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Post Info TOPIC: ODAT in alanon, Monday, 2/27, why do they drink?


~*Service Worker*~

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ODAT in alanon, Monday, 2/27, why do they drink?


Why do they drink when they know it damages themself and the family?  How do they justify drinking behavior--after all, they are suffering too?

Reminder:  Trying to analyze why another person persists in destructive behavior cannot help me out of my own difficulties.  I can overcome them only by turning my thoughts inward, to face my own mistakes and to learn how to improve myself.  The alcoholic is not my problem.  My problem is me.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

For years I struggled with the question above:  why is my spouse continuing to drink seeing what it is doing to our marriage?  Then the next few years I have struggled with, OK, I get alcoholism is a disease, but why doesn't my spouse want help?  And perhaps now I am getting it--it is up to me to figure out myself.  I can get a divorce or stay, I already live half the week away near my son and his family, I have choices, and if I am unhappy I do really have to look at me.  It's taken many years for me to reach this place and stop blaming others.  I am responsible for my life and my happiness.



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Lyne



~*Service Worker*~

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Thank you Lyne for your service and today's reading, funny I read this this morning. I read ODAT

everyday. I was thinking that when I was drinking I stopped cold turkey 12 years ago because I

could see the damage it was doing to me and wondered why the alcoholic in my life could not do

the same. I guess everyone is different and I need to accept it.

__________________

"Forgiveness doesn't excuse bad behavior, but it

does prevent bad behavior from destroying your heart". ~ unknown

Debbie



Senior Member

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Good morning

The last week ex-AH and I were together we were trying to talk about the fact that I was packing my belongings to move out. As we were talking he pulled a whiskey bottle out of his pocket,dangled it at me and started chugging it. I assumed he dangled it to show me he was gonna drink it for spite. I asked him to please not drink just to spite me because whiskey makes him so mean. His response was "this has nothing to do with you". Of course that upset me,how could his drinking not have anything to do with me? How could him being mean when he was drunk not have anything to do with me? How could packing up to leave him not have anything to do with me? How could any of it not have anything to do with me?

That still sticks out in my mind,him saying that. I still can feel how shocked and upset I was when I think about it.

But now I realize it really didn't have anything to do with me personally. He's an alcoholic,that's what it was about.

I wish I had realized a long time ago all the things I am realizing in hindsight. I could have saved myself so much hurt, arguing,chaos and drama. I guess it took getting off that crazy train and away from it to even be able to think rationally. I really believed my happiness depended on him and what he was or wasn't doing but I was the one making myself unhappy most of the time.

Have a good day

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Senior Member

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Posts: 335
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Thanks Lyne and everyone for your shares. It certainly took me a long time to not personalize my ex's addiction to alcohol and drugs by comparing their unhealthy choices to my seemingly healthy ones. Little did I know how emotionally unwell  I was. I'm so grateful to have stuck around to keep progressing in my own recovery, to keep peeling the layers of the onion so to speak. Grateful to increase my self knowledge and keep mindful of healthy behaviors through daily inventory. I can't change my past but I can continue to use the lessons from it for today. Despite it taking longer than I would have liked, I'm thankful the fog has lifted because of finding Al-anon and hearing the es&h of others. Grateful for that spiritual awakening - I came, came to, came to believe. Grateful to be restored to sanity.

I especially like the quote from today's reading. "Although all men have a common destiny, each individual has to work out his personal salvation for himself ... We can help one another find out the meaning of life ... But in the last analysis, each is responsible for finding himself." Thomas Merton: No Man Is an Island

More than usual and beyond alcoholism I have been very conscious of choices of others and my own these past few years and the affects. I've leaned on Al-anon principles, zipped my lip, sat on my hands, not attempted to sway anyone else to my thinking. Outcomes from decisions other have made particularly due to fear have broken my heart. I feel compassion because I once lived my own life with fear as my higher power. I will tell you that I figuratively hit my knees daily in gratitude for one of the greatest lessons I've learned and adopted by working the program - to wait, choose a response rather than react. I trust one authority only, a loving higher power that I believe is caring for me unconditionally, wants only what's best for me.  ... "each individual has to work out his personal salvation for himself." I believe this to be true. "When the student is ready, the teacher will appear." Grateful.



-- Edited by tiredtonite on Monday 27th of February 2023 10:40:32 AM

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Surround yourself with people and elements that support your destiny, not just your history.

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