My Story - Al-Anon Family Group

kspec85 · Veteran Member

My Story

hotrod · ~*Service Worker*~

KSPEC welcome to Miracles in Progress. Thank you for taking the time and having the courage to share with such honesty and clarity. Alcoholism is a dreadful, progressive disease that can be arrested and never cured. It affects the alcoholic/addict in terribly destructive ways and also affects those of the family who live with the disease and attempt to cope with the insanity. Congratulations on your successful life and I'm glad that you recognized that it might be time to seek help.

Al-Anon is a fellowship of men and women who live or have lived with the disease of addiction/ alcoholism. We understand as few others can and hold face-to-face meetings in most communities so as to support each other as we recover from the effects of this disease. It is here that I learned to live one day at a time, that I was powerless over others, that I needed to focus on myself, act andnot react, care for myself before I could worry or care for others. I also learned that by living with the disease I had lost myself by attempting to fix someone else and it was imperative that restore my self-esteem and self-worth . Meetings, sponsor, the steps all led me in that direction

Face-to-face meetings are held in most communities and the hotline number is found in the white pages. I urge you to call and attend and keep coming back here as well there is hope. I do hope i said something that you needed to hear :)

Debilyn · ~*Service Worker*~

To me in my experience, "slips" are just steps in the relapse process.

An A is an Addict. Part of them is a strong craving for whatever they find the most passion with. Recovery is a map for them to follow to stay on their goal to remain clean of those strong desires.

A huge per cent of A's do relapse. So for me I had to consider that if I was ever to allow my AH to come back.I would never want to go thru what we did again. So no for me I would never go back.

Not going to take that chance. I had no knowledge of the truth of the A disease.Not till I came to MIP.

I am sure you know what is going on. It is a horrible truth and hard to face. The A we love can be a genuinely wonderful person! They have a horrible disease.

They don't think like a non A and we do not think like them.

Keep coming. hugs, debilyn

frustrationshigh · Member

Debilyn wrote:
To me in my experience, "slips" are just steps in the relapse process.
An A is an Addict. Part of them is a strong craving for whatever they find the most passion with. Recovery is a map for them to follow to stay on their goal to remain clean of those strong desires.
A huge per cent of A's do relapse. So for me I had to consider that if I was ever to allow my AH to come back.I would never want to go thru what we did again. So no for me I would never go back.
Not going to take that chance. I had no knowledge of the truth of the A disease.Not till I came to MIP.
I am sure you know what is going on. It is a horrible truth and hard to face. The A we love can be a genuinely wonderful person! They have a horrible disease.
They don't think like a non A and we do not think like them.
Keep coming. hugs, debilyn

The bold part of this I agree with, and most definitely relate with. My AW is a very kind, generous, great to be around, and truly great person when she is sober.

My AW goes through stretches of going to AA in person, and the online groups. As soon as she hears something she doesn't like, boom, everything about that program is wrong. I know she isn't ready to quit drinking, that doesn't sound like it in your case though. Going to the meetings, doing the work involved and such, says a bit. That would be a good sign if it were me. Then again, I'm pretty new to this as well.

neshema2 · ~*Service Worker*~

kspec85 wrote:
So here I am again. I know, I mean I KNOW I should run like fiery hell. But instead, I am looking into Al Anon. I am trying not to tie my self worth to these "slips" which look a whole lot like "here you go again, get ready to get screwed, for even thinking for a second that an addict could ever change."
Just looking to share and desperately need to hear something I just don't know what.

-- Edited by Debilyn on Wednesday 3rd of December 2014 04:09:16 PM

Dear kspec....are there any meets in your area??? and welcome to MIP....the meets will help you get grooved into alanon.....I would never ever try again w/anyone in or out of recovery for substance abuse...they relapse too often....the few who do make it it is b/c they NEVER touch the stuff, ever again and they work the dickens out of their program, many of them join alanon as well to see the other side and how we got impacted by their substance abuse.........working alanon will help you understand why you have this tendency to gravitate to and want to try with a substance abuser......why not someone who is non addict??? noone can tell that until you work alanon long enough to discover self and change your patterns of thinking....for me it was emotionally unavailable men...why?? b/c i was abandoned and abused as a child so i kept "going there" again and again b/c it was the only "norm" i knew....alanon and the steps, meetings, slogans helped me see my old family of origin pain needed to be worked out, reconcilliation with self was in order and now??? if one is emotionally unavailable??? I am GONE....good bye!!!!!! i had to work my program to get to this point...AND i stay in program to maintain what i fought so hard to achieve.....I am glad you reached out......i get that you know you are in dangerous territory and are reaching out for help....I am glad of that....i hope you give this wonderful life saving program a chance......IN SUPPORT

Mattie · ~*Service Worker*~

I'm glad you have found us. There is great wisdom, strength, and recovery in the people here.

I imagine most if not all of us have been in a very similar place to what you've been experiencing.

I did congratulate myself on not being addicted to anything, as opposed to the various people in my life, who were addicted to alcohol or worse.

Come to find out that I was addicted to the addicts. That's why I couldn't walk away. I think that's what people who haven't been through the wars do - they walk away as soon as the red flags appear. For us, we're still hoping to turn it around. To make those initially wonderful people back into the people they seemed to be when we first knew them. To "win" over addiction and neglect. To lose our own turmoil in the chaos of it all. To avoid the fear and panic that I, at least, had when I didn't have an addict to lean upon.

Recovery is hard but oh man, is it worth it - and not recovering is even harder.

I hope you'll read through the threads here, find a meeting, get the literature, look out for a sponsor - there are miracles in store. Hugs!

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.