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.
Yesterday I actually got to watch two different people get caught up on the obsession loop.
The glorious thing about it was that I didn't join in - and on top of it, I recognized it for EXACTLY what it was and kind of laughed to myself quietly, thinking... "Oooooh. So THAT's what I must look like when I'm obsessing."
The funniest one, though, was of course from my AH.
Having grown up in an alcoholic family, of COURSE he's going to have Al-anon traits as much as alcoholic traits.
Anyhow, it went something like this:
AH gets home from work. Tells me this co-worker friend of his didn't show up for work. No one knows where this co-worker is. Well... wait... someone at work said the co-worker was supposed to be participating in a race that day, but then someone else said no, he wasn't going to be doing the race and was going to come in to work. yadda yadda yadda
So. Normally that would end there with a person who's not all that caught up in others. Well... actually I guess normally a person wouldn't even bother to bring that story home to their spouse in the first place.
Anyhow, after telling me this, maybe 30 minutes later, AH is on the phone with his work, "Have you heard from so-and-so? He never showed up for work. It's not like him to not call. Just wondering. No? Okay."
After that phone call, AH calls the co-worker's phone, gets his voice mail "Hey so-and-so. We're all just wondering where you are here at work. Haven't heard anything from you. We just want to make sure you're okay."
10 minutes after leaving that message, AH wanders into our computer room, hops on his computer and looks up information on the race, spending maybe 10 minutes scrolling through the list of contenders.
AH leaves the computer room and gets back on the phone with his work "So-and-so wasn't in the race! I went online and looked and he wasn't there. I don't know what's happened to him. Have you heard from him yet?"
Maybe two minutes after that phone call, So-and-so calls my AH. He thought he had the day off, decided to go up and watch the race anyhow even though he ended up not competing in it.
AH is at last relieved.
And I'm just sitting there laughing my butt off in my head, recognizing the crazy obsessing for what it was, and knowing I do that, too.
Of course, So-and-so is an alcoholic, too, so I'm sure he was probably mindless about calling and making sure his work knew he was off that day. ;)
LOL Aloha, was I the other one you were watching slide down the obsession slope? Hey, at least it wasn't you! I get to a point where I can't stop myself and don't want to. It is sickening. Back to step one for me...and forgiveness with love.....
OMG Aloha.......that story could have been about me. I put myself right in you AH shoes!!!!! I was right there with him, checking online to see if the coworker was scheduled to be in the race, calling other people, calling him, etc. I can laugh at that whole story because when it's not ME, I can see how obsessively nutty that is. But when it's me doing it, well...then it's just "checking on a friend". hahaha
I REALLY needed to read that. It held a big mirror up to my own behavior. And it also gave me a good chuckle.
I can obsess very very easily. I work doubletime on detaching these days. I can go there in a second. When I see other people obsessing I am aware they are showing me parts of myself I don't much like.
I went to a women's retreat this weekend. My youngest sister went too. She obsesses all the time. She doesn't like to ever turn her phone off. She is so afraid something will happen and nobody can reach her. We were suppose to be learning to connect with self, others and God. She kept talking through each class. Everytime the speaker said something she had some remark to make....very, very annoying. I use to be like that...(well, maybe not quite as bad) but I cannot laugh at it. I was getting so angry. Everytime I said to ssshhh...she got p___ed.
Just very amazing when our eyes are finally being opened to so many, many things that we just never really took much notice of before. Things we do, things others do that trigger us into doing the things we do.
