Three years ago, after going steady for nine months, a former girlfriend and I broke up after re-igniting our relationship 25 years after we had last seen each other.
In the interest of protecting her privacy, I will refer to my ex-girlfriend as ‘Lola’ in this article. Lola and I were good friends who became boyfriend and girlfriend shortly after we got out of high school.
One night three and a half years ago, I received an e-mail from an old friend who I hadn’t talked to in more than a decade. In the e-mail, my friend stated that he and his wife were holding a reunion of sorts for our old neighborhood group of people who used to hang out together. In the e-mail, my friend mentioned more than once that it was important for me to show up at the reunion. To be honest, I wasn’t very interested in attending the event and I e-mailed back that I probably would not be able to attend, because of my writing schedule. Shortly after I responded, my friend sent another message wherein he stated that my former girlfriend Lola would be there. He reminded me that his wife and Lola were still best friends, as they were back in high school.
As soon as learned that Lola was going to be at the reunion, I changed my mind about attending the event. Back when we were seeing each other, I really liked Lola but somehow we drifted apart and lost contact with each other. After thinking about it for a few minutes, I e-mailed back to my old friend and told him that I would attend the reunion.
To make what could be a long story short, Lola and I re-connected at the reunion and began seeing other again within a couple of weeks.
After going out together again for a few weeks, I could see that there were several big differences between us, which I tried to ignore. Lola was more money-oriented and spontaneous than I and she said that I was too organized and methodical.
Even with our different outlooks and attitudes, I held out hope that Lola and I were somehow meant to a couple. As it turns out, we ended up going our separate ways after a misunderstanding, which hit me pretty hard.
While Lola and I were seeing each other, I celebrated my 10th anniversary of sobriety in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. We enjoyed a great dinner at a fine restaurant and Lola gave me a couple of nice gifts to celebrate the anniversary.
Prior to re-igniting the relationship with Lola I was attending one or two AA meetings per week, but they were not as spiritually fulfilling as some other meetings that I had previously attended.
After Lola and I broke up, a true spiritual awakening occurred. What I realized later was that it was God speaking to me subconsciously, telling me in no uncertain terms to ramp-up or increase the number of and type of AA meetings that I was attending.
There was no doubt in my mind that it was God telling me to get to more AA meetings immediately. The emotional pain caused by our breakup was strong and the message I was receiving was that by attending more meetings it would help me to deal effectively with the hurt caused by the ending of our relationship.
To this day, I am so grateful for the spiritual awakening that propelled me into attending more Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. By not only attending more AA meetings, but also sharing at them, it proved to be a cathartic process that made dealing with the breakup much easier.
Several times recently I have thought about how good a thing it is to have a program like AA and its meetings in one’s life. Where else can someone go and be able to get whatever is bothering them off their chests in the company of people who care and actually listen to them ?
By being able to share aloud what was on my mind and receive feedback at AA meetings, I was able to weather the breakup with Lola much easier than if I did not have the program in my life. The sense of fellowship in the program also helped to take my mind off of things and carry on.
If I learned anything from the breakup with Lola, it is the importance of getting things off your chest. It’s definitely a stress-relieving and almost cleansing process that will almost always make you feel better.
Sources :
Personal experience in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous