SELF-LOVE

Dec 8, from “Strengthening My Recovery” daily reader

“Self-Love enables the adult child to back-fill the love or nurturing we did not get as children.” BRB p. 436

“Long ago we were yelled at, pushed aside, and neglected.  In our quiet times, we wondered in our little child minds, “Why? What did I do wrong?”

We looked out at the world and saw a dad playing in the yard with his kids.  Those kids looked so happy.  We stood in our yard alone, feeling like the only kid in the world nobody loved.

This lack of love set the stage for years of searching.  We found relief now and then when a teacher smiled or a friend bragged about us.  But nothing made us feel loved enough to take away the pain.  Some of us used drugs, alcohol, food, and other compulsive activities to fill the empty spot where love should have been.

When we got to ACA, we felt a connection when we heard others talk about their loveless lives because now we knew we weren’t alone.  We learned that the reason we didn’t feel loved was because of something out of our control:  true love can’t co-exist along with alcoholic and dysfunctional thinking. 

It wasn’t our fault! We were always lovable.  We made a commitment to start over and love ourselves. 

On this day I will take positive action to love and nurture myself in a way only I can.”

My experience:

I have heard it called “an Al-Anon Hug.”  An act of self-love that I now do for myself is to show up to an Al-Anon/ACA meeting to get a hug.  It is so wonderful and beautiful and makes me feel loved, it surely replaces the love that I never received as a child.  It gives me just what I need until the next meeting. I no longer need to search for things to replace that missing love, I found it.  It is in the stories that are shared, in the knowing nods when you share, in the interaction before and/or after the meeting and in those special hugs. I implore you to join me in the rooms of recovery and share in the love that is freely provided, with no strings attached.