need 12 step program for being addicted to my ex . hes in my heart and head daily

[IfiKnewThen]

need a 12 step program for getting my ex out of my heart and head constantly. i am very serious

 

any suggestions? bubble baths arent working. i am very very depressed. and no i will not talk to drs. i have been burnt by them in the past.

 

love is addictive especially when they were good to you and you heard from them 24/7 and now you barely hear a word anymore.

[sugarmomma]

Love addicts anonymous

[Confused728]

i am the same way.. and we broke up in September, got back together in Dec broke up in Feb.. and started talking in April.. then i had enough told him not to contact me..and i seen him today by accident. but i didn't speak to him lol read my other post here for the full story

http://www.loveshack.org/forums/t206477/23

 

but is there such a think as loveaddictsannoymous?

 

I dream about my ex constantly.. and think about him all day.. im nc now and want to talk to him but im afraid to.. i dont wanna give in.. read my other post let me know what u think

[IfiKnewThen]

thank u guys. i can't stand waking up to feeling sick and thinking about him..thinking about him till i go to bed. i am peaceful when i am asleep. this is a serious matter. the addiction to him in my life for 10 whole years and now to live like this is horrible. i keep busier than a bee and its NOT helping or healing. he blames me for him breaking off with me and i blame myself as well because he was always wonderful to me. i was stressed out and took it out on him i guess. we were to live together , marry someday etc. i am devastated and want to fast forward till i am in my 70's and 80's and die from there so i dont have to feel this anguish and want for him daily. its 2 months of sheer torture already. i cant do drugs/medicine b/c i have a disability that contraindicated all meds. meds make my condition worse. so i have no escape. parents dead...no real friends. he was mybest friend and i miss him to the core. he is a stranger now. i rather be a junkie and have to get off drugs then to fight this heartache or live with it. please keep me in your prayers

[Tayla]

Seeking the right type of therepy can be encouraging and empowering.

I had to read some of your past posts to figure out the gist of your concerns.

Interesting fluxuation of emotions you emit at any given time. Use that to your good.

Obessive thought patterns are something you seem to express here. ITs good that you recognize it as not healthy . I encourage you to get private therepy ( yes there are some decent ones that can turn your opinion around).

You are stuck in your grieving the loss stage ...and the sooner you grow from it and get out of the stage the better. May You find the right program, support group and therepist to aide in this transistion to healthier living.

[movingon2]

Rebuilding: When Your Relationship Ends, by: Dr Bruce Fisher

 

It's a great book and it's your step program to get through this. I have been using it after my 13 year relationship and 11 year marriage ended suddenly about 5 months ago. I'm not there yet but I feel so much better.

 

Search for it on the web. Take care of yourself by doing special things for you. Eat right and exercise it has done me wonders.

[IfiKnewThen]

thank you and God bless you for the info . i will look it up

[Feelin Frisky]

12 step fellowships basically suck. Besides the religious dogma liberally applied and liberally denied, they do more to keep reminding you of your malady than free you from it (in my considerable expeience). Since meds are not an option you should perhaps at least understand that you may have a condition that is chemical in which you seize on an emotional issue and your mind is pressed by a chemical gun to stay seized, think circularly and possibly amplify your own frustrations each time you repeat the thought. If that's the case, you'll have to try to do what modern psych-social meds like Prozac do: develop a state of detachment--even a tiny short-lived one--where your pressence of mind gives you choice over your emotional reactions rather than having your apparent emotions--feelings in the gut--dictate how and what your mind has to catch up to.

[sugarmomma]

12 step programs have helped the world to change their self defeating behaviors. I have seen it with my own eyes. Most enlightening experience one can ever undertake.

 

12 step programs have nothing to do with religion.

 

Please educate yourself before you make statements.

[IfiKnewThen]

thank you ALL for your insight and help.

 

1) sugar..wow i didnt know a love addicts anonymous existed. i will look it up.

really appreciate that.

