The material presented
here is not Al-Anon Conference Approved Literature. It is a method
to exchange
information, ideas, feelings, problems and solutions on a personal
level.
AH came over for Thanksgiving and was the kind wonderful guy he can be when he really wants something. Sad to say it like that but I think I have been down this road enough times that I am starting to see that things will be good for a while and then regress back to alcoholic hell. I saw another post about not participating in the lies. Can I get a how to on that? I have seen a lot of posts about manipulation. My problem is most of the time I can't figure out if it is truth or lies. How do you not participate in the lies if you can't tell the difference? I find that I require HARD TANGIBLE EVIDENCE of a LIE. This is usually difficult if not impossible to get. Now mind you I do see the obvious now like when he disappears for 3 or 4 days I know what really happened (took me a few bricks in the head to get that much). Now I just assume he's lying unless I see otherwise. Can I get some ESH on this?
I got to the point where I just assumed my A/CH H was lying all the time. Once in a great while he'd surprise me with the truth. More often, I'd find out that what he told me was a lie. I may not have realized it right away... sometimes it took a few days of putting pieces together in my head to figure it out. I'm still finding out about lies he told me or other people.
Artygirl.
__________________
Life is not about waiting for the storm to pass, it is about learning to dance in the rain.
The way I see it, obsessing over whether another person is telling the truth or not is just another manifestation of the disease - letting the A live in our head rent-free. If I am taking care of myself, then my course of action is going to be determined by my own decision, my own path, rather than by what another person tells me (or doesn't tell me). That to me is the crux of the Alanon program - finding our own path... making the A irrelevant to our serenity.
I realize this is easy to say for someone not living with an active A. Not living with anyone else at all actually. Staying that way is once decision I have made for the sake of my own sanity. I am by no means confident of my ability to stay focused on MY program if I had an active A in my face every day. So I don't go there. I choose not to play the game.
Have you ever noticed how darn long the police take in an investigation? And how many darn photographs they take? Evidence gathering works on a single, inordinate principle of human truth in character: humans will hook themselves into dysfunction trying to get what they want when they want it by any means necessary, given enough time and space.
The break in at your house? Your husband's disease. The photographs taken? The evidence of his disease. The logging of phone calls? The evidence of him hooking himself. What barisax said was very insightful: we don't necessarily need to prove "the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help you god." All that needs to happen to stay out of the dysfunction with an alcholic is, quite frankly, you owning your part. So long as YOU don't get hooked by ulterior motives of YOUR OWN, you will have NO REASON to worry. This is what we mean by "keeping your side of the street clean:" if you are doing the next right thing, working the program to the best of your ability, and not playing games (shoot straight and don't screw around), then you won't find yourself hooked in dysfunction. Lies or otherwise. Honest. I promise.
You know what they say, are their lips moving? Yes, then they are lying. True with my AHsober. I don't even think that he knows whether he is lying or not. As other have said, work your program. We probably lie too when we could be straight forward. I just assume my AHsober will not get it straight the first time.
