Episode 193 -- February 17, 2022

Give and Take: Being Part of a Healthy Whole in Recovery

In early recovery, many of us feel out of place when it comes to connecting with people. We've often just severed ties with everyone from our "old world" of substance use and have yet to bond with anyone from our newfound sober community. This loneliness can push us to isolate ourselves from loved ones and hesitate to form new connections. We don't have to be alone.

In her book The Recovering Heart: Emotional Sobriety for Women, Beverly Conyers explores emotional sobriety, or healing, by addressing many of the behaviors and feelings that come with early recovery. Although this book is written for women, this excerpt will likely resonate many of us.

In the following excerpt, Conyers introduces the concept of mutual dependency as a key ingredient for growing healthy relationships. She offers a real-life example from Johanie, who moved from avoiding being vulnerable with people to cultivating new connections in early recovery. Johanie's story, and Conyers' helpful commentary on it, call us to rethink what we assume about independence, dependence, and codependence in all our relationships.

This excerpt has been edited for brevity.

"The first year after I got sober was the loneliest year of my life," says Johanie. "I didn't have any friends. I didn't fit in with people who were using, and I didn't feel like I fit in with the people in AA or NA." Johanie stopped going to meetings after a couple of months. "I figured I was sober, and there was no other reason to go," she explains.

"I felt stuck," Johanie recalls. "I thought my life would get better once I got clean, but for a long time it was worse in a lot of ways. I was so lonely."

Johanie was like many who struggle with a sense of place in early recovery. We no longer belong in our old world of substance abuse, but we're not yet comfortable in our new world of sobriety and drug-free living. We try to avoid situations in which there'll be drinking or drugging. But because alcohol seems to be just about everywhere, and we probably know where to readily find our other drugs of choice, we feel like we have no place to go. We try to act normal—whatever that might mean—but we feel naked and vulnerable without the buffer of alcohol or other drugs. It's almost like we've landed on an alien planet and have to learn a whole new set of social skills.

In a way, we do.

The transition from the using world to the sober world is almost always a difficult passage in the recovery journey. During our years of addiction, we missed out on chances to learn and develop the social skills that our non-using peers were exposed to (although plenty of non-users struggle with social skills and relationships, too). We simply didn't get much practice meeting people, making friends, and building healthy relationships.

Complicating the matter, many of us entered addiction with preexisting feelings of inferiority or social anxiety. Substances masked those feelings and perhaps helped us appear more outgoing and self-confident than we really were. Without our chemical alterations, our emotional issues become glaringly evident. We typically feel awkward and out of place, and we lack the tools to effectively cope with our hidden anxieties.

Over time, Johanie began to overcome her feelings of being "completely different" from everyone else. She learned that many people— even those whose lives seem carefree—struggle with social anxiety, shyness, and self-consciousness. Like them, Johanie's challenge was to learn how to manage her anxieties so she could connect with others in a genuine way. Working closely with her therapist, Johanie slowly became more comfortable opening up to others.

Eventually Johanie developed a friendship with a woman who shares her love of animals. "For the first time in years, I have a female friend I can talk to and hang out with. Like two normal people, you know?" she says. "I used to be one of those women who only got along with men. I saw women as competition. Now I'm so grateful that I have a female friend. It's probably the best relationship I've had in a long time."

Johanie continues to struggle with feelings of insecurity and low self-worth, but she also sometimes feels an emotion she's less familiar with—happiness.

"I still have a long way to go, but my life is pretty good right now," she says. "It may not sound like a lot, but actually having a friend who understands me, who's there for me—that's important. And I try to be there for her. We all need someone we can count on."

As Johanie's journey of healing progresses, she has come to recognize that healthy relationships are essential to well-being. We humans are social creatures, and women, especially, depend on satisfying relationships to enhance our sense of comfort and security and to enrich the quality of our life. Our bonds with our intimate partner, family, friends, co-workers, and others help shape our sense of self, and they have a profound impact on our emotional health.

Yet as we are healing from substance and behavioral addictions, we may believe that we have little control over the quality of our relationships. We may have "learned" that relationships inevitably result in disappointment and pain. We may even have given up on the notion of forming relationships at all, preferring instead to live in self-imposed isolation or keeping our relationships superficial.

In reality, we all have the capacity to create the kinds of relationships that nurture and sustain us. Doing so requires us to let go of destructive beliefs and behaviors and to practice the skills that promote genuine connection.

Rethinking Independence, Dependence, and Codependence

Twelve Step programs succeed so well partly because they are grounded in two enduring truths: first, that personal growth involves a progression from unhealthy dependence to healthy independence, and second, that healthy independence includes the capacity for healthy dependence.

Recovery from substance and behavioral addictions empowers us to undo—or at least address—the damage of our past and develop a more positive sense of self. In the process, we accept responsibility for our choices and actions and begin to gain control over our life. We become responsible, independent adults—not perfect adults, because human perfection is impossible, but adults who are capable of acting in our own best interest.

But healthy, independent adults do not exist in a vacuum. We live within a tapestry of people and relationships that are woven into the fabric of our life. The healthy, independent self is, in fact, part of a greater whole.

Much of the work of healing turns us inward, to the memories, thoughts, emotions, and aspirations that have shaped our sense of self. Understanding our past with greater clarity and tapping into our inner strengths are essential elements of the healing process. But healing requires us to look outward as well, to the relationships that influence our personal identity. The people in our life, past and present, have a profound impact on how we see ourselves. Unhealthy relationships hurt and diminish us, while healthy ones nurture our growth and well-being.

Most healthy adult relationships are built on a delicate balance of independence and dependence: I am an individual with a separate identity, yet I know that I can depend on you when I need to. There is no deep connection between people without some degree of dependence.

At first, this concept can seem confusing. Many of us are used to thinking of independence as good and dependence as bad. We have no problem with accepting the importance of achieving independence. That's what most of us are striving for, the ability to direct and control the course of our own life. But accepting that we should also be dependent is a lot less appealing. In our experience, dependence is a sign of weakness and neediness, a vulnerable state linked to damaging relationships and destructive behaviors.

All healthy relationships contain elements of give and take. We depend on our family and friends to listen to us when we are troubled, to give us a hand when we need help, to boost our morale when we're feeling low, and to share our happiness when things go well. Healthy dependence doesn't mean that we expect others to rescue or take care of us. It means that we can depend on the people we care about to be there for us—and they can depend on us to do the same for them. This mutual dependency is what enables relationships to grow.

About the Author:
Beverly Conyers began writing about addiction in response to her daughter's struggles with substance use and addiction. The author of Addict in the Family: Support Through Loss, Hope, and Recovery and Everything Changes: Help for Families of Newly Recovering Addicts, she lives in Massachusetts, where she teaches in a community college. She continues to learn about addiction and recovery and increasingly focuses on spiritual growth.

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