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.
hi I'm new here. I apologize if I am not following proper edict for this forum. yesterday my sponsor and my counselor told me I need to come to alanon. I have been to a few face to face meetings but the timing is hard to workout. I am an alcoholic with 15 months sobriety. I attend AA meetings weekly. Right now I am dealing with past and present issues without using alcohol or drugs and I feel emotionally raw. I don't really know what to say-I need support in dealing with my husbands addictions. Trying to accept responsibility for my stuff-not his. Trying to move away from co-dependency. Learning to stick up for myself.
Dear Karie, welcome to Miracles in Progress.First and most importantly, I would like to congratulate you on your sobriety and to point out that living with the disease of alcoholism we do require a recovery program of our own, so as to develop new constructive tools to live by , rebuild our self-esteem and self-worth , learn to act and not react , and to find the emotional support that is so necessary to recovery from this disease.
Face-to-face Al-Anon meetings are held in most communities and the hotline number is found in the white pages. As you know, we believe alcoholism is a disease and that changed attitudes can aid recovery.
Some of the basic Al-Anon tools are to: keep the focus on ourselves, live one day at a time, pray, ask and don't react, working the steps and using the slogans.
Although the tools of Al-Anon are very similar to those of AA, the focus is different, so that if your sponsor feels you can and should attend Al-Anon, please do so. You are not alone.
Karrie you will get the tools for those things at ftf alanon meetings.
I go to a therapist and attend alanon also. Many things i know intellectually
About Myself and with the help of my therapist but to bring about real change
Takes Alanon. You need Self love and self care first. Learn to Love and
Accept yourself And put your HP first then you.
Sounds easy but it isnt we need to retrain our brains of our own importance.
Our own needs wants desires, we are a child of God and are loved unconditionally.
We need to really believe and feel that that with self acceptance before real change
can happen within. Alanon is all about you and your healing from within.
This is a good spot to learn Karrie. I came over to this board when I had about a year and a half sober I think. It's now been 6 years and change and I am still sober and still learning. I had a huge amount of codependency issues to work on in my sobriety as well. Alanon did help. Year two of sobriety is typically where folks start really working on their emotional sobriety, so it sounds like you are right on track. It isn't easy but the work is worth it. Don't be afraid to find out more about yourself no matter what that means for your relationship. I was scared that if I became more independent and less needy, that it would end my relationships or my want and desire to be in future ones. So that limited my growth for a long time until I finally let go of that because I was deathly afraid of being alone in terms of single. Not sure what your journey is exactly but those were some of my fears of changing at the same stage of sobriety you are at.
There is nothing easy about the journey you are on, no short cuts, but it is so very worth the effort. You spent time depending on alcohol and drugs as coping tools, but the truth is you know that never solved any problems, only masked the need to deal with those problems. You now are taking control of your life, every day is forward progress and left behind is the old ways of repetitive drama.
Focus on yourself, learn to be selfish, being selfish may sound terrible but for now you need to gain more strength of confidence in your sobriety.
Best wishes to you, congratulations and prayers to you as well.
