Have I turned my will and life over to a power greater than myself? 

Hmm .. seems to be the question of the day .. acceptance.  Acceptance of self as well as others. 

I spent yesterday afternoon trapped in a training I had originally been looking forward to and found it horribly awkward and uncomfortable.  It's a shame the people leading the meeting were not prepared for the ignorance that came up in questions and were unable to redirect the meeting back to the purpose of it.  I have been irritable at best for the past week thanks to hormones and I did let my mouth run a bit.  LOL .. the bad news I shocked some people .. the good news I shocked people who shut up and moved forward after that, it was a feeling of awkward distracting uncomfortableness before I said anything .. ugh .. I know not a word or a "real" description of feelings .. that is kind of how off balanced it left me.  My inner eyeball rolling seriously got a workout. 

So I'm also not feeling myself at the moment thanks to the hormonal shifts.  So acceptance has been challenging at best on a good day and easy to throw in front of a bus on a bad day.  I'm grateful the kids are both out of town this week .. it's been a much needed break although I could do without the discomfort and my emotions running round.   

Acceptance though has been on my mind a lot lately and the training kind of triggered some things that I have been perusing in my mind recently any way so it's not a shocking thing that it's there.  I vacillate between powerlessness (which I think right now is a feeling a helplessness and should be powerlessness) and acceptance while wondering what that all means to me in my current life. 

I'm sure some of this has to be because of a recent trip I'm scheduled for up north and while I am looking forward to seeing my friends and getting the kids back .. the town brings back memories I would rather put behind me and I'm not sure how to reconcile what I feel at the moment.  I need to integrate those thoughts and feelings in order to move forward.  It's always fun to deal with court and so on  .. I'm just trying to figure out what goes where kind of thing. 

Thanks for letting me share, S :)

Excellent topic -- thank you so very much for posting this. For me, this is where it all began. I struggled, with everything -- both types of detachment, physical and emotional, enabling, setting boundaries, my intense and constant efforts to fix it, her, whatever was going on, my constantly wanting to prove to her that she and her drinking problem were the real problem, my non-stop wanting to be right, and so on. I struggled with all of it...until ACCEPTANCE.

I couldn't make any progress until I got a real handle, an authentic and sincere mindset of ACCEPTANCE. Once I did, everything else fell into place and I was able to do everything else without any substantial struggle. Why? Well, for me, I couldn't detach, because I didn't accept that I was powerless over her, her disease, alcohol, alcoholism, and everything else. Any effort to detach, was derailed and obstructed because I truly didn't accept that there was nothing I could do about her drinking. I admitted -- intellectually -- that I was powerless, but I truly didn't accept it. There is a difference. Admitting it was nothing more than simply stating and intellectually admitting that I was powerless -- for example -- that I am powerless over the weather. However, accepting it is something very different. When I finally accepted it -- I then stopped all of my efforts to fix it, her, stop it, stop her, I stopped doing everything I had been doing, which was also very frustrating and making me very angry, because all of my efforts were failing. So, after admitting it, I had to immerse myself in acceptance. I had to get to the point where I accepted -- and stopped trying to fight the acceptance, and the disease -- that there was nothing I could do about her drinking. She was only going to stop IF and WHEN she wanted to -- and there was nothing I could do about that. Period. That was purse and absolute acceptance.

To me, powerlessness, is a precursor to acceptance. Yet, they are both a mindset, a state of adoptive being -- which again, allows me to not fight it. That to me is surrender -- I surrender to it and embrace it in a way that my mind doesn't have that desire, want, craving, etc., to try and stop it, fix it, control it, and so on. When I finally arrived at this place of acceptance -- it was freeing, relieving, and it lifted a massive burden, what seemed like the weight of a chaotic world on my shoulders, off of me. When I arrived at this place of acceptance -- I was able to no longer enable, and no longer contribute to the drama, chaos and turmoil that was going on. Not only did I not contribute, I was able to not even participate. I didn't ignore her or the situation. I was simply able to be there for her in a way that was healthy for me and hopefully supportive for her. It was rarely good enough for her, but all of us understand that and why. I have found that unless I did exactly what the alcoholic wanted, then I got blamed, yelled at, attacked, accused, and so on. It simply wasn't good enough -- and thus, whatever was going on and whatever was going to happen -- was my fault! LOL.

Do I still get upset, angry, frustrated, etc. -- yes, I do. But I don't get consumed by it and it doesn't get to the point where I start thinking or doing unhealthy things. I don't abandon my healthy thinking and behavior. I am facing the right direction, the healthy direction, doing what is best and healthy for me -- and when I slip, or I get frustrated, upset, even when I want to "do" or "say" something, when I want to be right, prove my point -- I don't do an about-face and start facing the wrong, the unhealthy direction. I may have a slip, but it's brief. Even if it goes for a few hours, or even a day -- it stays with me, I own it and I accept it, surrender to it, and then I let it go. I go to a meeting, I call my sponsor, I make sure I talk to people in recovery who "get it" and those healthy conversations get me and keep me on-track.

My part -- well, it's all about me. LOL. I get to choose what side of the coin I am going to look at, study and continue to view. Thanks again for posting this.