Hi there Ignutah
This is a great realization you have come to. Thank you for sharing. I struggle with this one too. My AH goes up and down with his drinking. Every time he has had very little to drink I get hopeful that he has decided to stop. I even try to tell myself when he hasn't been drinking to expect him to drink again but that little seed of hope gets in there and then the inevitable disappointment hits me and it hits me HARD. I will come home to find him drunk and all my hopes will be dashed. Letting myself get carried away with this kind of thinking has been causing me a huge amount of grief. For example, last night I went to my F2F meeting and I came home to find him intoxicated. He had been hiding his drinking all afternoon. I found evidence that he had thrown up while I was gone. He told me he had acid reflux. But my meeting was the perfect preparation for this situation. I normally would have tried to "make him see" that he had a problem. But we had been talking a lot in my meeting about acceptance. And I realize that for my own sanity I need to accept the situation for what it is. I can still be hopeful but I think that comes after acceptance. And I think hope has to do with hoping but still moving forward with MY life. I've been working on accepting my marriage for what it is rather than what I so desperately want it to be. Al anon has been teaching me to focus on myself. Right now I am focusing my hope on me. Hope that I can live a better more fulfilling life. Because I am powerless over everyone else but me.

For me, before I came to this program, I don't view my projections as 'hope' - they were fairy-tale type things that I thought I deserved and expected. I am fortunate to have parents that stayed together for ever (60 years next June) and their relationship is way good with bad moments. So, as many of us believe, I figured I would grow up, find a perfect partner, get married in a perfect marriage, have a perfect life with perfect children and no hardship.....

Dream on.....

So - I had to let go of what I thought my life would be. Looking back, my expectations were not even close to reality. We are imperfect people, living in an imperfect world and there will be pain, heart-ache, disappointment, etc. Does this disease give us more hardship than others? We would probably say, Yes. However, I've come to believe that every person has challenges and life is about making it through and still finding joy along the way.

Hope for me has nothing to do with what I want. Hope for me has to do with God's will and having faith that he did not put me here to be unhappy. It has to do with what God's will is for all of us, peace on Earth, etc. It's not personal. I do not pray that my A(s) recover; I pray that God gives them what they need. In the program, often this is a bottom that drives them towards recovery, but who am I to know what is best for anyone else? Myself included!

So - my hope is for God's will and my ability to follow it vs. fight it. One day at a time!

Great thread!

I love this thread - thank you so much for the reminder to remember that others are free to choose their paths - as am I - and just for today I choose smiles and joy and gratitude.

I love it here!