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Miracles In Progress 12 Step Recovery Forums -> Al-Anon Family Group -> Al-Anon Family Group -> I don't understand.....
Post Info TOPIC: I don't understand.....
mynewlife


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I don't understand.....
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I have not posted since my introduction but I do follow the forum everyday and find great comfort in the support here. I am so grateful to each of you for having the courage to share your journey and I wish that I had the same courage, but thank each of you! After reading another post today that sparked a trigger, I am trying to make sense of my thoughts. I feel so sad and have compassion for my A brother. I am currently not in contact with him because I just couldn't bear to watch him kill himself. I do love him so much and wish that I could "save" him but I understand that is out of my hands and in the hands of my HP. I get that there is nothing I can do to help him, but that doesn't change the fact that I love him dearly. What I am struggling with is the anger I have towards his enablers. That would be my Afather and enabling mother. I am also NC with them but feel only anger, and as much as I hate to admit it hatred towards them. I feel like my Abrother has the gun but they have given him the bullets by buying him alcohol or giving him money or supporting him for the past 17 years. I feel like they are culpable for his demise. I don't understand it, even my DH can't understand it. I am so angry with them, but do not feel the same about my brother. Why? I have been doing a ton of reading about the roles in an alcoholic family and could literally pencil in the names next to each role. Growing up my father would be the alcoholic, my mother the enabler, me the hero and my bro the scapegoat. Maybe that is where my anger is coming from, I feel like my brother is sacrificing himself as the scapegoat to save my father from the embarrassment of admitting his alcoholism. My father is a high functioning, covert, alcoholic, and admission to alcoholism would further injure his narcissistic personality. My mother denies that his alcoholism affected my bro and I growing. I don't know maybe I have accepted that my bro is an alcoholic but haven't yet accepted my father's alcoholism. Does this sound normal? I can't make sense of it..... I'm sorry for rambling, I'm feeling really down tonight.....

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Debilyn


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The important thing is that you dear one came here and shared. It shows you do have courage!

Ok can you do anything to change any of this? I am sure the answer is no.

The good thing is this. It is very ok for you to start right now and concentrate on your needs, wants, dreams, goals and work on YOU.

I was told to drop the rock. I can tell you it felt great. All that drama, we don't have to participate if we choose not to.

Myself I learned to say in my head, its not my problem. My friend says not my circus, not my monkeys. lol I like that!

Take a breath,drop your elbows. For me when i start thinking about someones drama or bolony I say stop and put something nice in like, I am ok, I am good. I also, when i am in funk and bad things come to mind, i will stick in wild purple irises. Now it happens naturally!

Do you really want that stuff in your life? When you can't change it anyway? WE do not have to accept anyones bolony eve if they are family. hugs! love to see  ya more!



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Putting HP first, always  <(*@*)>

"It's not so much being loved for ourselves, but more for being loved in spite of ourselves."

       http://www.al-anon.alateen.org/meetings/meeting.html            Or call: 1-888-4alanon
Jerry F


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((((Mynewlife))))  Welcome to the forum and mahalo (thanks) for the share of your inventory of your situation.  You're looking as we all have.  I stopped trying to "figure it all out" when I admitted I was powerless over alcohol and the alcoholic/addict.  It drove me crazy and my situation was similar in part to yours and then different also.  Didn't matter when I admitted I was powerless.  I was worn out trying to figure it out and my brain started thinking that if I could just lay down and hold my breath for a longer period of time than usual it would "all" go away and that included me.  I was told by a fellow An-Anon early on in simple high contrast terms.   "This is a save your own ass program".  I came to accept that and went after my own recovery.  I read your post and started thinking of whats and ways you might look into to better with this and that is normal "fixer" thinking and behavior.  I admit I am powerless over people, places and things.  Enablers are compassionate and empathetic people who often should only ask a Higher Power to intervene for loves sake. 

To come to a higher level of understanding I needed to be directly involved in the Al-Anon Family Groups in my area.  I called the hotline number in the white pages of my local telephone book and got directed to the meetings and when I got there I got directed to keep coming back and more.  I followed the directions and am grateful and blessed I did.   MIP is also as bid a part of my life.   MIP is a daily involvement with my life.  The teachers are here and the winners.   Keep coming back...listen, learn and then practice, practice, practice.   (((((hugs))))) smile    In support.



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milkwood


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Hello Mynewlife, what a wonderful name you have chosen!

I hope that you are feeling more positive this morning - I always find it tough when I'm feeling down in the evening.

I recently learnt a piece of family history that rocked my sense of reality a bit. It would have been so easy for me to have slipped into anger and confusion about it and as I was winding myself up for a fall someone said to me 'but that was their lives, what about yours'. I found the separateness that comment pointed to really helped me to see that I couldn't have controlled my elders and therefore I didn't need to feel bad about their choices. Not sure if that is relevant for you, but it came to mind as I read your post.

Sending ((((((hugs)))))))) and wishes for a good day today.

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Katy


~*Service Worker*~

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Dear Mynewlife,

I have thought that too, why didn't my mother see she was an enabler, why didn't she see that she taught me to do that too, why did it take me a lot of unhappy years to learn I could unlearn what I thought was impossible to change, for me it is harder to detach from a son than a brother, easier to detach from an husband than a son, as I have grown in my knowledge of this terrible family decease I have learnt that denial of something so baffling is a survival tool until you are sick and tired of feeling sick and tired, I am so greatful I have found a solution to my misery and confusion, so appreciative of my very own personal experience of life in that i can practice being a vessel of compassion humility and strength for my own family and friends who have not yet found what I have found, I thought the alanon programme way longer before I have been able to walk it, and now it is coming to me gradually, anger was a tool I didn't realise I was using until I was ready to swap it for something else!

regards 

Katy

  x



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Katy
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