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.
As stated, I am new to al-anon and I went to the end of an online meeting yesterday. So, I didn't get the full effect of the meetings. I would like to know more about this group and the 12 steps and what we are suppose to do. I am not an addict but my boyfriend is a recovering addict and al-anon I think is exactly what I need to be able to recover so we are both going on the right track in our individual lives. My questions go to anyone who can answer them-
I want to start the 12 step meetings but I've been looking through some of the posts and I really don't know how to begin. Is there a website that breaks down everything to begin?
Also, I know Alanon will accept me but are they the right place for me when the experience I was dealing with was someone who was not an alcoholic? Are there specific places for families and friends of individuals who are in NA and trying to cope?
I want to basically point out to anyone who reads this is my mentality as of now.
I am done trying to fix my problems, but that is my disposition so I am trying to fight the maybe things can't be fixed to how I want them. So, I feel that there are signs and things haunting me everyday that this will never go away unless I am able to understand it better and learn something from it and move on. My boyfriend said that I'm just placing band aids on the problems and I think that is straight to the point. He helped me find this group because I had no idea that it existed and he said I should find help somewhere but the worst thing is when you want to be educated on the topic and you don't know your resources. I think all these various messages about addiction and drugs that bombard me through t.v., radio, people, on-line won't leave me alone unless I learn from all of it. So, I am trying to bite the bullet and this is my first official attempt to try and have an open mind and find some answers for this disease. I am still somewhat confused on that concept but trying to figure it out.
I did come to the realization TODAY that before when I didn't know he was using and being horrible to me that it was his addiction talking. I thought it was really something I did because he blamed anything and everything on me. Eventually, he told me what was going on and it was as if all made sense for his irrational thinking. My problem is that while I used to be a very open minded and accepting person, but during his addiction he made me feel those traits were negative because he wanted to be in control and now out of his addiction my feelings had changed because of the mentality that was at work then are working against me understanding him now.
For awhile, after he told me about his problem and he was getting help that I thought/felt that he was using "he had a disease and it was his addiction" as an excuse to cover his mean, horrible, self-fish and god knows intolerable attitude. I thought it was all a trick that he was using the term disease as an excuse so I would have to forgive him and understand that the time he was using wasn't really him, but I felt I needed some type of justice for his actions. I felt that he was using that as an excuse to get out of all the torment and anger I had to repress because I didn't know what else to do. Plainly, I just felt it wasn't fair, That he had the easy part, he got to be self-fish and do whatever he wanted and I had to pay for his mistakes.
I thought about it today - and I'm beginning to understand the concept of the disease by reading more on this website. I am beginning to realize the concept of his disease and the disease was the culprit to all this torment on both parties.
I broke it down to myself that his irrational views, when he was using made me think that I had to become irrational thinking to make him happy, because he was treating me that way and I had no idea what was going on. But then now he's getting help and I'm finally realizing that the families and friends need recovery time too because they pick up maybe more irrational thinking from the confusion of being ignorant to the situation (like myself) and I can see that this group helps to turn it around again. (Thank God!) To help the irrational thinkers become rational and clear minded once again. Its somewhat like the drugs brain washed both parties somehow and then now since we can talk and recover its coming back or washing all the jumbled up emotions in our brains to become clean again.
I can't help trying to fix my own problems and I guess that in a way is my addiction. That's why I need to know more about this group so someone please point me in the right direction and if someone knows how I feel please talk to me. :) Thanks for listening.
I'm on my way out, so just a quick note from me right now - yes, alanon is the right place for you. There is naranon, but they are few and far between, and there is no way all of us who are affected by a loved one's addiction could get by without alanon. It doesn't really matter what the loved one's drug of choice is - the disease is the same, and anyway, this program is about you, not about him.
That is what I have been learning about alanon and I think it is about time to figure out myself. I have picked up that it was the same, but some of the research I've done made me feel that I might not be in the right place so I am just checking. I think the whole disease concept somewhat confused me because I didn't know any/all drugs are the same nor had no idea about this concept. I am trying to grasp the concept and I am one day at a time. That's why I want to learn more about it and how I feel in the process and I thank you for replying to me.
