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
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I am really new to all of this, so please forgive me if I jabber on...where does one start...ok, if there is a God, do you think he/she decides who gets what kind of life? What I mean is, why are some people blessed and others not? If it's original sin then it stands to reason that all women suffer, so I don't believe that...what I do wonder is why I got dealt the hand that I received. What did I do to deserve such a messed up family? let me start by saying that I am the product of an alcoholic gay father who died of AIDS 11 years ago, and a mother who spent the better part of my teen years in a pill popping stuper. I have two older sisters, the oldest is a major alcoholic of whom I had to cut off ties with and the other sister is in jail...I won't get into specifics, but she did something bad while high on oxycotin. The father of my two children was and possibly still is a drug addict, his drug of choice being crack cocaine, so you can see why I question the whole God thing...I have managed to stay away from the drugs and booze however, the pain I feel from the choices of the people I love most in the world has driven me crazy...sometimes I feel like I have no one...it cannot be good to hold all of the hurt inside, I have talked to my friends, but I feel like I burden them and to be honest, I feel as though I am whinning. My boyfriend is an amazing man, but there is something about my pain that he just doesn't quite get...who can blame him, there is only so much one person can listen to. So, in the middle of the night, when I wake up, I silently go to the bathroom and cry...and plot out all of the ways that I can make sure that I protect my kids from all the dangers of addiction. Is it wrong that I hate when people say it's a decease? How can something a person chooses to do, of their own free will be a decease...can someone explain that to me...Cancer is a decease, addiction, to me, appears to be a choice, but maybe I am just angry. I have no idea how to feel anymore...anger, sadness, and even guilt have become a part of my life...so much so that I am a pro at disguising it, I go to work every day, put on a happy smile, then I come home, make dinner for my family, still with that smile and then, I go to bed, only to not sleep...but to finally allow myself to feel when no one is looking. This has been the most honest I have ever been, figures it's to strangers on the Internet...I suppose it's easier to let go when you don't have to look at the pity on people's faces when you tell them about your family. Sometimes I even try to be optimistic about it, I tell myself that there is a silver lining because my kids get to witness first hand the effects of drugs and alcohol and I hope that will be enough to deter them...but truthfully, what I want is a happy family, a family that gets together every holiday...as it is, I moved away from them because I had to, otherwise, I may have fallen down too. Thanks for listening, for reading this...maybe I can find some inner peace someday all because of this message.
Welcome to alanon so glad you are here. I came with all the same questions.Why, Why, Why me? If you have a little time you might want to hit up a face to face meeting in your area, you will find people who know exactly what you are talking about and will have suggestions for ways you can make changes in you life that will give you serenity you never thought you would have or deserve.
I was talking to my girlfriend today and we spoke about how when times are really tough we think god as turned his back on us and by the end of all our suffering things really got a heck of alot better. She recently had someone come and work on her plumbing and when they took the sink down in her bathroom the whole wall crumbled. She said she went and sat down and thought oh my god oh my god...she ended up getting most of the parts for the bathroom from habitat for humanity and although she had to go without water for awhile ( which would put me in the basement emotionaly) she now has a beautiful new bathroom.
What helped most at first was sitting down and writting out a gratitude list. Some days it was I am grateful to have shoes... and work from there....It was much better on focusing on my dad, mom, brother, sister, husband, and son who were all addicted to alcoholics oraddicts and then play some real painful parts in my life over and over again in my head.
So glad you are here, please keep coming back. My sponsor, when I met her at the first meeting I attended said Come back for six months, if it doesn't work for you, we will refund your misery.
Hello and welcome = first your not alone anymore u will find many people here who will love and care for you and help u thru this rough time in your life . Please find Al-Anon meetings for yourself your hurting that is obvious and there u will find the answers to your questions , I truly believe this is a disease no one in thier right mind wants to live the way an alcoholic does , pushing people away who love them , leaving thier families this is a 3 fold disease , mental ,physical and spiritual . Your right in the early days drinking is a choice it is fun and a socially acceptable thing to do , eventually it turns on you and it becomes a crutch to solve all problems , it is progressive it only gets worse never better and it begins to run thier lives and most feel they have lost the power of choice . As to your question about God , I don't believeGod is a punishing God , he gave man free will and unfortuantly some squander the gift they were given . Please find some meetings so u too can heal from the effects of someone elses drinking . thinking of you today Louise
well as I am new to all of this, I dont know if there are rules on what you cant or can say but I will just be honest and speak from my heart to you.....if I say something wrong, I'm sorry. I grew up wondering if there was a God and if so why did he not like me? So I have asked many of these very questions you are asking now. I personally say yes there is a God and he does love you and I. My life sure sounds a lot like yours except my dad was straight, I think and died of a gunshot wound 10 years ago. We are lucky to have free willl and that is what God has granted all of us. Unfortunately, consequences are also a part of choices. Some of those cosequences effect not just us but those around us also.. If I choose to drive recklessly, I risk crashing and may hurt others as well as myself. Is it a disease? They say it is and studiees show it to be true. I agree with you also though. It's a choice to some degree. They say that many factors can and do contribute to the disease. Such as we are all told that smoking increases our risk of cancer. yes cancer is a disease and if we have family members that have had cancer then common sense would tell you that smoking is not wise, right? you would think. As my father and two brothers are alcoholics, I chose to never drink at all out of fear that I would also be an alcoholic. For all I know I am an alcoholic...lol...just have not had that first drink to set it off....who knows but I wont take the chance. If the addict smoked and had cancer instead of alcoholism, would we say they made the choice to get cancer? Who knows but what I do see is that lots of people drink alcoholl and never have a problem, so then how do we know if we are making the choice to be alcoholics or not? Either way, take it easy on yourself and know that you aare not the reason and God does love you. Some times we are so focused on our hurt that we dont see tthe many blessing God has given us also, such as our children, coloor with sight, smell with breathing, taste with eating and the ability to love and forgive.
The why's can drive us crazy if we let them. But I'm not sure we're taking good care of ourselves by asking "Why." I'm reminded of that saying about "It's okay to look at your past as long as you don't stare at it." I think the why's can be a way of staring at it. We can't go back and change any of that; we can only brood and ruminate and all those other things that put us at risk for depression. The thing is that today is ours to live. Whatever has happened, today we're alive and we can do things that nurture and support us.
I certainly have spent a lot of time staring at the past, especially all the bad things in the past. (And there have been plenty.) Once a therapist said to me, "Good things happened in the past too. Do you let yourself think about them? One day you played hopscotch; one day you learned to skip." We ask "why" about the bad things but not about the good things, isn't that true? I think in my case holding on to the memory of those bad things so tightly was a kind of fear. It's hard to move forward into a new view of life, boy is it ever. Take care of yourself.
Glad you're hear...I identify with the "what did I do to deserve this?" thinking. While I want to find a way to blame myself (I guess it's a way of taking control of it...if I caused it I can fix it) but much of it has nothing to do with us. I can honestly look at how I contribute to the negative things and life and work to improve them. What I can't do is blame myself for either mistakes or things I have no control over. Mistakes happen, I do the best I can to correct them, but I'm deluding myself if I think I can live my life mistake free.
My Higher Power is not the Bible's Christian God. My higher power is nature. I truly believe that everything happens for a reason and that though I too have had my share of craziness, it has been to learn something. And boy have I learned! I am free from an abusive marriage now, which was my second marriage. I am only 35. My first marriage my husband was addicted to sex and cheated on me every chance he got. I put up with it because of my codependent behaviors and finally got smart enough and left.
My second husband was addicted to video games and the computer and to being in control of EVERYTHING. I was told a million times over how stupid I was, how I didn't know how to listen, how I was crazy, I was called every name in the book, I was confused and thought I had to stay. I got free of that too!
The alcoholic in my life is a very good guy friend. But there were other people in my family that were also alcoholics and people with Alanon's disease. People (including me) that were molested and people that did the molesting. I had had to over come those things and move on....
