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.
From a book called Choicemaking by Sharon Wegscheider-Cruse, which is old but I'm getting a lot from it.
Symptoms follow (slightly edited because I'm lazy. Typos are all mine, baby!)
Fatigue: allowing ourselves to be overly tired and careless about our health.
Workaholism: Usually a sign that we are less effective than we should be. Sometimes this is true because we are overly tired or because we have unrealistic expectations for ourselves.Workaholism can also reflect an avoidance of dealing with intimates in ones life. The workaholic doesnt have time to share, doesnt have time to really listen to the spouse or children recite their needs. Theres always work to be done, another project to start.
Dishonesty: Little cover-ups, exaggerations, underestimations- all of which can grow into more elaborate forms of excuse-making.
Self-pity: Beginning to believe that one is a victim of bad luck instead of taking responsibility for poor choicemaking or use of time.
Frustrations: A sign that one is nt feeling or expressing appropriate anger. It is also a sign that one feels blocked in ones goals, and might represent a low threshold for frustration, unrealistic expectations or poor coping skills-or all of these together.
Impatience: A sign that one ones to get back in the drivers seat of control. Dissatisfaction with the pace of recovery, a feeling that things are not happening fast enough, not happening the way one wants them to happen.
Relaxing the Recovery Program: Letting up on the discipline of recovery. Not finding time for daily meditations, meetings, support groups. Im okay now. When one forgets the mainstay of recovery, one stops recovering.
Setting Unreachable Goals: If we set goals that are unreachable, we set ourselves up for disappointment, which leads to frustration or to self-pity. We do not set out to stay sober today. Happiness is not having what you want, but wanting what you have.
Forgetting Gratitude: You have a choice of looking at the up side of life, or looking at the down side. Its not possible to feel gratitude and negativity at the same time.
Righteousness: Often, when things get better, one feels powerful, arrogant and better than those who are still struggling with their recovery. Unfortunately, in our righteousness, we tend to find it easier to remove a speck of dust from the eye of our neighbor than that the 2x4 out of our own.
Righteousness was huge for me. I've had to really work on "how important is this". I can get totally lost in over reaction and over involvement with others.
Amen, again! I go through a lot of these things. Sometimes a lot at once. I am grateful for my meetings & especially one friend who keeps my "stuff" into perspective. Thanks for your post! Kathleen
There is a before and after way of looking at those descriptions. I use to identify hard at one time with how they are described here...mostly when I was in my Black/White atmosphere...when I learned about the "Grey" areas, the grace using and giving areas; that's when all of those "Aha!!" events started to happen and my vision got wider and clearer. The nature of my recovery also got expansive. I could and did widen my search on the nature of my conditions.
I learned that there is a "maybe" and "maybe not" outside of my own reality. I learned to "what if not" just after I use to "what if". I learned to look at things from many perspectives to understand better and also accept that the closer my nose is to the picture the less I see. This was Al-Aneese speak...stuff taught by my sponsors and old timers that helped me in my life and also gave my clients room to move around in when I was counseling in an in/out rehab.
(((((hugs)))))
-- Edited by Jerry F on Thursday 23rd of April 2009 02:37:31 PM
wow this is a great list for me to review! Thank you for posting this, its very revealing to me. I like catching myself before I head into the rabbit hole. Jean
