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

 

 

(((((Naomi)))))  Welcome to the board and it is helpful that you have shared your now ESH ((Experiences Strenghts and Hopes)).  Newbies are Newbies you don't know what you don't know and for me I had to Sigh and let go of doing and learning too much at one time all the time.  IAH has got some very good experience to share...she has time in recovery and shares it well.    For me one of the first invaluable tools I learned and got was patience...slow down, listen, learn, practice and the old timers were so good and willing to teach me how and if they didn't or I wouldn't let them I spent many additional hours, days, weeks and months in the pain of this disease of addiction.  It was what it was and was what it was supposed to be.  My part in the recovery process was duplicating what others had done before me and were willing to share with me.  My alcoholic/addict wife had her own trials and tribulations and didn't really have the ESH to teach me very much.  She could not teach me about sanity because she and I practiced un-sanity daily together.  We both didn't know and didn't know we didn't know.  I was glad that my first attendance to Al-Anon came from her sponsor thru her to me as they shared what the disease was like in their lives including experiences that included me also.  She was gossiping and I very reluctantly found the front door to a meeting which I kept ignoring for a long time until like you now I started my own search and discover that included a Higher Power greater than me, my alcoholic/addict wife and her sponsor.

I offer you only one of the pearls of wisdom that eventually led to my sanity and sobriety. "Keep coming back...this works when your work it".  I continued to work it even without my ex-wife as she continued to drink and use and experience the insanity of addiction.  She stayed out for an additional 9 years and my life changed in ways I would never imagine at that time.  

Let your Higher Power have your husband and go find a good sponsor; who is willing to share her successes in recovery with you and walk the journey with you also.  Keep coming back here too give us what you learn also.   (((((hugs))))) 

Hugs,

Glad you are here and I hope regardless of what your spouse does or doesn't do you will keep coming back.

Welcome :)

S :)

Welcome! Im a relative newbie myself so I dont have nearly as much ESH to share as the others. But I do have one nugget I can pass along that has really stuck with me over the past week or so. It was something JerryF said in a post recently. It was along the lines of - when I stopped fighting, I started winning. And even though Im still very early in my recovery, Im finding that to be about as true a statement as there ever was. Before I started my recovery I was trying so hard to fix and control things that are simply not mine to fix and control. All the discussions, all the arguments, all the reassurances I sought from my AH about his drinking were examples of me trying to exert my will upon him. It never brought me peace. Instead it filled me with even more pain and anxiety as I busied myself monitoring him and awaiting the next broken promise, preparing myself to step in yet again. It was emotionally exhausting. Im finding that the peace Ive so desperately sought all these years is only available to me when I stop fighting a war that isnt mine to fight. I have my own battles ahead that I need to prepare for and so I come here, arming myself with as much knowledge and experience as I can. Whether or not he wins his war is on him. Either way, I intend to win mine.