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.
I'm leaning heavily on the serenity prayer right now. BB says you have to accept how people are and worry about yourself. How exactly are you supposed to do that when there are kids involved?
My ex has his own demons. Booze, pills, mental health, even some illegal things...purportedly. I left him because of these problems in 2005, and we have managed to maintain a pretty civil relationship ever since, with a lot of work on my part.
By work, I mean swallowing my anger and pride when he lashes out at me and tells me I'm a bad mother, cutting me down in a number of ways coldly calculated to get me where it hurts. And hurt it does, because even though almost all of the stuff he says has no basis in fact, part of me agrees with him somewhat. I wasn't a HORRIBLE mother, in fact the majority of my drinking was when I didn't have my kids--we share custody 50/50, or rather I have them 1/2 the time, and he has them 1/4 of the time and his parents 1/4 of the time. I never endangered them, but I wasn't really THERE.
This is a man who didn't go to work for a full 5 day workweek ONE TIME in two years, and the only reason he didn't get canned was because his daddy is the CEO. All of the board members were hollering for him to be fired, but he managed to keep his job. I don't think his parents are doing him any favors by allowing him to keep his 40+K a year job AND helping him raise his kids the 3-4 days a week he has them. He had a DUI earlier this year, and I helped drive him around. He pleads "sick" almost every-other monday after my weekend with the kids and asks me to keep them another night. I do.
I am still close with his mom, and she tells me everything about what is going on with him, how they tried to have him committed, his near-overdose two years ago, he drunk-dials me (hasn't done that since the DUI, thank god), you name it.
Then something sets him off and he says the most horrible things to me, things that are actually true of HIM, and I don't respond or retaliate, because I don't want to fight with him. I keep the peace, like I've done the last five years. For my children.
However, the injustice of the stuff he says hurts my feelings, angers me, and leaves me helpless. They say that a truly insane person doesn't KNOW they're insane. I don't know what to do. I've just told him to lose my work email addy, because he sends me these scathing, virulent emails at WORK. I blocked him. I'm fighting tears at work for the first time since I decided to go into AA. I've thought many times about trying to get him to go to a meeting with me (this is a person who I still love and supposedly loves ME) but he won't even admit the smallest shortcomings, so why would he ever admit being powerless over alcohol or anything else?
I'm feeling a little nutso here myself right now.... I'm freaking out, I haven't gone to an Alanon meeting but I was raised by two (still practicing and still together) alkies, my younger sister is one, my ex husband (the father of my kids) is one, I can't seem to swing a cat without hitting one sometimes and I'm JUST...ON...OVERLOAD.
Okay. /whew Thanks for letting me vent.
-- Edited by AmyWillWin on Thursday 11th of November 2010 04:52:12 PM
__________________
"Be kinder than necessary, for everyone you meet is fighting some kind of battle."
~Anonymous
Aloha (((((Amy))))) welcome to the "other" board where the family, friends and associates of alcoholics get together to keep each other in one piece and with a smile on our faces with a pulse rate that is at normal or even below.
Great that you are taking care of your compulsion and addiction with chemicals. If you don't have the chemicals gone you're not dealing from normal or anywhere close to it.
I am a double ...a member with his tap root in Al-Anon who no longer waters the plant with alcohol there for a chair in AA also. It's okay because this cunning, powerful and baffling disease can and will take down groups of people who do not drink and are attached to those who do. You are qualified to be here.
What ever you are feeling as a consequence of being attached to the alcoholic/addict and what he does or doesn't do which contributes to the insanity is normal. All of that crazy stuff is normal...the yelling, abusing, diminishing of spirit...etc...is all normal - not good or health and where a person should be but normal. I had to learn how not to "react" to the lies and accusations especially when she was drunk and high and not let the lies lodge in my head and thoughts. They are lies don't give the lies power and so I learned in Al-Anon how to do that and just one of the very simple things I learned in the face of them was to say out loud but not screaming, "That's not true." I had to hear myself say it just to interrupt it from driving me insane. Learning how not to react was learning how to let fear, anxiety, resentments and the like trigger me into moving with thinking about how I wanted situations to work out for me. I was volatile and a rager and physical when I reacted...I went from zero to the sound barrier in a microsecond and did very harmful things to just about anything that stood up to me. I was sick and "don't react" was one of the slogan that the fellowship taught me to practice, practice, practice. Yes detachment is an art form also and when you learn that one well it almost seems that not even an 9. earthquake will rattle you...it is an artform and the alcoholic/addict can be defused by it...not saved or cured ...just defused. You don't have to defend against a lie especially if you don't give it power yourself. Like AA, Al-Anon takes time and patience and willingness and commitment to learn...in the process it saves your life and every other thing about you .....Yay!! In AA we learn how not to let alcohol take us out and in the Family Groups not to let the alcoholic or anyone else for that matter take us out.
So go to the white pages of your local telephone book and look for the hotline number for Al-Anon and then call it to get the places and times we meet in your area to give and get help. We won't be talking about our own drinking or the alcoholic in our life that was HP's invitation to go get spiritual reconstructed...mind, body, spirit and emotions. Get the literature when you get there and read it all and find a chair to sit in all your own...there will be lots of them as we also are in every country on this planet. Talk about your desire to stay sober in AA...Talk about your need to get and stay serene in Al-Anon ...you already know the steps.
Welcome and you have found the right place. Al-Anon is for people who are effected by someone elses drinking. Bless your heart, it seems you have had to deal with the disease for your entire life.
Find an Al-Anon meeting in your area, the program can help you sort out the problems alcoholism has caused in your life. The members in those rooms and the members on this board will understand as perhaps no one else can.
Take the focus off the alcopholic's in your life and put the focus on the only person you have control over........You.
Glad you are here, keep coming back, your not alone anymore.
I can identify with some things you are talking about. I guess we can always find legitimate faults in others and they feel they can find them in us. To me it's more about what i can live with and what I can do about the stuff I can't live with. That's were program is supposed to help.
You are definitly in the right place! Congrats on your sobriety..but now you find yourself on the other side of the fence so to speak. Alcoholics/addicts are sick plain and simple, it's a disease. I now look at the A's in my life and especially when they are being hurtful and I just imagine the word sick on thier forehead. Truth is sick people say sick things and hurt people look to hurt other people. Now is time for you to heal yourself from the sickness that surronds you. Getting to meetings, working the steps...you will learn a whole new lifestyle that allows you to deal with the sick people in your life and still achieve peace in your own life. Glad you found us...keep posting Blessings
Thanks, everyone for the advice. I especially like the "God Box" thing, I'm using that a lot. I can't change anybody but me, so I have to try to let it go. I'm getting better and better at that all the time, with the help of others in the program and others who have A's in their life.
I'm so grateful for all of you. xoxo Amy
__________________
"Be kinder than necessary, for everyone you meet is fighting some kind of battle."
~Anonymous
I'm freaking out, I haven't gone to an Alanon meeting but I was raised by two (still practicing and still together) alkies, my younger sister is one, my ex husband (the father of my kids) is one, I can't seem to swing a cat without hitting one sometimes and I'm JUST...ON...OVERLOAD.
