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 wanted to wish all the mom's a Happy Mothers Day! I hope you all have a wonderful Day. I hope that it is filled with lots of magic and love. On my Mothers Day I have been taking the time to reflect. Reflect on my life. I try everyday to better myself for me since joining the program. I am learning to do the things I enjoy again. I am trying to get back to my basics. To where the world made sense to me. I have learned somethings on my journey of discovery. I know that everything changes. But in my heart I know that it is how we change ourselves to make ourselves happy first then the rest will fall into place. I have learned that I do love me. I do love the person I am unwrapping in me. I have been taking one day at a time. I know today I can be the best I can be for me. So for my Mothers Day I give me, me.
. a person who loves life.
. a person who will be honest with herself.
. a person who is willing to work everyday at making herself stronger for me.
I don't know what my future holds it is for my HP to decide.
But I do know there were stronger powers (I believe my HP) that has brought me here. I would have never made it here on my own. I have not done things always as I know I should have. But my HP by myside anything is possible. I lost my faith in me I lost the love of my HP. I lost the person I know I used to be. But I am finding that person one step at a time. I may mess up along the way and have to start over but I owe it to myself to keep trying and never give up on me. I am learning patience. Patience in discovering who I am deep down. Learning to love me all over again is the best gift I can give myself today on Mothers Day.
Angeleyes
__________________
I believe in my HP to show me the way!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Hi angeleyes! Yes, it does feel like a good day to reflect on some things. Thanks for sharing this topic. I posted the following reply to someone else on the ACA board, but would like to share it here too!
Hi Amanda! And thanks for the good wishes on Mother's Day.
I never knew my mother at all--she was taken to a mental hospitial when I was five weeks old, and relatives subsequently discouraged me from visiting her there--so I never saw her at all.
It's been a very big "absence" in my life, mixed with all the shame and stigma of attitudes towards mental illness as well.
I often used to wonder if I was mentally ill, too. Or would become so, in time. It was a deep-seated and scret worry through most of my growing up years.
But the silence and the absence of her left a very big "hole in my soul".
My father was an active alcoholic, so with both of these influences, I suppose it was inevitable that I would end up marrying an A, and together with my complete ignorance about what it meant to be a mother, I inflicted a lot of damage on my children, I have no doubt.
This is the hardest piece for me to heal in my recovery, but thanks to working Al-Anon and ACoa programs over some time, even this is getting much better.
I was with two of my sons yesterday. The oldest one is my "miracle" son, in that he is making an amazing comeback from life lived on the fringes with dual-diagnosis schizophrenia and addiction. He gave me such a beautiful card for Mother's Day in which he said that I was not only a good mother but a very special friend. That moved me so much! He is such a generous soul! I feel that life rewards me with more than I ever could imagine when I take my need for recovery seriously and really lean on it for answers.
Isn't it interesting that this son brought mental illness AND addiction to the fore in my life, for both of us to heal! I feel there is special grace in that, and that there is a higher power with great intelligence as well as love.
My youngest son, a beneficiary of much better mothering skills since my recovery, just has normal little problems and ordinary little ways of thanking me, and for that, I feel there is infinite grace, too.
I have another son who's working a program through NA, and is a counsellor for troubled kids where he lives. My daughter--who isn't in any kind of formal recovery, is at least somewhat responsive to my efforts at relationship with her, and that's maybe as good as it will get with us.
I have a lot to be thankful for!
I don't have to do this alone, because I have the program, the fellowship of others in recovery, and a higher power.
Wherever you find yourself today, know that there's a plan. And it's a good one.
Thanks for your share. I enjoyed it. I don't know all the terms yet. So I have to ask what is ACOA? I have learned much on the boards and in the f2f. The members of my home group have helped me alot. With understanding what Al-Anon is about. I am learning that I can like myself and who I am, and that it is ok to love my A just not what it is doing to them. For me that was a hard thing to learn because I thought detachment meant to be done with them. To not have anything to do with them at all. I am understanding now that on where to set boundries. As long as I stick to them for me. I will learn more and grow more. For me it is like I read in my book about change. I can change my attitude, I can change me no one else can do it but me. But if I have a possitive attitude about life and know that my hp will take care of it, alot less pressure on me then trying to control any situation in my life. But if I am not willing to change me then I stay the same. Vunerable to all the things that brought me to the program in the first place. But since I have been coming I have seen change in me. I have seen wanting to do more, outside my house and inside my house, things I had forgotten about enjoying to do. I know with everyday there is change in me. For that I am more "THANKFUL EVERYDAY", for my life even if life throws things at me at the time I don't think I can handle. I know my HP has a plan just don't know what it is but I can wait I am in no hurry.
Angeleyes
__________________
I believe in my HP to show me the way!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Hi Angeleyes. ACOA stands for Adult Children of Alcoholics. It's also known as ACA--and that's one of the other forums on this Miracles in Progress board.
ACOA is also a 12-step program which uses the twelve steps of AA as does Al-Anon, but the focus is more on being in touch with our traumatic childhood issues--and thus deals with the roots of the problems that often end up, in our adulthood, having us become alcoholics or marrying them or both!
ACOA teaches us to get in touch with our inner child, and learn to re-parent him or her, since our actual parents were unable to be there for us in many ways.
There's some great literature out there if you are interested in exploring this aspect of the recovery world, and it all fits together really well with working an Al-Anon or AA program.
Hope this helps, and if you'd like more info, check the ACA board for posts, literature, web site links etc.
