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I try to mostly work on my own honesty, and not obsess over others - i.e., is this person being honest or not. I found that in working with alcoholics, it's not really all that important to try and guess at everything they say and decide if it's true or not. The message is the same, my duty to pass on my experience, strength and hope remains the same.
But it is astonishing sometimes. Reading some of the recent posts from people whose A has recently relapsed, the things they say. I mean we're talking people who have been around AA and maybe had a period of sobriety. They know the drill, and yet when they come back to AA they are full of excuses. Their reasons for the relapse seem terribly important, and it's terribly important that they convey them as if that will somehow make any difference in the recovery. But the only thing needed for recovery is willingness and *self* honesty. I figure if a person is telling me BS, there's no merit in calling him out on it even if I know for a fact it's not true. Alcoholics love to argue, and they love to change the rules.
Of course there is little to say to a wet drunk. Whether you're a fellow AA, or a concerned friend or family member, it's pretty much a waste of breath. Just as the alcoholic's words are quack-quack, blah-blah, wa-wah... when we try to talk to them when they are under the influence, that's all THEY hear.
My recently deceased friend was a classic case. After many years of sobriety, he drifted away from meetings, became obsessed with work and other pursuits, and eventually began drinking again and very quickly isolated himself. Everyone I knew who was in contact with him in his final months said he told a different story about how, when, why he had gone back out. It seemed to be terribly important what people - even fellow AAs - thought of him.
All of us who knew and loved him would have been overjoyed to have him walk back through the doors into a meeting. We wouldn't care what the story was. He never made it. Pride finished him off first. Been a month now, and it still hurts.
You hit the nail on the head. The reasons don't matter. I remember when Tim relapsed and went back to detox for a week. We sat there with a councelor trying to figure out what was best for both of us. Tim kept telling me that "I was his trigger." I asked for time alone with the councelor because I was shocked. He mad it very clear, that I might be the "trigger" but Tim was responsible for how he reacted to it.
Reasons don't matter. Tim did exactly what your friend did: isolate. No matter how hard I tried to convince him that nobody cared if he relapsed. All they wanted was for him to walk into a meeting. I have seen plenty of people walk into an AA meeting who have been drinking. Didn't matter a bit. What matter was that they walked into the meeting. I would have happily taken Tim in a cab or called one of the members to come take him to a meeting. But he was ashamed and never made it. Ironically this disease didn't kill him. I know it would have. I never cared WHY he was an addict. I loved the man not the disease.
Like you, it hurts everyday. Thank you for this post. Much love and blessings to you my friend.
Live strong, Karilynn & Pipers Kitty
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It's your life. Take no prisoners. You will have it your way.
I believe alcoholism and codependency are two sides to the same coin, both self delusion, denial based illnesses and shifting the focus to "over there" so we don't have to deal with our own choices and our own reality and to fully take responsibility for our own choices, we can shift the blame "over there".
I see it in both rooms, our inability to see ourselves but how easily we spot it in others, what I was told is if I was actively working my own program, I would be so busy working on myself and my own defects of character I wouldn't have time to take other peoples inventories, that recovery is uncover, discover, and discard for all of us.
It's especially easy to see in the printed word, where I can write how I fell down, spilt the milk everywhere, and the next paragraph building a case how it's the other person's fault, and the next thing I know, the whole thread is stories about people who make us spill milk.
I too have occasional difficulty with people who lie both knowingly and unknowingly, but at the end of the day the only persons delusions and lies I can monitor with any sort of a hopeful, healthy outcome is my own, and I catch my brain telling me stories far too often to judge others for the same thing, we all here for the same thing, to try to recover from this, some of us are sicker then others, some of us come further then others, and there are always people both ahead and behind me, my job is to pull the people up from behind, and to listen to the people ahead, otherwise I am just sitting in a meeting or reading a forum feeding the very sickness I am there to treat.
This is why there are so many of us, we can't all be crazy on the same day, some day the person I am judging might the person that saves my bacon, which, by the way is my experience, near 17 years ago I used to drag this brain dead newcomer around to meetings, 7 years later he was my sponsor for the next 7-8 years, and he was the best, most kind and loving, as well as the most illuminating sponsor I ever had.
We're all here because we aren't all there, and we are all just doing the best we can one day at a time, the day I forget that is the day I am suffering, and yes, it happens, it just sucks.
was best for both of us. Tim kept telling me that "I was his trigger." I asked for time alone with the councelor because I was shocked. He mad it very clear, that I might be the "trigger" but Tim was responsible for how he reacted to it.
We choose the trigger... and choose to pull it. Or we choose a trigger knowing it will be pulled.
I remember when I was in weight watchers - this was before I got sober. I was starving myself so I could get drunk once a week at least. They talked about "red light foods" or "trigger" foods. I decided pizza was a trigger for me. Naturally every time I encountered pizza, I'd either hide from it like a frightened child with the monster in the closet, or I'd overindulge just because, well, it's a trigger and once I do it I'm out of control.
