The material presented
here is not Al-Anon Conference Approved Literature. It is a method
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information, ideas, feelings, problems and solutions on a personal
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First of all, let me update - after having read wonderful responses to my post, I have no doubt that I am in the right place with Alanon so thank you!
Secondly, expectation. I am having a problem with it at the moment and would like to hear any experience on it..
Ever since my AH started going to AA and stopped drinking, I always made sure to listen to him, asking him questions etc when he came back from his meetings and I was quite happy to do so. I still am happy and want to listen to him. Now, when I tell him about how/what I feel, he doesn't seem to be much interested.
Then I've got "Lois Remembers" which he started to read then stopped when he got to the point where Bill W stopped drinking so I asked him why and he said he knew what Lois has gone through from the film we watched together (When Love Is Not Enough).
I told him that he can get more detailed information from her book but he said it was too much for him because he can only take what he's doing with AA.
I thought we're taking our journey together, well, he with AA and me with Alanon so I expected him to want to know what I am going through as much as I want to know what he's going through. He is really happy for me for taking a journey to recovery so that should be enough but I felt hurt.
I think I am expecting too much, if I don't expect it, I won't get hurt but I am finding it difficult not to have any expectations..
I've got "Living with Sobriety" which is helping me but would love to hear some experience here too.
I experienced the same feelings you are going through several years ago when I joined Al-Anon three months after my AW had started AA. I would ask her questions after she came back from meetings...How many members were there? Was it a good meeting? etc.,etc. I soon realized that even though we were both working programs, we were working our own separate programs. I realized quickly that by asking those seemingly simple questions, only to start a conversation, she took my questions as it was none of my business. She was right.
Your Husband like my Wife are both fighting a powerful disease. I learned the hard way to not get involved in her program even in the smallest way, and to stay on my side of the street. Besides my side of the street did and does require continuous cleaning. I now let her do her thing and I do mine. If she ever brings something up concerning her program I am more that happy to join in a conversation, but only when she brings it up.
My bottom line is I let her business (program) be her business and and my business(program) be mine.
HUGS, RLC
P.S. You are one up on me....Several months ago when I knew "When Love Is Not Enough" was going to be on T.V. I asked her we she wanted to watch it....Her answer was...."Why in the hell would I want to do that". My reply was.....only silence....I call that "Not Reacting"....which happens to be my favorite slogan.
Your husbands reply is probably true they cannot deal with what thier drinking has done to us . period. expecting him to listen your always going to be dissapointed so for your sake stop . I have a sponsor who listens regarless of how many times a week i phone , program friends who listen to me anytime and that is enough , all I wanted was some one to please listen to me .. I have come to understand that alcoholics are so full of guilt and shame especially in early recovery that anything else is just too much , he is well aware of what he has done to his family just cannot talk about it . I was told that somedays all an alcoholic can do is to just NOT drink. If he is attending AA meetings , still sober and changing his actions try for now to make that enough .. lower your expectations and you will feel much better. Take your problem to a meeting or a sponsor and come home with the solution was one of the best pieces of info I got when I first started on this recovery journey . it works and saves alot of arguments in our home.
when I stopped expecting and started accepting things got alot easier for me . Don't miss the good days , God knows we waited long enough for sobriety .
-- Edited by abbyal on Saturday 14th of August 2010 07:23:28 PM
hi (( junko )) and welcome. I think in early recovery we do make the mistake of wanting to share everything we are going through, sorting out, processing... but u both trigger each other (most likely) and need to get some boundaries-privacy and perspective. You also need to learn to focus on YOUr recovery and not his; leave his stuff with him and you also can have that private time/space in your own programs.
For many many years I wanted my parents to know exactly how much they had hurt me (esp my step dad, the active A) but neither my mother nor the alcoholic could understand or relate to how I was feeling and perceiving - they are stuck in their own painful realities. Denial is very strong. Facing the truth about yourself, embracing & accepting you, forgiving you (and others), surrendering control to HP and being present in the Now.
Best way to help an A,is to work your own best program. Learn to set boundaries for yourself, focus on and take care of YOU and feel-deal-heal your own feelings, issues, past stuff -bc we can only change and control ourselves. Ive learned so much about respect recently - when we allow others the dignity to make their own mistakes, own their choices and we do that for ourselves, too - let me just say, self respect feels amazing and it is one of the many blessings I've received from working my own best program.
Learning to detach with love for me has been the most amazing miracle. The first time I experienced it - I felt like a whole human, with my own feelings. Not one that was attached to someone else's feelings - like I had no feelings/identity of my own, I rushed to take on theirs. So, I felt like just me and it was amazing and calmer and I could sense a stirring of self esteem in there too.
So, what I am saying is, u cant expect him to get how u feel, he just wont relate and is dealing with his own feelings and coming out of being totally numb. Feelings are scary to an A, they dont go there, usually. Work on what you can to allow you to feel better and to work out what ever is bothering you. Going to meetings and letting it out that way, with ur sponsor, or in the chat room or the online meetings here - we do understand how you feel and care about you and this is the appropriate place to share it. We've been there. You are not alone - u will be heard and listened to here. Hope u keep coming back ~ change is empowering and life altering! Take care of YOU.
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Light, Love, Peace, Blessings & Healing to Us All. God's Will Be Done. Amen.
