Recovering from meeting - Al-Anon Family Group

glad lee · ~*Service Worker*~

Recovering from meeting

Christy · ~*Service Worker*~

Soooo, your pain of a lost marriage isn't supposed to exist according to him ?

Even "if" you were playing martyr (which you are not) it is NOT that persons job to point it out to the group. I gotta tell ya, you handled that very well. I probably would have told him he sucks as a therapist and it's not his job to take my inventory, publicly or otherwise!!
And your stupid book sucks too!!! LOL!! (kiddin on that part)

I'm sure you weren't the only person shocked by his statements. Ridiculing a person in recovery was just totally uncalled for and very unproffessional. Just cuz he's a retired therapist and wrote a book obviously doesn't mean squat or qualify him in any way..
My cousin was seeing a therapist after her husband committed suicide. She ended up counceling him! He was more messed up then she ever was! He'd call her at home crying about his marriage!! Goes to show you the title doesn't necessarily mean a thing. It means they went to school.

Part of me wants to encourage you to go back and stand your ground, but not if the verbal abuse is going to continue. There's no healing or recovery in that kind of treatment.
I figure when people are that negative and try to belittle another person, they must have bigger problems then I do!!
Sorry you had to experience that sweetie. It was wrong on so many levels.
(((hugs)))
Christy

Aloha · ~*Service Worker*~

As I started typing my reply (thinking to myself, "hey, I sometimes feel jealous of other Al-anon members who have spouses they KNOW are working on their recovery, while I have no clue what my AH is doing at all"), I pulled out my "How Al-Anon Works" book and looked in the index for "martyrdom". It lead me to a few pages, and when I was reading them, I thought maybe on some levels I am playing a martyr. The jealous feelings could be leading me down that path of resentment, and resentment can go hand in hand with feeling like we're being dealt an unfair deal in things, which can then lead to being a martyr.

Here's a good hard question from "One Day at a Time in Al-anon", page 13:

Do I secretly relish feeling sorry for myself and want sympathy from others?

Hmmmmmm!

Thank you for your post, because it certainly got me thinking about myself and my own feelings of resentment that emerge in me every now and then. And I'm thinking perhaps your group facilitator did have a point, although it certainly was put across mighty harsh.

I personally prefer the Al-anon meetings where it's a group meeting where cross-talk is prohibited. If someone wants to add to something another person shared, they address their response to the group in whole instead of to the individual.

I leave the hard questions up to my sponsor, who does so in private with me during our daily phone calls or when we're together in person (but not in the middle of a meeting!)

In any case, if you have any of the Al-Anon literature at your house, flip to the index pages at the back and look for the word "martyr" or "martyrdom". Find those pages, read them, and see if you relate somehow, remembering to be honest with yourself.

I do agree, though - if you've only been to one meeting this week, perhaps attending a couple more might help you with sorting things out.

I shared this in another post, but try to think about meeting frequency like this:

two meetings a week is for maintenance. three or more is for growth.

Do you want to maintain where you are in your life right now and how you feel in your life right now, or would you like to do some growing and move your life forward to another level of serenity?

Aloha · ~*Service Worker*~

Oops - I wanted to add, though, to not be hard on yourself, either. None of us is perfect. And I think EVERY single one of us, no matter how long we've been working the program, find ourselves at times having to put on the breaks and rewind all the way back to Step One with certain situations.

Basically - there's nothing horrible and wrong with you for feeling the way you do. It's just feelings and feelings are not facts.

round3 · Senior Member

I don't really understand how it is that you would supposedly be less grieved by the loss of your marriage if you somehow came to believe that your spouse was unfaithful. That's neither here nor there when it comes to grieving a loss. Not sure why this facilitator would want to rub your nose in it.

Sure...meetings are great - and the more the better - but if he had a GENUINE concern for you, why not mention it to you privately after the meeting? Sounds like he was power-tripping by calling you down in front of the group. You do sound like you handled it very well. I would have been tempted to walk out. Just me.

Do what you need to to take care of you. Don't let this guy slow down your progress. You're worth it.