 

2) confused...i am going to read your post. i relate to you. i cant get him out of my head. it fills my thoughts 24/7. thank God i am not dreaming of him. sleep is my only escape so far

 

3)taylar...quoting you: You are stuck in your grieving the loss stage ...and the sooner you grow from it and get out of the stage the better. May You find the right program, support group and therepist to aide in this transistion to healthier living.

 

answer . this is the only support group i have. and yes i have had a very bad experience with a dr./therapist and wont ever trust them again so........

 

4) feeling frisky...quote : Since meds are not an option you should perhaps at least understand that you may have a condition that is chemical in which you seize on an emotional issue and your mind is pressed by a chemical gun to stay seized, think circularly and possibly amplify your own frustrations each time you repeat the thought. If that's the case, you'll have to try to do what modern psych-social meds like Prozac do: develop a state of detachment--even a tiny short-lived one--where your pressence of mind gives you choice over your emotional reactions rather than having your apparent emotions--feelings in the gut--dictate how and what your mind has to catch up to.

 

answer: i actually think this is brilliant. : ) i cant take meds. i dont trust therapists...so its up to me. help me here lol. ok so have i have to detach my thinking about him. i am attached ..was very dependant on him and now my thoughts are circular and keep going back to him. how to detach is the question now...even like you said tiny short lived. what do i do when i think of him...(i need to practice this). all i think of is of course him and i keep blaming myself..because i blew a fantastic thing...and then the horrible sadness kicks in more...etc. you get the picture. what what words do you tell yourself and how can this help when my gut and heart knows i was wrong, compounding my misery? please advise..thank you.

 

5) movinon.........quote: Rebuilding: When Your Relationship Ends, by: Dr Bruce Fisher

 

It's a great book and it's your step program to get through this. I have been using it after my 13 year relationship and 11 year marriage ended suddenly about 5 months ago. I'm not there yet but I feel so much better.

 

 

answer..i will look for it and read it in barnes and noble.

 

god bless you guys. i dont know what i would do without LS. i have been so depressed and i really look for strength and support here. i still keep hoping.....and thats what keeps me going. but when he kills hope ansd stays cold and aloof.....i spiral....

and hate that i did this to us..our relationship...

[Clep]

12 step programs have helped the world to change their self defeating behaviors. I have seen it with my own eyes. Most enlightening experience one can ever undertake.

 

12 step programs have nothing to do with religion.

 

Please educate yourself before you make statements.

 

I have experienced a 12 step program changing someone I have known for ten years. The change in him is amazing.

 

My experiences are the same as you state here.

 

I agree with this post completely.

[Feelin Frisky]

12 step programs have helped the world to change their self defeating behaviors. I have seen it with my own eyes. Most enlightening experience one can ever undertake.

 

12 step programs have nothing to do with religion.

 

Please educate yourself before you make statements.

 

Please educate yourself that others do not share your experience. I mentioned that I had considerable experience with them and my post is based upon that and that alone. It has nothing to do with religion? That goes to show you that it's liberally denied just as I said. Try getting through even the first step without having to yield to a religious and in my estimation a grossly narrow world view. Pukes.

[IfiKnewThen]

hey feeling frisky ..would you read my comment about..in response to your comment and answer my question. would appreciate the help. thanks

[Feelin Frisky]

thank you ALL for your insight and help...

 

 

4) feeling frisky...quote : Since meds are not an option you should perhaps at least understand that you may have a condition that is chemical in which you seize on an emotional issue and your mind is pressed by a chemical gun to stay seized, think circularly and possibly amplify your own frustrations each time you repeat the thought. If that's the case, you'll have to try to do what modern psych-social meds like Prozac do: develop a state of detachment--even a tiny short-lived one--where your pressence of mind gives you choice over your emotional reactions rather than having your apparent emotions--feelings in the gut--dictate how and what your mind has to catch up to.

