I just started attending alanon meetings less than a month ago, and it has already left an indelible impact on my day to day life. My husband noticed right away and was effusive with praise by how quickly I took to making real changes in the management of my emotions. I'm able to control my need to control, express judgement, and manage my anger rationally. I have a lot of work ahead of me, do not get me wrong, but the mere consciousness of those aforementioned issues has already sent me (and my marriage) in a better direction. 

A little backstory:

I would've qualified to be a member of Alanon at all points in my life. Literally everyone on my maternal side of the family is/was an alcoholic, many of whom succumbed to the disease as their ultimate cause of death. My mom, whom I love despite our tumultous history of alcoholism, is now 8 months sober. The longest she's ever been sober in my life. I understand that is subject to change, and long ago made peace with the fact that she was probably going to remain an alcoholic forever, but she did inspire me to go to Alanon so I can begin the healing on myself that's so desperately overdue. My brother is also a qualifier, and he is still in deep denial about his illness. I have nothing but compassion for him, but have established boundaries long ago with him to keep my sanity (I no longer take his melancholy and disturbing late night calls, defend his actions to other family members when he does something regrettable, and most importantly, do not try to encourage him to quit drinking). I somehow escaped the curse of being an alcoholic myself, but that's not to say I haven't had a troubled relationship with alcohol. I learned my limits in my early twenties, and by my mid-twenties was able to drink in moderation. However, I had a self-consciousness about every sip, glass, and the frequency with which I chose to drink. Now, I pretty much don't drink at all and if I do it's one drink at a restaurant at best. It's expensive and it makes me sick, even in the smallest quantities so I see myself becoming a happy tea-totaler in the long run. 

Prior to meeting my husband, I was your classic co-dependent. I never dated an alcoholic, but I did date two recovering ones, a gambler, etc. I was drawn to men who appeared to need nurturing and fixing--it's insane how blind I was to myself back then. Even part of what drew me to my husband was our shared background as being adult children of alcohlics. Of course, our relationship is much more than that, but regardless some patterns are still there. 

I really feel like I'm the embodiment of the four M's. Mothering, manipulating, martyring, and managing. I was a nanny for the early part of my adulthood, moved into the business world and became a manager as it came naturally to me, and those traits in particular stayed with me after my shifts. I can be an incredible nag to my husband and have often taken on the motherly role in our relationship, something neither of us want to occur. I have also struggled for as long as I can remember with painful self-awareness and conflict. In my childhood, I got very talented at keeping on a happy face despite whatever chaos was enshrouding our home at the time. 

I had the joy of giving birth to our first child nine months ago, and she has inspired me to be the best person I can be, for both hers and my sake. I came to the conclusion recently that in order to do so, I need to heal some generational traumas that I do not want to pass on to her. I'm more optimistic about both myself and family's future than ever, and just want to say thank you Alanon for this opportunity. 

Thank you for reading, and I look forward to supporting each other in our individual recoveries.