Hi, all. I'm new here. I've been in Al Anon for about nine years (I'm late to the party...see next paragraph)...but there's so much I'm still not able to put into practice. 

My qualifier -- my twin sister -- has been sober for more than 25 years. I had hoped that, by this time, her life wouldn't still be completely revolving around AA and "her recovery," but it is. In fact, I feel even more shut out and left alone now than ever before. I think I just haven't been able to accept her "disease" and her "alcoholic brain," as she calls them. I have come to hate these terms. She seems to define herself by her disease...it is one of the foundations of her identity, it seems. I am fortunate not to suffer from alcohol addiction, so I just don't get it. I am not in her skin. And this despite the fact that we are identical, we were raised and suffered pretty bad trauma together and depended on each other to survive emotionally. I have always thought of us as best friends...but this is not true anymore. We have an "existential bond," as most twins do, but we have little or no intimacy anymore. She has no time for us to do fun things. She doesn't really reach out to me. I think she has over-detached. I can't really almost ever tell what she is really feeling.

I feel that my sis still has many of the same emotional/psychological issues she had before she started drinking. I feel powerless to do anything about this, including anything that would enable us to have a better relationship. Somehow, in the last six or seven years, she is relying more and more on her AA friends and on her very strict sponsor. I am asking myself the (unhealthy) question: What did I do wrong? Why has she abandoned me? How could she "ditch" me like this when I have spent my entire young adult and adult life trying to be supportive of her, through thick and thin? I know she loves me. But in an important sense, our relationship is not really reciprocal now. And there is constant "my recovery" talk. After more than 25 friggin' years! It is not lost on me that the Big Book talks about self-centeredness among those who suffer from addiction. I guess I just haven't truly understood what is meant by, "Sobriety comes first." 

I am heartbroken, lonely for the "her" that may not exist anymore, and enraged. I am angry at her. I am even bitter about all the years and all the effort to be supportive, and in the last several years she is distancing. I am angry at myself. I am angry that I've been in Al Anon, which I love, for nine years, and yet I still feel in such turmoil about my sister's continued struggles and our deteriorating relationship. I feel robbed of the life I wanted for myself, and for her. 

I think it's triggering for her to be around our elderly parents and even around me now. I am on the other side of the fence. Does this happen pretty often...that someone who has been in recovery a long time arrives at the conclusion, after years and years, that they just don't want to see their family much? My sister told me recently that she wants to be around people -- program people -- who know and like/love her as she is now, rather than spend time with those who have known her all her life, and have experienced her weaknesses first hand, and who remind her of pain. 

Feelings aren't facts; I know this. I know that everything I've said here is my own perception, and not "reality." Whatever it is, it hurts like hell, and I'm having such trouble accepting what is. Would so appreciate any input. Thanks so much for listening. 

  Thanks for sharing, Girl58. ...

...whenever I open my mouth "in the rooms" I am 'putting air between my ears'.

Finding solutions for myself. In Alanon we need an atmosphere, in my view, where

this can work for everyone. To remove barriers, and to create healthy boundaries.

Dealing with any loved one- with the disease can be heartbreaking. Taking account

of our own thoughts, and feelings, is a good first step. I see this in your share.  ...

Thanks to each of you for replying to my post. Your experience, strength and hope tell me I'm not alone. And that's so important...The effects of alcoholism can be unbelievably lonely, bewildering, and dream-destroying, and I can see that acceptance, self-care, and some new dreams are the right directions, one day at a time. I had no idea that what is happening now would happen so long after my sister got sober. I've been living -- despite working my Al Anon program -- in denial, and believing that sobriety would slowly change my sis in a way that I desired. But it very likely won't. Maybe this situation will teach me what "One Day at a Time" really means...that's the only way I can imagine being able to accept a dramatically different relationship with my qualifier. The story about Lois throwing the shoe helps me...Sometimes I want to throw something much bigger and heavier. Or china or crystal. You know how in old movies people sometimes sent a beautiful plate or glass flying into a wall or a stone fireplace? Yes!

In addition to my program literature, I've been reading books about twinship, and the troubles this unique relationship can bring, especially when twins are as enmeshed as my sis and I were when younger, and those who have a trauma bond on top of their built-in closeness. Our relationship is described as "unit-identity twins." I used to wonder what was wrong with me/us, clinging together for decades, and then I learned that this is very common when twins are raised in an environment of abuse, neglect, and abandonment. While in popular culture this is referred to as garden variety codependency, our twinship has felt like codependency on steroids. It's been such a relief to know that this state of being has not been purely a behavior choice on my part: it was a state of being I was born with -- a normal one. And this is making it agonizing for me now. I'm trying to accept my deep attachment to my sis without berating myself for it...Stop resisting and labeling it, and just let it be what it is. Love myself the way I am, while slowly starting to practice different behavior. More acceptance of my loved one as she is, and as our program says, ceasing to try to "go to the gas station for milk." Learning to be my own best friend. Being an identical twin, I have never known what it was like to have a best friend other than my sister. I'm struggling to try to learn how to cultivate other satisfying relationships. 

Even after nine years in Al Anon, I feel stuck in, "Why can't you be the person for me that I feel I have been for you?" When I first came to program, I was so relieved and happy to have found a place for ME. And/but, as the years have passed, I've discovered the very hard and slow work of true recovery. Recently I read a quote that resonates: "The truth will set you free, but it will make you miserable first."

