Crmans - I am sorry to hear of the many frustrations and issues. Recovery is not easy, nor is it instant. Living with this disease in another does take it's toll on us. I have always had a short fuse and also had tons of anger when I got here. I did not know how to get past the past, the present, etc. What I do know is not making the effort was worse than trying.

You are NOT failing! When we react differently than desired, we can retreat and regroup. If you are not getting the results desired, try using another tool. If you have a good day and then a less than stellar day, compare the two to see if there is something you can learn/do differently. Time takes time, change takes time.

JADE was so very helpful for me - Don't Justify, Argue, Defend or Explain. The only way I knew how to do this at first was literally to just keep my lips zipped unless I had something pleasant to say. I took my negative energy, my anger, my rants, etc. to my sponsor who helped me determine if it was me, us or another (it was me)...

Keep doing what you feel comfortable, One Day at a Time...you are not alone!

-- Edited by Iamhere on Friday 19th of June 2020 10:08:50 PM

Hugs,

None of this is easy and NONE of it is overnight. I have had to really look at how long it took me to get to the place I was at and I was sick and tired of being sick and tired. You will find anyone on the boards or in meetings or wherever at some point can be as sick as they were the day they walked into program .. it doesn't matter how long you have in the program it's how quickly you see that and bounce back. That said I wanted the healing NOW .. there was no work through it .. there was no work the steps .. instant relief is what I wanted and sometimes still do. This is a sometimes quickly sometimes slowly situation. The slowly is like come on already .. I want to move on. LOL .. again .. not my time .. it's going to be my HP's time.

I'm going to tell you .. your anger and frustration is TOTALLY VALID .. this is a TOTALLY unreasonable situation and I can't stress that enough. As Dr Phil would say .. how's all that anger working for you? Do you feel better or worse? For me I felt worse, so it was about finding a more positive way to handle the anger and believe me it still flames up I just now know what it's called so it's become less exhausting because I can say ohh see you feel you and yup .. this is an appropriate response to an unreasonable situation. Anger is EXHAUSTING. I don't think it's productive to tell anyone well just get over it, you shouldn't feel angry, he's sick, blah blah blah .. yes some of it is the reality of the situation .. when you feel that kind of anger .. it doesn't help .. it's like telling a depressed person .. pull yourself up by the bootstraps and get over it. Somethings are NOT helpful when dealing with stuff and being in the throws of it. It's better for me to reach out to someone who just says, yup .. I can hear you are angry about an unreasonable situation are you ready to talk about some ways to deal with it or do you just need to blow steam. Nothing pisses me off more than someone sitting on their high horse saying .. oh just forgive and move on .. hey jackwagon I can't forgive myself and you want me to forgive someone else? That's where I was at when I came into the program.

So no .. you aren't failing .. you have a willingness to learn something new. For me it felt awkward at first and sometimes still does to do something different. Some of it worked .. some of it took a while to figure it out and try it on .. take it off and try it on again before things started to feel like I was able to say yes .. this is starting to make sense.

If you haven't listened to any podcasts of Mary Pearl (ohhh she was extra when she got mad at her husband .. LOL .. I could fully relate however I probably would be in jail .. lol), Kathy H, Larcene (SP?, can't think of her last initial) search for them on YouTube Recovery they are awesome and Mary Pearl for me I could identify with her anger. Plus Father Tom is another one who addresses anger. For me I no longer apologize for feeling angry about something that's a completely reasonable response when something isn't reasonable .. what I do with that anger is different. Now it's easier to say ok .. this is how I see the situation .. how can I make this less stressful for myself.

Funny story actually .. have a new puppy (pre covid19) and my sig other oh goodness .. working a TON of OT at the moment. So no one is home with the puppy. He works nights and I work days .. and pup is being kenneled way more than he needs to be and who is he taking it out on? The person who is tired when they come home and I am trying to keep house, cook dinner, take care of pets and you can kind of catch where I'm going my days are 18+ hours and I'm not sleeping 6 of those hours. By the end of the week I'm done. So yes, I blew .. and it was not pretty. I would like to have a moment to sit down without being mauled by an 11lb terrier. He wasn't being bad he was completely pent up and I can't unwind that boy in an 1 hour. I was yelling all night long to get off the cat, stop jumping, stop biting and again .. he's being a puppy. We are also in an apartment. So just letting him run isn't an option. Guess who is in doggy daycare. We can afford it, it's very reasonable. He did his first day this week and OMG .. completely different boy. He was so happy the next morning and way more relaxed so that really made my whole night. We played, he still jumped and did a little nipping .. it wasn't as agitated. So he will start going 3x a week starting Monday. He will also get 1 30 min session of training while he is there as well. You know who wasn't ok with it? The guy who isn't home .. sorry .. you aren't home so this is about me and my evenings throughout the week. I still have 18 hour weeks and I'm going to try to fix that too. LOL. I work and this isn't taking away from our budget or our goals we have, wait until I get the house cleaner in to do the deep clean .. cause I'm not spending my staycation doing housework the whole time. I want to paint. It's not MY responsibility to carry everything that needs to be done and I can ask for help when I need it. If I ask and I don't receive it .. I'm not asking the right person. So I can relook at my options.

This is really the gift that Alanon gave to me is realizing I have choices. I didn't realize I had those choices. So now my mind opened to new possibilities that when I was living in the anger which for me created tunnel vision and a vocabulary of "nothing is ever going to change. I am stuck and this is as good as it gets." That's what I call survival mode and living in that mode isn't really living .. it's existing. Trust me being homeless is being stuck in survival mode, with children is like survival mode on steroids'. which with the XAH I had already been living in for many prior years and that was my own self torture. He didn't do that to me .. I DID that to me. Everyone deserves the right not to live to exist. My brain was obsessed over how do I get through the next 24 hours, this was not the one day at a time, it was how do I pay the gas and electric bill before it's shut off, how do I rob peter to pay paul, how do I feed my kids, will we have a roof next week. Now that doesn't mean everything is great and there's never a crisis .. the crisis's are more speedbumps than the brick wall. From time to time a crater hits .. even then there are ways to handle those without going to survival mode. It's really a great relief not to be there 99.9% of the time. I have moments where I backslide currently in one now .. it will pass. I know based upon my experience of falling down and getting up it won't stick around.

Just keep coming back and take the suggestions that are given, no you aren't a failure for getting angry .. Mother Teresa would be frustrated in this situation and she got angry over other things .. so Alanon is not a pious program of you are never allowed to get angry over a situation. Is the anger productive or is the anger deconstructive. That's where I have started from now, vs feeling guilty because I feel angry about something .. you know anger motivates change .. and that's a good thing.

Hugs S :)

 

 

What is good for me to do when I remember to do it is remember the positives that have helped me in the past when I was growing up in the program.  Remembering the thoughts, feeling and practices that got me different outcomes.  "We are not a perfect program...we work for progress".  Here it is years later that, that understanding keeps me real.  I knew about failing and I knew that failing was a repeat practice in my daily life especially when I accepted criticism from anyone and any direction including myself.

I was blessed by a sponsor who fired me because I wouldn't/couldn't work the program as she expected (she? yeah I got that  rule backwards also)  She fired me and then suggested I talk with a male sponsor named Don T.  It didn't take long for me to understand that DonT meant Don't when it came to me attempting to find my own solutions to anything.  That is where and what I failed at...attempting to control my own outcomes without first seeking experienced help....Don T.  who was a gift also from my Higher Power.

He passed away several years ago with the exception that he remains in my ESH and the memories of my spirit and heart.  

I don't fail today.  I am not perfect.   ((((Hugs))))