Just got home from an open talk. The speaker was right on. I hate this diease because I have lost people that I have really care and loved very much. No I am not alcoholic, but i have the same stinking thinking.
I am still grieving over the guy I had to leave due to this diease. He smokes pot and drinks daily. I worry so much about him because he doesn't want to get help. I feel terrible because his addiction has a hold of him. i haven't seen him since last summer, but my diease tells me that i want to help him and how sad i am because he doesn't even know what he's missing out on. We got a long really good and cared about each other and enjoy being together, when he didn't get drunk. He held back on really drinking when he was out with me. I could tell that he was always thinking about using, but tried to maintain wth time he was with me.
How does one get over a person that you love so much, but can't help him? Is there anything that i can do to help him. Is this guy happy??? or is he miserable and can't stop.
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With God all things are possible. God Bless all of you
To let go does not mean to stop caring, it means I can't do it for someone else. To let go is not to cut myself off, it's the realization I can't control another. To let go is not to enable, but allow learning from natural consequences. To let go is to admit powerlessness, which means the outcome is not in my hands. To let go is not to try to change or blame another, it's to make the most of myself. To let go is not to care for, but to care about. To let go is not to fix, but to be supportive. To let go is not to judge, but to allow another to be a human being. To let go is not to be in the middle arranging all the outcomes, but to allow others to affect their destinies. To let go is not to be protective, it's to permit another to face reality. To let go is not to deny, but to accept. To let go is not to nag, scold or argue, but instead to search out my own shortcomings and correct them. To let go is not to adjust everything to my desires, but to take each day as it comes and cherish myself in it. To let go is not to criticize or regulate anybody, but to try to become what I dream I can be. To let go is not to regret the past, but to grow and live for the future.
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Live each day as if it were your last...because tomorrow?
It might be.
Thank you so much, that is all true, but I have a hard time in letting go. How do people let go???? I feel so helpless. Can he be happy with the situation he's in??
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With God all things are possible. God Bless all of you
The best book I have ever read beside the AA Big Book is "The Language of Letting Go", by Melodie Beatty.
There are posts here from her daily meditation books. Check some of them out. It is all about self-care. Some of us don't feel complete unless we are "rescuing" another. Some of us hold on to "wishes" that we could make the person we love into the person we want them to be, like the alcoholic holds onto his/her booze. It is a sickness all in itself, and it needs the same kind of deep recovery that alcoholism does.
I am so glad you are here and posting. There is very much a way out of this. You have to stop making your life about him, and make your life about YOU.
((((hugs)))) Joni
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~Your Higher Power has not given you a longing to do that which you have no ability to do.
You should visit this forum: http://www.activeboard.com/forum.spark?forumID=42727
This is an Al-Anon forum and they are a great group of folks. I went there first because of the soberA (sober alcoholic) who had just went out (started drinking again). Our relationship is painful and I needed help. After learning to focus more on myself I realized I needed to go to AA and raise my hand as an alcoholic. (I am by no means suggesting you do, just my ESH). They are very helpful in showing you ways of focusing on yourself, loving yourself, and putting yourself first. When I do this it is easier to hurt less and love others in a healthy way with boundaries.
They also go by the same 12 steps as AA which is a great program. And one of the ideas is that AA is about attraction rather than promotion and it sure seems to work. As a person gets healthy and obtains peace in their lives others seem to want the same thing and follow suit.
Good luck. Love yourself.
tlc
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__________________ "By swallowing evil words unsaid, no one has ever harmed his stomach." ~Winston Churchill
Yes, a lot of that is true about me, I realize that i have the same diease that an alcoholic has, I just don't drink, I am on this board because i can identify with people on here. Sometimes the Alanon board people tend to speak pretty bad about the person in their life that is still drinking, not everybody, but some. I just want to understand this diease better because It wants to kill me by depression, saddness, feeling bad about myself, and isolation. It seems like everytime when i start to feel happy, the diease brain starts to take over and causes me to be full of fear.
One of my biggest fears is that I'm never going to meet anyone without my diease ruining it for me. I have been out of the relationship for over a year and I feel that was the best relationship I ever had. My friend calls it an attachement. Which is really sad because the entire time I was dating him, he was using pot and alcoholic. He was always kind to me, but i made that easy for him, i did whatever he wanted to do. It was easy because I was enjoying what we did and had fun until i could no longer tell myself it was too bad.
I have a lot of energy and like to go places and enjoy my weekend. He did too, which I never understood because I throught pot made you want to be a couch potato and the amount of alcohol he was drinking, surprised me that he had so much energy. I do need to work on taking care of me. I am on wellburtin which does help with my depression.
