I have had the experience recently to begin to reflect on my being an Adult Child of an Alcoholic. Having grown up in this environment has caused me to develop some negative character traits in my life that I have allowed myself to carry on into adulthood one of the more dangerous one is being a people pleaser. Being a people pleaser has caused me to yet again engage in addictive behavior, one might think of people pleasing as being an addictive behavior but it can become so ingrained in a persons character that it causes negative behaviors and actions. Some of the people pleasing activities can be seen as a loving of approval, for me this is not what people pleasing is, I tend to do anything I can do to help people out, go above and beyond the call of duty, even when they don’t ask for help. These actions can cause a dependency on the individual thus filling the need for me to feel like I deserve the person’s friendship. The idea of having a friend is that of mutual respect. You do not need to do anything to deserve the person’s friendship.
I have a feeling that this will be another issue that I will need to take the long road of recovery. I think when a person begins to take a look at oneself and begins to tackle issues in their life, they often times may experience an overwhelming flood of issues that surface. It is vital to admit to these issues when they do occur so the actions that you are taking to change your life will not be in vain. The principal that comes to my mind is that of a holistic change process that occurs, if an individual only begins to tackle on issue they may fail. Take recovery from alcoholism for example, in order to maintain long term sobriety you must take must make changes in your lifestyle it is simply not stoping to drink alcohol. Terry Gorski states that addiction is a Bio-Psycho-Social Disease and I agree with him as an addiction affects every aspect of a person’s life and you must deal with all three aspects of the disease in order to obtain recovery.
So does that mean that my characteristic of people pleasing is it’s own addiction or is it just a component of my food addiction. I believe that my food addiction and people pleasing are part of the same addiction and that in order for my to obtain recovery I will need to address all of these issues and any future issues that may come up. I am truly blessed that I have God in my life because he is able to provide me with the tools that I need to beat this addiction. The main tool that God has been able to provide me with is Jesus and the Holy Spirt. I have to remind myself that I have to use these tools, if I forget to pray throughout the day and ask for His guidance and grace in my life. The other tool that God has been able to provide me with is friends that will hold me accountable when I mess up and start to engage in negative behaviors again. It’s going to be a long journey but I am happy to be on the transformation.
Heavenly Father, thank you for enabling me to identify my idols and provide the tools necessary to beat them and become closer to you. It is through your glory and grace that you have accepted me into you kingdom and have provided me all that I need in my life. I ask that you continue to provide me with the tools that I need to overcome my idols, and thank you for bringing brothers and sisters into my life to hold me accountable. I love you lord, in your Son’s righteous and holy name. Amen.
