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dont know if you remember me,if you dont a short version,h has been in homeless hostel since april,as i bodily threw him out clothes and all.
this was a great move should have done it 3yrs ago,they have been a god send,they have helped him sort himself out,we meet up every sat because i baby sit our baby grandson and he wants to be apart of this.i have slowly seen a huge difference in him completely,no drinking im sure,he,s joined a cookery course and computer course ,swims when he can,this is a massive difference to the drunk who has set fire to my kitchen 3 times.
Now for my problem,our 2 adult children,1 in ozzy,i here, are giving him all thier support,they have forgiven him for all the crap he gave them ,my son who got him a job where he works ,and losed it has forgiven him,telling him they just want thier dad back the way he was
Me i seem to be the more he is getting his act together the more angry i getting for losing as far as im concerened everthing ive worked and planned for,i am finding it so hard to forgive,how do you forgive someone for totally distroying you,maybe i never will but i just had to write and share this
I have to get back to work soon, but I was just compelled to answer your post. When I first came here and was relating all the horrible things going on in my life, someone stopped me short to redirect my attention. He said something like "So what if she stopped drinking today and was back to normal... how would you be then?"
Honest answer was... an absolute shattered wreck! This program is to help us with all the resentments and all the other emotions we have either built up, or stuffed away due to the disease.
He is working a program and getting better... how wonderful for him. How about you? We end up just as sick as they are... sometimes worse. It's not a competition as everyone pursues recovery at a different pace, but sounds like now is the time to concentrate on you, so you can enjoy your life again.
I hope there are some meetings you can attend there, and finding a sponsor can really be a blessing.
Like they say ... take what you like and leave the rest. My disclaimer is the A's in my life are still active, so I hope to have this problem staring me in the face some day.
Take care of you!
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"Good judgement comes from experience... experience comes from bad judgement" - unknown
Me i seem to be the more he is getting his act together the more angry i getting for losing as far as im concerened everthing ive worked and planned for,i am finding it so hard to forgive,how do you forgive someone for totally distroying you,maybe i never will but i just had to write and share this
love to you all ollie xxxxx
Yup, I can understand those resentments. Of course, as we learn here, resentments are like us drinking poison and expecting it to hurt the other person. All it does is hurt ourself.
I was fortunate to have a police officer tell me "You allow it" when I was telling him things that happen. That was a real verbal slap in the face to me, but I understand after being in Al-Anon what the officer meant. No one can "destroy" us without our permission. We do not have to react to the things they do, we do not have to be miserable. We have choices. We can choose what our mood will be, whether we will have a good or a bad day, regardless of how they are acting.
I had to take a good long look at myself. I realized I played the "victim", blaming all my unhappiness on the alcoholic. And yes, I was a victim, but I was a victim of myself. Al-Anon taught me how to not be a victim of myself anymore. How to take responsibility for my own feelings, words and actions. When I began learning and doing this... well, I discovered I needed to forgive myself much more than I needed to forgive him.
Much of what I saw as his progression in the disease was directly linked with my own progression in this family disease. He reacted badly to my reactions of anger, disappointment, resentment. It was a never-ending circle. When I stepped out of that circle, when I refused to "play" the victim and started working on changing myself... well that is when I really started seeing change. Not only in me, but in him too.
He once said to me "I didn't change, you did." And he was right. He was an alcoholic when I met him. He wasn't doing anything different, I am the one who grew unhappy and miserable, who started the blame game, and so on.
He is still active (although to my knowledge he hasn't had a drink in 3 weeks now), but our life is much better. In changing myself with the Al-Anon program I've learned to enjoy my life each day and it has also helped the relationship I have with him. He has acknowledged that every bad thing in his life thats happened has a direct link with his drinking. He wants to quit but said to me recently "I don't see myself quitting anytime soon. What can we do?"
Well what I can do is continue to work my own program. He knows and I know what he needs to do, which is get his own program going. That is up to him though. Meanwhile, I just have to butt out of his business, and focus on what is my own business... my program.
Resentments can be very hard to overcome, but the more you look into yourself and work on yourself in this program, the easier it becomes. It is so very true that this disease distorts our thinking. That can be changed though. We can become happy and serene. Keep working it, it works!
Luv, Kis
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Let your light shine in the darkness. "I can't just bring my mind to meetings...I must also bring my heart."