 

answer: i actually think this is brilliant. : ) i cant take meds. i dont trust therapists...so its up to me. help me here lol. ok so have i have to detach my thinking about him. i am attached ..was very dependant on him and now my thoughts are circular and keep going back to him. how to detach is the question now...even like you said tiny short lived. what do i do when i think of him...(i need to practice this). all i think of is of course him and i keep blaming myself..because i blew a fantastic thing...and then the horrible sadness kicks in more...etc. you get the picture. what what words do you tell yourself and how can this help when my gut and heart knows i was wrong, compounding my misery? please advise..thank you....

 

Thank you so much for your validation. I can't make such a thing up--it has been my experience. I am older than most folk on this forum and have had much single time to write and reflect on my experience. Fortunately for me, I can take medication and I know it to work on the causes that used to make my emotions govern my behavior.

 

I got a little angry with that other poster for telling me to educate myself. I've gone to more than 300 meetings for various addictions and compulsions--except for a period when I lived in Manhattan where everyone walked to the local meeting and you actually saw your neighbors daily and there were hugs in the street--a warm time, it turns very much more into like a religious assembly when you live somewhere where everyone has to drive or get a ride. You're still isolated.

 

I find that there's a basic shortfall with the dogma of the steps and fellowships because they keep dwelling on the extreme lows and somehow getting back to square one. What kind of really fulfilling program shoots for halfway as the objective? My only answer is one mired in hand-me-down fear-based rote created by people who went to hell and see non-hell as the great objective. They never learned at all in the first place how to live a socially mobile lives with solid orientations--there was nothing to recover to because there was never any "covery" in the first place.

 

All that is still sewn into the fiber of 12 step fellowships and in my heart I think they drive more people out or cause them to stay out by imposing religion-based conditions like asking "god to remove our personal character defects" (bleck) than saving anyone.

 

As for your question, it seems that you identified with the way I explained gut release of emotional chemical over-taking our ability to think first and tamp down our feelings into proper proportions. You're right about therapy, there are a lot of "talk therapy" purists out there who think it's all a matter of people reasoning or out-thinking their chemical-emotional reactions. It's hog wash from the days when medicine was often a blanket medication of symptoms instead of now the targeting of specific brain functions to get down what needs to get done in order for one to gain a foothold over unwanted cycles. If there is a medical reason not to use these, it simply incumbent upon you to start filling your life with things that require you to stay engaged upon them like for instance health club membership and continuing education. You have to want to replace "co-dependence" where your life is tied to the absence or presence of someone else to "independence"--something you can surely revel in once you accomplish it.

 

I wish society had more options and that the whole mental health field would come into equilibrium with the now known truth that medicine has proven it's not all a matter of out-thinking your feelings. Maybe then there will be new avenues of psychotherapy that exist just for the person who for medical reasons can't take the medications that will level the playing field for them.

 

For now you'll just have to keep it out front that your objective is to cease co-dependence and establish indepedence and the way to do that is by engaging and investing yourself in things that otherwise occupy your mind. Get good exercise and oxygenate your brain, plan your meals and make your progression a steady project. Don't be a sucker and go to some church for an anonymous meeting beseeching "god" to take away your "character defects". There is no divine intervention in the workings of the world much less some super-nature just for you--that is patently ego-centric mania handed down from the primitives who thought everything was a provision for them. We're just not that important in sober view of the way the cosmos and natural systems work.

 

Good luck on you path to independence and self worth. Jim

[IfiKnewThen]

hi thank you for responding and all the time involved in your input.

 

i am going to keep it simple for now...

 

quote: If there is a medical reason not to use these, it simply incumbent upon you to start filling your life with things that require you to stay engaged upon them like for instance health club membership and continuing education.

