You gotta do what you have to do for you.  Afterall, it's your life sometimes we forget that fact....it's our life and we can choose how we live it.

I wish you the best of luck my friend.

With Hope,
Andrea

HI lilijeannie.  The other posters are right.  You need to focus on YOU and determine and define what YOUr true needs are versus your wants and fantasies.  We all "want" our A's to change but we are powereless over other adults.  The only adult you have any hope of controlling is YOU, you can control and change YOU and thats it.  Anything with a brain, will have it's own thoughts, will, desires, needs and their own HIP (higher intellignece power) that is influencing their life.

Yet, if we are so fixated on our A's life and their choices - what are we doing about making our lives right for us, healthier and constructive.  Whatver you focus on grows, so please do not focus on the problems... open your mind and heart and be willing to see solutions.  No one can think for you and you cannot ever think for another.  Our life is our gift from HP, what we do with our lives, is our gift to God right back.

Define ur needs, so that when you are in a position to compromise YOUrself (in any form, whatsoever) - you can notice it and do something else, do soemthing else that will allow you to feel u can respect you for in the end. 
     Once I began making choices based on how I would be left feeling in the end (and believe me, we all know what allows us to feel worse, like we are insignificant -- stop ignoring YOUrself and be honest, so that u can fulfill ur needs and let go of all the "I wants" and get full of - the what can I do's? and what will I do to allow me to feel better about -ME-.
      This is the magic question, u can continue to ask yourself on a day to day or hour to hour(or minutes to minute)  basis.  When u "slip" - like take their inventory or are mothering, monitoring, directing, "fixing" -- "helping" lol - turn ur attention to YOU and help, fix and direct you in alignment with the god of ur understanding.

Feel - deal - heal ur strong emotions, feel them and sit for five or ten minutes with it and the energy it carries, feel it over the wave.  I noticed that when I could sit down, breathe, feel (and not think) - just feel the big energy rising up - breathe - exhale deeply and I fouond it is -just like a wave.  If ujump up right away and automatically (auto pilot aka fight or flight) things go badly.  I get waaayyy too emotional, which is just me not dealing with my feeling and trying to push it out onto others -- just like the A's do to us.
    If and when I can sit, feel it thru, while breathing or crying or praying... then after a few minutes the big energy (force) of it has passed, then I can begin to actually really think about choices that I have, in which -- what ways am I going to express this/handle this and cope (or not).
    When the enegy dissipates ~ then u can think of a healthy response that you can feel self respect about.

I wanted to write to you bc what I learned in trying to run from me and blame them for everything (bc they deserved it) -- either way, how does this help you?  You are getting worn out in it all, fixated on his non existent changes - demanding he has to change and he hasnt so its over now.  I suggest you do not think about the future for right now.  Try to merely focus on -just YOU- define ur needs and u will see what sort of boundaries to put around them, to protect you.

Also, what we do not address, we are doomed to repeat.  I would immediately tell you (LOL~ if u asked for my thoughts) to seek out a new therapist, one who is not a recovering A (alcoholic or addict).  I say this bc I am assuming you are not an A.  If you did grow up in dysfunction... (as most of us did), I would say seek out a therapist that understands/specializes in addiction & give them a mini interview before u get to decide which one to see.
    I found a therapist through the state ( she is a social worker, psychologist).  When I call anyone (like for a service or health) I ask specific questions based on what I am looking for.  This was about 3-4 years ago that I saw her & she was super great, too.  I asked her if she understood addiction and knew what ACoA was  - she told me over the phone (bc I said I have a few ?'s to determine if you can actually help me or not) that she was ACoA and knew very well about addiction, having grown up in it.
    I knew she could help me.  In fact, maybe get a woman?  Idk.

My mom and step dad went to a therapist together five years ago, once.  I think the AH may have gone back one more time, as she gave them both homework.  They went back, it was awful my mom said.  She told them beer was healthy and ok to have 1-2 daily.  She said this to them, for marriage couonseling about infidelity and this is what she told an active alcoholic.  He is an obvious alcoholic, too - got the flush or red under the skin going on, the puffy bloatedness, like his collar is too tight.

I think I probably was the one encouraging them to go and my poor mom, felt even lower on the self esteem of dirt scale then she had before she went in, twice.
    I was furious and went back with her.  My mom was so low after AH's g/f's husband wrote my mother a letter, divulging proof his wife and my step dad were in an affair.  I know my mother was blindsided bc I was too and this was the catalyst that brought me running back into the fellowship.
    Anyway, I went back and put the therapist in her place, gave her some AA, NA and alanon pamphlets.

This how I see the cycle of abuse is allowed to continue.  People dont want to stand up for themselves and state the real truth.  The real truth in that scenario was -- my mom needed support and she didnt get it there.  That therapist obviously has not dealt with thier own issues - bc she would have had compassion and sseen the active alcoholic and the lower then dirt on the ground entity with no self esteem & no self respect (my mom) sitting there right in front of her face. 

We all need to be our own health care advocates and stand up for what we need and tell the doctors what we need from them.  Find one that can actually understand you.

Take care of YOU, change what u can and lovingly detach from other's choices, feelings, issues, attitudes and love, honor, respect and empower YOU.  kcb

I was ACoA (adult child of addict or alcoholic) and I was looking for a