and so part of my "coming to understand" included college and the rooms of the
Al-Anon Family Groups and the program as suggested. I learned about Denial
and Diminishing the problem and Delusion.

Aloha...my mind has been on former sponsors and wise oldtimers in the program
who raised me...most of them women and yet one of these was a male; important
for me cause I didn't have any good male mentoring when I was growing and how
could I from alcoholism on both sides of my family tree. My former male sponsor
I have learned is now 80 yoa with an early onset of Alzheimers. My love and concern
level is higher because I reminish on what he gave away to me when younger and
in better condition.

He was there during the "Don't know and don't know that I don't know" years and
taught me to accept my wife as my wife and as my alcoholic. I didn't know about
alcoholism so my expectations were those of a person who wasn't under the influence
of a mind and mood altering chemical with a compulsion to drink up to and including
near fatal conditions. I didn't know because that was also apart of how I existend
and drank. Normal so without a clue.

In early Al-Anon we used to read the definition of Alcoholism at the start of every
meeting; thank God and so I learn my spouse had a disease and wasn't a morally
corrupt individual a "bad" person. I got over the idea that she had a choice when
I absorbed from the definition that she had a compulsion followed by the allergy
coupled with the obsession to drink regardless of awareness that it was killing her.

Part of the lesson was in a metaphor my sponsor taught me for acceptance of the
facts..."If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, chances
are it is really A DUCK!!" Today I laugh everytime I see a duck (daily) because my
mind says, "there goes my alcoholic" yay I got it!!

Alcoholics are NOT normal...mind, body, spirit and emotions...they cannot be normal
other than to be normally alcoholic. Expecting the duck to be something other than
the duck is denial, delusion and diminishing reality. She's drunk I'm uneducated
and unaware. She has a reason to be under the influence and mine is that I'm
trying to find "normal" in "insanity"...okay living in the disease is normally insane.

QUACK!!

I'm passing on what love for me in early program did for me then and I am passing
it on because I was told that in order to keep my recovery I had to give it away...
without charge or hope for compensation other than retaining my sanity. The elders
of the program taught me this and in reflection and memory of their love and
compassion and time and effort which they freely spent on this alien life form I use
to admit to I experience gratitude and hope at the very same time.

So there!! Keep coming back.

(((((hugs)))))

-- Edited by Jerry F on Wednesday 12th of January 2011 06:06:39 PM