Years ago, I discovered the notion of limits, and the fact that I had none. I learned to set one.
A friend attending regularly a 12-Step meeting was in dire straits: years ago, she had left a violent husband, and was by then living on social welfare with her four children. Not enough money, unpaid rents, fear to become homeless, gas cut off, and consequently no heating, no warm water… I admired her courage but was horrified by the hardships of her daily life. I lent her some money. Then, some more. And more.
By then, I was unemployed, I couldn’t go on that way. As a child, I had been trained to give everything, and to believe it was never enough. But I had discovered in a 12-Step Fellowship’s literature the notions of limits and self-respect. So, we talked together, and I set as a limit the amount of XXXX. She understood, agreed, and we went on doing our best to recover, and live daily.
Time passed, until she owed me XXXX, so I stopped lending her even a cent, reminding her the limit I had set. It has been awful. The worst was one day when she called me: it was my birthday, so I wanted everybody around me to be happy; when she called, I was doing my shopping (I could, she couldn’t…); she cried and cried on the phone, telling me she and her children had nothing left to eat, the weekend was beginning, no hope, the welfare worker had told her she had already received all she could receive; neither her father, nor her brothers, nor any friend, would lend her any cent. Devastating. But I held on and kept my limit: “So sorry, but I CAN’T lend you more, you already owe me XXXX, I told you I couldn’t do more”. I cried, too, but I kept my limit.
Somehow, she and her four children survived to that weekend, and after. She found a job. She never paid me back what she owed me. She moved to a neighboring town. We never met again, and I will never see my XXXX money back.
My feelings about that situation are still an awful mix of contradictory statements:
• Was I a monster without a heart? How could I say no, and let them starve?
• I lent her money, although the 12 Steps and 12 Traditions only ask to support each other while we recover, but never ask to become someone’s social worker or banker. Sponsorship is about spiritual recovery, not social welfare.
• I have helped her in the beginning of her recovery, and perhaps she wouldn’t have succeeded to become a teetotaler when she was in such dire straits. Too much is too much. Perhaps my help had made the little difference making the beginning of her recovery possible?
• Was it compassion or codependency, for my part? Wasn’t I just “playing God”, “people-pleasing”? Was I “tending to love people I could pity or rescue”, as is said in the Laundry List (which I hadn’t yet discovered at that time)?
• She got used to the dissymmetry of our relationship, being the rescued and myself the rescuer, and then, when I happened to search comfort from her, she found that too demanding; and I found her non-answer abusive. I regretted that dissymmetry, but it was too late: as soon as I was no more the “codependent locomotive”, she detached herself and forgot all about me.
• I had to admit my powerlessness over her situation (and mine): so hard for a codependent like me! I had to “let go, let God”. I can’t save the world.
• If I went on lending her money, I would myself be in dire straits. Like a car riding straight on and falling into the canal if there is no barrier. Setting a limit was a vital necessity.
• She never paid me a cent back, even when she got a sudden large social aid. Had I been naïve to believe she would try to? I knew she would never give the whole sum back, but I really believed she would try to give back what she could.
• It was the first time I was able to set and keep a limit. And no guilt, no sense of betrayal, because I had clearly announced and explained and reminded my limit long before I had to enforce it. Recovery in action!
• That has been a lesson, a training, worth XXXX. I paid XXXX and learned my lesson!
Finally, my Higher Power, or the Universe, or whatever it was, paid me back: I received, from someone else, two checks totally unexpected, some years after. Although the reason and the way they had been given to me were abusive, the total amount of these two checks covered exactly the XXXX sum. Incredible!
I read a quotation from Lao-Tzu teaching me the answer to my questions:
“Being courageous without compassion,
Generous without sobriety,
Leader without humility,
Leads to death.”
Ah, OK, sobriety is the limit!!! Thank you, Lao-Tzu!
Later, I found further answers in 12-Step literature:
Letting go creates strong boundaries (Yellow Workbook, p. 63);
Strong boundaries give choice;
Choice is the opposite of addiction.
Geneviève R.
SOBRIETY IS THE LIMIT
