Christine A. Adams - Living in Love: Connecting to the Power of Love Within

Living In Love

Connecting To The

Power of Love Within

Christine A. Adams

Second Edition - Reprint

Copyright (c) 2020 Christine A Adams

All rights reserved.

Published by Hanley-Adams Publishing - 2020

ISBN 13: 978-1-7345727-7-3

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photo-copying, recording or by any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Printed in the United States of America.

Portions from A Course in Miracles (c)1975, Reprinted by Permission of the Foundation for Inner Peace, Inc., P.O. Box 1104, Glen Ellen, California 95442. A Course in Miracles may be purchased from the Foundation for Inner Peace. The three volume hard cover set is $40. The single volume (all in one) soft cover is $25. The hard cover (all in one) is $30.

The ideas presented herein are the personal interpretation and understanding of the author, and are not endorsed by the copyright holder of A Course in Miracles.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Adams, Christine A. Living in love / Christine A. Adams, p. cm.

ISBN 1-55874-278-6

1. Recovering addicts -- Religious life., 2. Co-dependents -- Religious life. 3. Twelve- Step programs -- Religious aspects. 4. Course in miracles. , 5. Spiritual life., I. Title.

BL625.9.R43A43 1993 93-24748 291.4'4--dc20 CIP

(c)1993 Christine A. Adams

ISBN 1-55874-278-6

Cover Design: by Andrea Perrine Bower

All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the written permission of the publisher.

Publisher: Health Communications, Inc.

3201 S.W. 15th Street

Deerfield Beach, Florida 33442-8190

This book is dedicated
to

Edward Sheridan Hanley

1934 -- 1992

A courageous, caring man
who saw everyone as
a child of God, who
understood that
giving and receiving
are one, who used
his energy to co-create
love and who knew
the power of defenselessness
combined with compassion.
A father who taught his children,
and me, much about life
simply by living in love!

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

My thanks to Barbara Nichols, editorial director at Health Communications, for her dedication to excellence, her encouraging words, and her wisdom as she lovingly guided this book to publication. And to Homer Pyle for his excellent copy editing.

Edward and Michelle Hanley, my son and daughter-in-law, for their example of fortitude, faith and friendship.

Marcia and Michael Firsick, my daughter and son-in-law, for their love, laughter and loyalty.

Mark D. Hanley, my son, for his honesty, courage and constant caring ways.

Robert J. Butch who gently touches my being with his love as we "hold each other sacred" in each day and event of our lives.

John F. McKenna, my brother, for his steadfast, unrelenting strength.

David and Linda Shaheen for the generous sharing of their home and their hearts.

To all those who have touched my life with love!

Christine A. Adams

Most of my childhood and early adulthood were spent dealing with loss. I did not think about spiritual progress because I was preoccupied with surviving. Through the years alcoholism had disrupted my life and the life of my family, creating dysfunction that left me ill-equipped to deal with my future. When I was fourteen years old, my father died leaving my mother with eight children from ages two to fourteen. I was devastated.

After attending a Catholic college, where religion rather than spirituality was taught, I began my search for self in accomplishments, money and marriage. Alcoholism destroyed my marriage as it had plagued my family of origin. It nearly killed me. Alcoholism cheated our children of family unity and left them to cope with problems peculiar to adult children of alcoholics. Finally I left that marriage and admitted that I could no longer drink in safety.

At forty years of age I joined a 12-Step program that changed my life by promoting a physical, mental and spiritual recovery. Physically I withdrew from alcohol and all mind-altering substances each day, one day at a time. Attended 12-Step meetings and associated with other recovering alcoholics who could help me in my recovery. The obsession with alcohol left me. The losses stopped and, for the first time in my life, I began to move forward to gain new physical health, new clarity of mind and anew feeling of self-worth. This was just the end of the beginning.

Getting Honest With Myself

In the first year I found myself alone bringing up three teenagers. It was a fight for survival and I felt frightened, desperate and ashamed. Nevertheless I had surrendered to God, knowing I couldn't go it alone any longer. There was no place for me to go so I turned to the people in the 12-Step programs and asked for help. They told me to pray, to practice the 12 Steps and to hang on. I did as they said. At the end of that year, I got a sponsor and did a Fourth Step inventory of my life which I shared with my sponsor.

The next two years were spent dealing with the knowledge gained by that Fourth Step inventory. With the encouragement of my sponsor I began to get honest with myself and admit to my most glaring defects of character. Slowly I did as Step 6 advises and asked God to remove these defects. My mind began to clear. During these years went back to school taking 43 credit hours in alcohol and drug-counseling courses. This knowledge became the basis for my writing and a foundation for my sobriety. I had settled my account with the disease of alcoholism by staying sober and learning about it. There was no doubt in my mind about the deadly, insidious power of addiction after these studies. If my own denial ever allowed me to minimize the significance of my own disease, my coursework reminded me that addiction kills and that if I ever lose sight of the power of addiction it will kill me. It took learning, coupled with my own experience and that of others, to free me mentally from any reservations about addiction. I knew I could never use alcohol and other drugs safely. I had taught English composition and combined my professional expertise with my knowledge of addiction to begin a writing career.

Other Dependencies

In the fourth year of my recovery I began a co-dependent relationship in which my partner became my addiction. Although I felt the need for a committed relationship, I did not know that adult children of alcoholics have issues that need to be attended to before they enter into commitment. I began to attend ACoA meetings just as I entered this brief second marriage. When I discovered I had married a man with an active sexual addiction -- a need to have affairs with other women -- I realized our marriage was inoperative and left. My first book on adult children of alcoholics was published shortly after this unhealthy relationship ended.

Darkness To Light

Years six and seven were dark and desperate times for me as I discovered how devastating co-dependency is. I began my spiritual recovery at this point. My decision to file for divorce precipitated a time of turmoil and confusion. But out of this struggle came the beginning of my recovery from co-dependency.

I learned that co-dependency is a spiritual issue that stems from a lack of spiritual wholeness. I began to experience more honesty, more growth, more understanding about other dependencies that destroy lives. I began to write about sexual addiction and co-addiction. In the eighth and ninth years I was faced with surviving the loss of a marriage and the terrible shame and social censure that co-addiction had brought into my life. It left me shaken. I had to look carefully at myself and at all of my relationships. Patiently I read, learned and wrote about co-dependency. My second major book was published at this time.