Cunning, Powerful and Baffling.

Wow!! Did that bring it back home.  I don't think I could do the whole film sitting still
in one place.  It would give me a rash!!

((((hugs))))   

Alcohol is a mind and mood and behavioral altering chemical.  I have come to believe
that the alcoholic will do what they normal would not while not under the influence. 
They travel from normal to abnormal and over time remain in the abnormal state
because of the constant investment in it.   While others who are not alcoholic grown
up and away the alcoholic does not and their way of expressing life becomes absurd.

It is the chemical and the compulsion for it; the addiction to its use inspite of the
pain and insanity.  Alcohol truely does affect the mind, body, spirit and emotions.

They want to be loving and to be loved and no one touched by the disease; the
alcoholic or those who the alcoholic touches mutually arrive at that point.

The raw emotions of striving for something understandable and acceptable including
the body language and hightened expression is painful drama.  Thank God for AA
and Al-Anon which can reverse it all if willingly and dilligently worked.   

I am finding that yes, we are sick people, me included.  Perhaps I was raised improperly and I am repeating the cycle of my childhood.  Maybe I have chemical imbalances, or perhaps I just see life through a different filter.  For many of us, what makes us feel normal is alcohol.  All of a sudden we are so powerful, normal, free of inhibitions.  But after a while, oh the view of the world it gives us.  Suddenly our feelings of fitting in are morphed into "no one understands me, I am unique!!".  Our judgments are skewed and we will do anything to get back to the place of powerful and free.  Even if alcohol doesn't do that for us anymore, we still believe it will and may even drink more to get it.  The worse things got, the more I drank so I didn't have to deal with reality.  The worse my life got because of alcohol, the tighter I grabbed onto it as my life saver.  Even better, I could blame everyone else for my drinking.  He made me do it . . . he drove me to drink.

Just as we keep believing in the same relationship, hoping to get back to that person we once knew, fell in love with, or simply created in our minds.  I find in my relationship I also had some similar misgivings.  I got something out of the toxic relationship.  Though logically I knew it was all wrong, as often the alcoholic does, those moments that are good I feel so powerful, normal, safe, and cared for.  As things fall apart I hold onto the feeling I have created and will hold it until it becomes detrimental to myself and blame the other person the entire time.

For me, it wasn't their illness I needed to focus on, but my own.

Alcohol isn't the answer for me and a relationship that I depend on for my happiness is not my salvation either.  I am still trying to not look at taking care of myself as slogging, but as a gift!  I enjoy taking care of others, why not myself?  It gives me a sense of gratification to nurture others, why not myself?

Thank you for sharing.  That movie looks intense.  I will see if I can locate it.

Big hugs Maresie,

tlc