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 interested in learning from others the ways they have personally been affected or were affected by another one's addiction and recovery tools if any they have found useful.
Making lists helps me come out of denial and help me focus on helping myself. Hopefully others will like this topic too.
To start off for me I have found myself unable to trust my intuition at times. I'm unable to see the reality of a situation if that makes any sense. I always automatically apologize or want to apologize if ex-ABF gets angry at me without even thinking about what if anything I did to be sorry about.
I gradually started allowing my ex-ABF to treat me worse and worse until I thought that I deserved to be treated badly. I ended up feeling unlovable.
I started listening and believing addicts/alcoholics manipulations and lies and was convinced that I was the crazy one. I was the one that needed to get my act together and I was lucky that he put up with me and all my crap. **Yeah I know I was brainwashed** I may have allowed that to happen then but I'm not any longer.
Thebig problems for me were the anger and resentment when ah would drink and not take care of his responsibilities. Sometimes I would do them, sometimes I had to pay someone to do them, sometimes they just didn't get done. I also felt so alone much of the time even when he was here. Then there were the times I barely slept at night because he didn't come home and I was so worried wondering where/how he was. Or the times he was home but passed out so drunk I would stay up to check on him every hour to make sure he was breathing. I was spending most of my time and energy focusing on him and starting to feel like I was going crazy. Then I found this place. I've learned so much here. The main thing that has helped me has been learning to detach, and not to react. I still have so much to learn but my life is improving slowly but surely. I know now that I'm not crazy, and that I'm not alone.
Alcoholism is a disease, and the only disease that attempts to destroy the people who are closest to it. Its characteristics are much different and mind altering than other diseases.
We all come to Al-Anon because we have been effected by someone else's drinking or addiction. I am one of those. I allowed, and still do at times, the disease to effect me in adverse ways. As you stated, "Thank goodness for Al-Anon".
Other diseases don't cause us to become as sick or sicker than "they" are. Other diseases don't destroy families and children, and try to suck the life blood out of anyone who comes in contact. Active alcoholism is a different breed, a different animal. It's a taker never a giver. Destroys the mind, body, and spirit if we allow it.
With that being said, I try to put my best foot forward, using the program, to accept what I can not change. When I don't accept it I am allowing the disease to win the battle. That happens from time to time at best, but I can not and will not allow it to win the war and control my serenity, happiness and peace of mind as it did in the past. If I do then I am the one to blame, not alcohol or the alcoholic. I am powerless over alcohol but not how I react, or don't react consciously or unconsciously.
I lost a small battle last night allowing myself drift back and think about all the things this disease has taken from me. There is nothing wrong with that. I human. I only fought that battle for a few minutes. Why? Because the things that have been taken from me by this disease are just that, "things". Many here have lost children and spouses to the disease.........things "can be" replaced........lives can't.
HUGS, RLC
-- Edited by RLC on Tuesday 8th of February 2011 01:08:08 PM
-- Edited by RLC on Tuesday 8th of February 2011 04:26:35 PM
Alcoholism & addiction are referred to as a "family disease" and isn't that the truth? As I've taken a closer look into the dynamics of my family I've realized that my life has been impacted by alcoholics that I have never even met!
My parents were not alcoholic, and neither were my grandparents, but there were several family members of my grandparents' generation who were. The dysfunction of this family disease thus permeated the family as a whole, making my childhood very similar to that of someone raised by alcoholic parents. Later, I married the daughter of an alcoholic who had passed away before we were married. That marriage was a dysfunctional, abusive nightmare from hell, thanks to the effects of the disease.