Thanks again for welcoming me. This is a good place. I'll keep coming back and listening and sharing. Mostly listening for now.  

Just want to add one more thing. I'm sure so many others here experience this: the feeling that I don't, and haven't, really known my sister. She is starting to seem like a stranger. The identity I wanted for her, hoped she'd have, and that I "constructed" for her in my mind isn't real. Her good heart is real...It's just so many other things that are radically different than I could let myself admit. And I am now so afraid that, in future, I won't be able to rely on her for comfort or help when I'm in need. This was so automatic for us when we were young children. How long it can take to see and accept adult reality. And to adapt in a compassionate way to who we each really are today. Would love to hear others' experience with this feeling.   

Gosh I want you to keep coming back Girl58 cause this subject and the shares in return are a gift to me.   I am Hawaiian National and love meeting strangers and hugging em and "talking story" about who they are and where they came from and what it took for them to be included in my life. We have words for it ;  Aloha, Malama, Kokua and more.  After a while we become family...Ohana and enjoy being intertwined.  

Your sister has differences which if not handled in the same group of steps that you work could and can kill her.  Alcoholism is a fatal disease.  It has left me with a sad and sick perception especially as a PTSD suffer that makes the program soooo important and necessary.  I can hear that you love her still; strongly.  My suggestion is  keep doing that and more with all you have available to do it.

My Higher Power has taught me about love and that  Love is it's name so that I go to Love constantly in order to accept unconditionally.  Keep coming back and thanks for your share.  

Jerry, thank you so much for responding and for the warm welcome. I will keep coming back. I, too, love meeting new folks and learning about their lives and experiences. So good to be able to walk this road together. I'm sorry about your PTSD. I have complex PTSD from the long years of neglect and abuse my twin sis and I went through as children and youth. I love my sister and would step in front of 10 trains for her...As I'm reminded here, I need to learn to love and care for myself, primarily. I see you are doing this and am grateful for your wisdom and to have you to learn from, and for new friends. Aloha! 

Girl 58 

Some of my principal issues in recovery were around my sisters.  They took me a very long time to unravel. My protest grounded in trauma and deeply divisive relationships went on for a very long time. 

Oddly enough after I broke off contact with them I began a series of relationships that involved grief intense frustration and unreal expectations 

I have been around AA for a very long time. I had a long term relationship with someone who lived and died sobe. He was very much loved in the AA community and a meeting hound. He often went to 2 meetings a day. He adored the program. 

That relationship was mired in frustration and unreal expectations. 

While my former boy friend stayed sober he never worked the steps and certainly never addressed his family of origin issues 

So he stayed at  a certain level of growth really until he died focused on the bare minimum  to not use again. I don't believe he ever did which is a revelation because his entire family were alcoholic. 

He did not die while I was around.  He died many years later because of his intense addiction to cigarette smoking 

I did everything for him, helped him with school, helped him move to a better way of living. I did not get too much in return 

I accepted that lifestyle of being a giver for so long. I had no other identity. 

Many of is have really problematic relationships with those who are sober.  One of the most frustrating times for nevwas when another boyfriend went to rehab. The demands on me were intense and there was very little reciprocity..

I felt completely abandoned which I was. The moment he left rehab he relapsed and he is out there somewhere fully committed to his addiction. 

Grieving those relationships and my propensity to finding myself in very high frustration situations is new.   Letting go was an impossibility for me. I think I have only developed a way to  reflect on those kind of relationships recently. That is because I have finally began to address my attachment style. 

Growing up in a violent abusive dysfunctional family was a real exercise in survival. Survival is of course a great accomplishment but then I had to grow and grieve. Most of all I had to find a sense of self worth that was surely robbed from me 

.I welcome posts on sibling relationships and the frustration of being around those in early recovery. We have had many really  deeply intimate discussions about those journeys on this board 

I am glad you are here.

Maresie 

David, thanks so much for your reply. You are so right: Taking account of our thoughts and feelings is a good first step, and that's what happening for me now.

I didn't realize for years how I really felt about my AS. Now that I do, the emotions feel like they are flooding out, and at times I wish I were just on the other side of this part of the journey. But it's one day at a time, and one small step at a time. 

Don't think I ever could have known, all those years ago when I first learned of my qualifier's alcoholism, how much this condition could ultimately fracture our lives and chip away at our relationships. 

Now, I am maintaining hope that good things can emerge from this reality: more space to be ourselves; greater skill at detaching with love; and trust in a Higher Power to bring some kind of new dynamism to life. 

But it often hurts so to acknowledge that life hasn't turned out at all as I was picturing, or as I thought I wanted. And I get afraid sometimes of future loneliness because my family is broken apart. 

One day at a time, right? Thank you again, David. Really appreciate your note. 

    ... ...

My younger sister ran away from home and went to work in s bar when she was really under age 

Her alcoholism progressed to end stage. Her hair was falling out. She had clear liver disease 

I searched high and low for her. I eventually found her. 

My family never mention the heroic stuff I did. 

That became a pattern for me heroic rescue 

Breaking out of that pattern was wrenching 

Maresie