I appreciate the non-judgmental assessment of SLAA as being simply not for you. More often people go in on all the reasons 12-Step doesn’t work, having not actually tried it. The program has saved my life, and I’m sensitive to those sorts of agenda-driven criticisms.
Intrigue remains my trickiest bottom line behavior, the one all the others either stem from or lure me towards. The reason the “love” in SLAA is often framed in quotations is because it is not real love we are addicted to, but some combination of attention, validation, novelty and control that we confuse with love, often because we’ve suffered from a lack of “real” love in our families of origin.
I think of it as a back burner on a stove. In my addiction I expended endless amounts of energy trying to insure that I had as many people as possible on my back burner and that I was on as many back burners as I could find.
My sobriety is a kind of self-containment, in which I’m not on anyone’s back burner and I have no one on mine, and indeed have no back burner at all.
That was a big leap of faith, like unplugging your own life support without knowing if you’ll survive.
Thank you so much for this, I really appreciate you sharing it so openly. I was very intentional about not taking a swipe at SLAA, knowing how genuinely lifesaving it’s been for so many people, so it means a lot to hear that care came through.
What you wrote about intrigue as a bottom-line behavior is brilliant, as is the assessment of the “love” in question. You’re so right that it boils down to a mix of attention, validation, novelty, and control. That constant simmering, both keeping people there and trying to stay on theirs, feels so familiar. It’s like recovering from a scarcity mindset, kind of? I’m happy that you’re in a better place too.
Thank you again for reading so closely and for offering this here. It means so so so much to me.
Thank you. ♥️ I was trying to articulate how tension can become a kind of containment rather than something to resolve, and how that feels stabilizing right up until it doesn’t. The moment when attention desynchronizes is the one the system can’t absorb. I appreciate you naming that so clearly.
I too, am an intrigue junky. Solid piece.
Thank you! We'll make it through, I think!
😅🤞🏻
I appreciate the non-judgmental assessment of SLAA as being simply not for you. More often people go in on all the reasons 12-Step doesn’t work, having not actually tried it. The program has saved my life, and I’m sensitive to those sorts of agenda-driven criticisms.
Intrigue remains my trickiest bottom line behavior, the one all the others either stem from or lure me towards. The reason the “love” in SLAA is often framed in quotations is because it is not real love we are addicted to, but some combination of attention, validation, novelty and control that we confuse with love, often because we’ve suffered from a lack of “real” love in our families of origin.
I think of it as a back burner on a stove. In my addiction I expended endless amounts of energy trying to insure that I had as many people as possible on my back burner and that I was on as many back burners as I could find.
My sobriety is a kind of self-containment, in which I’m not on anyone’s back burner and I have no one on mine, and indeed have no back burner at all.
That was a big leap of faith, like unplugging your own life support without knowing if you’ll survive.
Thank you so much for this, I really appreciate you sharing it so openly. I was very intentional about not taking a swipe at SLAA, knowing how genuinely lifesaving it’s been for so many people, so it means a lot to hear that care came through.
What you wrote about intrigue as a bottom-line behavior is brilliant, as is the assessment of the “love” in question. You’re so right that it boils down to a mix of attention, validation, novelty, and control. That constant simmering, both keeping people there and trying to stay on theirs, feels so familiar. It’s like recovering from a scarcity mindset, kind of? I’m happy that you’re in a better place too.
Thank you again for reading so closely and for offering this here. It means so so so much to me.
Thank you. ♥️ I was trying to articulate how tension can become a kind of containment rather than something to resolve, and how that feels stabilizing right up until it doesn’t. The moment when attention desynchronizes is the one the system can’t absorb. I appreciate you naming that so clearly.