I've shouted from the audience what I have learned in recovery and then sat back to watch how predictable the show would go on using my journey and the journey of others as a filter. Willingness and Honesty are our first keys and if not their first keys they won't find the rooms we were blessed to find and the eventual outcome is that metaphorically they run around with body explosives blowing everything up including themselves and others looking for a time and place when they will discharge altogether at the same time. There is complete rejection of a power greater than themselves either as a group or individually and the pastor from their church is also within the zone. The last I said to my son, one of them in response to his self pity statement was, "If you're pissed off at everyone what can you hope to get from calling me?" He sounded drunk...slow and depressed and confused speech and thought pattern...if he had drank he's a mess because he's been able to abstain as far as I know for at least 17 years. The disease will be doing catchup and he was mixing and matching all kinds of liquids and powders at the same time to get his nervous system to wake up. "Dry drunking" while his spouse is reliving all the past expierences of her raging alcoholic family at the same time and attempting to get this one to shoulder all the blame and hurt; past, present and future. The kids are a mess of course with relationships from the disease and future offspring (yep) on the calendar at the same time.
God grant me the Serenity...That's all I need right now. If I got that I'm in the middle of the audience no longer trying to control the show and feel responsible for it at the same time. I have to remember that he started drinking at the age of one from my very own six pack with my very own permission accompanied with a smile. If he is not drinking that is one necessary requirement right? Next suggestion get into the program (both of them or all of them) so hope for the next suggestion and pray for my own responsibility to my own sobriety. No real chance that I'll drink as he is mirroring me from my journey prior to getting here. God's has him and his family and me and my wife...amazingly large comfortable hands!!. I won't drink for obvious reasons and I won't step in to fix it for equally obvious reasons. I've changed theaters and am going to continue to sit down and just watch and listen and learn from the presentation that has saved me, body, mind, spirit and emotions.
Thanks for letting me hang out and share. In support.
Jerry, I thank you for your share. Your illustrations of recovery and life as you have come to understand it are very creative and yet so realistic.
I am in a horrible state right now, where I WANT to "run the show" but I know I can't. I want my marriage to stay intact and to grow, and I do not want to be disappointed, hurt and betrayed again, by a non-alcoholic with obvious other issues. I am filled with fear right now because I am leaving town to spend a week with my dad in Florida. I will not be here to "watch moods and eyes and sense danger if it is present". I go for months at a time not even having any fear, and knowing that I am going to be just fine in time, should this ever happen again and parting ways is needed. But right now, with the stress of the holidays and the undue stress of my husband's job, I get nervous. Stress. We used to drink when stressed. Others act out in different ways to handle stress, get where I am going with this.
What can I do, or rather what should I do? Remind the other that I am still hurt, that I still have a problem trusting, threaten that someone should be on their best behavior lest they be taken to the cleaners? (Metaphorically... this is not an episode of Falcon Crest).... NO, none of these is a wise decision. Keeping it inside me is not either, and that is why I am sharing it here.
I have been taught that the best thing to do in any situation, or time of fear, "don't drink, go to meetings, pray, and help others". I have only been doing ONE of those things for hte past week (don't drink). And without all 3 of the others, the one I have done is not guaranteed for 24 hours.
So, I solve my own problem once again by repeating what has been told to me in AA. If I ignore AA's advice, I suffer and make myself miserable, and act like a codependent. If I take the advice and run with it, I remain confident, in control (of MY reactions ONLY), I remain able to stand up for myself, be assertive and take care of myself, and I remain self-loving instead of feeling like a less-than.
Thank you, Jerry, for bringing this up... this revelation that needs to be repeated again and again for people like you and me, "I am much better off being a spectator than a fearful paranoid speculator!!!"
Thanks a million. x joni x
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~Your Higher Power has not given you a longing to do that which you have no ability to do.
Thanks Jerry. I love the share. Joni, He should be worried what YOU are doing while you are in florida. You might be meeting up with a hot AA guy who will take you to a meeting with a bunch of other men there who will all find you adorable. Of course, they would all be gay, but that is besides the point.
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Keep coming back. It works if you work it. So work it. You're worth it!
Yesterday, because you were speaking in a metaphrical way, had to digest, feel the pain you were feeling, and the wonderful solution that the Program has taught you and I so well, have to remember that myself, have been doing a lot of, Dear God, PLEASE RELIEVE ME OF BONDAGE OF MYSELF.
As Joni wrote, fears come up at many times, this time of the year, personally I feel it gets to us more than others, but that was just some crazy rationalization, sorry.
I was send up that Prayer a lot in the last few days and guess what, I woke up today, feeling different, lighter, and not so much into that horrible bondage of self. A real Prison, judging myself, that is the worst. I really don't judge others, but oh my can I do a number on myself. Of course the basis is FEAR.
Thank you for my awesome lesson for today, you can really be a teacher to me, have been so many times. And yep, only one that needs occasional fixing is myself.
Sending Love and Hugs to you, was reading how Hawaii is going through a heat wave, in the 90's......
Ok, that had nothing to do with this response, way too early, need MORE coffee.
What would I have doned without the care and feedback of this program. Where would I have been then and now trying to work something (my old program) toward a new solution with old thoughts and behaviors? Horrendous imagination. Pride and Ego seems to have filtered back at me from your responses along with my past sponsor's guidance "crush your pride and kill your ego". Powerlessness is complete...driven down deep into the gut...the difference between submission and surrender. Of my self I have no power but there is one who has all power and that one is God may I find Him now and my experience has been out of the rooms of AA and Al-Anon God is more cunning, powerful and baffling...a greater power than anything I use to drink no matter the percentage of alcohol, color, taste, effect, situation or consequence. My difficulty is staying conscious even without alcohol. My greatest emotional character defect is fear...False Evidence Appearing Real...I need to stay conscious; into the reality of life not my imagination of it. feeling humbled because of my conscious/sub-conscious lesson work. Mahalo!!
Great stuff, all. There is so much wisdom here for new persons, retreads like me, and long-timers. We all teach eachother something.
And Mark, I cannot think of a healthier thing for a creative sober chick like me to do, than to go to a meeting while in FL with a bunch of hot gay guys!!!! LOL
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~Your Higher Power has not given you a longing to do that which you have no ability to do.
