The material presented
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Some issues with wife again this week but really it's my inability to let it go, detach, not be codependant that is giving me a hard time. I don't know how to stop ruminating on the negative stuff. I do feel a little better insulated against depression. NOt as intense and not as long. I was sitting at my daughter's choral concert RUMINATING over things my wife had said and done that day. I was FINALLY able to put it aside and enjoy her performance but it took too long. Knots in my stomach all week. The only relief I feel is when things are going well with wife (codependant) or today I played guitar for the first time all week. WAs just too busy. It helped. My other standby is cooking which I enjoy. Time with the dog and time wiht my daughter all help. Unfortunately there was no time for any of those things for a variety of reasons, none of which I had control over. I also find I'm not enjoying the holidays lately. I used to love this time of year but I've let me wife ruin it for me in a sense. And I mean I LET HER....she couldn't have unless I let it bother me. It just feels stressful now and i feel sad about that. Anyway, I'm assuming these feelings will pass but I need to learn how to let go and really detach and not be affected. Is that possible? Not be affected? And obviously just telling myself to detach does me know good. There must be a light switch somewhere that I can flip on and detach!
If you find that switch, please let me know where it is!
It sounds to me like you know what you need to do and you're doing your best to do it. You may not be getting the results you want as fast as you want but you did say that the ruminating is not as intense and not as long as it used to be. Progress!
I know it's hard because I'm just like you. I've spent so many years letting my mood be dictated by my wife. Add alcohol to that situation and I'm on the emotional roller coaster from hell!!
I think this came from one of the Al Anon pamphlets and I try to keep it in mind:
Be loving and supportive of the person you married, not the alcoholic.
Don't take any of the emotional garbage they dish out while drinking. Have you noticed how when your spouse drinks they start to berate you and want to start arguments? Don't argue or fight back. Let them know you will not argue with them while they are drinking, period.
Above all, never allow the alcoholic to trespass against your spirit when they are playing one of their mind games. Walk away and close the door behind you. Go visit a friend, take a walk around the block, or put some ear plugs in your ears. Your mental health is what helps the alcoholic the most. This is what detaching with love is all about. Detaching yourself from the disease is what helps the alcoholic see that he needs help.
I know it's easier said than done but it's apparent to me that you're aware of what's going on and are taking steps to deal with it.
I can tell you with certainty there are many of us stuggling during this holiday season. I am not in the spirit at all, I am trying to put on a show but truth is I would prefer to sleep through the holiday. But thats not going to happen.....my son is still in jail in the work release program and has found and started a job and I couldnt be more thrilled yet my days are now full of trying to find him a place to live....in our state apartment owners are fined if they rent to a felon..and then they wonder why homelessness is on the rise. My daughter after I sent her an email asking her what she wanted for christmas sent an email back stating she does not need nor want anything from me...end of message I have not seen her since june but apparently have once again hurt or angerd her in some way. I also know she is counting on my guilt to by pass her email and send her a few hundred bucks, I know she is playing me. She will be surprised when she finds no money in her christmas card. She will spend the holidays with our next door neighbors ( who are wonderful people) who she has chosen as her family of choice. My brother who is dying is back in the hospital and I have yet to talk to anyone who can tell me anything more than he is stable. But here's the good news....right now in my recovery i have worked my ass off to get my life back not to where it once was but better, healthier and nothing and no one is going to deter me from my program. I am done "proving" my "worthiness" to other people, even my beloved daughter, as much as I love her more than life itself I will not allow her judgmentalness and disrespect towards me to shake my program or my faith. I need only prove my worthiness to myself and my God. My mantra for today was "what other people think of me is none of my business" I was blessed enough yesterday to attend a church party and I looked around and realized this church is the only church I have belonged to that does not judge people. You are accepted without question human and character defects and all. Our Pastor allows no judgement and if it wasnt a religion I would swear I was attending a alanon meeting. I was passing out "neighbor gifts" this morning and my neighbor Mike across the street I saw happened to be home. We have always been neighbor friends although he is a hard core A. So I took his gift over ( still morning mind you) and he is already wasted out of his mind. I am not sure why I bothered with a conversation with him as speaking to a drunk is fruitless but as we talked and he told me of his recently being fired ( for drinking on the job) I found total compassion for him and let him ramble on and thought this is the real reason for the season so to speak. I make no judgement of his personal choices and accept him for what he is. He invited me to come back later in the week for coffee and to catch up and I was thinking thats not going to happen, then walked away telling myself that will happen. He may be an A but he is as deserving of being treated as I would treat anyone else. So i will go have coffee with him, I'll try to make it early before he is trashed and give him the dignity of having someone care about him without trying to change him for an hour or so. He may need that in his life. And frankly I need to get out of my own self pity and do something for someone else. I am not sure any of this is making any sense to your original post as I have not had more than 3 hours asleep a night for almost 6 weeks now and am getting a like punchy lol My point being you are not alone...a lot of us are struggling to make it through the holiday any way we can. So if you are slipping a little bit in your program don't beat yourself up about it. Be kind to yourself, put your head down and plow thru the holidays the best you can....thats my plan anyway lol Blessings always
Hi MJ I hear you and know youa re working very very hard. Be gentle with yourself this program is a process and you are doing fine.
