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.
This place is my life line between meetings once a week. I have gone to only 6 mtgs and it really helps me to see there is another way to do this but I don't get how yet. That's ok tho' as reading your posts lets me know, I will get it. The slogans have already helped me a lot to stay calm and I keep understanding detachment w/love a bit better each time I read more. I agree with it and how resentment etc can destroy me...........so I want to keep learning how and feeling better.
I know that I have circular thinking and need to step back to reduce or get rid of anxiety. I am just trying to be honest right now about how I am thinking and feeling without analyzing anything. I don't trust my own judgement to analyze anything anymore. Talking to my HP more often helps me loads too and I really like that element of Alanon.
A therapist told me once that talking energizes me and I have been so lethargic today so I thought getting some of these circular thoughts out of my head might help. I have been able to really feel comfortable with steps 1,2, & 3 but that is far as I can go. I am not sure how to ask for a sponcer to help at the f2f mtgs - how did you go about that? I feel my posts are so elementary but I keep practicing to understand even if I get embarassed. Then I think my self esteem blows because I am so over sensitive.... circles upon circles ad nauseum!
Did two day trips with my family and it went ok. Actually I loved having them all together..........it's not often and been a long time. But I could see the wearyness of the older ones which is normal yet they have been damaged by this disease. I am letting go more & more as I know they have come a long way with their own personal healing and the rest is their choices now. Just hope and pray it won't color their future choices of friends or mate. Let go & let God! I am trying to remember this.
Followed those day trips by A, who is cutting down (hmmm?) having an evening of drinking, passing out ......so then resentments, shutting down, avoidance etc of older kids. End of summer makes me sad usually, I remember now so probably just adds to the sad and lethargic feelings. Then I do circles with is this grieving or is this self pity. We can be hard on ourselves. Feeling a little lighter just opening the tap to release the pressure of circular thinking crowding my head.
When A is traveling, I rebound to more energy but when around, I am drained from all the unknowns, trying to figgure out what to do for this or that. It's tiring and so little compared with some of the issues others face. Pity party for attention? I ask myself and then I am mad at myself. Buck up. I remember a stupid fam therapist who didn't really believe 3 of us that the A had been diagnosed an A. This therapist thought I needed to grow up. We got into a round of me saying I can't do all this any more, he said yes you can, you've already been doing it and I said then I didn't want to do it anymore. I was glad we got a new fam therapist when that one got serious illness. That was about 18 mos ago.
I ramble, thanks for reading..... lonely & can't just stay in my own head anymore today I guess. ddub
-- Edited by ddub at 12:40, 2007-08-18
__________________
"Choices are the hinges of destiny." Pythagoras You can't change the past, but you can change the future.
Welcome. Your tiredness comes out in your post. Remember the disease makes us sicker than the A. In my experience, it would pull me down and I would not realize it until he left again or I kicked him out. Then I would realize, there were cobwebs all over, I had not planted any flowers, and had laughed for weeks.
It is amazing how the A's disease can suck us in and drain us before we know it.
I know for me I thought I was doing fine, but in reality I wasn't.
Just becuz someone is a therapist does not mean they know anything about aism. In fact most don't and most doctors don't either.
No bucking up won't work. Sucking it up won't either. If you do you are swallowing the disease.
Al Anon teaches us to detach from the disease and know the A does not choose to be sick.They cannot just stop using. They have to be ready.
We have NO control over it at all. In fact we have no control over anyone but ourselves.
I relate to your apprehension about the kids. Trust your intuition always. Can they go stay overnight with a friend or family? I would never leave ANY child with an A. Just my boundary.
A good book,"Getting Them Sober." It will help you so much.It is so simple to read. It is a major guide for me.
My A left for good a year ago. It killed me and still hurts horribly.I am ready to move on though.
What a great share...right out of my recovery diary. No kidding...circular thing? I remember coming to that awareness and then finding out that if using my imagination to visualize making a gap in the circle and forcing the circle into as much of a straight line I wouldn't have to spiral back in the insanity. That still works for me and there have been times in the past where the circle was soooo tight and fast I was a gonner before I could catch it. Of course forcing the circle into a straight line or path means me doing something different than what I was in the habit of doing what ever that was...different. The line isn't perfectly straight today and there haven't been any spirals for awhile. I get to choose. "I am just trying to be honest right now about how I am thinking and feeling without analyzing anything. I don't trust my own judgement to analyze anything anymore. Talking to my HP more often helps me loads too and I really like that element of Alanon." That one is almost verbatum out of my diary because part of the circle for me was analization and part of the solution was not trusting and therefore not using my own judgments. I used the membership feedback and then picked and "chose what I liked and left the rest" for another time for for never. I had thousands of more recovered members to support me so why use my screwed up, thinker. Ever hear of "stinking thinking"?