Knowing, then, how this disease does tend to propagate itself across wide swaths of family trees, I am very thankful for what recovery means in breaking that chain.
well at home growing up my middle brother was an a, and it was all about him, he was paranoid and that caused us all to live on a knives edge, we became very isolated, and yet we all tried to apease him, of course that never worked and as time went on the more we apeased the more he upped the anti, little did I know I was beginning to lose self, the drama surrounding NORMAL family events were quite outrageous, but became our norm, looking back all our apeasing was in actual fact enabling behaviours, so now I am a person on high alert, I'm not interested in Normal at this point, but I do decide that I know what NORMAL would be like, and set about trying to create it, so waht do I do? I find my own A, he displays all the Normal A traits, he's a larger than life character, and YAY he is everyones hero he does bizarre things and although these were all red flags, back then they were all the traits I was familiar with, so I set about trying to change him, so then the battle of wills began and I lost mine, it was a long long learning progress for me, I litrally spent years and years doing the same old same old, until I was sick of feeling sick and tired, by this point life held no joy for me, I was hopeless and empty and terribly lost, I turned all this inwards and thought I must be a bad person, I tried the anti depressents, I was a broken old record and I asked god why was this happening to us and to help me, he was listening, I went to aa first and they suggested alanon, I never heard of it, and gradually and slow but sure the programme began to sink in, I was regulating my whole self by outside influences,people places and things, of which I had no control, I needed to learn to regulate myself from inside out, How? by trying to do things differently and getting a different result, I was stuck in my stinking thinking, so at first reprogramming my thinking was just about all I did, I then tried to think myself better, but that isn't it either, you have to follow through with your actions, eg no empty threats, enforcing boundaries, STOP reacting and learn to respond, Now I thought this was an impossible task, especially when I heard you can be happy wether the a is drinking or not, during this time I was very lucky, my husband stopped drinking, when I said I was done and I was leaving, my husband calmed right down, and this highlighted my problems, I was highly critical, I was an hypocrit, I was super sensative, I was angry I was horrible quite honestly, and I needed to change, and so I did and I have and I continue to do so with the help of the people here on mip, I am learning all the time using everything and anything and running it through my alanon metre, alcholism, is very crafty it's selfish and a mighty cunning ism, it remains in my husbands traits and more alarming in mine too, I couldn't do this by myself, and I do belive unless you have lived with it you could not imagine the many ways it manifests it's self and enbeds, Alanon has let me find my true self the person I was meant to be Yay!
I grew up with two emotionally abusive alcoholic parents, so I came into adulthood with a completely warped and twisted sense of self. I believed myself to be worthless and unlovable, so I chose emotionally abusive unavailable (and sometimes alcoholic) partners. I thought I couldn't expect any better treatment. Nor did I know what a "normal" healthy relationship was. I mean, I knew at a sort of intellectual level, but not at a "gut" level when I was in the thick of it -- I thought I deserved what I got from my partners.
I went through those relationships full of martyrdom. I'm a people pleaser and conflict-avoidant, so I just stuffed my anger and allowed resentments to build and build.
I came to Al-Anon a little over a year ago, shortly after losing my mother to cirrhosis. My recovering ABF had just had a terrifying and dangerous relapse. I had reached a "bottom" of sorts -- I thought I didn't have enough lifetime left to get the hang of "normal", and that I was mentally/emotionally broken beyond repair.
The first tool I used was setting boundaries -- defining them for myself, then articulating them to "say what I mean without saying it mean". "Don't react" was the second one. Detachment is sort of ongoing. I haven't had much opportunity to really test that one, as ABF has been sober for over 13 months now. Service work has become very important to me.
I think the best part was a realization that I can't fix the past, but I CAN go forward with new skills and change my future.
__________________
Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could... Tomorrow is a new day. You shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense. - Emerson
Aloha Still...great thread and awesome responses. I'm going to keep checking back in on this one to listen to more personal responses.
For me I later came to understand that I inherited all sides of the disease. Alcoholism was and still is generationally layered in my family. My mother and her sisters were daughters of an alcoholic parent and emotionally disturbed. I inhereted that emotional dysfunction and the mental anxiety which came from it. I also inherited the compulsion to drink and to be a fixer. I got turned on by my grandmother that didn't seen alcoholism but only a cultural glass of wine for her grandchildren. My fathers side of the family is alcoholic and also upper class in enabling and fixing and perfectionistic appearances. I inherited all of it and listened, learned and practiced what they did. In college I was drawn to the genetic aspects of alcoholism and it was in those classes that I came to understand the foundation of alcoholism in my own life. I also came to learn that distilled alcohol predated the life of Christ by about 3000 years which affirmed for me that it has pretty well altered me from a long way off. I am eternally grateful that the programs of Al-Anon and AA also came from the need of those who have suffered so much from it.
