The material presented
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to exchange
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Just had to share this, because it has been brewing in me.
My husband is an alcoholic/addict. I met him when he was 6 months sober, then a year into our marriage a back injury kicked off his addiction again, which lasted a couple years. It was an awful time, he almost died a couple of times, was like a crazy man a lot, bla, bla bla . . . we've all been through it. Then he went into treatement (got fired from his job) and we are now separated.
What makes me so angry is that I have gone to aa meetings and into aa chat rooms online to learn about alcoholics. But rarely do I ever see an alcoholic try to gain understanding through alanon. When I have been in aa chat rooms, and even some face to face meetings, I hear the alcoholics talk about how alanoners are as sick as they are, or sicker (which I agree that the whole family in an alcoholic family is sick). But they say it more like accusingly . . . like alcoholism is this bona fide illness, but those that live with them are just crazy codependents.
It just makes me so angry, because I don't think most of them have any idea what it's like to live with someone with this disease. There is no humility. My AH has no memory of his worst times . .. unfortunately, I can recount everything perfectly. It just irritates me that someone I stood by during the worst of times can come off so haughty and knowing and with such a lack of empathy.
Maybe this is a bit of me feeling sorry for myself, but it's also extended to all of the other alanoners out there. As a nurse, I have taken care of many alcoholics/addicts during their sickness and death . . . and everyone hovers around and takes care of the addict/alcoholic. But I look at the wives, spouses and my heart breaks, because of all they've been through. So, it just ticks me off to hear an alcoholic whine about their spouse!!!
You are right that most AAers haven't a clue as to what we AlAnoners go thru. I guess that's because they are so caught up with their own illness. Thanks for venting, it helded me to remember I'm not alone.
you remind me humbly of where I do NOT ever want to be. Just for the record, I am a recovering alcoholic who needs Alanon too, and I come here frequently to let the kind people here get ME back on the right track. I have yet to meet another alcoholic wo does not at least have ONE other alcoholic in his/her life, and begin to face the pain of living with someone else's disease as a part of his/her own life. That you have seen only examples thus far of this kind of selfishness from 'recovering' alcoholics makes me truly sad and humbled.
I am one alcoholic you can mark down as being truly grateful, humble, and very very willing to listen to my AlAnon sister/brother. Neither the AA nor the alAnon has the upper hand on 'suffering'... and I wish more of us AA's recognized this.
I am so sorry for the example you have seen of the recovering alcoholic bashing or belittling the AlAnon. This is not at all what our program teaches. Our program, just like yours, teaches us humility, which as a concept and in it's purest form, is neither arrogance nor maudlin self-loathing. But as you know, some are sicker than others.
My family joined AlAnon long before I ever got sober. Even then, I was not negative toward this beautiful AlAnon program... I was relieved in my heart that SOMEBODY out there was helping my family with the pain I had caused... I was also one of those alcoholics who KNEW deep down inside that something had to give way; that someobody had to start getting better and make sense of all this. Although AlAnon itself did not get me sober initially, it provided in my family the best possible incentive for me to get busy getting sober... it helped my family to stop enabling, caretaking and fixing. THESE were the things that drove me to AA... when my false sense of drunken security began to evaporate. Sure, I was angry and pitied myself at first, but I did not bash AlAnon... I knew deep down that even AlAnon was a power greater than myself. AlAnon was the first program that put a real God into my family's hearts and lives.
The only reason I ever referred to family members as being 'sick themselves', is so I too could recognize what my drinking did, and allow them to be where they were at- to vent and 'act-out', and not be 'perfect', just like I had the right to.
Now that I am sober for a "few 24's", and have been working on deeper issues like codependency, self esteem and service, I very much need AlAnon myself. I have sponsored women in the years past who have gone back out and I have come to AlAnon to figure out where they ended and I began. I have let you people teach me how to handle the excrutiating pain of a fellow AA sister overdosing and dying at age 23... that it was what was to be for her, and I couldn't have possibly done any more than I had already done to save her. It was YOU who helped me to keep eating and sleeping and sharing and growing, in spite of the frustration, anger and grief.
I only hope that I can be at least one tiny example for you to embrace of someone in alcoholic recovery who HONORS you as an AlAnon; who RESPECTS you, and who LISTENS to the wisdom in this program. I am sure there are more out there, but as is said, "Let it Begin with ME..."
Only I do take an exception to the belief that alononers are "sicker" than the alcoholic. If alanoners are "sick" it is due to the extreme stress brought on by dealing with alcholism. They learn actually NORMAL adaptive techniques to deal with an ABNORMAL SICK addict! Addaptive techniques that are not conducive to healthy interpersonal relations with emotionally healthy people, but very useful in dealing with their sick alcholic.