"I am not sure how to ask for a sponcer to help at the f2f mtgs - how did you go about that? " The suggestion I used was keep an eye open for someone who seemed to have solid recovery and then just ask them. If they said yes! than ask them to help you start the steps. If they said no! (hurt and grateful at the same time for this fearful new comer) then keep looking and keep asking those you attend meetings with and fit the description of "having a solid recovery". I have had sponsors older than I and younger than I and I have most always had a sponsor. I have broken the rule of women on women and men on men once and she wouldn't let me get away with anything. I have also sponsored a couple women with the caveat that they are to actively look for a woman sponsor withing the first three steps and the start of the forth and then they were on their way. That has worked out well. There is not perfect way to ask and all sponsors should know what it's like to arrive at that point. If the relationship doesn't work out and you feel your recovery is lacking...."fire your sponsor" and get another. If they fire you first redouble your efforts at working this simple program.
You are courageous!! You keep going after it and you don't let your shortcomings stop you. Persistence is marvelous especially in this program where so many others want to see you get the miracles also. I feel like I am reading my diary cause this is what I did also.
If truthfully the emotions are grieving then give yourself time to grieve...along with celebration for the good times also cause we have to have balance and truthfully it wasn't ALL bad. Don't try to turn valid emotional events into proof that there is something wrong with your character cause that doesn't end up in greater recovery. We find out that the thumb on our head holding us down isn't the alcoholics or the disease or our past....IT'S OURS!!. Self pity is an affirmation that something is inherently wrong with us and proof that we and the entire world and the alcoholic are all contriving to keep us in hopelessness. That isn't true!.
I've been thru the therapist scene the same way and mine thought going to Al- Anon was going to crazy women for sanity. He was male. He was wrong. He was humbled. At times he was also a great therapist and at times I was his therapist (I was a counselor also). He was human just as I was and just as vunerable. Knowing that made our relationship fun and exciting. I stayed in control and responsible for my recovery. You are too!
You can stop analyzing any time you want...Stop and go focus on something else. This takes practice so you have the time, ability and facility to practice. When you find yourself trying to figure it all out use the pain and confusing of that to give you permission to stop and go do something else. Read some literature, pray and meditate, mow the yard, wash the car, go get a real great hair cut, call someone in the program if they have room for a sponsee and go to coffee and talk story about the good stuff and sick stuff that has gone on in your life, start finding out what the steps 1,2, and 3 really mean, watch a baseball game and cheer for the other team...do anything else other than analyze. If you are asked if you have the answer to the problem, tell them no! If you are asked if you have the answer to any probelm, tell them I don't know.
Good luck!! Thanks for your share and keep coming back!! (((((Hugs)))))
Thank you Debilyn and Jerry - your posts helped me so very much!
I didn't realize how tired Iwas ................... I've rested & slept more now.
I am starting to see how detachment can help with the A but also with the disease itself and so many other things. That is a new thought to use.
All those ole's sayings of buck up, suck it up etc IS like swallowing the disease and keeps me sick so I am feeling more ok. Accepting that going through it will get me through it.
And Jerry, until I came here I never knew anyone who had swirling thoughts. I've been called over emotional and loads of labels. Read something somewhere that got me to smile finally: "I have so many voices in my head I could have my own group therapy." Never understood that all those voices were my older siblings, parents, bosses etc. Actually scared me that I was worse off than I thought like that Tshirt that says "I listen to the voices in my head"
I've had some wonderful therapists and even some who may have angered me, yet just today I realized the one who knew for 5 YEARS that my H was an A and never told me, so I was angry....probably was prodding me and I wouldn't accept it until I figgured it out on my own. ie: why do you protect your H all the time? Cheesh, hit me over the head, duh! and maybe I'll get it quicker but not believe. At least, I know now. I can use many of your ideas in your post, thank you! And I know more about sponcers and totally can dispel those folks who call AA/Alanon just anothe cult. If it is working for me that's good enough for me.
I am feeling lighter from the support I get here and the lines that help me to remember to smile. My parting line for a smile: "going to an A for support is like trying to buy bread at the hardware store" this one almost makes me giggle even as I've know this for almost 20 years but I kept trying & hoping I could control or change him. I am a slow learner evidently but at least I do learn eventually.
Much thanks again to you both! hugs from ddub
__________________
"Choices are the hinges of destiny." Pythagoras You can't change the past, but you can change the future.
