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.
I wanted to share my story for some thoughts and experiences you all went through. I am no longer living with my AH and we are divorced a year ago...I know i dont want to get back to him and our marriage has made me discover so many deffects of character which i need to work on to be a healthier and happier person. I am living in another country but still cannot control my expectations of others...they are still very high and misplaced...am in fear of going to Al Anon meetings as i live in a country where this is not common and i have some sort of strange anxiety, fear of getting in trouble...although i know this is what i need the most in my own recovery...since my divorce i ve picked up some of the broken pieces in my life...left my country, got an amazing job but still overanalyze and run faster than i should be...i cant get to terms with faith nor meditate nor pray ...i just wanna live life and quickly before its too late...a friend of mine passed away reminding me that life is too short...so instead of working on myself i continue to just go with the flow with no real sense of who i am...i continue to be stuck in my old habits which i could see clearly when i lived with my AH....i cannot sustain my recoveryyyy....i need support and i dont want to get it...out of fear...am not sure if you understand me but hope someone can shed some light...how do you move forward when you re out of the problem but still have your own problem to deal with...how do you become realistic of your expectations of others...i cant get close to anyone anymore out of fear...i sabotage any close intimate relation that comes my way...please help
I immediately related to your post. I like the way you describe hurrying up to get on with living, because you don't want it to be too late. I believe I do this as well. I want all the answers, right now, yesterday even, and I get horribly frustrated with the consequences of my hasty decisions and impatience.
I'm learning to practice "one day at a time" and when my mind gets way ahead of me, I find this is when I get way out of control and begin flailing emotionally. Most of my self sabotaging behaviours come out of fear. Where I formerly always thought anger and frustration were my leading emotions (blaming my aH for this), I've come to realize that fear is at the core of most of my angst. Picture a scared, frantic, person drowning...that is how I can easily become without a program. Alanon is like my life preserver. I still have to grab it, use it and get to safety, but it is there to offer an alternative to the uncontrollable fear, and get me out of those situations if I choose it.
How do you move forward? From experience, I know, the answer for me the answer is so simple, one day at a time.
Thank you for your post. I can relate so much to it. I can understand you perfectly.I too always feel full of fear, scared of doing something wrong and constantly feel like I'm in trouble. Thank you for being open and highlighting how we really are never alone. I always felt like I'm the only one with all this dread. For me working the 12 steps and reading lots of Al-anon literature has helped unravel some of the anxiety, understanding why I feel this way. I am an adult child of an alcoholic (acoa) and codependant, I too have sabotaged relationships because I have massive abondonment issues. You can move forward, for me its with baby steps, one day at a time. Keep posting and keep coming back
Welcome! I do understand what you are saying. But I have not gone through being afraid because of where I live. USA, Oregon. I am very appreciative of this fact!
KouKou, we have wonderful online meetings on this site in the "chatroom." It is taken very seriously and ran as close to a face to face meeting as possible.
At the top of the main message page you will see where it says meetings in chatroom, click on that. If you have a problem, just let us know.
Yes it is hard when we separate from our mate. We usually hated the disease/behavior, not the person.
I can tell you, things for me made it almost impossible to go to meetings in our little town. I have been here at MIP many many years. It has taught me to be a better person. A person can grow reaching out online here on MIP. We are very real people. We very much share Al Anon skills. Also we really care.
We talk about many, many things here.
To sustain recovery it is like everything else. It has to be fed. Being here sharing on the message board, chatting in our chat room, going to meetings in the chat room, will fill you right up!
Do you have Al Anon literature? That helps too, there are books that you read something every day, gives us a great start.
Do you speak/read English? Books can be ordered online at Amazon for very inexpensive prices.
Recovery is like a friend. It is a live thing inside of us. Sorta like a garden. Lots of different areas we work on. Maybe we learn how to react to negative thoughts, or words that are negative from other people.
Or we want to learn to be more independant after being with an A who's disease broke us down.
It takes learning the skill, thinking it is the right one for me, using that skill, putting it into practice, then believing we want it to be part of our life.
I hope you come back! I would love to hear more about you, and possibly where you are from. We have people here at MIP from all over the world!
rora said----------I want all the answers, right now, yesterday even, and I get horribly frustrated with the consequences of my hasty decisions and impatience.