Peace,
R3

nmike · ~*Service Worker*~

(((((glad)))))

It doesn't sound like therapy to me. I think that the retired couselor is the martyr! Remember that it is not about you when someone plants their anger on you. Do you have a sponsor? Can you go to a different meeting? My AHsober walked out of this marriage three years ago. I don't think that he cheated but I know that he had emotional affairs. People ask me all the time - oh, you're still married to him, I thought you were divorced. Even Alanoners say this. I miss my A, I still love him, couldn't stand the emotional affairs, and I still cry. I know I am powerless about my marriage. But it is my marriage and I have my feelings about it. It is your A and your marriage and you can have your feelings about it.

In support,
Nancy

lin0606 · ~*Service Worker*~

One of the main ideas of therapy, and of alanon, is that we come to realizations best when we come on our own, when we are ready. Others can only lead us, by showing us their own journeys, by asking questions that we may need to ask ourselves. Having someone point your faults out to you seldom does you any good, because you won't hear it until you ready to hear it.

Are you a martyr? I certainly don't know. I wouldn't know even if I knew you well, and knew your whole story. So much of our lives are internal - you truly are the only one who knows the whole truth of your life.

There are a few useful things that I see that you can take from this experience, though.

One is to take another close look at yourself - ARE you a martyr? It looks like you might be showing some signs of it, or he would not have reacted this way. An honest, non defensive look inside wouldn't hurt. I know that I didn't recognize my own martyrdom until after two years in alanon. Before that I would have sworn on a stack of Bibles that the charges (my husband used to say this all the time) were false.

The other, and more immediate, is to look at why you go to this particular meeting. I see that you are already doing this. From here, I've gotta say this sounds more like verbal abuse than therapy. Feeling bad sometimes after the meetings is not necessarily a sign that they are not helping - losing denial can hurt. But, if you aren't getting added insight by going, and if these attacks don't help you ask yourself the hard questions, but just hurt you so much you can't stand to think, then it isn't doing you any good. Having the faith in yourself to say "You know what? I don't like this and I'm not going to continue with it" is sign of growth - as long as you don't then just fall back into despair, but instead find an different path to health that suits you better. What I'd do here, I think, is try to take an honest look at how I've changed since going to these meetings - is my progress worth my pain. He might be a lousy therapist, or he might be a good one but just not for you. Either way, you have the right to say "No more". So many of us here in alanon have lost faith in our own judgement, and one of the ways to get it back is to take actions, and then see how they work out.

Tuggboat · Senior Member

Doesn't sound like Al-Anon to me. Group therapy is not Al-Anon, It is group therapy. Anywhere the same person is in charge over and over, stay away from. Thats control. He's simply trying to validate himself and his theories.

Go ahead and forgive him, some are sicker than others.

I suspect he was trying to unstick you. Basic grief counseling would assume denial with a push then into anger. When its time for you to get angry, you will get angry. Saddness comes later in the process. Its the end game of acceptance. Its just theory though.

Denial: "It can't be happening."
Anger: "Why me? It's not fair."
Bargaining: "Just let me live to see my children graduate."
Depression: "I'm so sad, why bother with anything?"
Acceptance: "It's going to be OK."

I just move today straight to acceptance and the 12 steps as soon as anger rears its head. Kubler ross gives a framework (death) and a rough map of a linear process she calls grief.

People try to label a lot of different problems as grief because we have this process available to try on it. I don't buy that all grief fits inside this framework as the grief of death and that we all have to go through all of this. Death is a small part of life and not the other way around.

If that was so, the steps would say admitted we were powerless and got real angry. I don't work the KUBLER ROSS program of recovery. I work the 12 steps of AL-Anon. They seem to help in most areas of life while grief processing only worked on one or maybe two.

He was right though in one area. An extra couple meetings would be good. :) Nothing wrong with 7 but I would think that number would be more neccesary for an Alcoholic than an Al-Anon. I see alcoholism as chronic and fatal but Al-Anonism seems chronic but not fatal as he claims. Perhaps he forgot where he was at.

glad lee · ~*Service Worker*~

I am sooooo grateful for the feedback.

I found myself obsessing when I woke up today. So, I decided to phone my sponsor. She helped me do an inventory. I now realize that once again, I said nothing....thinking as usual, "everybody else is right and I'm wrong." I made the facilitator my HP.

Sometimes I feel challenged to keep going back to this meeting....just to find my voice!!! Unfortunately, I tend to lose myself in conflict.