 

1) yes i cant not take typical meds for depression etc. this wont work for me and has been know to work against my medical condition. i have researched to the 9's and i cant play russian roulette with my health. yes i do have to fill my life with things and stay engaged upon them. i have been wearing myself out running around trying to keep busy and go back to old places where i used to be happy...like the beach etc. i am even wearing old clothes i was happy in lol..to step into a different place mentally when i felt stronger. truly fighting for my life here or quality thereof. i cant do health clubs again in my condition and cant concentrate enough for continuing ed...and dont drive. its a mess. travel for me is a hard thing. i am not being negative here it's sadly the truth of the matter. but i do what i can from my disadvantage point. i have survived a lot of things during the course of my life i am not spring chicken either on these posts here. but this illness has been the worst thing i have EVER had to deal with and now the heartbreak of losing someone i love so deeply even seems worse...or thats its coupled with the illness. makes it so much harder. i should say medical condtion b/c this is not a mental illness by any means..but its enough to drive you crazy. but anyway i have overcome so much and i have reasoned and overcome so i KNOW that that IS possible. but when things mound, and you are physcially sick and then suffering from heartbreak from losing the love of your life...it's come to where the depression might be considered clinical needing a med to offset it. so i try to eat right...think right/ self talk...cognitive is something i need more work with. but this time i got real scared..i couldnt "talk: myself out of the despair and ..................lets just say...........i am not myself. in a fog. feel no real joy. i know intellectually this and that made me happy before so i walk into the past or the future and grab hold of that...somehow...but i feel like a part has been robbed from me, with him out of my life now (as i knew it). he became my battery...energized me....looked forward to my future with him. loved being loved by him. his love was beyond what ANY good man has ever given me. thats how great it was. no delusional here. he was amzing. went the extra mile . i messed this up and i know it...and i DONT enjoy beating myself up. but i am too smart to know i DID blow this great thing i had. and i dont know how to rationale and live with that and i do ask God for his help now because it's him i need to help make me not only wise but stronger. hes done this for me before. you may find that hard to believe but i am living proof. he does hear us but cant fix everything now. i believe he blesses us..but we have to see the blessing and grab hold of it. he doesnt pick and chose who gets this or that (in my mind and relationship with him). but he says come to me and when you do...he hears and blesses the exchange. i can tell you things that happend to be which are beyond luck. i think he inspires...others too...even when they dont know it if you turn to him. i have gotten angry at God and almost said things directly to him i know must of displeased him but i asked that he understand my human perdicament. anyway i digressed but letting you know i am proactive in my life. its a matter of sheer survival. but i want joy again. joy without this man....

 

quote- You have to want to replace "co-dependence" where your life is tied to the absence or presence of someone else to "independence"--something you can surely revel in once you accomplish it.

 

dear God i wish i could do this. i am working on it its not easy.

 

quote: I wish society had more options and that the whole mental health field would come into equilibrium with the now known truth that medicine has proven it's not all a matter of out-thinking your feelings. Maybe then there will be new avenues of psychotherapy that exist just for the person who for medical reasons can't take the medications that will level the playing field for them.

 

well amen to that!!!!!!!!!!!

 

quote: For now you'll just have to keep it out front that your objective is to cease co-dependence and establish indepedence and the way to do that is by engaging and investing yourself in things that otherwise occupy your mind. Get good exercise and oxygenate your brain, plan your meals and make your progression a steady project. Don't be a sucker and go to some church for an anonymous meeting beseeching "god" to take away your "character defects"

 

i do the former...and as for the latter....here i totally dont agree with you. i am living proof there is a God who does hear us. at least he responds once in a while and maybe more often then we recognize along the way. i do know its like the old saying goes...God helps those who help themselves. i do believe in a creator and i do hope his kingdom here comes soon because....sighs....it's not easy. i almost every decision i ever made. and i wish he would impart wisdom and strength in me or maybe he has and i didnt listen. so many time i WISH i had listened to my gut. i know it was me talking but he stimulated...a better idea. and i didnt listen.

