Codies AND Addicts: our meeting of 2

We've been travelling together. Night before last we tried to find meetings and got lost. So, like we did once before, we decided to have our own meeting, this time on the beach. It was really an awesome experience. Somehow, the formality of doing readings, choosing a topic, and not cross talking is really magical for us. Since it's been on my mind a lot lately, I chose the topic of what codies and addicts have in common. I started out sharing some of the stuff I talked about here, but as we went back and forth taking turns, we came up with a lot more. She shared that she thinks that both often come from backgrounds where we didn't get our needs met, though it may be less obvious in a codie's background. We talked about the vulnerability we both share. We talked about the fact that we both have to work the same steps and work through our own character defects. We talked about how for both, it's easier to look at the other person's character defects than to focus on our own. We talked about why the cycle seems to start out for each of us chasing and getting a high from our own behavior but why it ends up going south. She shared that the addict pulls in more and more as he or she is chasing that high, and that the codie chases the addict (our drug of choice). It makes sense to me. It used to work that I'd get all my needs of feeling important and belonging by taking care of her and her wanting to be taken care of. Then, as she isolated more and more with her drugs, I kept trying to pursue to get those good feeling while she was busy trying to withdraw. I wish I hadn't waited two days to post this, b/c there was a lot more that I'm not remembering now. But it was a GREAT meeting! And I'm really grateful.