Now, I have been with Alanon for 4 weeks and I am learning so much. The meetings that are face to face helped tremendously. I got the literature Courage To Change and As we Understood. I think the second book will help me with my belief in my higher power. I too once thought "Why me, why this now, why this way?" and Alanon has taught me that asking those questions is dwelling and not living for today.... Today is all I can handle. Sometimes I can only handle this one minute. So I take it one minute at a time. Take care of yourself now, its ok! (((((HUGS)))))
-- Edited by Maize on Saturday 31st of July 2010 04:46:41 PM
I'm certainly a product of a really dysfunctional crazy family where abuse was rampant. I spent most of my life believing that I had every right to be angry at God for the "lot" I got. I felt the blessings was about what was on the outside rather than the inside. Today I know I am blessed but that's a very new concept for me and frankly pretty challenging at times. Changing my thinking was so difficult for me. I had a lot of reasons to be angry, rageful and feel sorry for myself. I had a lot of reasons which I went over and over and over to be angry at God/HP for the mess I had to deal with day in day out.
Learning to be grateful really grated on me for a long long time. What a preposterous idea me be grateful for being alive? Today I am grateful, every day I know I absolutely should not be here and I am thrilled to have the opportunity to work this program. I may not "like" many aspects of my life but I'm glad I'm here and breathing and not having to deal with some of the things I've had to deal with in the past. My life is incredibly challenging but I have tools, resources and support I did not have before. The greatest challenges of my life, living with an alcoholic is what got me here. I would certainly not be here without that. I tried al anon years ago and absolutely hated it. I could not imagine needing tools, support and understanding. I spent a lot of years, hating complaining and raging. Then I was at last willing to take suggestions (from a sponsor) and try out a few tools of al anon. That helped me immeasurably.
I have a different relationship with my HP these days. That's one of the things that changed, it was an inside job rather than an outside job.
Some of the issue for me personally is that I believed I knew it all. For example I work with a young man (he's 20) who has recently had a DUI, he has a suspended license (which he ignores he drives whenever he feels like it), he had his car impounded, he had two huge fines. we're talking thousands of dollars here and he doesn't make much money (neither do I). He still drinks, drives like a crazy person (he's proud of it) and resents the fact he was even caught. In my craziness I believe I can talk to him and make the one and only difference (I do not act on that these days but I certainly think it all the time!). To me the Judge, the police, the sheriff, the impounder, his family (who bought him the car in the first place) pale besides my ability to persuade him to stop drinking and using (he also uses drugs) and driving like a crazy person. I "alone" can do it and I will go to the ends of the earth to prove it!!!! What an ego I can have!
I can sit at work and resent that he can't "see" how rational, good, wonderful, giving and considerate I am (how many years did I do that with the ex A I lost count of them!). That's just with a co worker, I can go to far different lengths in a relationship and with family. I "too" believed I was the "only" one who could help and I did the "helping" until I couldn't do it anymore and I still gave it a go after that. That was my pathology (all of which of course was the product of my upbringing). For me there was a lot of helping that eventually became enabling and not all of it was about the exA and other alcoholics, much of the enabling was my own compulsion to try to control others.
What changed for me was not my upbringing, my current situation (which is definitely challenging) or my relationship with a significant other (I don't have one anymore), what changed was embracing a program. The irony is that the disease of addiction is cunning baffling and powerful; however the embrace of the program is equally powerful and absolutely able to transcend grief, rage and tragedy. If you get to know some of the people on this board you'll see that day in day out. The program works in people's lives regardless of the alcoholic's demise/recovery/relapse. Some people who do embrace al anon and other 12 step programs are able to step out of dysfunction and tragedy and be happy joyous and free (II've a long way to go on that one). Some of them trip and stumble but they are always welcome no matter how far out there they are. I hope you will give al anon a chance. I can certainly say its been worth it for me. I'm on a journey now rather than stuck in self pity and fear.