Once alanoners are removed from their dealings with the alcholic, and get counseling to realize how their normal intelligence to adapt to an abnormal environment is no longer of use to them and they get practice in healthy and normal interpersonal relations, they are often "OK". Of course I am not talking about people with pre-existing emotional and mental illness here, but people who are otherwise healthy and normal who just ended up with an alcholic family member. Remember the three C's...we did NOT cause it...! We have no control over a family members decision to abuse alcohol to deal with stress or problems...
So, alanoners are only "sick" in relation to having to learn to deal with extremely sick addicts. You have to learn to delve into personal matters to get at the truth for instance, since many alcholics are dangerous liars (like claiming to not have drunk that much and attempting to drunk drive with children in the car). This "checking up on" people is an unhealthy habit that is maladaptive with "normal" people, but necessary with an alcoholic.
On the other hand, alcholics often suffer from CHRONIC mental illness and are self medicating with alcohol. Often these mental illness are not only chronic but serious. And lets not even get into the fact that long term alcohol abuse often does long term brain damage. The brain is such a delicate organ! My doctor told me that each episode of blackout is actually a "chemically induced concussion" or in other words a chemically induced BRAIN INJURY! He asked me what mental shape I would be in if he hit me on the head everyday with a a hammer hard enough to knock me out! My cognitive skills would definately be affected.
Anyway, the cumulative effects due to abuse of not only a central nervous system depressent which affects brain function, AND chemically induced consussions, AND the social ineptness which comes from using a drug to deal with most social functions AND the social immaturity which comes from using a drug to deal with lifes dissapointments rather than learn to use coping skills...adds up to a VERY sick person. Physically (liver stress), mentally (brain damage), and emotinally (social retardation due to using a drug to deal with life).
Alcoholics will have to deal with their addictions the rest of their life. They will often have LASTING ill effects of their drug abuse.
And lets not even go into the guilt they may feel IF they ever attain real recovery from "checking out" of life so many times and not being there for family members or children.
I am not angry...just realistic. My husband is not in any recovery program and so has not yet learned that lame line that I am "sicker" than he is. That would be a sad day indeed for him to be in that much denial. I can get away from him, get counseling for a short time, surround myself with emotionally healthy people and be FINE in a relatively short time. I don't think he will EVER be fine after the way he has abused his body and his mind. And he will always be an alcholic and always have that chemical imbalance that makes him crave alcohol to the point that little else matters.
Since he knows nothing about AA or recovery programs that will seek to teach him to judge others and their level of sanity or emotional health when he is a severe sick chemical addict, he at this time realizes that he is the 'sick one" and that my daughter and I are better off than he not being drug addicts. I hope that if he ever does find recovery somehow with some sort of program that he does not get caught up in this sad "point the finger" game and focuses instead on his own need to learn healthy and honest interpersonal dealings so that we no longer have to engage in unhealthy behavior with him in order to stay safe (like checking the garbage to see how much he has drank when he invites us to go somewhere with him and he can barely walk but says he has not drank...sigh).
There are many A's who also go to alanon,they are called 'double winners'.My A sister said she got immense help from alanon meetings.
There also are those a's who, I guess,have unearthed anger at alanons,for whatever reason. I was at an AA meeting once and the speaker said that a relapse for an alanon is an attack of compassion.I was very offended by that.Alot of people there laughed.
As joni said above,A's are in different stages of recovery,just as alanons are.I have also heard alcoholic bashing in some alanon meetings.There is anger on both sides,but it must be very hard to accept that you have damaged others to the point that they have to seek help,because of YOUR disease.The ones that cannot deal with that have to put us down to feel better, I suppose.
We are told to have compassion for A's.It might be a good thing if the A's had something in their preamble about compassion for us.
On the memory thing, I just posted about this.My A seems to have lost years,at least that is what he says.I guess that would be easier than dealing with the reality of the pain he caused.
Anyway,don't let this fester.I don't think you are feeling sorry for yourself,it's good to face a negative feeling and work through it.Just don't throw the baby out with the bath water (showing my age).Keep going to the aa meetings for yourself.
What a therapeutic topic. When my A came home from rehab last year he had learned all about co-dependency and loved to throw accusations my way, as if to blame me for his actions. Duh, how about turning that one right around.
Personally, I like to refer to my Al-Anon program as my "self-care" program, rather than recovery. My AH is in recovery (I like to think). I do not have an illness, I have adopted coping mechanisms that take the focus off me and my state of mental health. Al-anon helps me get my priorities straight.
My ah doesn't seem to have resentment for al-anon anymore (he used to refer to it as a bunch of women bashing their husbands). He actually reads this message board on occassion ,especially if he has recently done something stupid and wonders how I feel about it. Many A's have caused so much pain to their loved ones that it is a coping mechanism of their own to put off accepting responsibility for their actions. It takes time for them to reach that point in their recovery. I am still waiting.
