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 %LETTING-GO GIVING FRIEND LOVER ADDICT CODEPENDENT 900509

     A real process of letting-go of a friend or lover  is
more than the process of giving up having such a friend or
lover.    It is not a real process of letting-go if it  is
just  a  transition  from having one friend  or  lover  to
having  another  friend or lover of the same kind  in  the
same manner.

     The pain of the process of letting-go of a friend  or
lover  has to do as much with the process of letting go of
mis-beliefs  about  friendship and love,  as it has to  do
with letting go of the particular person and relationship.
The  pain has to do with  coming to terms with the  truths
that  challenge  the   collusive  games   of  mutual  self
deception    which   characterize    addictive/codependent
relationships.

     Addicts and  codependents who are  falsely  in   love
cling  to each other as means to defend their  mis-beliefs
about  salvation through getting fixed.   They  help  each
other maintain their stance that they are victims who need
help in getting fixed via techniques which compensate  for
their  essential inadequacy.   They clutch each  other  as
fixes.

     Letting-go is  most  difficult  for  fully   involved
codependents  and  addicts  who have been  clutching  each
other  as  if  their lives depended upon  hanging  on  and
continuing  to  control  each other  so as  to  find their
salvation,    meaning,   significance,   fix,    fixation,
completion, etc. in each other.  Real letting-go  is  part
of  the   recovery   process   from  addictive/codependent
relationships;   it is  part  of giving up the notion that
such  relationships  are  worthy  of  respect  and  to  be
desired.    It  is more  than letting go of  a  particular
person.

     Letting-go is   giving  up  fond  myths  about    the
desirability  of  the  kind of  falling-in-love  which  is
really  becoming  entangled   in  an addictive/codependent
relationships  in  which  the friend/lover is the focus of
addiction and dependency.

     Really letting-go   is   really   sad  and   painful,
because  it means acknowledging that it is  impossible  to
find  another  partner with whom to succeed in  a  similar
relationship in spite of the  fact that this  relationship
did not work-out and last as long as was desired.   Really
letting-go  is giving  up  the comforts of  our  dishonest
games of mutual self deception.

     The process  of  really  letting-go  opens  up    the
possibility  of  discovering what real love is all  about,
but  the  promise  of  that  discovery  at  first  appears
threatening  and  terrible;  because it  involves  dealing
honestly  and  openly with the truths which dash the  high
hopes   and  exciting  expectations  of   the   collusive,
addictive and codependent living which is being let go.

     The process of really letting-go is a process of  re-
birth;   being  born  anew,  dying to  the  old  self  and
relationships which were dishonest and lacked integrity.

     The process  of really letting-go is the process   of
salvation  and redemption in which false  appearances  are
given  up and replaced with paradoxical truths which often
appear  to  be  inconsistent with each  other;   and  most
certainly  are inconsistent with the pseudo-truths of  the
false relationships of pseudo-love.

                                                                                                                               
                         (c) 2005 by Paul A. Smith in      
                    (On Being Yourself, Whole and Healthy)  
                                                                                                                               
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