Lost and Speechless - Al-Anon Family Group

hopeful1ca · Newbie

Lost and Speechless

Bettina · ~*Service Worker*~

Welcome Hopeful...

You have come to the right place. Im a little confused, is your girlfriend in Alanon or AA?

Doesnt really matter, Alanon is about you and your recovery. Our partners are the addicts and we get addicted to them and try to fix them. When we need to fix us and let go of them.

There is a lot of literature and support here. Most everyone here has enough experience and hope to share.

Keep coming back and see if you can attend a face to face Alanon meeting, that would be most helpful to you.

Wishing you courage and strength. Luv, Bettina

hopeful1ca · Newbie

Thank you for responding. She is in Al-Anon. Is an addict an Al-Anon member? I am just so confused why I need to let her go... some in the program tell me to support her through this and it is too early in recovery for her to know a lot. When she throws our living location into the picture, it all feels hopeless.

hotrod · ~*Service Worker*~

Hello Hopeful

Welcome to MIP. Alcoholism is a disease. People who live with this disease become ill from the interaction and assume the destructive attitudes asociated with alcoholism.

Your partner grew up with alcoholism and is seeking help in alanon. That is a big plus.

You are interacting with your partner so it would be very helpful if you found meetings for yourself. Help in finding meetings in your community can be found by
http://www.al-anon.alateen.org/meetings/meeting.html. Posting here, attending on-line meetings here showing up for yourself is a great start

Please keep coming back

rainbojo66 · Veteran Member

Hello Hopefl and welcome to MIP, this is a great place to find yourself...literally.

I read your girlfriend's reactions, and boy can i ever relate to her.

I can only say what I know about myself...haven't walked in hers or your shoes...and we all see the world through glasses tinted with perception based on what we have been taught about the world.

I acted like this with my husband, and I wasn;t able to BE in a relationship either with him. I needed to be with myself, understand myself. Even now, we are together, but I a only own...in many ways. He is leaving me alone, and giving me the space I need to find where I am at. A REAL excercise in sef control.

He listens when I talk. If he needs support because my trip is particularly heavy right now, he has friends. we make sure not to use each other as our only means of support.

Alanon is a great place to find people who have found a way to make themselves better. It's pretty simple...and not. :)

Hope you find your way :)

J

Bettina · ~*Service Worker*~

Hopeful to clarify what I meant about letting go, sorry for the confusion. The letting go is to learn to let go emotionally from the pain.

Alanon is for the spouses, family and friends of an active Alcoholic.

AA is for the alcoholic.

Jerry F · ~*Service Worker*~

Aloha Hopeful...Good to have you come here.   The door is held open for you to come
and to listen along with our suggestions of attending Al-Anon from our own personal
experiences.   Being in and wanting to be in a relationship with an addicted person
or the child of or spouse or family of an addict and or alcoholic is learning how to
accept abnormal as normal. Words used to describe the outcome of this disease is
fatal and insane. From my first hand experiences from cradle to this keyboard that is
completely true and more. Who in the world would choose to live like this? I came
to understand that it was the only way I was raised to live by people who were born
and raised in it themselves. We were doing the best we could with what we had
drinking and using and not and we only knew how to live this way. Living this way
(in insanity) was renamed survivorship for me as I try to lived amoung others who
are not affected as I had become.   I was magically led to the doors of Al-Anon and
then later AA also where I learned how to choose to live differently allowing myelf
to be led and directed rather than trying to take and control and direct the life
around me to come out the way I wanted it to.

Lost and speechless is a good title for what I was like when I got here. I said it
this way..."I didn't know anything about alcoholism and I didn't know that I didn't
know". I was so trumped by alcoholism I had nothing more to say (speechless)
other than "please help me" to the fellowship.   It's okay to say please and to be
humble reaching out to this membership because we will love and support you
until you come to love yourself and then give away what you learn here if you
stay.   We understand. We have worn your shoes. We have experienced the
insanity you are feeling now and have come to learn it is temporary if only you
do what we have done which worked...for us.

For me it was get to the first Al-Anon meeting I could get to and when there get
as much information as I could (literature table) and read it all. Sit down in the
meeting at the table and listen with an open mind. Don't let anything distrub
what is being offered to me. Listen to it all. After the meeting talk with others
and listen more. I was told to do as many meetings as I could in the next 90
days so I did more that one a day at times. After 90 days decide if Al-Anon was
for me and if I decided it wasn't I could pick up my miseries at the door and go
try other remedies. Always keep coming back and more suggestions came after
that which I went for too.

Others here will tell you what worked for them. If it works for them try it for
yourself...it will be different than what you are doing now which doesn't work at
all huh?

(((((hugs))))) smile

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.