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So ABF and I doing ok. He is working on him, I am working on me. Things have been going well. I'm at work right now. He typically texts me throughout the day. In the past, I have always known if he relapsed because all texts and communications stop. I have associated a lack of communication with him to be "He's high! I wonder how that happened? Was it because I didn't send an inspirational text this morning!? Good God and we have xyz going on later. Is he going to be to messed up to go?" and other similar racing thoughts and anxiety.
Now- it is unlikely (not impossible because you just never know) that he has lapsed because he is currently in a daily drug and alcohol screening program. They will send him to jail if he screens dirty, does not attend his multiple weekly meetings, etc.
I had a brief moment of "that panic" earlier when he didn't text for a couple hours. I thought to myself, THIS IS RIDICULOUS! So what if he lapses. Your not the one going to jail. You'll work, go home on a Friday night and eat dinner and snuggle up with your kids and watch a movie with pillows, blankets and hugs and kisses. You've got it made.
But it was a true knee-jerk, visceral reaction. How do you all cope with the automatic intrusive negative "other" focused thinking? I am trying to get to where i'm focused so much on my priorities that its been 10 hours and i'm all like "Oh, I haven't heard from bf for a while, oh well, guess he's busy" and then just continue rocking along in Kim-Life. I do not want to plagued with anxiety.
Hi!
I have a similar reaction when my wife is out of contact for a few hours. (Usually she is messaging and texting me all day long.)
I usually will take a walk and get into a new project, or hop on here when I am feeling that way. For me right now, I find that the practice of different reactions is helping me to over time focus less on her and what she might be doing. (Haven't heard from her like I usually do? Great. Off to my meeting anyway...)
Giving myself permission to take a break, too, by taking a walk or reading a page in one of the books, putting on my favorite CD, etc. helps me to get out of crazy frantic panic mode and back into a more normal, self-focused attitude.
But, when push comes to shove, I still worry that she is out drinking, and I still worry that she is going to get drunk. Like the serenity prayer says, I am trying to accept that because I certainly cannot change it. I spent a good eight years demonstrating to myself all the things I could do and change that would have no impact on her drinking at all. Her drinking, her choice.
I hope that this will become easier with more practice.
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Skorpi
If you are depressed, you are living in the past. If you are anxious, you are living in the future. If you are at peace, you are living in the present. - Lao Tzu
What a great topic - I have quite a problem with switching off from this type of thinking.
Part of the process for me has been acknowledging that this is a legacy left over from a past way of behaving. I try to recognising what I'm doing, then find something else to sooth the anxiety that I am feeling. I guess I am trying to pull my focus back onto my life. I also try to recognise that my husband is a grown up who makes his own decisions and I do not have to check up on him all of the time! I am, in a good way, not responsible for him, just myself. I am not expressing this very well!!
What helps me most is to be aware that I am in this kind of behavior. I usually bring myself back to reality of saying to myself what is happening this very minute. When I get these thoughts, I know going down that road is never anything happy and I am torturing myself with "what ifs" or crazy anxieties about what might happen, or could happen..... Yes just spinning out of control.
I am so tuned in that I stop myself and parent myself and say no and think about something else. If the thought process is so huge I go and do something physical like take a walk, shower, or clean the house which jolts my brain to focus on that task instead of going insane is what I call it.
Sometimes I think alnon is a training program. Practice practice practice... Work the brain to that peaceful zen!
cottonJ
For me awareness is the first step, then I can become willing to change my behavior. I can remember when my A got sober and the panic, the waiting for the other foot to drop. I can remember obsessively checking the bank accounts for withdrawals, checking phone records.. all for what? nothing, it would not accomplish nothing other than driving myself insane!! Instead once I was aware of this, I was able to sit back and say Kat, you are driving yourself insane... let go, turn it over. Every morning I would hit my knees and ask for this obsession of meddling in his recovery, play detective to be lifted... every time the urge came I would get busy with something else and pray to my HP... I dont know exactly when it happened, but today I dont check the accounts, I dont check the phones... today I try to keep the focus on me, my side of the street clean and within my own hula hoop....
