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.
Today's author long saw the qualifier's disease in terms of how it affected her/his life, seeing the actions of the alcoholic as reflecting on them. In this way, the ups and downs of the alcoholic's recovery were taken personally.
Looking back, the author identified the most important thing they learned in AlAnon: Well-being should not depend on whether the alcoholic drinks or not. It only depends on, and is a reflection of, what we are doing, and our acceptance of what is rather than what we are waiting and hoping for.
Reminder: Regardless of what our qualifier is doing, the time to put our effort toward our own recovery is now.
"AlAnon helped me to focus my attention on what I could do about my situation, instead of concentrating all my attention on what I thought the alcoholic should do. I was the one who had to take a stand." ...In All Our Affairs ******************** I allowed my well-intended but poorly aimed efforts to "help" and "support" my qualifier to overtake my life, resulting in feelings of insanity and unmanageability. In the process, I also interfered with my qualifier's path to recovery because I robbed them of the respect and satisfaction of figuring it out on their own.
When AlAnon helped me see the need to take care of my side of the street and get out of the way, my qualifier had the room to make choices, experience setbacks and progress of their own making. There was plenty of work to do on myself to keep me busy for a lifetime, and every bit of effort I put into adopting healthier attitudes and behavior improved the overall situation.
My life got better when I stopped trying to fix others and got to work on myself. My qualifier's recovery, or setback, was my qualifier's business. With less I focus on them, and more on working my program, the more peace and serenity I find. One daty at a time, progress, not perfection...
__________________
Paul
"...when we try to control others, we lose the ability to manage our own lives." - Paths to Recovery
It gets so ingrained though...I'm starting to realise that it's going to probably be a life-long constant effort to guard against slipping back into this one insidious state of mind. For example, one of my qualifiers, who has not treated me well, called me the other day all meek and stressed and whiney because their actions have had consequences...they wanted me to drop everything and go and help them deal. I had just finished my last exam and was SO looking forward to just melting into my chair for the night and enjoying the lack of stress. So I said no. And then I said, feeling sick as I said it, "But I suppose you can call me if you really need to, I mean try to deal with it on your own but if you can't, I guess, I mean I don't want you to feel alone and....." UGH!!! Why did I add that bit in? Because I couldn't bear to see myself as "cold" or "uncaring". It'd be easy to say that I felt guilty but that isnt actually true...it wasn't that I didn't want them to deal with it alone (I think they effing well SHOULD face their consequences alone- maybe they'll learn something for once). It was that I didn't like having to see myself reflected through their eyes as mean or selfish. Really, all it should have come down to was- did I want to help? No. Did I feel a responsibility to help? No. No need for the guilt, anxst and second guessing myself! Long way to go, me
Thank you Paul for your service, the daily and your ESH. I readily allowed my emotions to be contingent on the emotional state of those I loved - I thought that was what love was/is.....boy howdy - I had a lot to learn. It took me a long while + a good sponsor to 'see' that healthy people offer loving support and encouragement for a sick person, not their entire soul/emotional state.
Before recovery, I too was consumed with what others were doing/not doing. I was one who came to Al-Anon hoping for a fix for another's drinking. I had an unrealistic view of life - if they would change, I would be happy. Again, healthy people strive to be happy no matter what else is happening around them.
I too had the best of intentions. I allowed these 'intentions' to consume me and them and the insanity grew - the more I helped or advised, the crazier things go. There was a part of me that thought and felt it was my job to fix, change, control others so they could find joy and happiness. Recovery taught me that we are each responsible for our own joy and peace and a good day is when I can be of service without falling into the pot-hole with another.
Happy Hump Day - off to a meeting in a while and hoping the rain comes a bit later! Having the 'little people' and my oldest over for a sleep over tonight so am child-proofing my home! Starting next week, Wednesday will be another softball evening - grateful....all this socializing is keeping me busier than I am used to!! The good news - with a weekly Wednesday evening party or overnight guests, my house is staying cleaner than typical....ha.ha.ha.
