When will it end? - Al-Anon Family Group

p_rlong · Newbie

When will it end?

hotrod · ~*Service Worker*~

Hi Pat and Welcome to MIP

You are not alone and there is hope and help available for you.
Alanon Face to ,face meetings are held in all communities. Help in finding one in your area can be attained by going to the following link:

http://www.al-anon.alateen.org/meetings/meeting.html

It is important to break the isolation and share with those who understand. Alanon steps sponsor and readings help to let go of the past and respond to the day and the future with constructive life enriching tools. We also have on line meeting here 2xs a day and 24/7 chat

Please keep coming back

p_rlong · Newbie

Thanks Betty. I'll follow up.

Christy · ~*Service Worker*~

p rlong,
Welcome,

Alanon teaches us that we don't have to play the hand we are dealt. We can create our own journey and attitude through choices and boundaries.
Just last night I read a line in a book that rings true with so many of us.
It is:
For some, the past is a chain, each day a link, raveling backward to one ringbolt or another, in one dark place or another, and tomorrow is a slave to yesterday.

We aren't the sum of our past, nor are we obligated to be. We can be, think and feel in any way we choose.

f2f meetings will put you on a course of self discovery where you will feel free to do what is best for "you".

Christy

xeno59 · ~*Service Worker*~

prlong

Sheesh I thought I was reading my own story for a minute there

I too was "trained" to be the fixer or cleaner upper from a very young age. I came along late in my parents life, they certainly were not planning on another child..Surpise!
At 8 yrs old my mother left my alcoholic father, my siblings were on thier own by then. And where my father was an alcoholic my mother became a rageaolic. That rage got turned on me as I was the only one left at home. She had never laid a hand on my sister or brother but that all changed with me. Beatings were pretty regular for what ever reason she thought up in her mind. I was served up to other relatives for abuse. I can look back now and see how sick my mother was and sometimes I can reconcile her behavior..sometimes I am so angry at my childhood I hate all the adults who surrounded me.
But again my role began at 8 of caretaker. My mother worked 2 jobs and went to school to support the 2 of us so I had to grow up fast and take care of myself. My brother was an addict, in trouble with the law. My job to clean up his messes. My sister married young and had a baby, my job to take care of that baby ( I was 9 then ) so my niece and I are closer in age than I am to my siblings. When i became an adult, married with kids was still the caretaker ( was totally brainwashed by then). My mother became terminally ill. My brother and sister both had reasons that they could not bring her into thier homes for her care. She did not want to die in a hosp. So my husband and I brought my mother to live with us for her last months. My mother made it clear she needed her own bathroom of all things so we gave up our master bedroom for her. My brother and sister and I took turns caring for her around the clock. They were very supportive at that point. They also had started to find their own recovery. My mother thought they just took the best care of her but my shift ( which was really 24/7 since she was in my home) my mother just critized everything I did. And it was hurtful. I could't understand why she would want me to remember her in that manner. But I will say this. I don't regret one moment of taking care of my mother in her last months and days. As much anger as I had and resentments that still haunt me I know I did the right thing. My concisence told me it was the right thing to do. I think my mother loved me as best she could but being an unrecovered acoa, aca and alanon herself when I look back on it I couldn't have expected her to act much different.
But I soldiered on with my caretaking duties after she was gone. Raised one of my nieces, took in my oldest niece and her child not once but twice ( 2 yrs each time) because my sister thought having them live with her cramped her style. Every person in my family has lived with us at one time or another because of the poor choices they or thier parents made. Thankfully my husband is a very understanding guy.
When I finally found my own recovery here in alanon 2 years ago and started working it. Little by little I gave up all those caretaking duties. I am done. I have my own family and myself to take care of. I have enough on my plate without taking on someone elses respondsibilites. And it is a relief. It didn't happen over night and I have much recovery to go but I see my miracle sometimes i can reach out and touch it, just a little while more and I will be able to actually reach out and grab it.
Alanon is the greatest gift you will ever give yourself. Work the program and it will work for you. You have found a place of love and understanding. You have found people willing to give of themselves so you can achieve serenity and your miracle.
Gosh I am long winded today
Please keep coming back

Jerry F · ~*Service Worker*~

Aloha Pat...welcome to MIP and the Al-Anon Family Groups when you find meetings
and start to attend to your own fixing. I've been to meetings in Bend so I know this
loving, caring and supportive family is there at least.

When you're there get and read as much of the literature as you can and get close
to other long time members so that you can network with the winners and begin to
change the things you can in your own life. Certainly to "love and be loved" is the
most sought after spiritual goal for me however I wasn't able to pull that off until
I got into Al-Anon and learn that what I was doing was enabling and fixing with
anger and resentment and that is not even close to the definition of love that I now
carry around inside of myself. I also was taught to be the fixer in my family, my
mom, the daughter of an alcoholic, wanted a Priest of a son and if I had gotten there
she would have had something to crow about to God as she inventoried her own life.
Didn't happen...I don't know what a Priest really is but I can tell you this fixer wasn't
at all very close a definition of the Priests I did experience except I also drank like
some of them or worse and while free to marry; married women that I felt needed to
be fixed and polished. I failed at it all and was supposed to and one reason for that
was that my Higher Power was guiding me and wanted me the the Al-Anon Family
because this is family as family should be. Anyhow. When does it all end? It
ends when you say and do with conviction "Enough!!...I'm done, burnt toast!!" It's
really over when you come and learn and then practice what it is that we have come to
understand and the new way of living we choose for ourselves. I learned to love in the
right way...I learned how to love myself in the very same way at the very same time
as I did for others and to make choices that didn't result in feeling like a victim and a
martyr after I followed thru. It ended when I learned how to let go and let God and
others arrive and support me as I was supporting them. That's when it ended.

Welcome and good for you finding MIP and the family here and all of the very very
valueable experiences they are willing to share with you freely whether you choose to
followup on them or not.

(((((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.