In fellowship I am learning the proper "use" of people/relationships. I was one who relied way too much on people to meet my needs growing up. I needed you to conform to my ideas, entertain me, keep me company, take my side, listen to me complain about my boyfriends, validate and encourage my decisions, even the bad ones- basically all the things to feed my ego.
If you didn't think I was perfect-BYE!! No use for you!! If they ever dared give me any sort of constructive feedback...OMG..HOW DARE YOU and it was over. In retrospect, I needed to be idol worshipped by your perception that I was awesome. Toward the end of my drinking I didn't care either way.
I genuinely thought I cared for people which is why I was so affected by them if I perceived hurt or betrayal-when in actuality, it was me expecting them to play my higher power, or me thiers, so that we could enable the mutual sickness of neediness and codependency. I didn't attract healthy people. If I did, it was a fluke that I certainly couldn't maintain for very long! If I thought they were catching on to who I really was, I would run and that would be that.
In here everyone already knew what I was. I didn't have to put on a mask. They said, take it or leave it. Sponsors and elders said: How are you going to contribute in a healthy way to the AA battery as a whole? Are you gonna drain the fellowship, or be of service? Are you gonna learn to properly form healthy relationships or use the fellowship to feed egoic desires?
It's taken me a while to learn to communicate authentically and have "friendships" here, and really new, like as of this year! That has led to me being a healthy and responsible neighbor, family member and member of my community. That is because I no longer see those relationships as liabilities. I had been projecting my inner world onto them because deep down I knew that I was the liability and wouldn't be able to show up for them.
Eventually I would expect way too much of all my relationships, including work ones, and require them to think super high of me and get overwhelmed when I couldn't deliver or keep up with the high expectations I set for myself by not setting proper boundaries or respecting my limitations. Somehow I would convince myself it was their fault I was exerting all this effort and energy. It's hard to be of actual service to God when I am bending over backwards to keep up appearances with self seeking motives attached.
The fellowship taught me to see people not as a tool or to be used, but a mutual give and take relationship. So, my new relationships aren't unequally yoked. I am not over giving or over taking . I am learning how to consider others and proactively remember to congratulate others on their milestones, ask if they need anything and just to be overall kind without strings attached and not from a place of pleasing people.
This probably sounds ridiculous to the "normie", but if you are a real alcoholic like me, you know that it doesn't come easy to trust others, mostly because I didn't trust myself to suit up and show up for the relationship so it was easier to just throw them under the bus and run.
I am personally not a convention person or super social in that way, and that's ok. I used to beat myself up for not being the "super AA lady" those ladies I genuinely liked, I just wasn't them. So I do limited localized fellowship and online fellowship. World AA is too much for me, although I appreciate it and am grateful it exists. I know myself and I know my limits; so although you will probably never see me at a conference, I am still just as much a part of the whole as they are.
The important thing is that I work all three sides of my program, give more than I take, carry the message-the side effect of that is a healthy and full life that is balanced and simple. I do not need to overcomplicate with unreasonable demands upon people to accommodate me to make me ok anymore and that's because the fellowship isn't a popularity contest. I get back what I give. If I have a closed heart and mind, I get back that frequency-and that goes for every relationship.
Our Program says:
Selfishness - self-centeredness! That, we think, is the root of our troubles. Driven by a hundred forms of fear, self-delusion, self-seeking, and self-pity, we step on the toes of our fellows and they retaliate. Sometimes they hurt us, seemingly without provocation, but we invariably find that at some time in the past we have made decisions based on self which later placed us in a position to be hurt.
So our troubles, we think, are basically of our own making. They arise out of ourselves, and the alcoholic is an extreme example of self-will run riot, though he usually doesn't think so. Above everything, we alcoholics must be rid of this selfishness. We must, or it kills us! God makes that possible.
So shutting down to protect oneself because I had bad experiences in my past is an indication that I need to work through those issues so I don't bring that into my new relationships or experiences. It will keep repeating and it is my responsibility to clear it-not keep recycling it and causing harm with it.
I didn't think about or consider how many men I used and or girls I hated or mistreated because of things that had nothing to do with them. So not only do I have to clean up that, but then I have to clean up how I misused relationships. But, once I do, I am free..and on a level I don't fully understand, they are free from me.