Safe Environment

Another part of the loving care is to develop safe environments to be in. The community I choose to surround myself with is a choice I make for myself. I can choose to be in the company of people who nurture the feelings I have and the choices I make.

The most destructive and painful training that children of addict parents receive is that of the training received by an addict parent who is playing the victim. "As a result of this conditioning, we confuse love with pity, tending to love those we could rescue." We felt that in order to survive we had to pity the (so-called) wounded victim by rescuing them. We felt that by rescuing them that they would be well enough to take care of us. Addict parents playing the victim use shame and blame to control. Part of reparenting is "to free yourself from the shame and blame that are carryovers from the past." (From The Problem and The Solution. Adult Children of Alcoholics, ACA Heart of Iowa.)

In relationships with other people, when I experience an intense feeling of terror or abandonment and find myself "willing to do almost anything to hold onto" the relationship, I am able to see for myself today as a "loving parent" that I'm probably exposing myself to someone who is playing the victim. I'm in terror when I choose to become involved with or expose myself to anyone playing the victim. I'll find myself feeling extreme inadequacy and frozen in fear. When this overwhelming reaction to someone playing the victim occurs, I need to detach from, run away from, walk away from, hang-up on, take a hike, get away, set a boundary, or whatever it takes to put distance between me and that person, that addict parent, that family member, or that prospective love partner playing the victim (From The Problem and The Solution. Adult Children of Alcoholics, ACA Heart of Iowa.)

Nurturing is respect

Nurturing is respect. Nurturing is not controlling. Nurturing is non-victim. Nurturing is compassionate. Nurturing is acceptance. Nurturing is understanding. Nurturing is trust. Nurturing is listening without control or judgment.

My old pattern was to align myself with the abuser in order to feel safe or powerful. My new nurture pattern is to discard and detach from the abuser in order to feel safe and powerful.

When I feel the addictive pull, (the destructive control behaviors that hurt), I equate that to NON-NURTURING. I can choose to avoid NON-NURTURING people instead of avoiding, numbing, or repressing myself.

The absence of NON-NURTURING people will feel scary; like I'm abandoning them or myself. And, as I change, the NON-NURTURING people in my life will use destructive control behaviors to keep me in their NON-NURTURING system to be used like a drug in order to feel better. It's important for me to acknowledge this as addiction and not love.

The absence of NON-NURTURING people will feel like the absence of chaos. I have clung to chaos for such a long while that the absence of it feels scary and terrifying at times. I've used chaos to repress the feelings I couldn't cope with. I trade chaos for serenity in time. The road to recovery and serenity is the road to eliminating chaos (using chaos in an addictive way to avoid feeling). Below are some examples of places I go to learn about nurturing.

• Counseling
• Group Therapy
• Twelve Step Groups
• Recovery Workshops
• Recovery Retreats
• Recovery Resource Guides, Books, Video Tapes, Audio Tapes, etc.
• Recovery Seminars
• Public Assistance Groups, Social Service Organizations who deal in emotional health
• Public Television Programs that deal with recovery issues for emotional health

The more often I align myself with nurturing people, the more often I will choose to nurture myself (choose to see Appendix).

I am all that I am at the time that I am

Acknowledging without control that:

is another way to nurture and reparent myself. I am all my likes, my dislikes, my needs, my limits, my choices, my thoughts, my opinions, my double binds, my feelings, etc. Without fear of injury, I am all that I am at the time that I am. More on this to be discussed in Section III.

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