#119 Romance, Recovery and The Real Higher Power

On Instagram Addiction, Codependency, and the Spiritual Lessons of AA Romance

I’ve been thinking about renaming this Substack from The Daily Dharma to Bedtime Stories, because writing these out as bedtimes stories is when it ends up being the most beneficial to me - and, honestly, the most honest. I lie down in bed at night, and beside me, Rory reads while I write about my day. It’s simple, grounding, and reflective. The dharma always arrives at night.

Tonight, I’m reflecting on Day Two of the AA Convention here in Bali - and remembering why I’m really here: for my Instagram recovery.

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The Power of Real, In-Person Connection

One of the most healing aspects of being in AA is that it exists completely outside of Instagram. It’s anonymous. No one’s pulling out their phones to take photos or add new followers. People just… connect. They ask for your number, not your handle.

It’s the exact opposite of the world I often live in - where it feels like Instagram is everywhere. This detox, this sacred anonymity, is so good for my soul.

Today we went to several sessions - on prayer and meditation, romance and finance, tools for sobriety, and service. The one that hit me the most and I was reflecting on the most was romance in recovery.

Photo by chris liu on Unsplash

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When Someone Becomes Your Higher Power

A woman shared something that really landed:

“I kept making men my Higher Power.”

That phrase stopped me in my tracks.

In the 12 Steps, a Higher Power is meant to be a spiritual source of strength, stability, and surrender - something greater than your own ego that can guide you home.

But when we’re disconnected from our own inner source, we often project that power onto someone else: a partner, a parent, a friend, a teacher. It might look like:

• “I can’t function unless they approve of me.”

• “My mood depends on their mood.”

• “I need them to feel okay.”

• “I would do anything to keep them - even betray myself.”

In yogic terms, this is getting caught in rāga (attachment) and moha (delusion) — grasping at impermanent people for permanent peace.

Yoga Sutra 2.45 says:

samādhi-siddhir īśvara-praṇidhānāt
Through surrender to a Higher Power (Īśvara), samādhi is attained.

But when we place a person in the role of Īśvara, we suffer. People change. People leave. They aren’t designed to hold the weight of our entire spiritual framework.

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My Pattern With Love

I thought about this deeply today - about how obsessed I used to be with being in a relationship. I was so fixated on finding love that I kept ending up in the worst ones. I kept handing over my power to men who couldn’t hold it.

And then, after being sexually assaulted and finally saying, “That’s it. I’m done dating,” that’s when Rory came into my life.

My previous relationship dynamic reminded me of that Ram Dass quote:

“When people say ‘I love you,’ what they often mean is, ‘I love how you make me feel.’”

I remember my ex - the one I married - told me that the love letter I wrote him was all about what he did for me. I didn’t see it at the time, but I wasn’t in love with him - I was in love with how he made me feel about myself.

Ram Dass teaches that most of what we call “love” is really ego-based desire - a transaction:

• I love the way you look at me.

• I love how you soothe my insecurity.

• I love the comfort I get from being yours.

This is not true love. It’s conditional. It’s performance-based. It’s love-with-strings.

True love, according to Bhakti Yoga and Ram Dass, is soul-to-soul. It says:

• “I love you as you are.”

• “I love you even when it’s hard.”

• “I love you without needing anything back.”

He often compared real love to the sun - it shines on everything, without attachment or condition. That’s the love I want to cultivate - the love I want to live in.

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13th Steppers and Romance in Early Recovery

Today I also learned a new term:
13th Stepper - someone who preys on newcomers in recovery for romantic or sexual relationships.

It’s problematic because early recovery is a tender, vulnerable time. People are learning to trust themselves again, and romantic involvement can easily derail that healing.

Looking back, I realize my relationship with a man I dated at 10 days sober (who wasn’t even in the program) kind of mirrored this dynamic. I told him I was newly sober, and suddenly we were building a life together. I was in a vulnerable place — and I made him my Higher Power.

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Why I Keep Coming Back

People often say that they come for the drinking but stay for the thinking in AA. I started coming to meetings to stay sober from Instagram, but now it’s also about staying sober from romantic delusion, from giving away my power to anyone but the divine.

Every time I connect to my Higher Power - not a man, not an app, but something greater - I tap into a deeper kind of love. A love that doesn’t rise and fall based on engagement or validation. A love that just is.

I can generate this love on my own. And then, I can bring that love back to the relationship I’m in with Rory.

As Ram Dass wrote in Polishing the Mirror:

“Love is a state of being. When I live in the place where I am love, I see love wherever I look…
We’re all right here in love. To the extent another being is open, when I meet them, there’s a harmonic resonance with the place where they also exist as love — not that they are loving, but where they are love.”

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Building Real Tools for Recovery

Tonight, Rory and I finished the “36 Questions to Fall in Love.” One of the final questions was: Share a personal problem.

I talked to him about my Instagram addiction (which he’s well aware of, and saw up close and personal the past few weeks!)

We talked a bit about what the signs are when I’m in relapse, what a “code word” could be when he notices it, and what helps me the most (daily meetings, real-life connection, tech boundaries).

I see how love - real love - helps you come home to yourself, not abandon it.

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The 11th Step Prayer

I’ll leave you with the prayer we recited today — a reminder of what love in action looks like:

Lord, make me a channel of thy peace—
that where there is hatred, I may bring love—
that where there is wrong, I may bring forgiveness—
that where there is discord, I may bring harmony—
that where there is doubt, I may bring faith—
that where there is despair, I may bring hope—
that where there is sadness, I may bring joy.

Lord, grant that I may seek rather to comfort than to be comforted,
to understand than to be understood,
to love than to be loved.

For it is by self-forgetting that one finds.
It is by forgiving that one is forgiven.
It is by dying that one awakens to Eternal Life.

Amen.