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With God all things are possible. God Bless all of you
Hi Sharon, I too lost someone I had been with for eight yrs to a sex addiction and he is also an abuser. He had not drank for 20 yrs or so and used a sex addiction (that is not about sex) to cope and it was extremely painful for me to deal with.
At first I allowed it to be his problem but it was very hard to disengage and as his disease progressed it started affecting my life and when I put boundaries down on what I would accept or not accept he got very abusive.
I could not "win." I too got where I tried to push him and I would be taken up so much, after a few years, to do all the worrying about his recovery. All it did was take away what he needed to feel and do.
I had to give up after many counselors and much hard work on myself to disengage and take care of me. He just did not get it and then I started drinking again.
I went down hill this past year due to drinking and just giving up. I thought I could ignore it and use alcohol to do so. But all that did was make everything a billion times worse.
In March of this year I pushed it to end and it did. He is gone and I have been so heart broken to feel he chose his addiction over me.
It has been a long five months as of yesterday. But this past week I have had so many wonderful moments of clarity and this board has helped me to start to accept and have hope that I will be okay and that I cannot control anyone but me.
And we cannot always have what we think we want. And what we want may not be what we want anyway.
You seem to want to know if he is happy. I feel the answer is that he struggles just as the rest of us do. And he will have to find his own answers just as we have to.
I was also very angry at my ex for his addiction and abuse and there is nothing wrong with being angry. But it is what you do with that anger that counts. And those people at Alanon may need to vent that and get help for it to heal.
Haven't you gotten angry? I am just curious. I feel it is healthy as long as you do not stay there. I am glad you are here. Everyone on here are a blessing to me and you are yet another one. Thank you for sharing Rosie
my first and greatest sponsor liked to say that "they don't make two versions of the 12 steps in blue and pink (for men and women), just one for everyone. Trouble is that when we focus mostly on that other person it's a convenient escape from resolving our own issues. It' s flawed thinking that we could do or say something to another person and expect them to act in a certain manner (control) or to think that if we "take care" of someone that they will love us. An non-recovering alcoholic is a child living in an adults body. Why would we want to have a relationship with a child? Realize that we choose these people, that we're in relationships with, for reasons that are usually unknown to us. Educate yourself and learn to choose differently. If you want a relationship with someone that doesn't have a drinking problem than don't date alcoholics and expect them to change. Become that healthier person and attract the same. That was a scary concept for this codependent. I'd ask myself why would a healthy, mature, independent, financially responsible person want to be in a relationship with me? Then I went about the process of creating those reasons why they would.
I really appreicate what you have to share. I just left a meeting and I feel that maybe I am starting to get this. I really need to keep the focus on me. I have really never did that before. I do want to be a healthy person so that I will attract healthier people. I am so tired of being hurt. This is the second alcoholic relationship i had. the first one i married. I told everyone never again, but 13 yrs later i find myself in another one. I forgot how horrible this diease is. I compared him to my ex because my ex what mean and abusive.
I throught this time it would be different because he is a nice guy, but had a problem. He told me he knows he had a problem and wanted to stop. No true, he didn't Anyway, I pray that I get healthy enough to believe that I deserve happiness. i think what i realized tonight, is i didn't belive that i deserve better and that if i dated a person that was reasonably healthy, they would leave me.
How screwed up is that. I am going to start focusing on me starting tonight.
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With God all things are possible. God Bless all of you
Hi Sharon, Quetzel posted something about self care. Check it out. It made me feel stronger in my quest to take care of myself. Selfishness is mentioned in AA and it is not a bad thing. It means to self care. Not to be selfish in a mean way toward people. As a matter of fact if we self care it is the best thing to do for our loved ones and people in general.
I do not know why we have a sense of fear to self care and to be selfish that way for positive. When we fall so easily into selfishness in a negative way???
My human condition astounds me at times!
I am so glad you are here. I feel that we as alcoholics all want to stop even though we actively seek it out during the using stage. What is hard to do is face things that are lost to even ourselves.
It is hard for people to understand this. And very frustrating and painful and angering for those we love.
I now understand the frustration of loving an addict and how it looks like they are choosing the addiction over us but I realize that my ex has demons much bigger than any kind of love he could ever have for me.
And until he faces those and takes steps to get well then he will still be struggling even though he acts out in his addiction. In the escalation faze it is no fun and the effects are not there for any kind of high.
Alcohol or anyone's drug of choice just becomes something of a crutch and nothing that is fun at all.
The person needs help and some people need interventions and something huge to get their attention and even then they may not see or listen. Very sad but true. I feel we on this forum are the lucky ones to be able to even start to feel well and see our disease.
Take care Sharon life will get better for you. You are taking the right steps to have that happen. The quality you put in is the quality you will get out of it. You do deserve it. Rosie