I felt like you describe in the beginning of my husband's recovery. After he got sober and would go to meetings, I wanted to talk about it all the time...both how I felt and how he felt. He would answer my questions with one or two words, and then change the subject. He didn't ask me any questions. I never asked him why he didn't want to talk about it, but I talked to my sponsor about it. She said essentially that his recovery was not my business. It wasn't my business to inquire about what went on in the meetings just as it was not my business to make sure he was going to meetings. She said to let go and let him lean on other alcoholics in the program, because they understood early sobriety and I, regardless of how much I wanted to understand, could not understand it.
I think that for months after my husband got sober, it took all his effort to just stay sober. He talks some about his meetings now, and wants to hear about mine - but we ordinarily don't go into a whole lot of detail or depth. He works his program and I work mine. Trying to work his program made me really sick, and I have to work to remember that.
Do you have a sponsor yet that you can talk to when you feel like talking? You can always come here, but having someone you can speak with on the phone or in person is really valuable.
Aloha Junko...good reaching out cause this is how recovery is attained and grown. It is a simple program for complicated people. Early stuff I learned about expectations included "Loose the idea of a small cozy cottage with a white picket fence cause that is fable only." Righto!! I did. "Expectations are future resentments" Righto again!! "Two people cannot stand in the same place at the same time..." Got that one also so the only thing I worked on with was "getting close" having my expectations met and never always there. I've never been let down on that one and when I wasn't very close it didn't feel quite that bad as a result.
I wouldn't defend alcoholism or alcoholics even though I am a member of that group myself. I will tell you that when the drinking is running alot of life lessons like having reasonable relationships with others never get taken and learned. Somethings get missing and stay missing which causes our families, partners, spouses and children; not to mention employers, civil servants and more to be left with the impression that even though the light maybe on at the front window, nobody's home. It's true. Alcoholics are under developed and can reverse that condition if they recognize it and see it as important to correct along withnot drinking. Most alcoholics I am around, but not all, only are satisfied with not drinking.
My addict spouse and then alcoholic/addict spouse and all other addicted relationships I had never got into recovery when I got in. I have only one guage to measure my expectation of being listened to and that is my present marriage to a long time member of Al-Anon and she isn't perfect just like myself, doesn't work at fulfilling my expectations known or unknown on a full time bases and often causes me to be grateful for the times when she exceeds any and all expectations I should, could or would have of anyone. In that she helps me to practice gratitude at the same time I practice giving grace when I feel left out.
I try to attend all lessons on humility that I can because that helps me to not take myself so seriously as a career and to accept others, like my spouse in my life but not in the same spot I occupy. In the program we have the most incommon including the steps, traditions, concepts, slogans and the like. Though we share about things that we learn we don't attempt to inventory each other or how we work the program and how we are learning or not. We have come to a new understanding of the definition of Love which is "the complete and total acceptance of any other human being for exactly who they are." One consequence is that we have been able to live under one roof as two separate children of God with the relationship with God being the most important and then ourselves and each other as it is called for. We have reached peace in spite of problems and you can tell us apart at all times. We have never said to each other during the time we have been married "you let me down" (I can't even remember thinking that and she would have to answer for herself) and I am hurt and ashamed.
Thank Al-Anon and God (in whatever order) for this condition and the willingness to work with those who have mentored us. This is my third marriage and her second; on the 20th it will be longer lasting that the two I have preceeding it in total and longer than her first. We have had no expectation that it would last this long only that if we worked this program as taught...it would last another day. Awesome and I still don't have the fence.
Is it too much to expect to be listened to? Yeah at times it is...at other times their listening and I don't even know it. In support (((((hugs)))))
-- Edited by Jerry F on Saturday 14th of August 2010 10:30:08 PM
Although my A is my son, the disease and its effects are the same.
I would pick any recovery he had to bits, asking this that and the next thing, trying to be engaged and helpful, (or was it still fixing and controlling!!) leaving me embroiled in his business and neglecting my own health and welfare. Fear was active with me and around him the sound of eggshells crushing under my feet wasdeafening!!
I would get hurt and resentful if he didnt open up, and I know he suffered because I was putting pressure on him. In early recovery he didnt have the tools to respond appropriately. In AA he was learning (as we do in Al-anon) to put his recovery above all else, it has to come first. Any amends necessary can be made as they become stronger.
Since finding Al-anon I try to focus on my recovery and keep the heat off the A. I have no expectations, and try to remain detached. I slip and have to stop and button my lip on many occasions.....but Im still learning too!
My son is currently dry, (still in rehab) he hasnt chosen to share anything with me and I dont ask, just try to keep any conversation normal
Im happy with the status quo, hes dry, and trying to rebuild his life, thats all I need for now.
I went through a period where I was sticking my nose into exA's recovery and he into mine. It works best to just stay on your side of the street.
Or the garden . . .
If you are tending your garden, and he his, you can share and celebrate the fruits (and flowers) of your garden. If I am not in my garden, but looking at how he is tending his, my garden does not produce.
Just as in gardening, recovery takes time. At first the yield is small but it will grow over time.
You can put whatever works for you in here . . . painting, sculpting, building something . . . or simply yourself. You are a work of art and you can become the Monet or Michelangelo of your own life, as only you hold the tools and brushes to do so. Then you and all you love get to sit back and share the wonder of the results. The same applies to him.
Great share, honesty, and awareness!
Tricia
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To be trusted is a greater compliment than being loved.
I thought by asking him about his meetings etc, I was being supportive but I realized that I was being nosey.. Perhaps I was clinging to him in order to not feel lonely - more I know about how he's getting on, I felt like I am doing it with him. It's funny because I've got my people in Alanon but it's hard to let him get on with his program. I just have to learn to let go among other things.
