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Miracles In Progress 12 Step Recovery Forums -> Al-Anon Family Group -> Al-Anon Family Group -> twisted relations with family, friends, that many of us have suffered the most
Post Info TOPIC: twisted relations with family, friends, that many of us have suffered the most
liam


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twisted relations with family, friends, that many of us have suffered the most
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Hello everyone. I joined this board a few weeks ago, and I been kinda in the back ground reading and taking things in, trying to learn new ways to combat this disease I suffer from. Its alcoholism. I been comming to alanon for around a year, just using it as a place of refuge looking to be validated on how horrible my life had become,and how much I have done for ( HER ), and how she can be so insesitive and selfish. Cant she see all i've done for her? Why wont she just staighten out and fly right?  I mean, we love each other so much. Right? You would think that would make sobriaty happen. Afterall, I;ve been sober all these years, she should just follow me, do what I do and say and everythings going to be great. Right? 
About two moths ago, the storm was raging. She was drinking every couple of days, I'm going through my codependent, ( come here baby let me make it all better / What the #@$% is wrong with you I dont ever want to see you ever again ) passive agressive CRAP. 

I finally heard in the begining of the meeting. "we put the focas on ourselfs not the alcoholic." I thought to my self " when did they put that in there?" All I was hearing was that I became so sick because of someone elses drinking. I could run with that for a real long time. But that first part, I would hear my first sponcers wife in my head, who had 25 years in Alanon and AA, say " she aint none of your business!! What are you doing about your self?" At that time, ten years ago, I was the unthinking, uncareing, unloveing alcoholic and my wife at the time was the untreated alanon, she was so much better then me ( so she thought ) Now I'm the untreated alanon. And I'm so much better then my new she ( so I thought ) And now my "new she alcoholic" has to be none of my business. DAMN!!!  Sarah is right again, talking to me from the grave, sober.

Anyway, agf is three weeks off the booze again, sorta makin meetings, and the disease is raging. In both of us, I heard somewhere it was a family disease. All the walking on egg shells, comunication all jamned up, pointing at each other with the (you need to's).  All I really want to do is piss and moan about how its not fair, bla bla bla. I make me sick just listening to it.

Thank God for the program I have in me from AA, and the things the old timers both men and woman in AA and Alanon have tried to pass along. I was reminded of a passage in the AA 12x12 book in step four.......

. Questioning directed to this end might run like this: Looking at both past and present, what sex situations have caused me anxiety, bitterness, frustration, or depression? Appraising each situation fairly, can I see where I have been at fault? Did these perplexities beset me because of selfishness or unreasonable demands? Or, if my disturbance was seemingly caused by the behavior of others, why do I lack the ability to accept conditions I cannot change? These are the sort of fundamental inquiries that can disclose the source of my discomfort and indicate whether I may be able to alter my own conduct and so adjust myself serenely to self-discipline.  
But it is from our twisted relations with family, friends, and society at large that many of us have suffered the most. We have been especially stupid and stubborn about them. The primary fact that we fail to recognize is our total inability to form a true partnership with another human being. Our egomania digs two disastrous pitfalls. Either we insist upon dominating the people we know, or we depend upon them far too much. If we lean too heavily on people, they will sooner or later fail us, for they are human, too, and cannot possibly meet our incessant demands. In this way our insecurity grows and festers. When we habitually try to manipulate others to our own willful desires, they revolt, and resist us heavily. Then we develop hurt feelings, a sense of persecution, and a desire to retaliate. As we redouble our efforts at control, and continue to fail, our suffering becomes acute and constant. We have not once sought to be one in a family, to be a friend among friends, to be a worker among workers, to be a useful member of society. Always we tried to struggle to the top of the heap, or to hide underneath it. This self-centered behavior blocked a partnership relation with any one of those about us. Of true brotherhood we had small comprehension.  

 Some will object to many of the questions posed, because they think their own character defects have not been so glaring. To these it can be suggested that a conscientious examination is likely to reveal the very defects the objectionable questions are concerned with. Because our surface record hasn't looked too bad, we have frequently been abashed to find that this is so simply because we have buried these self same defects deep down in us under thick layers of self-justification. Whatever the defects, they have finally ambushed us into alcoholism and misery. 

 

I know that Alanon has adapted the 12 steps fron AA so all this stuff is pertinent in my recovery. If the focus has to be on me so I can recover, pissing and moaning about her wont help me one little bit. I know no one can tell any one what they should do or not do, but as this thing in my life is going on ( strugeling with should i get rid of her or not ) I hear my old sponcer say " keep doing that as long as you can stand it" God I miss those two. I have learned that eberything in my life has happend either at my own hand or by my permission, I am not a victim but a volunteer. And although I keep slipping into the victim mode, I know that applying the steps of AA and Alanon to this situation and MY alcoholism that manifest its self with obsession with HER and how it affects ME, God will move me into a place of freedom. 




-- Edited by liam on Friday 7th of January 2011 03:19:37 AM

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 The chains of habit are too weak to be felt   
 until they are too strong to be broken. ----- Samuel Johnson
RLC


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liam,

As I was reading your post I was thinking and asking myself what ES&H could I offer you. When I read your last sentence I realized you had offered yourself the best ES&H that could be offered.

Accepting and believing Step One will give you the freedom from the disease that affects us all. I believe and accept Step One and your post reminded me again that we are all powerless over the disease of alcoholism, and if we allow it, it will make our lives unmanageable.

In Support,
RLC

-- Edited by RLC on Friday 7th of January 2011 01:19:35 AM

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sunflowergirl


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Great stuff here... Alanon has shown me the way, my codependency ruled my world. I am working on not allowing that anymore. ITs hard work. My disease is the same as the addicted person's. We are just addicted to two different things, me to him and him to a substance... I am working on focusing on me and me alone. Step 4 is helping me do this. As I grace the surface of my pain, I take it in small increments, I am willing to feel it, deal with it and then heal from it so I don't keep going down that same road. the book that really helped me see all of this was The New Codependency. Melodie Beattie really knows about being a double winner--she is one. She was the addict and then the alanon/codependent. OTher reads from alanon that have helped me: COurage to Change, As we understood, and the book Getting them sober. Take care of you :) Great share!

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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
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