For some reason in sobriety I was not told to make up a list of triggers. I'm really glad that I didn't. Oh sure, I encountered situations that made me think of drinking, but rather than trying to figure out what slot they were in, I did something novel that I heard in a meeting: I turned it over to God. Ya know, that had the effect of stopping all of my thought processes about whether it's a trigger or not. If I wrestle a bear, I'm going to lose no matter how much technique I've practiced. That little message about not wrestling... in the Big Book the line is "We've ceased fighting"... somehow sunk in. Maybe because it was different, maybe because I had already tried everything else. In a moment of reasonableness, it sunk in.
When I hear someone in AA talking about how they're going to fight their disease, there's not much I can tell 'em. It's not about winning or losing, it's about not playing.
I did build up a static "fear" list in my head. My life improved so much in my first few years of sobriety, I began to get paranoid. I really thought the only reason I was sober was because things were going well - materially, relationship-wise, etc. I had a new "trigger list" in my head that if any of these things happened (or in some cases, didn't happen) that I'd probably drink. God has a brutal sense of humor. One by one, EVERYTHING on that list happened to me, over a period of several years. I didn't drink. I didn't even come close to drinking. I was miserable, pissed and moaned at meetings, cried in my coffee... but I never seriously contemplated drinking. When the smoke cleared and I was still standing, I got the message. Ok God, no more lists. I just take it like it comes.
I too have occasional difficulty with people who lie both knowingly and unknowingly, but at the end of the day the only persons delusions and lies I can monitor with any sort of a hopeful, healthy outcome is my own
Growing up with an alcoholic parent, I developed a strong sense of distrust all the while being very gullible. I think most of you know what I'm talking about. I *wanted* to believe anything good I heard, no matter how implausible - like Dad saying, "If this big deal/sale/whatever goes through, we'll all take a vacation to Disney World". The reality was, my codependent mom was less truthful than my dad was. Dad never really lied intentionally, he simply made promises he couldn't keep, and as I learned later, at the time he made them he fully believed them even though he had no ability to follow through. Mom rarely lied outright. She was more of an ongoing euphamism. She skirted around the heart of the truth without ever managing to spit it out. Even the day my dad died, she waited and waited and then broke the news in a 15 minute story, after which I had to ask... "You mean... he's DEAD?" just to be sure. I know why she did that - she thought that being blunt would sting and she was afraid of the reaction. I never could convince her that my reaction to being bullshitted and strung along was far worse than any momentary shock from the factual truth.
In my early working life, I constantly looked for that "father figure". The job opportunity that would really pay off, a leader I could follow up the ladder to riches and rewards. I found one who put me on a pedestal, and I ate it right up. I was on top of the world... arrogant... and an alcoholic. Then one day he kicked the pedestal out from under me and kicked me into the gutter. This led me to my first true spiritual experience in adulthood. I wasn't ready to get sober yet though. Ironically, many years later I went back to work for that same person. We're both way, way, way older now... LOL. There's no illusions about pedestals. I do my job, he's satisfied with my work, I'm satisfied with my pay. It's not my soul. Is he still dishonest? I don't even really think about it. His honesty or lack thereof has very little effect on me today. He still tries to play games on occasion, and I generally just roll my eyes or give him "that look" and he busts out laughing. I used to take his opinion of my every word, look, or action sooooo seriously that it almost killed me. Yeah, he's an alcoholic... LOL. And my Alanon program has allowed me to work for him and function just fine, and not take it home with me.
barisax wrote:I know why she did that - she thought that being blunt would sting and she was afraid of the reaction. I never could convince her that my reaction to being bullshitted and strung along was far worse than any momentary shock from the factual truth.
Repeated for truth
That's the one I am still dealing with, and thus far the only answer I have come up with is to walk away.
I did that for the first few years I got sober, cut toxic people from my life without a backward glance, then may years into it, I started to think I could "manage" dealing with them, then I started thinking I could manage them, thus began my descent into codie hell.
The last few years I realized that experiment was a failure, and I started cutting people from my life again, including my own mother.
As of today, the last time I spke to my mother a few years ago it was to tell her I never wanted to see or talk to her again, that for her not to call even from her death bed, because I wasn't going to answer the phone.
The truth is, in many ways, that's on me, because although I knew she was a sick person, I lowered my guard, thus lowered my boundaries, thus allowed her to take me to the cleaners, she stole the car but I handed her the keys, you give a junkie heroin don't be surprised when they take it, when they do what it is junkies do, and I gave my mother control, i gave her the power to wreck my life and went along for the ride yelling and squawking the whole way.
That's on me.
I knew better, and was told better, and did it anyway, because I thought I was special, I thought I was smarter then her and the disease, I thought I could sit up on my moral and spiritual hilltop, both figuratively and literally and watch the sick people scurry around down below as I wafted along on my superiority and sobriety.
I learned different.
Within a year I began my descent, at the end of 3-4 years I was right there with them, drinking, sicker mentally and in more pain then I had ever been in my life.
