Aloha Charles!!


Sounds like you are ready...like you've hit bottom...sound like.  I remember
being there, doing that, saying that, redoing it again and saying it again and
then the thought of merry-go-round music and all that barfy confusion made
me just as sick as you are describing.  I had to separate from everything
alcoholic in my life and that included my ex-alcoholic-wife.  I ended up going
into physical withdrawals just as if I were a heroin addict.  I detached from her
and attached, like you are starting to do with everything program; different;
the opposite of what I was doing.  "Do the opposite of what you have been
doing and you get the opposite consequence" is what my sponsor told me
and he was right.  In stead of all the negative consequences I started to realize
positive ones.  Did I relapse on it...yes I did and like any willing and honest
alcoholic or addict I got back "into (deeply) the program" of recovery.

I have been sponsoring a fellow member in this program who carried on
riding the merry-go-round and riding all those big waves for seven years.
He finally hit bottom or below and got into working the program as best
he could...listening, not talking, taking suggestions and actually putting
them into practice and working the steps and slogans.  Today he is working
on new dreams, starting a new life, no alcoholic/addict in sight except for
an occasional visit in court or the other services that come to play when
this disease starts to branch out into the community at large.  He had to
loose it all in order to get it and now he is going beyond the resentments
and blaming and anger and is practicing the gratitude we all learn to
experience when the miracles start to arrive into our lives.  He lost it all
and now has more than he could ever imagine.  He is a good man...a very
good man who is by nature a care taker.  Today he focuses that caretaking
on the right people, places and things with a new awareness.  It's caregiving
without expectations or taking over.  He is taking care of himself and his 5
children and works in a position as a care giver also.  He is learning how to
do it...to be responsible while letting others also be responsible for their parts.

It works when you work it.  It has the room to work when you learn how to
say that two letter sentence to the disease of addiction, "no".  It is a complete
sentence.  You can use the long form if you wish, "I will no longer participate"
and simple is best for me.  I like "no" when it is appropriate and I like the 3
to 4 seconds that come before saying it that allows me to think about what
I have learned in the program and know about myself today and what
happened when the program wasn't in me.

Keep coming back.  (((((hugs)))))

ps.  He also use to talk the judge and court out of giving his ex her
consequences.  He "saved" her lots of times.  I wrote his TROs and
sat with him in court as he called the restraint off and then he was
running with his addiction again until there was absolutely nothing left;
mind...body...spirit...or emotions.  The only way out left to him was
up.  He's glad he chose it. He hasn't called off a TRO since.