I hired a guy to dig a hole 6 feet by 6 feet by 6 feet in front of my house and he spent 5 hours digging the hole. I asked him to come back the next day to the clean the leaves out of my gutters. He said he would. While he was outside cleaning the gutters, I heard him yelling my name. I came outside to find him in the hole. I asked him how did you fall in this big hole, he said I forgot it was there. I reached my hand down and helped him out of the hole. He finished the gutters. Honestly, he did a really good job. So I told him that I was pleased with his work and said come back tomorrow to trim all of my bushes around the house. He arrived early prepared to work. I was prepared also, I put caution tape around the hole and a tarp over it so he would not fall in today. Low and behold about an hour or two later, I heard him yelling my name. I came from the backyard to find him stuck in the hole. This time I was frustrated, " how in the world did you fall in the hole again". He said I saw the tape and tarp but I forgot that the hole was there. I said to him you spent 5 hours digging the hole two days ago and you fell in yesterday, how can you forget something like that. He said it's just been too long ago, I forgot.
In recovery, we tend to forget holes that we dug ourselves in while in our Addiction. When we are the ones watching people fall in the same holes month after month or year after year, we think to ourselves, why can't they see that they are about to relapse again.
Now matter the signs or the warnings, they seem to fall every time. It's frustrating to help people out over and over again, especially when you tried to tell them what is about to happen. What do we do? Stop helping them get out? Watch them try to get out but never do? Tough love? Enable?
It's hard because we love them and don't want to see them in pain or in a bad situation.
Sometime, the ones watching need to get help on how stand and just watch and wait for the person to get out of the hole, they dug.
Codependency is real, if you are struggling with it. Please read this poem to see if it helps.
``Letting Go''
• To ``let go'' does not mean to stop caring.
• It means I can't do it for someone else.
• To ``let go'' is not to cut myself off.
• It's the realization I can't control another.
• To ``let go'' is not to enable,
• but to allow learning from natural consequences.
• To ``let go'' is to admit powerlessness
• which means the outcome is not in my hands.
• To ``let go'' is not to try to change or blame another.
• It's to make the most of myself.
• To ``let go'' is not to care for, but to care about.
• To ``let go'' is not to fix, but to be supportive.
• To ``let go'' is not to judge,
• but to allow another to be a human being.
• To ``let go'' is not to be in the middle arranging all the outcomes,
• but to allow others to affect their own destinies.
• To ``let go'' is not to be protective.
• It's to permit another to face reality.
• To ``let go'' is not to deny, but to accept.
• To ``let go'' is not to nag, scold, or argue,
• but instead to search out my own shortcomings and correct them.
• To ``let go'' is not to criticize and regulate anybody,
• but to try to become what I dream I can be.
• To ``let go'' is not to adjust everything to my desires
• but to take each day as it comes and cherish myself in it.
• To ``let go'' is to not regret the past,
• but to grow and live for the future.
• To ``let go'' is to fear less and LOVE MYSELF MORE.