Welcome to MIP! You have come to the right place. Alanon is for family and friends or alcoholics but really any addiction will do. It took a lot of courage to come to this site. You will find many tools to use. Try to go to a face to face meeting too.
Well I think for me the focus for the recovery had to be me. I lived with a man who was both mentally ill and an addict. He self medicated with lots of drugs. He had major health issues from using drugs for years. I could spend a lifetime working out what's wrong with him. The issue for me was in working out how the way I over reacted to him meant that I drained all my energy and my resources. I certainly burned a lot of people out by obsessing about him night and day and being enrated, shock and grief all the time. This is a great place to come to that you can explore your feelings in safey. Some of us, well me particularly when I shared how I felt with others, they really just wanted me to shut up, either live with him or leave him and leaving him was for me very very difficult. I have to say its still difficult and I'm almost a year out on it.
My boyfriend was often irrational, he was certainly abusive and very manipulative. That kind of behavior is very damaging. What I learned here was that most of the time his behavior had very very little to do with me. He'd make it all about me and some thing but it wasn't. His behavior was the result of his addiciton. I started to learn to detach pretty early on. That helped I still have to detach and I no longer have contact with him.
I found early recovery very hard going. My whole body and mind was fixated on he needed to change and of course he didn't so I was permanently in a rage and then in grief. I could not conceive of leaving him. I felt a tremendous failure. In fact his addiction was there long before I arrived and will probably be with him for a long time to come. Nevertheless I took it tremendously personally. I felt he could give it up for me, for my needs. The issue was he never was much interested in my needs at all.
My issue as that neither was I. I would spend a lot of time talking about people especially the A who did not take care of me, honor me or respect me when I didn't do that for myself either.
I spent years arguing with the A. We fought from morning to night then through the night, then through weeks and years. When I came here I was able to stop fighting with him and focus on me. That was so liberating.
I can tell you this group has helped me immeasurably. I am hardly the success story. I struggle tremendously financially and emotinally but I am no longer the basket case I once was. Good luck on your journey home!
I want to reply to you more later but I was checking the site before I went to bed. I wanted to say Thank you for your story and that is an inspiration. It is hard to detach when all I want to do is fix everything, because that's what I think was instilled in me at birth.
I think you are a success that you were able to learn to focus on yourself and are able to move forward. That is probably the biggest success of all when you can be happy to be you and be content with that. I feel that people put alot of pressure on an individual in society when we have to shut out our emotions and make others happy to get ahead or keep the peace, and that we should feel good because we want to make others happy.
Well, I learned tonight while talking to another person in Alanon that you have to come first and I feel sometimes that it is hard to do because I'm used to helping others because I don't want to appear selffish. That word just strikes me as negative, but what's another word for caring about yourself in a positve way. But I think its great that we can talk and become "selffish" and recover from all the burdens that are holding us down. This place is very much like a miracle in which we can express how we feel and not be scared. I am very grateful that my boyfriend who began my torment, but through his recovery heard about Alanon and passed me to this group, so I finally found some place to recover as well. I'm getting more into this and it's definately some place where I can work on myself and be uplifted and I can help others as well. Now, I feel that I'm definately in a win-win situation when for a long time its been a lose-lose in my mind. I think talking it out in a productive way with people who know whats going on is the best medicine. Thank you for writing to me. I greatly appreciate the help, and I hope one day it will be returned back to you. :)
It's amazing how I go back to remembering what it was like to be a newcomer in this program. You are right in awareness that we have to start somewhere. Mindset is also important and if you can adopt a patience mindset with openmindedness you will find help.
Face to face meetings are the real thing. You get to hear the message from the messenger there along with tons of literature, coffee and meetings after the meetings or one on one conversations or groups.
Yes this is an amazing recovery site to come to. There are members in the program here that have growth and spiritual awareness that is truely beyond normal. There is latitude here also as some of the protocol of face to face meetings is not present so keep coming back here.
You can find the face to face meetings by calling the hotline number from your local phone book. Oure meetings are universal and the literature is in most languages so they (the meetings) are not hard to find.
If you need to touch someone personally here a Personal Message will get you there.
Good luck and keep coming back soon and often. (((((hugs)))))
Hello Everyone,