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.
Funny how you can strain your mind and soul to get understanding then out of the blue it just kind of hits you. My 15 yr old daughter asked me why mommy still wants to drink after everything that has been done and going to rehab. I was trying to find a way to explain it so she would understand and SMACK!!! I ended up finally "understanding" it myself. This is what I told her that really helped me: "Alcoholism is a disease of the body and mind. What do you use to make decisions every day? Your mind. If the tool you use to make the right choices everyday is the same tool that is broken, what can you do? Its like a car that can only turn left. No matter where you WANT to go, that car will only bring you in a circle right back to Point A. A alcoholic mind is the same as that car. No matter what the Alcoholic wants, their mind will always bring them back to point A (drinking). This is the disease. It affect the one tool that the alcoholic needs to make the right choices. That is why she needs to go to her meetings. She honestly doesn't have the ability to make the right choices her self.
After I dropped her off at school I was driving home in a "WOW" state. That B.S. that I was feeding my daughter really made sense! That is why AA and her HP are SO IMPORTANT!!! a car that can only turn left needs a qualified "mechanic" to fix it. The alcoholic mind needs a qualified "mechanic" to fix it. I honestly believe that AA and her HP are the only "qualified mechanics". And just like a broken car, the mechanic doesn't come to you. She has to take it to the mechanic. She has to surender her mind to the mechanic (HP). And let AA be her "loaner car".
I like ussing analogies if you can't tell. A little over simplified but sometimes I need that. This disease is SOOOOO complicated and cunning simple is nice.
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IF YOU ALWAYS DO WHAT YOU HAVE ALWAYS DONE, YOU WILL ALWAYS GET WHAT YOU HAVE ALWAYS GOT
Thanks for the post rellik, makes sense to me. I have a 15 year old daughter myself and she is wiser than her 15 years. She recently said to me, "Why do you keep doing the same thing (letting the alcoholic back in my life) when it always results in the same thing?" The saying "doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results is the definition of insanity" came to mind! Thanks to my daughter for reminding me of my own program! I took her with me to my meetings for enough years that she's had a good dose of the program, however she does not see the need to go now herself to alateen. This is probably mostly because her dad is not the alcoholic, but her stepdad that I married after her dad is the alcoholic, albeit sober now. I just wish that she could see that although she hasn't ever lived with active alcoholism, she has been affected by it in a most dramatic way... her grandfather (her dad's dad) was alcoholic and sexually abused her dad when he was under the enfluence when her dad was a child, and this is the primary reason her dad has mental health problems and his own sexual addiction problems to this day and can not see her but under supervised conditions.
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I can Overcome all things through my HP who strengthens me.
That is not a bad way of looking at things. I like that analogy - especially since it involves AA and her HP and you left you and your daughter out of steering and driving that vehicle.
