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.
So this morning, my AH (who insists he is NO LONGER an alcoholic) wakes up feeling poorly. He exclaims..."All I had last night were two drinks...and I can't believe how awful I feel. I can't believe how much I used to be able to drink" (when he was on anti-depressants and benzos and therefore prone to excessive drinking-his view, not mine). So later I go to the basement fridge (for something else) and see the bottle of rum. It's a 40 ouncer and about 1/3 of it is gone! Talk about warped perception! Two drinks?! It's a wonder each drink didn't burn a hole in the bottom of his glass. It makes me laugh (a real laugh, not one of those painful sarcastic ones that the A's behaviour makes us subject ourselves to)...maybe I am experiencing detachment?!
Isn't it amazing how an A's perception can be waaaaay off? I remember one day a couple of months ago before I started attending alanon, that AH and I were talking because I had made the decision to start going to alanon, and he was wondering why. I told him my reason, and he said "It's not like I drink all the time. I didn't even drink at all this past weekend." I kindly reminded him that on that Friday, he drank a half a bottle of wine all by himself, Saturday, he had four beers and four Mike's Hard Lemonades, and Sunday he drank the remaining two hard lemonades from the six pack he bought. He said "Oh, I did? I totally forgot. But I still don't drink that much." I said "If you consider four beers and four hard lemonades in less than four hours not much, but to me that is beyond excessive."
I've also had one of those real laughs you are talking about too. It didn't have anything to do with his perception of things though. This happened a week ago. We had family over, and of course he had been drinking. He wanted to show our niece a game on the Wii Fit to see if she would be interested in playing since she was bored but was declining everything that someone would suggest to her. So he set up the game and was playing it. It was funny to see him trying to play the hula-hoop game while drunk. I haven't laughed that hard in a long time because it was so amusing. Thankfully I wasn't the only one laughing at him, but it was still very funny.
__________________
Kimmy
What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
Well, there is a lot of truth in the old (maybe English) saying: "If you didn't laugh, you would cry" Even though I get very low and this evening was no exception; I also find time to laugh. Some of the otherwise unbearable situations are funny. It's important not to let our As grind us down. Against all odds we should strive to retain a sense of ourselves and, even in our darkest moments, our sense of humour.
