Living with the disease of alcoholism is too much for most of us. As the Meeting opening states "Our thinking becomes distorted and we become irritable and unreasonable without even knowing it."

Hotrod wrote this in another reply and for some reason it hit me hard today.

I know I have heard it many times in meetings but was I even listening? I have been suffering with depression for awhile now. My son has been sober for 15 months now but is still trying to clean up his messes.....no drivers license, no real job. a lot of debt. I have been carrying him along for quite some time. Now, I don't know how to stop. He started a job the other day and I was feeling some relief. The second day he worked he did something to his upper back, neck and shoulders. Needless to say, he is off work and I will be taking him for an MRI when I get home from work. As soon as I got off the phone with him I was so stressed out. I yelled at my husband that I was not going to pay his phone bill and cable bill this month. I was venting my anger at the wrong person. I always do it to my husband. I think we are on the brink of separating and I really had no idea it is just my reaction to the alcoholics in my life. I really was thinking I had some kind of chemical imbalance that was causing me to be depressed. When my son comes over on weekends or my younger son is known to be drinking on any certain weekend I usually end up in bed by early Sunday evening and feel so depressed in the morning that I can hardly go to work. Some days I don't and I stay in bed crying most of the day.

I go to meetings "SOMETIMES".....I read literature "SOMETIMES"..... I keep thinking about that saying in the big book...."half measures availed us nothing". I am not sure if that is quite right. That is me! I have always only worked parts of the program when I feel I need to. Well.....duh!!!! As Dr. Phil would say "and how's that working for ya?" It's not!!!!

I must be willing to give myself COMPLETELY to this program or I am just doomed to a miserable life!

Thanks for listening. I owe an amends to my husband today.

Gaily i apologize to you. I didn't know how to answer your other post

My thoughts are usually different than most. That square peg thing my kids and I are...

I have shared I went back to college. Went nuts taking everything, as I am curious about everything, cept chemistry dc: bleah

What I have seen, learned is it is harder on the patient to be with family than to be in their own environment in a home where these patients are in a consistant situation, routine, schedules, and free time of course too. Depends on the kind of dementia.

They are so confused in themselves, to have all of you here and there and who is this time and who is that and lets trade, lets bring here here. honey all of your sharing that made ME confused.

Put yourself in her place. Then she can have as strong of a foundation as possible with people who have experience and knowledge how to evaluate each patient for their personal needs.

Call Social Security, there are people who live with people like your mom in her home. Some people are eligible for that with no charge. Do you have an elderly and disabled services there? They would be able to guide you also.

I know if it were me, I would not want to be in a situation like that when I was already confused. Many people with this disease are upset by not remembering things, faces, what a toothbrush is for, its very hard. To be in a situation made for them is so important.

I am not saying change anything. I am telling you my experience. The place I know of here in Oregon is so great. They don't even let cleaning people in. They have their people inside the place for that. (this one is attached to a neat rehab home)

If they can cook, they cook there, if they like animals, they can have one in their room. there is a green house, garden plots.

Of course you are depressed! Life is so hard. My goal is to keep it simple. When something hits hard, like me last week, I lose it then that neat little thought,"OH! Give it to hp!" duh so i do, I feel a sense of calm, then I come here and thru hp you guys bless me with your thoughts.

I ask him to please hang on to me tight as I am floundering, heading over the cliff. I say the S prayer. I stop, drink water, try to eat something simple like fruit. When we hurt like that its a wound. You are wounded.

Since MIP came in to my life I have grown up. All the quotes, all the skills, coming here to vent and listen are all tools for me. I live it. This program has so many Biblical reasonings and answers, so it fits right into my religion and strong beliefs period.

We are all going to struggle, would have to be totally oblivious if we didn't. I am telling you with deep breaths,dropping elbows, reading here, reading C2C and the other one, being as healthy as possible, looking beyond the living room, the trees the waterfalls, the elephants in Africa, water, all of it keeps going. Its beautiful, its there to help us heal and keep going.

I felt sooo down about my friend. I need this person in my life. I sat here and looked out my slider to my nice deck, the fir trees, the big maple trees all green yellow and orange, hearing the river, seeing my dumb chickens IN my bird feeders the goat looking at me at the top of the steps of the deck, the sky the rain, my dogs and cats all around me. That is what helps heal me.

You know Gailey, maybe we all are still a little sick or a little more tender from our scars from this disease. I know for me it affected every part of my life. I know the damage it did. That is ok.

YOu are a very, very loving person, have a lot inside you. Its ok for you to take care of you.

One thing too is there is no dictatorship in a family. A family is a team no one greater than the other, just like MIP. Sounds like the plan you guys are trying so hard to follow is broken. So time for another plan maybe!

I had to just pray my son did alright. I was there with mine too. OFF he went to basically survivial backpack counseling. geez I would love to do that!

Ok if you are under your blankies get a little flashlight and grab one of your Al Anon books and read....

(((((((Gailey)))))))

I have definitely been around the bend with the not doing it right attribution.  None of us are perfect saints or robots.  I do not personally know anyone who works a perfect program although I have met one or two people who definitely think they do and their opinions of others programs isn't exactly charitable.  Depression isn't something that can be wished away or totally thought through that is why its an illness in the DSM guide rather than a small incidental that merely needs a few band aids.   I think one of the reasons I now really love and admire  Bill W and Lois too is that although they were icons for so many their recovery  they were acutally so very flawed and vulnerable throughout their lives.  At one time I judged them for not being perfect now I think its is because they were so vulnerable that Bill W was able to even conceive of a 12 step program abnd Lois was able to found a program that has literally saved millions of people from despair and loneliness.

Building a serenity and boundaries don't come overnight.  Indeed I find I have to patrol my boundaries all the time.  I look at what they are on a regular basis, are they perfect by no means are they better than they were certainly.  We can only go about recovery at where we are rather than where we shoulda, coulda, oughta be.  For me the assessment of my boundaries comes often after I have lapsed into people pleasing and unrealistic expectations.  I can go around and around on those expectations all the time and try to come up with the perfect solution. Somedays there are none. 

I can really relate to the issue of holding someone up while they drown because that is what I felt around the ex A for so many years and the task really drowned me in despair and exhaustion.  I know now that I was taking on his issues rather than addressing my own.  Of course since I didn't have a boundary around who I was and where I ended I can't really blame myself for that. Blame, guilt and resignation are maybe part of the half measures availed us nothing because indeed some of us have to travel through that route to get to a point of setting boundaries, maintaining them and learning that we need them.  Indeed I think that we all search for the magic solution when we are around people who are drowning in their own self destruction.    Getting to the point where you aren't pulled into that vortex of shame, fear and anger isn't exactly something that comes from a formula.   For those of us who come from a background where we are around alcoholics regularly putting ourselves into the equation isn't natural.  My natural self is one who would give away my last dime, take in every animal in distress and be so very conscious of every single person around me (apart from me of course).  My recovered self is someone who has boundaries, maintains them and is aware of my fraility.   I am so glad that when my natural self slips in I no longer label her as lazy, hopeless and somehow lacking because I think her compassion and care for others is indeed commendable I have just had to learn that I need the same compassion and care for myself no matter what.  Half measures was indeed how I got to the pont of limping my way to self love and serenity nothing but nothing else would do the job at all.

Maresie.