I was just thinking this morning, as I lie,  waking up, just before sunrise. We had a whole thing last night with a fire in the furnace.   I am starting off my year in a dysfunctional situation with the landlord, and some of the other necessary relationships that I'm in, and in a dysfunctional world.

I used to think that I had an obligation to maintain these relationships in the best way possible,,, and that the best way was to fit in to the dysfunction in some way that would just work.  But, that never worked.  Even AA groups have dysfunction too. And the committee in my head. AA has the tools ideally, like a lot of groups, religions, governments,  but that's in theory and it is different in practice.

So a lot of us,  I, try to muddle along as a maverick, doing what I think is best.  But my idea of best, like my understanding of God, keeps changing.  That's a good thing, cuz I am learning and growing.  The people I am in relationship with often don't understand me, and often even disagree with me and what I think is best. 

There is a saying...  when there are a bunch of crabs in a bucket, and one crab tries to climb out, the other crabs grab it and pull it back down.  Maybe that is not what they are intentionally doing, but that is how it works out.  Instead of the one crab pulling the others up the others pull that one down.

An alcoholic family, for example, is a system. A codependency is a systematic thing too, once it is established. A government is a system. My workplace has a system.  We have a way of doing things together and we know what to expect from each other.  When one person deviates from the system it is disruptive to that system;  even if the deviation is a very positive one.  When the system is disruptive most of the participants don't like it.  People tend to go by the law of inertia - things at rest tend to stay at rest and things in motion tend to stay in motion, and in the same direction.

We, in recovery, have opted to change direction, modify the system, 'out with the old and in with the new'. We have to expect resistance from people who are affected and who don't understand.  We don't need to be rebellious, or defiant, or fight, which just convinces them that we are up to no good.  

A friend of mine helped me to learn,,    to calmly proceed in a positive vein in a detached way, no matter what others are doing.  I have found that it does work better than the old ways of getting intimidated and taken off my path by other people acting as crabs trying to pull me down. It works when I can manage to do that.

Forward!  Ho!

love in recovery,

amanda