"Giving in." That's a lot different from "Giving up." "Giving in" is, out of total despair, not seeing anything ahead of us but the same old misery; the same old cold, empty, faceless, formless darkness. Not having any HOPE at all that we will change and get out of this seemingly bottomless mire we've wound up in. Just living, being, thinking, feeling HOPELESS, period!
"Giving up" -- to me at least -- is the proverbial turning our lives over to whatever Entity, or Being, or Higher Power we believe in, or act-as-if we believe in, or try like hell to believe in. Turning it over because we finally realize that in no way can we continue as we have without dying one way or another -- physically, emotionally or spiritually. Turning it over because doing things "our way" has resulted in the screwed up mess we find ourselves in as we hit one bottom after another. Turning it over because that's the only HOPE we have. This "Giving up" is a total realization of finding HOPEFULNESS in every sense of the word!
We find ourselves coming to meetings for no other reason than in HOPE of finding out what's on the other side of this recovery business. Even those very few who might come to try to find someone to hit on eventually give up on that and go back into their darkness, OR begin to realize just a tad of what recovery is about.
We find ourselves driving on by that acting-out place so painfully familiar to us, where that living, breathing doll might just be waiting to sweep us off our feet and carry us off to happiness. We're not sure just why we drive on by, but inside us there's the HOPE of a realization that what might be there is death for us and that there are better things in life than this -- this one more human to degrade ourselves by servicing or fixing or giving up our beings to.
We find ourselves wondering if it might just be better for us to forgo a relationship for a while -- no matter how unbearably painful that might be -- in the HOPE that somehow we will begin to realize what inside us keeps getting us into poisonous relationships. In the HOPE that one day we will be able to enter a relationship on an equal, loving footing, or perhaps realize that, at least for the foreseeable future, a romantic relationship is not for us.
We find ourselves really wondering just what IS on the "other side" of this recovery business: Celibacy? Sex being fully integrated into our lives? Can we even envision what "integrated" is? Finding out what intimacy truly is (since obviously it doesn't equate to sex, as we've somehow been thinking most of our lives)? Letting go of a lot of old, harmful, poisonous habits and compulsions, and replacing them with healthy elements -- healthy for us and for those involved with us? A lot of hurt and grieving and sometimes "giving in" as we let go?
Scary as hell, isn't it? Does anyone really know what's on the "other side" of recovery? No one knows what's on the "other side" for US -- and maybe not even for themselves. What's on the "other side" keeps changing as we get more and more into it. It's something each one of us must find out for ourselves -- no other human can do it for us, other than maybe lend a willing ear or a strong shoulder to cry on. Maybe there is no "other side"; it might just keep moving along with us as we get further into it.
But somehow, painfully and slowly and uncertainly and with slips and slides, our HOPELESSNESS begins a miraculous transition into HOPEFULNESS. You don't think so? Try thinking of that negativity as bullshitting yourself, because deep down inside -- so far down inside that for most of our lives we totally ignore it -- is a quiet, calm, loving voice that says there is always HOPE no matter what, and that you deserve better, and with HOPE you find yourself willing to work damned hard to get better. And you will. It works. It takes work, including a lot of "giving up." But just think of what things will become for you and come to you as you change.