Heard at a meeting last night : There are no elevators in al anon you simply must take the STEPS
When you are ready to try working the steps 4 th thru 12 with your sponser you will find the power and tools you need to stay detached and respond constuctively in situations. HP will give you the serenity, courage and wisdom.
You are a miracle in progresss
-- Edited by hotrod on Thursday 16th of December 2010 09:46:25 PM
Xeno did it again...the solution that was taught me and still works and not dependent upon whether I want to or not is turn the focus on myself when ever I'm looking for someone to accept blame for my lack of peace of mind and serenity. Simply put this is my life and I am responsible for it. I heard it said in a meeting once, "The life I have is God's gift to me. What I do with it is my gift to God." I figure that if there is a heaven and I have the stuff to get to the gates of it and am asked to account for my life I really don't want to say that I spent all these years trying to manage someone elses life instead...I might just be told I gotta come back and do it all over again. LOL
How to let it go? Practice, practice, practice. You actually have grown very well since first falling thru the doors of the program....pretty well. (((((hugs)))))
MJ, Like all of us that keep practicing the program to the best of our ability, you are climbing the mountain. As we climb we will occasionally slip and sometimes fall. There's nothing wrong with that unless we choose to lay there and not get up. All we have to get up, dust ourselves off, and put the focus back on ourselves where it belongs, because our life, peace, happiness, and serenity is more important than the junk the disease throws at us. Even though we know we will never get to the top of the mountain that's not important, it's about the climb to get higher and higher. If you take a minute and glance (don't stare) at how far you have come since starting the journey in your recovery, you should be proud. You might now realize how far you have come, but others have.
I got the answer but its hard work , I found a one liner years ago in an old forum magazine , it was a definetion of serenity , I thought it was really stupid at first til I realized i couldnt do it and your statement about instead of enjoying the concert you were mulling over things your wife had said
SERENITY = IS HAVING YOUR MIND AND YOUR BODY IN THE SAME PLACE AT THE SAME TIME .
Sounds simple doesn't it , well I realized i couldnt do it and I can get pretty subborn sometimes so i made it goal , first I bought an egg timer , set it for 5min sat down to watch the news told myself if anything popped into my mind before the timmer went off other than what was on the news I would shut it off . It took me six weeks , 3 times a day to beat that timmer. I couldnt do anything with out having HIM pop into my thoughts for yrs . so today if I am at lunch with afriend I am at lunch ,not worrying about whats going to happen later that day or tomorrow . My mind and my body are now 90 percent of the time in the same place at the same time . good luck
-- Edited by abbyal on Friday 17th of December 2010 02:45:08 AM
I love what Abbyal wrote here. Seriously, to be somewhere awesome and mulling over what is in my head is something I have done my whole life. I have learned that I need to be in the moment I am in, inorder to feel happy. If I allow myself to faulter, I have lost it. I work very hard at this. It is not easy, but I know that if I do sit and worry or get angry, I am back in my disease and not having the serenity I am learning about here. My sponsor is helping me do this and my HP is guiding me. If not for the tools, sponsor and HP, I would still be lost mulling stuff over at my kid's concert. ACOA/CODA/Alanon have all helped me start gaining what I need to be living fully and to fully live....
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You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection. -Buddha
The past has flown away. The coming month and year do not exsist. Ours only is the present's tiny point. -Mahmud Shabistanri
Seems we have a similar brain, incessant thoughts like a hamster running around on his annoying little hamster wheel, running and running, round and round... But, that is what the brain is designed to do, it thinks it is doing me a favor by thinking. Often I have to say, thanks, but no thanks. Refuse to let my thoughts separate me from HP, which is what my dis-ease wants to happen.
What helps me a lot, is my meditation practice. To me, meditation is about precision of the mind, as I try to set those thoughts aside so that I can sit in conscious contact with my Higher power. During the day, the memory of being with my breath often brings me back to HP when my body begins to react from stress. I want to "go there" again, just taking one deep, conscious breath... and another if I can. To me, there is no quicker way to detach than when I consider my breath... how it operates on its own, without any help from me. That is Divine Intelligence! I want to attach myself there instead, that's where the peace is.
When I did step 3, I made a list of HOW I was going to make that decision to turn my will and my life over... what was that going to look like? My list included meditation, meetings, practicing the steps, getting out in nature, playing piano... I feel connected to HP when I do those things. To control the squirrel-cage-thinking, I have to do them daily. (((hugs)))
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The prayer isn't for Higher Power to change our lives, but rather to change us.
I call it "stinking thinking" and try to recognise it as quick as I can, if I am in bed and it wont stop I get up and walk round, sometimes I shout at myself when I find my thoughts focusing on my hubby or son, "Focus" I just shout this word in my head to bring my thoughts back to focus on me, its hard work, probably the hardest thing I have ever had to learn to do, but I will keep going because I am getting a lot of benefit from this excercise.
Some great shares here and re-assuring that others find his difficult, which it undoubtedly is! My A gets in my head and its hard to keep him out, but I know its Practice, Practice, Practice.
