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.
Share from "BLESSED " a new Member who posted to the Sticky at the top of the Board I transferred it so we could all read and share
Thank you. I am new to the program; and just kind of glossed over Steps 1, 2, and 3, which of course I have aced and why I came to AlAnon to start with. However, as I slowed down and took a long look at Step 1, there was more to it then I originally thought.
I am a list maker; I make lists, I accomplish the items on the list, and I make a new list. I am organized and like things done in an orderly fashion. I am not OCD, rather ATD (attention to detail). :) You can do something right or wrong, why not right?
My higher power is God. I made a decision to give my life to God 25 years ago, and have walked with Him every day since through many good times and bad. I filter everything through the Word and if what I think, hear or read does not agree with the Word, the Word wins out and whatever is dismissed.
So, with that, I went back and read, and meditated on Step 1. I came to believe that I was powerless over alcohol (duh!) and my life had become unmanagable.
Let me break that down into the two parts. I am powerless, period, without God. But, God is not powerless over alcohol. Wow! What a relief. If I submit and yield to Him, nothing can manage me unless I allow it to. I have a choice to follow God or follow man, or situations, etc. And choices come with consequences, good and bad, and we do not get to choose the consequences, God does.
My life has become unmanageable. Well, parts of it, yes. I am the office manager of a small doctor office and things there are under control because I am in charge, and there are no Alcoholics there. Me and my son's life are in order for the most part and I keep the household affairs in order and manage a rental unit, etc. What is unmanagable is the alcoholic. His brain is warped and I am coming to the realization that you can not reason with an unreasonable person. And the more I learn about he effects of alcohol on the brain, I understand that he doesn't even know that he is unreasonable, because his thoughts are reasonable to him and I sound unrational. It is like opposing ends of a magnet that just repel each other.
The part of this process that makes me crazy is the double life my Alcoholic lives. In his work and the community he plays the "Good Christian man" who is under the stress of an angry, bitter (what he loves to call the contentios) women..... but at home it is anything but. The silence, The rejection, The lies, the deception, the drinking, etc. etc. etc. Maybe this is not part of Step 1, but I think falls under "my life has become unmanable".
This is where I have to apply, "Let Go and Let God." God loves him as much as he loves me and you. God didn't move, we move away from God and turn to the lower power and believe lies.
So, I will continue to look at each step and meditate on it and not just read it, check it off and move on. They are there for a reason and I need to take the time to really work what someone took the time to put together.
Wow! Powerful share! Loved it. Thank you, hotrod. Just went through another recent experience in which I forgot my powerlessness and tried to exert my own will. No matter how long I've been in program, I never arrive. I only progress.
Thanks for sharing. It home with me, because my AH sounds just like yours. He's so bubbly and sociable in public (most of the time) and then when he gets home he gets into this black controlling mood. It's confused me for years. I always thought it was my fault. But it's not, I'm finding that out by coming to this site. It has been such a big help. It has helped me get through a dark time I have been having for a for weeks. I realize that this is something that I need to keep coming back for and cannot do it on my own. I keep coming back on reading other's stories and can relate to them and do not feel so alone. I realize that I need to concentrate on me and that is really the only thing that I have control over. I am powerless over alcohol.......
Welcome newcomer and I hope you stick around with an open mind to listen to and learn more about this disease of all diseases. I am grateful for your awareness of the relationship with your higher power that is a good relationship and for me was and is most revealing with the reduction of unmanageability and the presence of peace of mind and serenity. Your husband as two people is appropriate. You have a loving, Christian husband...and...you have an alcoholic. Alcoholism isn't a moral issue and he knows he has a problem with it. He is not fooling himself or anyone else. The fact that he doesn't investigate his problem is part of the problem. He has to exert effort to reveal the other man that you describe and when he is not exerting that effort he returns into the character of the alcoholic. All of us here have spoken of that character cause we also have lived with the him or the her alcoholic ourselves. My alcoholic/addict wife knew and when it the awareness of it became so weighty she sought help for it and then got sober which is more a spiritual condition than just physical. Thanks for the first step share. I can always listen to them. Keep coming back (((((hugs)))))
