Good morning everyone, I am Sarah, my life is very good.

It's taken me 57 years to honestly be able to say that, to feel "I'm ok" without guilt and one eye on the person beside who I was trying to impress! I'm free from the burdens I carried around all these years..... my mother’s illness, my dysfunctional childhood, all the wrongs I experienced, my dead marriage, my less than perfect life!!! I GREW UP! I realized only recently that although all these "terrible" things had occurred in my life, they did not define who I am now. my codependency was to my past.....I carried around a big banner telling the world they had to be nice to me and excuse all my shortcomings because I'd suffered so much!!! Well, guess what? I discovered I am normal. So what that I had a mother who drank and abused me...."get over it" so what, I didn't go round broadcasting the fabulous pony I had, the lovely holidays and the expensive education I also had..... I was so focused on the misery in my life and used it as a "get out" clause to avoid responsibility and even success. (I can't do this that or the other because..........) I let my dodgy past become the backing track to my life....and guess what? That's all I got......more pain and more misery.

In CoDA I've realized I have to grow up and take the life I want, no one is going to give it to me. God is my constant partner in life and His existence comforts me when I'm low. Today I can honestly say I am just Me, Sarah. I don't have to care what anyone says or thinks of me because it's none of MY business. I too have plenty of opinions, some none to nice! But I don't share them, I let them float on by and don't engage with them. The power of thought is incredible and if I'm thinking negatively or about what other people think of me, I'm in for a crap day, or hour, but now I don't indulge those destructive thoughts. I am still a codependently orientated lady, I'll always have that little hurt child in me stamping her foot, sulking, looking for approval, but she is a memory, NOT a fact. Today I choose to be happy joyous and free THANKS TO CoDA AND AA.

Sarah L - 12/19/16

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