 

 

quote: There is no divine intervention in the workings of the world much less some super-nature just for you--that is patently ego-centric mania handed down from the primitives who thought everything was a provision for them. We're just not that important in sober view of the way the cosmos and natural systems work.

 

but we are....

 

Good luck on you path to independence and self worth

 

i have seen miracles in my own life. i am sad no and depressed and crying out to God yes... am i insta healed? ..i wish..

 

i am hanging in there for now.

[IfiKnewThen]

ug someday i will read my posts before i send them, and delete typos or maybe write them went i am not dazed and too tired. gosh..i am afraid to read past the first sentence...i cant type to save my life..........

[Feelin Frisky]

Sorry if my atheism stroked you the wrong way. I've worked hard to leave the placenta of belief in super-nature. There's no going back once I accepted that nature is enough and I'm grateful for it--I do not require a super-nature. Nature is deeper, more interesting and mysterious--indeed wondrous and beautiful--than the divisive assumptions and notions of super nature IMO. Men blow themselves up and kill innocents on blind faith. Well anyway, let it not be a division between us. I'm in your corner and it has been a privilege to communicate with you. Reading back it seems what I said tried to cover too much with too little. But there's a bit of a customary limit to how much one can say without really knowing the other person in the space provided on an Internet forum.

 

If you are a believer and feel strong in faith, then maybe you will benefit from the 12 step concept. I feel it may be harsh to say that the only one I know of that seems to address your cycle that has any traction--meaning that it's a real fellowship and not a made up one like someone who doesn't know what they are talking about suggested, it is co-dependents anonymous. It's not sex addicts or love addicts, it's about people who define their own feelings but the absence or presence of another and/or over investment in the other person's feelings forsaking your own. You may find that not to apply quite but I know it to exist whereas off the cuff suggestions about love addicts doesn't seem to resonate with me that that is your real quandary. Those things seem to be about compulsions to repeat the same behaviors with strings of new people. Your's seems like a deep emotional attachment to one person that is kinda containing you in a pit of separation grief.

 

Forgive the amateur psychoanalysis but I'm a realist and a bit of an empath that cares to understand and try to help people in complex cycles. I had to escape them myself because I did everything wrong in handling my own separation from the woman I had so much hope to live happily aver after with. Her complex defied my logical nature and I had to unravel and figure out what really happened and develop a new view of what dissarray can reside behind such beauty and how contagious it can be. My attitude and my lack of faith now seems to always land me on my feet when disappointment comes.

 

Be well and I hope you find your way out to health and clarity.

[IfiKnewThen]

thank you again. i want nothing more than health and clarity and forgiveness and love and peace. is that too much to ask?

 

quote: Your's seems like a deep emotional attachment to one person that is kinda containing you in a pit of separation grief.

 

absolutely. agreed

 

 

quote: My attitude and my lack of faith now seems to always land me on my feet when disappointment comes.

 

at least something is working for you.

 

anyway when i asked is there a twelve step program i was serious...but cant get to one..but it was also retorical because some forms of love and dependency are really addicting. or thought can be. i dont want to be stuck. i want to feel joy again and not this horrible grieving and depression and guilt. and the longing and wanting of him in my life as it used to be and the kicking myself knowing i sabatoged the BEST THING EVER IN MY LIFE. he was almost super human in his gentle kind, giving nature...being the perfect guy all the time. he set those standards for himself and for ME, then couldnt bare the weight with my stupid attitude. and i was his real first love. its a complicated relationship. or was. . i feel i took great advantage. i am so ashamed of myself and i dont want to live with those thought and feelings forever. but how do i rationalize my error. i was drowning in my life and with my illness so i was like trashing about and drowning him with me.. while he was trying to save me from further injury (with my disability). my embarrassing story (because i failed him and us) is in SICK/HURT under LDR's. anyway....

 

just wanted to say..i am not trying to convert anyone. i just did want to give glory to God for the blessings i had and still hold and could attest to. if i dont believe there is a God , i will go nuts at this point.but i have my reasons for beliveing. and this doesnt mean i am perfect, by any means...i was practically screaming at him the other day. the truth is i am accountable for what i did and didnt do.

