What I Hate about Recovery Blogs

I want to thank my guest blogger MPJ from A Room of Mama’s Own for helping me out while I’m in Japan. She delivered this blog at the most opportune time possible, and in my next post I explain just how grateful I am. Thanks MPJ!

When The Discovering Alcoholic asked me to write a guest post about
what I hate about recovery blogs, I was stumped. After all, I love
blogging about recovery and I love reading recovery blogs.

My husband is a sex addict, and when I started blogging nearly two
years ago, I couldn’t find many people writing about sex addiction
codependency. I (with some typical negative self-talk) thought, “I
won’t fit in here. I won’t be able to relate to blogs about
codependency and addiction around alcohol and drugs, and those
bloggers won’t think sex addiction is a ‘real’ addiction, like the
ones they have to deal with. They’ll think my husband is just a jerk,
and addiction is just an excuse, and his recovery and mine are a
joke.”

Click “Read more” to continue…

Instead I was amazed to discover that all I had to do was substitute
“sex” for “drugs” or “alcohol” and I could relate to every single
heart wrenching situation other bloggers described. The pain was the
same. The confusion was the same. The unmanageability was the same.
The vain attempts to control were the same. And this must have been
true the other way around, because instead of shunning me, most folks
were happy to join in my recovery. Like a big online 12 Step meeting,
the only requirement for membership was a desire to stop doing things
the way you have done them, regardless of the specific behavior or
substance involved.

I’ve found a lot of support, fellowship, wisdom and deep, genuine
friendships in the recovery blogging community. How could I hate
anything about that? Especially when blogs are like an extension of
the people writing them. Wouldn’t saying I hate something about
recovery blogs be saying I hate something about all the people writing
them, people who are my friends, my support and my inspiration?

Still, my experience with recovery blogs hasn’t been all sunshine and
roses and perfect acceptance. I get frustrated and triggered and just
plain pissed off some days. Some days I feel attacked. Some days I
am attacked. And in turn there are times when I frustrate, trigger,
piss off and snipe at others. So it occurs to me that what I hate
about recovery blogs is that, although they are in many ways like
online meetings, they are not the safe places that good meetings are.
The rules that are in place to allow us to share safely with one
another in the rooms of recovery aren’t in place on blogs, where
anyone (in recovery or not) can read and comment. There is crosstalk.
(In fact, in many ways a blog format encourages it.) There is
gossip. And not everyone shares in “I” terms only.

Putting myself out there when I know I’m not safe is hard. I get
anxious each and every time I put up a new post. Watching other
people put themselves out there when they’re not safe is hard too and
spins me right into codependent caretaking mode. I wish the whole
world ran like a big 12 Step meeting. And yes, the fact that it
doesn’t is a growth opportunity. It’s part of recovery. It’s part of
learning to live in the world and live life on life’s terms. But I
still hate it