step one, 1

doing a combo of glimpsing the reading, and writing about it, for 30 min. i've set a timer.

step one.

there's a lot of language in this section about not trying to control other people. i suppose this is a behavior flaw that i have as much as any other person, but i don't feel like it's something particularly out of control. (ha! no pun intended!) i'm reading it, and trying to let it, you know, SINK IN, but i keep reading it and finding it just doesn't strike a very strong chord with me as something that's making my life difficult. i will admit, of course, that it totally helps that in my relationship with my wife, i feel safe and secure, know that we love each other, etc... if i had a teenager, on the other hand, who was making what i believed to be lots of bad choices, i think i'd have a lot more trouble finding the appropriate moments to take the reigns vs. letting them decide what sort of person they want to be. especially hearing the feedback from the parents of addicts talking about their struggles, i do wonder how i'd handle a similar situation. it's so easy to think to myself that i wouldn't make this or that mistake, but i know speculating is a very different matter from actually having the situation at hand, and making the decisions in the midst of it, all emotionally tangled up, as we're bound to be, with the humans we're trying to raise. a bit of a tangent, but since we've been thinking so much lately about having a kid, it seems like a good place to let my mind wander. i would hope that if i didn't believe myself to be capable of doing some bare minimum level of good parenting, that i would opt out.

having re-read the above, i wondered if maybe i'm being too optimistic, or not digging deep enough. and i realized that there just isn't much about the wife (or anyone really close to me) that i want so very much to change that i'm willing to meddle to any great degree. of course it makes me terribly sad when i think about my mom's smoking, and how bad it is for her, especially after the cervical cancer/ovio-hysterectomy business and her decision to take hormone supplements despite not being able to quit smoking. obviously i'd love it if by saying to my mom, "hey, you should quit that b/c [xyz]", she'd quit. but she'll only quit if she decides to, and i know full well there's nothing i can do about it. so, would i control that part of my mom if it weren't her decision to make, and instead mine? absolutely! but since that's not the way it is, i don't waste my time or energy with that. as far as the wife goes, well, the first thought that came to mind was that it's easy enough to not feel like i want to control her behavior when she's already chosen the path that i would have hoped she would choose (giving up drinking, sticking to her program, etc.), and that maybe this business would be a lot harder if she was drinking. but then i remember that a little less than a year ago, i came to my senses about the frequency of drinking that both of us were doing, and decided i'd quit drinking because not only would it be healthier for me, it would be leading by example, and also would decrease (if not eliminate) any aspect of her drinking that was due to my being an enabler. but even though it took her 6 months to decide she needed to also quit drinking, i don't think i nagged her or tried to control her. sure, i would find myself disappointed, and sometimes very hurt, by her behavior. but i think i always trusted that she'd find a way to choose a path that was good for her and good for our relationship. and it seems the trust was warranted. i mean, i feel that way about every other aspect of our lives, that i can trust her to do what's best. i know addiction is a special kind of beast in a lot of ways. but the decision to get clean, that much she could (and did) easily do on her own. it's really the *staying* clean that's hard, and she needs lots of support (and not just from me) and she's totally getting and making good use of that support, so i'm just not worried. if there is cause to worry, that time isn't happening yet, and i'd honestly rather not waste energy stressing about something that's not happening. ok, timer!