Today, the truth is, I don't know the answer, in some cases it is to walk away, but I am also trying to learn how to have internal boundaries and not think in such black and white thought patterns, for many years the only people I surrounded myself were healthy, I built an island of recovered people around me, I started my own company, only hired good, honest and upright people, and only worked for customers I liked, the moment they tried to nickel and dime me I walked away, and when I wandered back into the "real" world I was woefully unprepared, today I don't have that luxury, so I am trying to learn new tools or relearn old ones.
Today, the truth is, I don't know the answer, in some cases it is to walk away, but I am also trying to learn how to have internal boundaries and not think in such black and white thought patterns, for many years the only people I surrounded myself were healthy, I built an island of recovered people around me, I started my own company, only hired good, honest and upright people, and only worked for customers I liked, the moment they tried to nickel and dime me I walked away, and when I wandered back into the "real" world I was woefully unprepared, today I don't have that luxury, so I am trying to learn new tools or relearn old ones.
Ah yes, the B-word. It's interesting that you talk about internal boundaries. I never really thought of them as being internal or external, but you are quite right. External boundaries are places I don't go (biker bars, the women's restroom, countries that are at war with mine, etc), and people I refuse to have anything to do with - right now a very short list of people I just find too far gone, too hostile, or too creepy to have any contact with. The rest of those boundaries are internal, and this is what enables me to function in the world surrounded by shallowness and liars and family disfunction.
I too had the luxury during my single years of being able to cherry pick who I hung out with, where I want, and who I worked for. I was self employed. Now that I'm married I have all kinds of new family, and their "issues" are plainly displayed all the time. There's nothing I haven't seen before, and it mostly doesn't bother me. But when I look at my life since getting sober and subsequently becoming single, my wedding told the story. I invited people from many periods in my life, but almost nobody from my drinking years, other than original family of course. There's simply nobody left from then. I stood there with my bride and took my vows in front of a chosen group of witnesses, every one of whom contributed positively to my life. A few that I invited couldn't make it. My recently deceased AA friend was notably missing. And DramaGoddess was missing. As if to show me that life just isn't perfect. I invited no one out of obligation... just the people I wanted to be there. Of the 75 guests, nearly EVERY one of them commented that it was the nicest wedding they had ever been to. Why? Because it was low-stress, even though bride, groom and a few others had lots of hectic preparations - everybody wanted to be there.
And even though this was a beautiful and memorable EVENT in my life, I know full well that marriage is a PROCESS. The wedding is just an occasion to mark the beginning of it. Hard to believe in just a few weeks, we'll be celebrating our one year anniversary - and hopefully finally taking a real get-out-of-town honeymoon.
At any rate, on the topic of boundaries - I have to choose what affects me. As much as I love my DramaGoddess granddaughter, I am powerless over her situation. My life must go on. There's no misery, guilt, worry, or distraction I can pile on myself that will help her one iota. I think her mom knows that too, although she's witness to the daily details. I'm soooo grateful that she has someone in her family that has been in the same foxhole so to speak, and I'm honored that it's me.
Sorry about all the long posts.... I didn't know what I had in me when I started this thread! Thanks for listening. I'm off to my home group meeting in a few.
oh I am so sad for you sweetheart. It is horrible to lose our loved ones addict or not.
I drove past the road my bil lived on, he died a few years ago, cirrosis of the liver. I cried i miss him so much. So I know that feeling.
Disease is a tough thing to have. Especially one so weird. How some can stop using, come back to us basically them again, then in one second they disappear again. If that isn't insanity I don't know what is.
I just wanted to say - it was long reading - but one of the most insightful, helpful to me, posts that I has had the privilege to read. Thank you Barisax and AGO.
When I hear someone in AA talking about how they're going to fight their disease, there's not much I can tell 'em. It's not about winning or losing, it's about not playing.
((barisax))
prayers of comfort over the loss of your friend
and although it's been over a year and half now - when I hear my daughters talking about seeing their dad (my ex) and he's under the influence of either the drugs or alcohol ~ it still really breaks my heart ~
your statement above is my prayer for him ~ that one day he will go back to "not playing" with the disease and turn it back over to the God of his understanding.
About a month ago ~ i went to his former home group to celebrate our daughter's 1 yr sobriety birthday. It was awesome to see what she & her God has achieved.
Different people spoke, one gentleman with over 20 something yrs sobriety congratulated her ~ he was also my ex's former sponsor ~ he said " and tonite there is someone else who if in the right place, he would be here with us too"
Although my ex and I will never be together as a couple again ~ I sure wish as you said ~ he would walk thru those doors seeking help again ~ no excuses, no explanations, no stories, or reasons on the relapse ~ just an open mind and a willing heart to return to that place of peace he had in his life at one time
Before it's too late
HUGS and prayers of comfort for you and your friend's family and loved ones, Rita
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No matter what me and my God are going to be ok, even better than OK -
