One of the things they talk about in AA and NA is being humble. It makes sense. You must humble yourself in order to see yourself as you truly are and to make the changes which you need to make to get clean and sober. It is no different in Al-Anon and Nar-Anon. In fact, for us, it is probably even more important.
The definition of humble is: having or showing a modest or low estimate of one's own importance. Think of those words.....having a low estimate of one's own importance. For most of us who love an addict or alcoholic, before we find ourselves in one of the Nons (Al-Anon or Nar-Anon), we are usually just the opposite of humble. We don't mean to be and honestly, if someone asked us if we were humble, we would likely humbly say....yes. Truthfully though, our self importance is usually off the charts.
When you have an addict in your world, whether it is a spouse, child, parent, sibling or best friend, you immediately don the cape, put the "S" on your chest, and take over the situation. You become savior, problem solver, banker, and public relations person, all in the blink of an eye.
You pull your addict out of tough situations, pay fines and give them money for places to live and "necessities," talk to bosses about why they are late or just didn't show up, and you tell the world half truths and outright lies about why they stood in the yard and screamed "F-you" so the whole world could hear them. In essence, in your view of things, you are the most important person in their world and likely the world of your entire family, because you are the only one that can do all of this and "fix" things. Who needs God, when you are on the job? Oh the lies we tell ourselves.
The reality is, we are enablers who do not make our addicts responsible for their own choices and actions. We buy them out of situations and sometimes go into debt doing it, cover up for their bad behavior, and lie to everyone about what is really going on and what they are really doing. By doing all of this, we are not helping the addict, we are making the rest of the family and those who care about us crazy, as they aren't blind and see the reality of what is going on, and we are just ensuring that our addict ALWAYS has a soft place to fall, no consequences, and a steady supply of sympathy and excuses that make his/her addiction and addictive behavior, that much easier to get by with.
Because we enable, it becomes so easy for the addict to hone their gaslighting and manipulative skills and become the narcissistic individuals they must be, in order to keep their addiction lifestyle alive and well. Also, the longer we enable, the likelihood is, the longer they will keep the lifestyle going, because they won't hit their rock bottom until all comfort, help, money and people are gone from their lives. Then and only then do they start to question their life choices because they know that they and only them are responsible for what they are doing, the choices they are making, and all consequences of these choices.
To put it bluntly, if you believe in God or a Higher Power, YOU have been stepping on God's toes and trying to take His place. Perhaps if you had backed off and yes, humbled yourself sooner, your addict would have learned a few crucial life lessons early on and not be where he/she is today. It's a tough reality, but a reality none the less.
Why do we do all of this for and to our addict? Because we feel so lost, helpless, and out of control. When it comes to those we love, when they are hurting or heading down a bad path, it is human nature to want to step in and make it all right, even though it is not our hurt or our path to change or fix. Still, we feel we have to do something, which leads to believing that we actually have the power to do something, which finally leads to us doing all the wrong things because we have an exaggerated view of our own power and control in our head. Unfortunately, by the time we realize that if we had any real power or control, our addict would not in fact be an addict, we have already done more damage than intended with our own savior complex.
So how do we undo the damage we have done? We don't, but admitting that we are powerless over our addicts choices and actions and over his/her addiction is a really great way to start making better choices for all involved going forward.
Many scoff at the 12 Steps and yet the 12 Steps are so crucial in our own recovery and often our working them and working them well, also has a huge effect on our addict. So if you are all in and decide to work the steps, in my "humble" opinion, the key to starting them and working them, is to in fact, humble yourself, because trust me, those Steps are humbling.
Truthfully, most of us have already begun the humbling process the moment we realize that our reality is that we are clueless in this whole addiction thing and nothing we are doing is helping. We are willing to try anything at this point, even the things we had scoffed at previously. That is what usually brings us to one of the Non meetings. To admit that nothing you are doing is working and that you have no control humbles a person pretty quickly. You begin to yank both the "S" off your chest and the cape off your back, and find some understanding that their addiction is their problem and it is not a problem that you can make better or fix. This is their issue. You have your own issues to deal with, starting with your savior complex.
The good news is, once you have humbled yourself that first time, and have completely understood that you have no super powers in this or probably any situation, a lot of things start making sense, not just about how you have handled your addict and his/her addiction, but likely about many other things in your life too. You start seeing how much control you have tried to hold over everyone and everything and you realize that you can actually only control that which is yours.....your thoughts, your actions and how you live your life. Everything else should be off limits and out of your lane. In other words, you need to stay in your lane.
The more you focus on you, and what brought you to be the control freak you have turned into, the more humble you seem to get. At times, it is almost difficult to realize and actually see the difference between what you thought you were doing and what you were actually doing where your addict was concerned. Throw in the fact that others in your life were watching, and at times even warning you and yet, you boldly ignored them, just sure you were right and they were imbeciles, and that humbling thing becomes shear embarrassment too. Sometimes though, we have to fall below the curb, to pull ourselves back to our knees and realize that we have to hand it to our Higher Power and give Him the control.
So yeah, to be humble is to realize that you only have control over you and that at times, you don't even do that right. It is also, to step aside and not only see but also accept that there is something much bigger than we are, for me it is God, and that He's got this. He is the savior and He really doesn't need someone with a savior complex getting in the way of the lessons He maybe trying to teach.
Sometimes we all fall out of line and forget that we aren't in control, but I promise you, just like that, those 12 Steps can slap you silly and bring you back to reality in a heartbeat. They can also help you to remember just who is really in control and that it ain't you.
If any of this sounds like something you might be going through and if you are beginning to realize that you are truly powerless over your addict and his/her addiction, maybe one of the Non meetings is for you. I encourage you to look for the nearest in person meeting near you or even to find one online. If you can't find one, please contact me at lelam3@sbcglobal.net or here in the comments and together, we will find a meeting for you. It just might be the best decision you have ever made.
Until next time, be safe, be humble, and don't forget...your control is mostly an illusion and seldom a reality.
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