I'm learning to practice "one day at a time" and when my mind gets way ahead of me, I find this is when I get way out of control and begin flailing emotionally. Most of my self sabotaging behaviours come out of fear. Where I formerly always thought anger and frustration were my leading emotions (blaming my aH for this), I've come to realize that fear is at the core of most of my angst. Picture a scared, frantic, person drowning...that is how I can easily become without a program. Alanon is like my life preserver. I still have to grab it, use it and get to safety, but it is there to offer an alternative to the uncontrollable fear, and get me out of those situations if I choose it.
OH i can relate to this....the frantic flurry of activity just to keep "busy" and distracted, i guess and the fear out of control, re-acting instead of responding......i self sabotaged so many times out of fear and having to "react" now, even on small stuff.......fear is the core for me tooo
frantic..scared.....due to my being a crime victim and trauma survivor, yea, i am fear based....i have to use my program each day to keep my balance....to keep me one day at a time.....living in the NOW and telling myself "i am SAFE now in my HP.....I am SAFE....i am OK".........on and on.....yea, this program has saved my sanity and my life, literally...........great points.........
Aloha Koukou..."We admitted we were powerless (over alcohol) and that our lives had become unmanagable." You don't have to go to a meeting to read and hear and listen to the shared experiences on the first step however the face to face meetings are very much more real than cyberstepping here. Maybe an acronym for fear can calm your understanding and help it up an inch or two. F E A R. (F)alse (E)vidence (A)ppearing (R)eal. What is confusing your thinking and keeping you from coming into the rooms is based on False Evidence. You've let it come to a level that it Appears Real. You cannot rely on it. What you can rely on is the experience of actually going to one or two or more over a period of days. If you fall for the lie (false evidence) you will not be operating with real facts. Alcoholic is gone and you discover the problem is still here. You change scenery and go to another country (we call that a geographical) and the problem is still with you and now you have arrived at the realization that the problem is most likely you. We all come to that awareness and unless we change who we are and how we think and what we do that drives us crazy we will remain crazy. "Nothing changes if nothing changes" is one of our philosophies. Running too fast and can't get to terms with faith...prayer and meditation? How long do you want to stay in that condition. You've been in it how long already? What you're DOING and NOT DOING will keep you there. You must be getting something out of it...some satisfaction? Why so scared? I was scared of the unknown...What would I be changed? What if I didn't like it and became someone no one loved or someone I hated? What if this...what if that? I what iffed everything until a sponsor taught me that balance required that as long as I "What iffed" I had to also "What if not". It wasn't long I dropped "what iffing". Fear can be dealt with. Consider the question "what is the worse that could happen to you as a result of getting into the program and the meeting rooms"? Loose some time? Get some literature that you will either give back, away to store? What's the worse that can happen? What's the best that can happen? That you can come to the realization that you can walk thru fear and emerge whole? that you realize there is courage in you that you didn't realize you had? That fear is only an emotion and negative emotions don't scratch? There is a quote in the ODAAT daily reader that mentions "Courage is fear that has said it's prayers." I like that and for me prayers is a conversation only with my HP and my HP has many instruments ready to urge me back into serenity when I stop resisting. Prayer and meditation are recovery personal tools. You get to design them around your needs. Of course we have to learn how to bring our lives down to one 24 hour basis and often time less than that. With time and practice we get better...much better at restoring our lives as we design this 12step and 12tradition program to work in our lives.
Sooo first things first...Trade the fear for faith (their opposites) and go find a meeting you can attend regularly (call it your home meeting) and do the first meeting first. Everyone there will be loving and kind and accepting, just like here and face to face.
I was full of fear & anxiety too. I felt paralyzed & didnt know how to get better. I'm acoa & when I got my hands on the book, 12 steps for adult children I was able to unravel my mixed up feelings.
I know fear comes up when a new experience is happening... it helped me a lot to simply remind myself that "this is new". I find if I validate my own feelings & share them, in a mtg or at this board... that right there helps to take some of the overwhelming side of them.
The mtgs online here are very good & completely anonymous. Hope u give the program a try. It saved my life & taught me ways to cope. I learned to love myself & to change my focus to what I wanted to "grow or manifest" in life.
__________________
Light, Love, Peace, Blessings & Healing to Us All. God's Will Be Done. Amen.
I wanted to tell you all that i am grateful to be here and that you ve each in your own way convinced me to take a step forward in my recovery and to attend meetings in my new location...some of the words you all said were so encouraging that i feel so positive now....i will continue to be here and to share with everyone...i just wanted to let you know am blessed and grateful to be among people who do not judge, who love you for your soul and not for anything else, who want to help you for nothing in return but only to share our strength...i wish the whole world was like our community:)thanks
