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   %SUPPORT GROUP FAIL SAFE CONTEXT RECOVERY ADDICT 900801

     Support  groups  are  essential to  the  recovery  of
health  for  the addict and their codependent because  the
new  attitudes which are the essence of recovery  are  not
really  internalized until they have lead to overt changes
in behavior which are affirmed by significant other people
in the lives of the recovering person.

     The person who is trying to recover while  surrounded
by others who have not recovered,  and are not recovering,
will  not  receive  the essential  affirmations  of  overt
changes in behavior. It is not enough to internally affirm
new  assumptions  and  new attitudes,   even  though  such
internal  affirmations  are the essential first  steps  to
being reborn and to starting the recovery process.  Unless
such  internal  affirmations  lead  to  finding   external
contexts   which  echo  the  internal   affirmations---the
internal  changes  in  attitudes are  unlikely  to  become
deeply  rooted in the courage to be a new being  with  new
patterns  of  behavior which shake the foundations of  the
old patterns.

     It  is a paradox that the addict and the  codependent
need  to  become less preoccupied with what  other  people
think  and  do;  and at the same time they  need  to  take
advantage  of  and  gain  courage  from  the  support  and
encouragement of other recovering addicts and codependents
who  are going through similar stages of recovery and  who
have their own stories to tell of success,  failure,   and
re-dedication  to  recovery.  In the  absence  of  healthy
encouragement  from outside sources of  affirmation,   the
recovering  addict and codependent are not likely to learn
how   to  become  less  compulsively  dependent  upon  the
unhealthy  encouragement  of  their  addictive/codependent
friends to remain as they are.

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