Piecing the puzzle together - Al-Anon Family Group

Aloha · ~*Service Worker*~

Piecing the puzzle together

Tuggboat · Senior Member

More will be revealed. Right time, right place, when were ready the mysteries of our lives will unfold and more will be revealed. :)

grizmom · Member

Years ago, I read through some ACOA literature and found myself in much of it. I had a lot of the characteriists though I do not remember either of my parents drinking or drugging as a kid. They did though. I know they both stopped - they were not addicts/alcoholics, just sometime recreational partakers - when I was around 3 yrs.

My dad grew up with a funtioning alcoholic father and a very controlling mother. My mother came from a verbally and physically abusive home. Neither of my parents had many parenting tools in thier "tool box" and thier children, all 5 of us, reflect that in various degrees, we have issues: anger, perfectionism, food, commitment, workaholism...

My mom recently told me she was raised in a verbally and physically abusive home. I had NO idea. Her talking about it has shed a lot of light on why she is the way she is and why she parented the way she did. And, is allowing me to look at how that has affected me and how I am affecting my children...

Truth sets us free and allows us to change what we need to.

Thanks for sharing.

serendipity · ~*Service Worker*~

Neither of my parents are alcoholic. But I am ACOA. I grew up with a drunk uncle (my mother's brother) who lived with us for a bit. The thing was it was completly obvious to me, as a child, that he was sick. So, whatever he said and did was obviously just because he was sick. My mother, on the other hand, I couldn't figure out what her problem was. Today I see that it was living with an A and growing up with him and HER uncles being drunks sevely impacted her. She was effected by the disease of Aism. So, My ACOA issues really have nothing to do with an active A, they have everything to so with the ISM of the disease which I was raised with.

debilyn · ~*Service Worker*~

Back in the day pot was no big deal, people got high and got pg.

Big groups of pretty girls in flowery dresses barefoot or in boots,guys in overalls, bellbottoms, levis with holes and a zillion patches, in a tye dye shirt
would be partying,playing music,burning insense.

In the dark with a black light with posters who's paint glowed under it. peace signs, bean bags, food on a table in front of us.

Passing a joint around and/or a bong.And running around like butterflys were all the kids.Beautiful kids with long ringlets, long wavey hair,straight shiney hair, those kids were smoking alllll that poison. they snuck the paper cups of wine and or beer, they got into the hash and or pot brownies...

It is NO wonder to me what is going on with kids who had that generations parents.

Of course square peg me, thanks to my mother,NEVER took my kids with me and rarely was there myself.

But I saw how my friends came out,and how their kids did.

We actually have a huge generation of adults now who are drug affected from being intro'd to drugs in the womb,and after.

Many learning challenges, social inadequecies spell? are from being drug affected.

anyway sigh, many of us sadly have wondered about pot and how it may be an ingrediant in so many kids coming up being autistic, and having other syndromes.

don't know where this came from, you just triggered a memory or two.

love,debilyn still an old hippie,the vegie type,not the drug type

Jean4444 · ~*Service Worker*~

Technically I am ACOA but I attended some of their meetings and never felt "it" like I do in Al-Anon. Al-anon seems simpler and more cheerful to me and I need both very very badly (along with the rest of the program).

I get "pieces" too. A few years back my uncle died and at that time my mom told me that he had sexually abused her when she was young. He was 10 years older than her. She said her father had sexually abused him. My mother said she could tell someone now that he was dead. She only told me. Only once. Now, it is never to be brought up. All that shame and terror. She raised me, transfered her total lack of safely and trust. All her fear, its like she injected me with it in every thing she did or did not do- all her words and actions and all the things she DID NOT say or do. Its so unfair. I was not sexually abused but some of my ingrained behaviors are those of a person who was. I work on it.

Its not her fault at all. I have total compassion for my mom. She is very very ill. She acts like a child- she is 80 and eats pretty much only cookies and candies and she sounds like a little girl when she talks. She often sounds like she is drunk, too, although she never drinks. She acts like a drunk ALOT of the time.

We work with what we have got. We sort through stuff. Its life! Hugs, J.

Aloha · ~*Service Worker*~

debilyn - yup. Those were my parents back in the day. Hippies for the drugs, not for the cause.

I guess you're very right in that the next generations coming from the hippie generation have turned out the way they have. And the generations coming from the kids of the hippie generation are they way they are. (I see far too many parents these days who're just downright paranoid and over-protective of their children.)

Sad as it sounds, just another area where in a sick way it's nice to know I'm not the only one who grew up the way I did... I'm not alone!

Jean, you're right, those ACOA meetings are pretty powerful with the hurt they try to root through. But I always hear something at every Al-anon meeting, regardless what its structure, that helps me in one way or another. And, it also depends on what MY mood is at the time of the meeting, too. I can go into a regular Al-anon meeting full of cheerful, optimistic people, and be in such an "all is lost" mood that I'll have the whole group dabbing their eyes with the sadness I expel. But there's always another member or two who'll hear my share and then share something that just totally eases my sadness or even wipes it away completely.

Love the meetings.

maresie · ~*Service Worker*~

When I was looking at my family of origin issues (which I still am of course) I could certainly see how I did not get the optimal development.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Object_relations_theory

http://psychology.about.com/od/loveandattraction/a/attachment01.htm

There is no doubt for me that I "insecurely" attached and that led me on the merry path I have been on of having very very difficult relationships.

For me the intellectual side of recovery helps it helps being able to label stuff and put it in perspective rather than being in a question mark.

I read avidly on the issue of ptsd because despite years of recovery I still have. I think the last year with the A I was totally numb with ptsd. I know full well the ptsd played into my denial and my ptsd set me up to be with an A on so so so many levels.

I would really encourage you to look at workbooks, authors who write so well on these issues like Claudia Black (who writes really well on abandonment).

I went to ACOA groups and other groups for years, Al anon works very well for me at the moment because that is my focus. Nevertheless for me personally I had to do a lot of family of origin work to even get to the place of looking at codependence.

Maresie.

Jerry F · ~*Service Worker*~

Aloha Aloha!!

What you're going thru brings back some powerful recovery events. I can hear my sponsor telling me, "If you want to know what the tree is like go ask the farmer." Amazing wisdom and then my Higher Power set it up so that I could not back out of doing that. It always took my Higher Power to help me over the fear. I was afraid of everything and surely my Mom. I just was and then I was locked into the opportunity to ask her if I could ask her about the past and some whys and whats and hows and such and she participated and my HP kept me in my seat and from running out shouting apologies as I fled.

I got answers from the Farmer...real ones and though she didn't know what I was fishing for and I didn't know exactly either (HP again helped out on this) I learned alot about who I was and why I thought and believed and behaved as I did and not one word of blame came from my mouth nor one justification from my Mom's mouth. It was the way it was...just the way it was and I came to understand...Me. Where did all the fear come from? (I learned the answer) Why was I so depressed? (I learned that also.) I am still learning and I just love that and no one is to blame.

Keep going after you Aloha...You're soooo deserving.

(((((hugs))))) smile

The material presented here is not Al-Anon Conference Approved Literature. It is a method to exchange information, ideas, feelings, problems and solutions on a personal level.