Since Celebrate Recovery is a big part of my life now, I wanted it to be the first subject of my daily blogs to discuss. Before I delve into the blessings that CR has brought to our lives, I want to share a story of why I find Lee and I going to CR together a fun sort of irony.
Let’s travel back to 1995. I’m a mopey, boy-crazy twelve-year-old who won’t stop complaining that I don’t have a boyfriend. And I’m best friends with an equally boy-crazy, mopey thirteen-year-old whose dad is sick of us whining. So, he hatches a plan to set us up with his girlfriend’s friend’s two sons. Our date… the Valentine’s Day dance for Alcoholics Anonymous. AA events like this are family-friendly, so it’s not completely weird that that’s our destination and all three adults were part of the program.
Valentine’s Day comes and we get all dolled up (as much as you do when you’re preteens in the mid-90s), gleefully jump in the back of her dad’s Pinto hatchback and drive to meet the boys. It’s February in Yakima, so we’re already into the dark hours and we don’t get a great look at them as they clamber into the backseat with us. I sat on my friend’s lap despite the urging from the boys that I was welcome to sit on one of theirs. The older boy was very charismatic, super funny and flirty. The younger was the huge, silent type. Being the ever-chatty and outgoing girl I was, I chose the one who also didn’t stop talking.
Spoiler… that was Lee’s brother.
Our story has many twists and turns through the now twenty-seven years since that fateful night in ’95, but I think of it often when we’re at our weekly CR meeting together. We began as friends after going to an AA dance and now work as spouses through our own twelve-step program.
Onto the actual reason for this post.
There are big problems that have existed in our marriage since before we said our vows and have yet to be resolved because we never faced them in a way that would actually conquer them. I should say they exist in our lives in general because they aren’t only marital issues. Lee’s walk is his own business and that’s not something I will share. It’s not my testimony. But I’ll share how we came to CR and my side of things.
We had heard about Celebrate Recovery during the Sunday morning announcements at West Side Church before the program began in that location and I was curious if it would be something helpful for him. My mindset at the time was that his issues needed some sort of program and mine didn’t apply to that. We talked about it a bunch of times and he finally decided to try a meeting. I didn’t know anything about CR then and became anxious when more than two hours had passed and he wasn’t home. I will say that his addiction isn’t something that I was worried he was out doing while I was waiting, but it was more of a concern that perhaps he was having to deal with big emotions by himself and just upset.
So I went to Google for answers. I looked up how long a meeting usually lasts and discovered that it isn’t just going and sitting in a room for an hour while you listen or talk. CR starts with dinner. Everyone eats together and enjoys a time of fellowship because family and support is an important concept in recovery. Then there’s a worship service so you can sing out your worries. Then either a testimony or step lesson for the group to enjoy as a whole. Then you break off into your small groups to discuss the nitty-gritty.
They don’t play around, y’all. Healing takes work and Celebrate Recovery is there to get that work going. I love it. I felt really excited for him when reading about it and then came across the list of hurts, habits and hang-ups that CR deals with. My heart dropped when I read “food addiction” and I immediately thought that Lee shouldn’t be going alone. Maybe I could also find healing in CR. When he came home that night, we essentially said the same thing to each other and I was there at the next meeting.
Have you ever sought help for a problem only to discover that wasn’t the main problem in the first place? Me, too! That first meeting reintroduced me to a word I’d only been passably curious about in the past… codependency. I didn’t understand why there were folks there who included that in their introduction because it sounded like a therapy word that didn’t count as a hurt, habit or hang-up. Well, let me tell you that I was dead wrong. And also, in being wrong, ignoring the biggest problem that has led to all my past challenges, bad decisions and moments of idiocy. Like my diagnosis of Poly-Cystic Ovary Syndrome, learning that I am codependent suddenly put things into a logical focus. And boy do I have some work cut out for me in my steps.
I will say that, without a doubt, I have been a much larger jerk in my life than I ever would have realized before and am immeasurably grateful that I can both atone for my past and prevent that clouding my future.
So.
Hello. My name is Barbie and I am a grateful believer in Jesus Christ struggling with codependency and a food addiction.
Bittersweet Strength 