Long time no post :D.

I have been lurking around the board and popped into the chat room a couple times. So I figured maybe it was time to say hello and also introduce myself to the new people and wave hello to my old friends.

For those of you who don't know me I got my first taste of alanon here at MIP. My first meeting was in the chat room and I found the love and support of my alafamily here on the board as well. This was way back in 2001, wow that seems so long ago. At the time I was married to an active addict/alcoholic, had a two year old daughter and was expecting our second child. I felt alone, unloveable, unworthy and lost in some deep dark tunnel of hopelessness that I created for myself.

Throughout the years I got heavily involved in my program and chaired meetings here and in RL. My now ex husband and I had our second child, a lovely daughter and a son. I learned about the tools of alanon, grew in the fellowship and had many a change of thinking. My biggest obsiticles were myself, my refusal to ask for help/lean on others and I stuggled with the whole do I stay or not question many of us astk ourselves.

I still struggle with the asking for help piece, but it has gotten easier. A word of warning to the new folks here, never pray for patience (he doesn't give you patience he only gives you opportunites to practice patience) and if you refuse to ask for help you may find yourself put in situations in which you have no choice, but to ask for help. At least that is what my HP needed to do with this stubborn woman.

My ex husband's disease had became so violent that I decided to go through with a divorce and while I don't live with acitve addiction in my life the disease I spent 13 years with still effects myself and my children.

The kids have completed therapy this year. They spent a lot of time talking about the disease, what they remembered going through because of the disease and letting go of the strong feelings they have about their father. They haven't had contact with him in over a year. I haven't seen him since November of last year and finally stood up to him for the first time in my life then. I haven't had contact with him for months and I didn't take his bait when he attemted to hook me, which.

I stopped attending RL Alanon, not because I was "healed" but because my meetings weren't healthy. But I miss my fellowship with my alafamily.

I am now working for an agency that does vocational rehabilitation for adults with disabiliites, and I love it. I part time to residential care for adults with disabilities and I also work at our local YMCA teaching water aerobics. I have 3 beautiful children that understand as well as they can the disease of addiction. We talk about it and even when it would have been easy to bad mouth their father I haven't. I don't have to they see things as they are without me saying anything.

I am here for ESH and to share some.

So in a nutshell, that's me. I left a lot out and probably forgot most of it.

For the newbies, this program works... I promise. You just have to work it.

Yours in recovery,

Mandy