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 haven't visited the board for a couple months. I'm feeling like I have no direction. Reading on the forum tonight I came across a couple of posts that I'd like to quote here and comment on because they touch on what I'm dealing with at this point.
Betty wrote, in reference to working Step One: "The remaining steps are about looking inward and finding what destructive behavior we have developed in order to survive and replacing that with the ability to live life on life's terms."
I grew up in an alcoholic home. I have a whole cedar chest full of destructive behaviors that I developed in order to survive. I know these issues are the root of my unhappiness but what I can't seem to figure out is how do I set those aside so I can live life on life's terms? I can't seem to leave the past behind because I'm still thinking like that kid who was mistreated, ignored, and wasn't important to anyone. All of that made me a strong person, but I had to build walls and defenses in order to feel like I was in control and that I had worth. Needless to say, I have a lot of insecurities and that in turn leads to the destructive behavior's.
The fact I married an alcoholic who also makes me feel mistreated, ignored and not important just drives home how disfunctional I am.
Paula wrote, in reference to working Step One: "Step one is also about surrendering to the process of recovery as it was designed to be experienced, we don't know what we don't know. Sharing here is great, listening to responses is great, yet you wont get recovery until the ego is in the backyard and the mind is quiet. I cannot hear my heart/soul until my head and ego is done yapping."
I agree with what Paula says. I can't recover from the effects that alcoholism has had on my life until I can get out of my own way but I don't know or seem to understand how to do that.
Al Anon has helped me to realize that my issues are bigger than the A I'm married to. He isn't the cause of my unhappiness, he's just background noise I've dealt with all my life. I am the problem but I don't know how to fix me.
Spur Thank you for your honesty and clarity. I too found that my problems existed before I ever married an alcoholic and although they appeared to expand while I interacted with him, I needed to stop blaming anyone and go deeper to find the solution.
Alanon promised me relief if I worked the Steps with a sponsor. It was not easy but step by painful step beginning at Step 1 I slowly accomplished that task. The 4th through 10th helped me to discard the negative tools of the past and believe it or not, hiding under those destructive tools were the powerful tools of compassion, empathy, kindness, gentleness, tolerance, and wisdom .A new language to express myself and needs also surfaced.
Spur: Betty's guidance to you here can't be better duplicated by me.
What I am going to respond to is contained within your last sentence: "I am the problem but I don't know how to fix me."
When my FOO began to experience the stresses that come from raising multiple children, I bore the brunt of it as the eldest. Since I was only about 9 or 10 when things started to change negatively in my family, I began to think to myself that there was something wrong with me because the love and nurturing I had experienced up to that point was withdrawn and new behaviors - most especially on the part of my Mom - were so different and not in positive ways. I spent years trying to figure out what was wrong with me to have lost my Mom's love. I truly did blame myself for the stress in my family and my Mom's declining health.
What I learned after awhile that I was not at fault for the stresses in our family. I was only a child. I wasn't a problem to be solved. There was nothing wrong with me. There was something wrong with the way I thought about myself and the ways I treated myself and allowed others to treat me, too. I couldn't change or fix me. I could change the ways I thought, felt and treated myself and how I allowed others to treat me, too.
Until I could learn the difference between shame and guilt, I was stuck, too.
-- Edited by grateful2be on Friday 23rd of January 2015 09:18:25 AM
-- Edited by grateful2be on Friday 23rd of January 2015 09:19:11 AM
I dont think its something you can force. For me, i surrendered through reaching a dark place and i became aware that i needed help, i didnt have the answers and that was the first time in my life my ego shut up and i went to my first alanon meeting. That was the beginning for me. I was ready and open and i knew instantly that the answers, chamges, help i needed were here. I just turned up, read everything i could, learned it like you would learn a trade or a new language or a degree at university. It seeped in. Ive still not worked all the steps formally and im never going to work it perfectly but everything improved for me with alanon.
Hi spur I too had the realisation that I chose the alcoholic because of issues I carried from childhood. In al anon we do not need to know how to fix ourselves just keep coming back. The best gift I gave myself was joining al anon and becoming committed to finding out about myself. They told me we will love you till you love yourself. Today I do love myself I still have to learn about true self care and self responsibility but I mature day by day in all anon. Your Hp will fix you slowly one day at a time. If I was to meet me 7 years ago when I came into recovery I have grown so so much for the better. I will be honest it has not been easy but so so worth it.
As they say put your bum on the chair and . Open your ears and what for miracles.
Hugs Tracy xxxx
-- Edited by Tracy on Friday 23rd of January 2015 02:21:11 PM
Thanks for your words of encouragement. I know you've all been where I am and have come out the other side. Hope is what keeps us alive.
Grateful...I have done some reading today on shame and guilt and the articles I read were very interesting and shed some light. Thank you for sharing that with me.
One of the readers (non CAL) that were extremely helpful to me on shame and guilt was Melody Beatty's "The Language of Letting Go." I've had that reader since about 1989 or 1990 and still refer to it in addition to my 3 Al-Anon readers.
-- Edited by grateful2be on Saturday 24th of January 2015 12:22:04 AM
What I like about this book - her first - is that it is a reader with a meditation for each day. It often complements the CAL readers and also can scratch itches for me that the CAL readers don't from time to time.
Aloha Spur...We come to Al-Anon and when we do we find out it is very very different than any other place we have ever been including our families of origin. I never heard the language of the steps before I got into the program. In my family of origin I was expected to keep trying, keep going and of course that resulted, as it was intended to do with alcoholism in tragedy. I arrive at the doors of the program and the first thing I am expected to understand is that I am powerless and in order to get better I have to let go of that which is making me sick which is all efforts at trying to get another well and sane. Getting stuck came often and it I learned was usual because I didn't have the awareness and experience to understand my/the problem. I had to sit down and listen with an "open mind" over and over and over until I could get changes different than what I was using and that didn't work. One simple thing I learned was that if I did some of the stuff the fellowship in the meetings were doing than I would at least have outcomes different than my own which were insane. That started to work and trusting the program and the fellowship grew and I started to abandon my own habits and build new ones on the lessons within the groups. God I'm grateful that it came when it came in the way that it did. I am not so proud to say that I've been "remade" of the ESH of so many other family members in Al-Anon and in MIP. Keep coming back ((((hugs))))
Spur, I am glad you are here and have posted. Through your inquiry, we all get to benefit from the responses. For me, I grew up needing to protect my tender heart. In doing that, I developed my thinking skills and my skills in assessing others.Those skills served me well in my career, yet kept people at a distance in my personal life. They disconnected me from me and that was the saddest. I am an avid reader and inundated myself with self help books, mystical teachings etc. It was not until I sat in face to face meetings, listened and shared, that my heart felt safe enough to open and really feel. I began to heal through my heart with my mind being the mini companion. My heart led, my mind followed. I shared with a friend yesterday that I have learned, through a 30 day painting challenge, to "show up, shut up and surrender". As I shared that with her I realized that is what I had to do when I began my recovery in al anon. The shut up part describes the yapping of my ego voice, not the voice of my shares. Keep coming back, I am glad you are here.
One of the readers (non CAL) that were extremely helpful to me on shame and guilt was Melody Beatty's "The Language of Letting Go." I've had that reader since about 1989 or 1990 and still refer to it in addition to my 3 Al-Anon readers.