Acceptance

Acceptance is not only critical to recovery; it is critical to our peace of mind and to our emotional health!

When I was younger, I found a lot of things about me and others totally unacceptable. It may have something to do with the way I was raised.... Not to place blame on anyone, but it is very hard to accept oneself when one's parents and family find everything unacceptable. Acceptance is not the province of addicts and alcoholics. Most of my family is addicted to something. They found most of what I did totally unacceptable. They did not accept me for what I was at all. My stepmother, for example, had me confused with a slut -- a fat slut. She could not see that I was something of a nerd -- a bookworm. She was constantly telling me to do something constructive when I was spending time writing or reading. By constructive she meant raking the lawn usually (for free).

It took me years to accept myself for what I was. I was learning self acceptance before I became addicted. Some things about myself were unacceptable to me, and I think that contributed to my addiction. I have a serious mental illness, and that was unacceptable -- not only to me, but to my family as well. What made it really tough to deal with was that around the time my mental illness became full blown, I had just had a baby. There was a lot of "unacceptable" stuff going on at the time. The father was a convicted date rapist who had also sexually abused me. The case worker (who was assigned to me after I left town with the baby -- hitchhiking no less -- to get away from three stalkers, including the father) was very prejudiced against the mentally ill. Every time she'd turn in reports to the court, she would write 9-10 paragraphs against me, and one lonely paragraph against the father. My parents refused to accept the fact they were grandparents.... None of my family stepped forward to adopt her.....

I just could not accept my mental illness, and I could not accept that I had become addicted to marijuana within the two years prior to her birth. I thought all of the hallucinations, delusions and paranoia could be blamed on the drug use -- which, of course, I could "quit anytime." I did know in the back of my mind, that marijuana does not cause constant hallucinating, but it was not acceptable to me. If I had accepted these things about myself, maybe I would have been allowed to raise her. I guess one thing that made no sense to me was CPS demanding that I go to treatment for marijuana addiction, but not the father who was, and probably still is, a crack addict. He got unsupervised visits with her before I did. This, too, was totally unacceptable to me.... It was a deciding factor in me giving her up to the foster family for adoption....

"Acceptance leads to recovery." Basic Text, chapter 3, page 16.

The first step is all about acceptance. We have to accept both that we have a problem that we are powerless over, and that our lives are unmanageable. Step two is about acceptance too. It is about accepting that we are not gods, that there is a power higher then ourselves that will help us.

We have to accept that there is something wrong before we can change it.

Self acceptance is crucial. It makes it possible to find peace with ourselves. We have to accept our defects. We have to accept our assets. We learn to accept ourselves when we take an honest look at who we really are. What is unacceptable we can change. This includes feelings. We can change the way we feel if we really want to -- sometimes this takes a change of perception. To change the way we feel requires accepting the way we do feel now. We need to accept our full range of feelings. We often find self acceptance when we share our inventories with someone else in step five. It often begins when someone accepts us for what we are. God/dess or our higher power is very accepting of us, and it is a higher place when we learn to accept ourselves the way that God/dess does. We find true humility when we accept both our liabilities and assets. Acceptance, of course, does not include beating ourselves up!

"Freedom to change seems to come after acceptance of ourselves," Basic Text, Chapter 5, page 56

Self acceptance leads to being more accepting of others, warts and all. It becomes much harder to judge another person negatively for traits we ourselves possess. If we accept that those traits are a part of us too.

Of course, some behaviors in others are unacceptable -- things like emotional, physical and sexual abuse. We don't have to accept others using drugs around us. We can walk away from those situations. Accepting others, too, does not mean that we shouldn't put up boundaries. We can accept things about others and still accept ourselves. To do this we need our boundaries.

It can take years to learn to accept ourselves and thus, others. We must also accept that the path to wellness takes time.

In today's Keep It Simple entry, they use this quote from the Grapevine in the introduction, "Acceptance and faith are capable of producing 100 percent sobriety"