[Tayla]

SInce the topic was for a 12 step program...Yes the concept works. Its how one applies it to their dilema (illness/dependency). ALl of them are about being INDEPENDENT , Leading to social Inter-dependence and Ultimately to being accepted and contributing to society. Which has been a basic right of passage that is loss thru the addiction. Every person who grows to adult has to go thru those phases .

[Hbattjr44]

I Think that i can now understand what a addiction must be like for someone. I feel like i am going through withdrawals from her it has been 136 days since we broke up and it like my heart has been riped out of my chest. I love her that much. Would do anything to make it right between us. I have never felt this kinds of love for anyone and i have been married more than once. But is like she does not even care anymore she was my best friend and lover also.

[IfiKnewThen]

sorry hbattjr44 i can serioulsy relate. i feel the same way. i wish there were an antidote. i have never suffered like this with anything b/4. i keep asking God to help me and remove this feeling or bring them back. its really horrible. made life so........

dreary

[9Lives]

I just finish reading..How to break your addiction to a person by howard halpern

 

it was ver helpful and was the beginning of healing me from my addiction to my ex. I wanted to be free but I couldn't do it. I havebeen jacked up for 3 yrs and now I'm finally finding relief. I'm doing a whole lot better between the book and the coping and breaking up forum. I am happy to let the ex go now and I'm not trying to get him back anymore and that's a miracle so I'm very happy.

 

the book ask me pointed questions that help me kill the unfounded hope in my heart and some other things that changed my life.

 

it was so bad I wanted to kill myself for real but thank God that I realized that the pain has a time limit and it will pass.. that I don't have to experience any new pain over this past relationship and that I can have another loving happy relationship. I'm 9lives but I want to change my name to 8lives bwcause I let something in my past die.

 

you can get over this but it will be up to you. I'm gonna read another book about breaking up cause I don't want to have this issue again. I would be honored to help u

[IfiKnewThen]

wow. i got tearful reading your post nine lives. i wont pass up the help. i want to be unstuck. i am still making small contact with the ex and i understand what you mean by "new pain". i want to run out and buy this book. this addiction is very serious. i sadly understood...not wanting your life anymore. no one wants to be in this condition at least. i am trying to not let him or thoughts and feelings for him reduce me to anymore despair. i am trying to live my life to the fullest from my disadvantage point and my advantage point, both. thank you for the input and reply and hope to hear from you again and will be in touch. want to really look for that book this week. praise God and many kudos of credit to you for taking hold and surviving and then talking it one more step and.. living. your story is such an inspiration to me and i wont likely forget it. thank you.

[PrettyPoppy]

I'm not anti 12 step, nor do I believe that it is the ONE DIVINE way. There are 12 step sex and love addict groups. I will also caution someone about going. The recovery is very low in these groups and it is rife with dysfunction.

 

Co-dependent groups tend to be better formed and more functional and can be a good starting place to clean up behaviour that feels really out of control and getting back onto nurturing yourself with support, some tough love and accountability. One need not get all into the whole dogma thing regarding God and just know not everyone in 12 step fellowship, even with "time" are healthy. They are helpful.

 

Buddhism: is also very helpful as is anything that encourages meditation and self reflection like Yoga.

 

Taking a good look at if you have gone the distance: did you get rid of all reminders? Delete Facebook friendship? Remove cell contacts? Throw out or box all the "memories" and get them out of your life? These things are like crack to obsession. I once ran non stop movies of happier times for 2 days and then wondered why I felt suicidal...this should be obvious

 

Exercise, walking, washing hair, cleaning your home. Help.

Talking non stop about his/her problem complete with diagnosis and web references does not. Give yourself a weekly time limit of diagnostic time. Try to aim for less than an hour a week by 90 days.

 

Good luck! I've been there.