating, marriage destroying pornography or sex addiction. But what the 4th step did for me, was help me realize other behaviors in my life [most were totally unrelated to Pete's addiction] that were keeping me from having more fulfilling relationships and happiness in general.

In the Healing Through Christ Manual it says:

"Step Four provides the opportunity for each of us to write a complete honest inventory of ourselves—our weaknesses and our strengths, our virtues and our struggles. As we begin using a Step Four inventory to look within ourselves, we lay a foundation of self-understanding that will bring change and healing into our lives. Brigham Young taught: 'The greatest lesson you can learn is to know yourselves.' This inventory becoms crucial in helping us deal with our own struggles and hurts and in facing our current circumstances with courage and faith."

My Step Four didn't include any confessions of past sins, and the extent of my repentence was a prayer between me and God that I talked about here. What Steps 4-8 have done,and continue to do for me are make me aware of my frustrating foibles and give me opportunity to request the help of the Savior in overcoming them.

Just as an example, looking back over my life helped me see patterns, one in particular was the way that I was raised and surrounded by people that I call "elitists." I love my family, but they speak very condescendingly of people who have different (therefore wrong) opinions from their own. Here is a paragraph directly from my inventory. [Be gentle with me, this is difficult to share.]

I get agitated when someone disagrees with me. It makes me irritable, frustrated, lonely and grumpy.I am stubborn, and the more I am pushed in one direction the more I resist the pressure. When someone disagrees with me, rather than considering their perspective I dig deeper in my own opinion and exert great energy into proving them wrong or trying to persuade them. I take it personally when someone disagrees with me, attaching my opinions to my worth and when someone questions my opinion my worth is threatened.

The fact that I'm writing this post is evidence of this very weakness! But what steps 4-8 do for me is make me aware of the weakness, and then with the Saviors grace, find strength to be different.

Having said ALL that, I want to end on a final thought. I really hope you're still reading.

In my opinion Steps 4-8 ARE the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Anonymous, your comment

"I feel that my time to do moral inventory happens in those quiet moments during the sacrament every sunday, in my personal prayer and scripture reading. "

is the heart of the matter. I think it's perfectly appropriate for that to be the way you approach your own weaknesses and your relationships with God. It's the way most people do it, spiritually mature people who understand the atonement. But for whatever reason, I needed the framework of the 12 step program to help me understand those things. To guide me through my journey of self-reflection and to make me accountable to someone to actually write it out. 

And although I haven't yet written about steps 6 and 7, I will soon, because I study them often as I struggle to let go of my bad habits and shortcomings. It as been suprisingly difficult to be willing to let them go.