Like the line "have to live with me." It has been a long-time favorite of mine since I heard two long-time members in Al-Anon say, "Why do you still go to meetings when your alcoholic is dead/no longer living with you? Their response was, "Because I still have to live with me." My father died from his disease, my divorce ended 30 years ago, I have been sober 25 years. I always say, I have one reason to go to AA/NA but have 3-33 reasons to go to Al-Anon.
This is a 24 hour a day program not a 2 - 4 hours a day to give to my program.
It was with some hesitation and fear that I walked into my first Al-Anon meeting. I said, “I am not sure I belong here, I am an Alcoholic. I have just been sober for four months. Thankfully one of the ladies said, “You are welcome, you are doubly blessed.”
I am the daughter of an alcoholic, who died as a result of his disease, (my mother died at the age of forty-one as a result of using food to deal with my father’s alcoholism). I was married to an alcoholic. I became an alcoholic, became my father’s drinking buddy at the age of 26. It was the first time I sat down and had a one on one conversation with him. I use to think I had my disease because he was an alcoholic, but in today I know that isn’t true. I have abandonment and rejection issues because he was never there, so how could he be responsible for my drinking when I only saw him drunk twice before the age of 21. If anything, I got my isms from my mother who didn’t have the tools to deal with living with an alcoholic. I married an alcoholic. It was an abusive relationship, and the abused became an abuser. I stayed in a bad relationship for seven years. My son is a self-admitted alcoholic, depending on which day you ask him.
At that first meeting, a dear lady told me, “You are responsible for your own happiness.” This was new for me. My attitude toward my husband was, “Perform, I am not happy, you are not doing your job.” This dear, dear woman had the nerve to tell me that it wasn’t his job and that I could no longer continue blaming him that I had to take responsibility for myself.
Thank God for the direction I was given to attend that first meeting. It has allowed me to heal a lot of old tapes and look at all the resentments, anger, and old tapes that happened long before I picked up my first drink. I told a friend, “Al-Anon is why I drank in the first place.” She said with laughter, “I have been in Al-Anon for twenty-five years and have never heard anyone make that statement.” I said, “It is true, it is all those mixed message and abuse that make me look for something outside of myself to make me feel better. The pain was there long before I picked up on a regular basis. I stole my first drink (a glass of communion wine) because I wanted to know what I was missing out on. The thinking was there long before there was a drinking problem. The guilt and shame was there for many years, and it wasn’t until I came into recovery that I was able to recognize it and find recovery though the Twelve Steps.
I saw my brother killed when I was three and he was two. I was calling to him to get out of the way of the truck that killed him, and I thought it was my fault he was killed because he was coming to me. It wasn’t until I was in recovery for ten years that my aunt told me that from the day he was born, (he was nine days short of a year younger than I was) I nominated myself as his caretaker. It was then I realized that I had been guilty of his death because he was in my care and I had allowed him to be killed. This disease is indeed cunning, baffling and powerful. Today, I realize that my son may choose to carry the message, “To use is to die.” Even though he has seen me in recovery for fifteen years, he says he will never go to NA or AA.
I am powerless over people, places and things. In today, the God of my understanding utilizes people, places and things to show me a better way of living, one day at a time.
My favourite slogan is, “Let it begin with me.” It isn’t about my son, but how I live my life and deal with it clean and sober. I can’t help my son, but I try to give back by going into the local jail and talk to Young Offenders and Adult prisoners. There were many years I wasn’t able to be there for him, but in today, thanks to this program I have been able to change. In the past, I feared change, but today I embrace it, because it allows me to grow and heal.
Thanks for letting me share,