I will consider his martyr comment. I don't wish to wear blinders. Just didn't think it was appropriate for what I shared...which was honesty...wishing that I, too, could feel grateful for my husband. I don't wallow in it... I'm not acting on it....I got out of my marriage... And, I am not looking to replace him....
But, I can't think that fast when someone is challenging me.... gotta "keep coming back."

Thanks so much for the replies....soooo grateful.

Jerry F · ~*Service Worker*~

Aloha Glad

Isn't is soooo surprising that a professional counselor can mirror the codependent actions and emotions of the spouse, friend, relative of the alcoholic or addict. I use to watch this "you gotta get it right" attitude from
other professionals and want to fall on the floor laughing. They want you to
get it (yaaaaaay) and they don't get it themselves (boooooo). He might need
to review the steps and the program himself...You can't force either the alcoholic or the enabler. Using manipulative and controlling tactics push people
away not bring them closer.

I have never been to a facilitated Al-Anon meeting except when a bunch of us
use to be invited to help other areas open their own meetings and that was not true facilitating. I use to facilitate recovery groups and they were neither AA or Al-Anon. "We are trusted servants...not leaders." (traditions #2). Might it be
that he is working out his own issues with powerless and unmanagablility? Should it be better to call his sponsor. Is that group voluntary or are you ordered to go to it. I don't go places where I am submitted to being beat on.

It might be best for you to have a sponsor if you don't already.

Keep coming back

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

ESH · Senior Member

People piss me off on a regular basis with their insensitive comments and lectures. I tend to take things personally... especially when I shouldn't. Sometimes people "project" their issues onto us (i.e. maybe he is a martyr, so he calls YOU one). I don't know... wasn't there.

I know that life is hard, and that there will be situations that I don't like to be in (over and over again... like my place of employment, for instance!). Sometimes I say, "To hell with it... I'm out of here. Not going to put up with that crap anymore." Other times, it isn't such an easy decision to make... I ask myself, "Is it them? Or is it just me? What is my part in this conflict?" Even then, I rarely know the answer.

Personally, if someone is sharing something with me... I see it as their truth and their perspective; and who am I to correct them or to try to make them see things the way I see it (like the therapist was doing with you)? I truly believe that people have their own answers inside... and that if they are allowed to talk it out, they will eventually find their own answer. It's in them... they already know... they just need to work it out... on their OWN time. Not mine.

Another thing... if a particular relationship is not helping to nurture, enhance and sustain me (but emotionally drains me), I'm probably going to be out of there. They will quickly be seeing the back of my head as I hit the nearest exit.

Jen · ~*Service Worker*~

In my humble opinion, this is wrong on so many levels starting with even calling this an Al-Anon meeting in the first place.

Tradition 2
"For our group purpose there is but one authority a loving God as He may express Himself in our group conscience. Our leaders are but trusted servants they do not govern."

Tradition 3
"The relatives of alcoholics, when gathered together for mutual aid, may call themselves an Al-Anon Family Group, provided that, as a group, they have no other affiliation. The only requirement for membership is that there be a problem of alcoholism in a relative or friend."

If he is the author of a recovery book that is not CAL, that is an outside enterprise.
If he is not an Al-Anon member, there to work on himself, then he does not even belong at an Al-Anon meeting except as an invited speaker.

Tradition 6
"Our Family Groups ought never endorse, finance or lend our name to any outside enterprise, lest problems of money, property and prestige divert us from our primary spiritual aim. Although a separate entity, we should always cooperate with Alcoholics Anonymous."

I have added the bold type myself to outline my point.

Please understand, I do not intend to beat anybody over the head with the rulebook, but there will be newcomers reading this that do not understand how an Al-Anon meeting is supposed to work. The 12 Traditions are the foundation for a smooth running group.

And of course there is
Step 4
"Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves."
Nowhere in this step does it state that you need the author of a book to degrade you in front of a group of people to accomplish this step.Excerpts from...Al-Anon's Twelve Steps, © Al-Anon Family Group Headquarters, Inc. 1996.Al-Anon's Twelve Traditions, © Al-Anon Family Group Headquarters, Inc. 1996.Reprinted with permission of Al-Anon Family Group Headquarters, Inc. So this is JMHO.In recovery,

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.