Make it a great day! (((Hugs)))
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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
Good Morning Paul. " Changed attitudes do aid recovery"- as is stated in our alanon closing. Program did provide me with extremely important tools that helped me to let go of my attempts to control others,as well as helping to change my negative destructive attitudes.
I did this by working the Steps and slogans and so developed, new constructive attitudes. These allowed me to place principles above personalities and treat everyone with courtesy and respect .What a difference.
Love this program and appreciate your service. Have a good day
I am still married to and living with my A. I was sharing in my F2F last evening that it is a daily challenge, to not revert back to where I was 4 Yr's ago prior to program. A just finished an intensive day program and now has decisions to make what she will do for aftercare. I have no trust and no faith in her decisions. I spent about 24 hrs fuming after our last session with the therapist last week. But program helps me recover rather quickly. I don't stay stuck in my pity party very long. I'm back taking care of me, setting up "our " new home but I doubt she will be there much. I pray each morning she will follow through with treatment but I have made my own new path and I will be fine no matter what she does. Alanon has given me the strength to follow through with buying a place near my son. I can be there half the time or all the time. I finally have an excellent choice. Today a washer, dryer, and new range are being delivered. I feel like it's Christmas, presents for me! Thanks to all of you, Lyne
Thank you for your service. This really spoke to me today when I read it in my C2C book. I am happiest and healthiest when I am focused on improving myself and not focused on improving my AH (or anyone else for that matter). A very interesting by product I have noticed about this is that by taking the focus off "helping" my AH he's starting to actually look at improving himself. Since I've been in the program I feel that I have made a lot of progress and I am happy about that and motivated to continue going forward. I also see my AH starting to make steps to decrease his drinking (instead of denying that he drinks or hiding his drinking). I've seen him start to make appointments to take care of some of his health issues which he wasn't doing before, I've also seen him reflect on his moods instead of reacting to them and taking them out on people and I've seen him reflect on why he's so unhappy and try to make changes to improve his happiness. In the past before AL Anon I would have seen it all as a waste of time if he wasn't doing what I thought he should do. I can see how judgemental that attitude was and how discouraging it must have been to live with someone who would sit and tell him that if he's not doing what I think he should do the way I think he should do it he won't succeed. I was at a meeting the other day and the message I kept hearing from the sharing and reading was "it's his choice if he drinks, it's his choice, it's his choice" For some reason I had to get that through my head and it really sunk in. He goes up and down with his drinking but at the end of the day his drinking is his choice and what he does about it has to be his choice. So I'm working on respecting him enough to let him make his choices while still taking care of myself. For me in my relationship I think there has been a lot of respect lost on both sides. I lost a lot of respect for him because of his drinking and I started to act that way. At some point I decided that I was the only capable adult in my household and I could treat others the way I felt was best. I've come to realize that I don't want to be that person. No matter what happens between my AH and I, I want to treat him, and others, and myself with respect. I think I made the mistake of confusing respect with agreement with others. I don't have to agree with him to respect him and his right to make choices for himself, even poor choices. As I have worked on being more respectful to others no matter how they are treating me, I have been getting it back from others as well. And When I respect other's enough to let them make their own choices it frees me to let go of what they are doing and focus on myself.
For me, this is the core of my getting better. There are so many auxiliary benefits to me not taking someone else's behavior personally. It gives them the dignity of experiencing the results of their behavior. I never for a minute thought about that one before I narrowed my focus to me. That's hard to believe now.
I am still on guard to provide safety to children and to alert adults if they're in danger, but anything else is not my business.
By having retired from the police force to the world, I am free to find myself and live my best life. This is so much better.
Thank you for your service, Paul, and for all the esh above. This is so true about me, but thankfully a lot less lately, thanks to the program and the shared experience of its members.
Thank you! I really appreciate hearing the bit about how trying to control someone else robs them of their agency to fix the problem. So much of who we are (the good parts) is built in a solo battle. If we have hands to hold, we don't come out with the perseverance and maturity we might have.
In the meantime, for those of us who were too focused on someone else's battle, we can point that energy inward & improve ourselves! Plus maybe even inspire those around us. Thanks again for this encouraging message.
