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.
Oh my, I am delighted. Sat with AH watching TV. He has a glass of wine which he just knocked over. Old me would have lept up. Cleaned it all up. A lot went over his phone. I would have fussed about. Then when I had cleaned everywhere, I would have trotted off to refill his glass.
Today, in my fabulous Al-anon mode, I didn't react at all. Didn't move a muscle! Am sat back celebrating on here while AH cleans it all up. yaaaaaaay.
I got a chuckle out of this as I can see me.....in both personalities! Way to go - progress is a wonderful thing to witness - even better to recognize!!
(((Hugs)))
__________________
Practice the PAUSE...Pause before judging. Pause before assuming. Pause before accusing. Pause whenever you are about to react harshly and you will avoid doing and saying things you will later regret. ~~~~ Lori Deschene
thanks everyone. Yes, AH did look rather startled! Why isn't she rescuing me?
I am pleased with how I am doing. I have reduced my enabling, rescuing behaviours right down. I slip now and then and do some then realise afterwards. Progress not perfection.
AH is seriously ill from his drinking career so in some cases he isn't physically able to do things so my challenge is to do the normal caring things a wife would do for a disabled H but not do any toxic enabling.
Of course throw in the manipulative A persona so it is tricky sometimes to pick out his genuine illness issues and just his lazy A attitude of getting someone else to do what he can do for himself.
He has heart failure, neuropathy, COPD, brain damage.
-- Edited by Calm Lady on Saturday 13th of August 2016 12:37:00 AM
I am impressed! You truly are making great progress. I know from personal experience, being responsible for the care of a sick husband -- with the illnesses you described -- is such a hard job, and adding alcoholism makes it that much harder. I'm so impressed with your positive attitude.
gave me a chuckle as i no longer have to cleanup after ah because he is close to xah and i dont live there lol. however my new guy is a hoarder so i sometimes volunteer to help him as he wants desperately to overcome it..but i use alanon with this.........
Many thanks for your supporting replies. It helps give me perspective. I have been AHs "carer" for about five years. He gradually became sick as this disease will do. Heart failure was the first thing to appear.
I thank God for his help in this balancing act of care versus enabling. I do actually enjoy it. So please don't think i am suffering being a martyr with my caring for hub.
I have developed a good sense of humour with it. I love AA & Al-anon humour. Laugh because you share the recognition of a situation.
I used to have a nasty sense of humour. It was all at someone else's expense. Sarcastic. Glad to let that go. I enjoy happy humour.
-- Edited by Calm Lady on Sunday 14th of August 2016 10:03:25 AM
Calm Lady - I can relate to the nasty sense of humor and the scarcasm......I am so grateful today to live a different way and find humor in reality vs. my chaotic distorted view of life. (((Hugs)))
__________________
Practice the PAUSE...Pause before judging. Pause before assuming. Pause before accusing. Pause whenever you are about to react harshly and you will avoid doing and saying things you will later regret. ~~~~ Lori Deschene
In was only when I came into program that I realised what a nasty sense of humour i had. It was the normal way of being to me. My family and people i mixed with were the same.
I now find it unpleasant to laugh at someone else's expense. Glad to be able to put that right.
I find lots of comedians nasty and very not funny. Am not fond of violence or swearing on TV either. I was oblivious to both those things before.
I started with al-anon to work on living with or relating to my qualifiers. I knew it was a program to work on me, but I really felt it was just in relation to any/all A in my life. What a surprise to see it really starting to work in all areas of my life. At the mention of sarcasm and nasty humor, it hit me. Without any conscious thought, I have been choosing to become less sarcastic and negative in my humor.
For example: on Facebook which I have a love/ hate relationship with, I will post memes that are either sarcatic or negative in some way. They are funny, but so negative about things. I had saved a bunch of them to post at a later time and recently when I looked at them, I deleted them all. My thought was, why would I deliberately post such negativity and display not only my own ability to be ugly, but to spread more ugliness into the world? Delete, delete, delete. Comes back to, "if you don't have anything nice to say, say don't say anything at all!"
So, the program works in ways we are' to even looking for. YAY for us!
Lol. Me too! On FB I used to be subscribed to sarcastic quotes but suddenly I stopped finding them funny. Just plain old nasty. I took them all off.
I now often think of that old saying about if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all.
I had another experience with my close friend. I hadn't seen her for quite a while, we met for coffee. I found it really boring, it was all gossip and who had put weight on! I don't care, am not interested. I was really surprised how differently I felt. It felt nasty and horrible.
I wanted to talk about upbeat happy things.
Yes, yaaaaaaay for us.
Have a lovely day too.
-- Edited by Calm Lady on Sunday 14th of August 2016 11:29:16 AM
