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 have been in Al Anon for 2 years coming up in April. But today I have been feeling Lonley and not using my program.
I moved back to Australia from Canada in August last year with my husband and now 2 yr old son. My reasons for moving back to Australia was to live closer to family and friends. My husband was relapsing a lot before we left Canada. I know he has his own program which he isn't working he apparently hasn't smoked pot but has had the odd alcoholic beverage here and there when we are at a social event. He believes he can manage that.
We are currently living with my parents until we are a bit more settled and I just find every night is the same. He ends up either spending most of the evening outside smoking (cigaretts) or lying on the couch watching tv. I end up looking after and playing with our son. We don't really communicate. I have mentioned to him before how I would like us to try and talk more and spend more time together but nothing changes. We hardly sleep in the same bed as he always falls asleep on the couch downstairs and if he does come up its very early in the morning. I have also suggested seeing a counselor which he has replied to If thats what you want to do. There really isn't much affection either.
I have been trying hard to work my program. I know I am responsible for my own happiness and I am very lucky that I have a lot of friends here so I can do different things with them but I feel I don't have a companion and really miss that.
I have been attending meetings here and try to get to two a week I am just finding the meetings not as spiritually uplifting here and haven't found a sponsor yet. I know I have been comparing my meetings to my Canadian experience which I need to stop doing as it just holds me back. Don't get me wrong I have heard some amazing stories I just need to get out of this negative head space. Some days I feel I am working the program other days I feel like its all gone out the window and I go back into my pity pit which is where I feel I am today.
Maybe my husband is always going to be like this and I need to figure out if this is someone that I want to be with.
I totally hear what you are saying. I deal with alot of loneliness too. I moved out of our home in November after my A relapsed and got violent with me. He went to treatment & is sober again. I somehow thought life would get better even though I had been in alanon for several months at that time, I expected changes & big ones.
Must to my disapointment the only thing that has really changed is he is sober. He's on his 3rd sponsor & I think he may be more trouble & effort sober than the drunken episodes were. I love him but hate the disease & behaviors.
I seems to all come down to us on how we are gonna handle it. What are we gonna do? I'm trying to detach (with love) and work my own program, focusing only on me for right now. He may get better in time or he may not. Meanwhile I have to live & deserve some type of quality of life.
I hate the loneliness more than anything, this is a hard way to live when you feel so isolated from the person you fell in love with... Even when you are in the same room.
Keep making your meetings & taking care of yourself. Nothing changes if nothing changes.
((( hugs)))
It takes time and breaking the isolation is key for me. Meetings, program friends and non program friends, finding my own life and interests. I find when I isolate it's way to easy to get into stinking thinking. Living with an active addicit is really difficult and it's even more important to be gentle with yourself.
Hugs P :)
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Stepping onto a brand-new path is difficult, but not more difficult than remaining in a situation, which is not nurturing to the whole woman.- Maya Angelo
This is a "teaching" share for me and I am grateful. It takes me back to when and where I went from attending meetings only and then finally "got into" the program. The "wake up and smell the coffee" stuff like I couldn't work out my own solutions with the same head I came into the program with. I needed much "higher power" to work out solutions of any kind much less adopt the solutions from inside the fellowship. A 24/7 God of my understanding? that would mean that the first support I go to wasn't me and my illusions that I could and would fix this and make all right. It mean't that I would have to accept being the "student" of those in the program who worked the program and were changing how they lived life....and then it came to me and when it came to me it came with a question. "Now what are you going to do"? "Are you doing to do it your way or are you going to do it the program way...as suggested by the group and literature and sponsor"? Negative thinking never goes away...it only comes when I let it and if I let it I own the consequences of it. Loneliness means I am not loving myself...I am finding something wrong with me and thinking that somethin outside of me is responsible to relieving it...like other people, places and things. When I learned love of self I became okay; I became accepting for the me of the moment and my neediness vanished. People in my life became icing for the cake and there is always icing for the cake. I am not the cake. HP and this program for living is the cake...I am the baker and the party giver as I have been taught.
Negative thinking is a habit that can be changed...it is a choice within the untold numbers of choices I have. Think of a better choice and then do it and remember you can always change when necessary.
Thank you for your share. I to find myself getting lonely because I feel as though I take on a lot of life's responsibilities all to myself. I am fortunate (for lack of a better term) that right now I only have to worry about me and not a wife of child but I still think I can take on the world without the assistance of others. I have to remember that I have friends, the fellowship and even the alcoholic to be there for me.