For me, I have been affected most in the areas of control and perfectionism.
Until I got into the program, I had everything under control. I knew exactly what everyone should do to fix any given problem ... I would nag until they did it my way, or else do it for them. I was on pins and needles all the time, just waiting for the other shoe to drop, and I tried desperately to anticipate the next bad thing. I spent hours and hours thinking about things from every single angle, so that when someone made a move, I already knew my next move in response. I was a master manipulator, and had a gift for getting people to do what I wanted while making them think that it was their idea. When someone didn't do what I wanted, or what I expected, or what I'd planned, I went ballistic. When anything didn't go according to plan, I went ballistic. I was INSANE.
The perfectionism was just as bad. I would usually only attempt to do things I knew I could do well. No WAY was I going to take on something I wasn't good at, and let other people know I wasn't perfect. I could not handle criticism - I'd either go ballistic and point the finger back at the other person, or cry, withdraw, and get depressed because I thought I was worthless. My whole opinion of myself depended on the praise I got for being perfect. That part was also INSANE.
What the program has done for me is to help me get my power back. My real power - over myself. I've learned that control is just an illusion anyway. When people did what I wanted, it was not because I was in control. It may've been because they just didn't want to listen to me nag, but not because I was so powerful and always right. I've also discovered the power in admitting and embracing my humanness. In my life, there is a God. I am not he. I believe that I was created by my HP as a human ... a human that makes mistakes. That's part of the way I was made, and there is nothing wrong with that. While I certainly still strive to do my best, being wrong is not the end of the world to me anymore. This has been a huge weight off my shoulders, and has allowed me to actually enjoy my life instead of giving 300% every single minute to other people and having nothing left for me.
Even long before that Jerry, Fermentation has been around since the Caveman....They use to party hearty..
I learned that in the book "Clan of the Cavebear" a wonderful book by the way. Changed my life , the story of Ayla the first woman that hunted, she was an empowered medicine woman.
Well, just my two cents..for anyone that wants a great read...
The only thing that affects me now regarding alcoholism, is my whole being rejects being around anybody that abuses alcohol. My boundaries kick in when I know there will be serious drinking.
You wont find me there and if by chance it happens, I remove myself. I do not really enjoy dinner parties where everyone stands around drinking wine or any other liquor , its not acceptable to me. You just wont find me at parties.
Even if you dont have a problem with drinking and your not an alcoholic, Wine is to be consumed with food and only 1/2 a glass. Period. This is really a pet peeve of mine.
I cant go into my life when I was living with the alcoholic and how adversely it affected me. I know it did at the time, I was married to him for 26 years.
At this point and time I have complete serenity and really dont dwell on it to tell you the truth. Because of what I have learned in Alanon, my boundaries are always in place. Im always vigilent. lol and I dont live with it. Which I have to honestly say took away a big part of misery and anxiety and all that goes with it.
Oh, its not perfect. Like everyone else there are days when Im dissapointed when things are not always going my way, but these are lifes normal ups and downs.
I am grateful for the life I am living, Im grateful to Alanon and my HP.
Luv, Bettina
-- Edited by Bettina on Wednesday 9th of February 2011 03:22:07 AM
Thanks for all the awesome replies. I started this thread because even though my parents aren't alcoholics and I'm not married to an alcoholic I'm extremely codependent. I used to be an addictions counselor. It seemed that was the start of my downfall. I wasn't prepared for the huge toll it took on me. Even after I quit that job, I met a guy and started dating him but didn't know at the time he was a alcoholic/drug addict until I was already madly in love with him. For over 2 years we dated. I stopped working and all I did was sleep and stay around the house. We broke up a few months ago and now I'm trying to get healthy again. I'm trying to pick myself up from the bottom and rise to the top again.
addiction not only makes the person's life miserable but as well as his/her family members. I have seen that the 12 step recovery process, NA and AA meetings does a great job in recovering.
