Well isn't that subject matter an understatement????
So here I am 24 hours after an inspiring meeting with a great group of women who pulled me through a tough day to remain sober... only to wake up to a tougher day... I got me a sponsor who I am excited about, but my first call to her was met with no answer and a full message machine. Emailed her, she later called me back which was great, except I was in full meltdown mode with my ridiculously self centered and spoiled teenage daughter. (MY meltdown, not hers... she could care less how hurtful she is).
Fortunately, I have another close AA friend and we were able to meet for coffee this evening but can I just say I am SPENT? and feeling like saying '^uck it all?' If this is life's terms, I don't want to live. This kid is just STARTING in the teen years and my other kid is easy - 2 years older; responsible; goes with the flow and does what he's supposed to do for the most part; the other one just doesn't GET it... If I hear one more time from another parent how much WORSE it is going to get with her, I think I will just off myself now and forget about it because it is BAD now. I was destined to be an alcoholic... it is in my genes, it is my disease and nobody 'caused' it, but the circumstances like this in my life definitely made it progress in the last year to the point that it did. Four months ago, I definitely would have picked up a drink immediately. Today, I just melted down and reacted angrily and emotionally and hours later I still can't snap out of it.
I will simplify my life right now: Dry drunk working on becoming sober alcoholic + depression, anxiety & insomnia history (on basic, simple meds - low dose, celexa - not helping much) - mother of two teens, one in need of serious emotional & academic help herself + me being on the verge of menopause with a so-so marriage and estranged from my mother and family due to divorce situation between my parents. Isolating from most of my non-AA friends because they just don't understand... Lonely? Um... just a little. Tired? Drained? Alcoholic? Yes, yes, and double yes.
My AA friends are my salvation right now, and my higher power is coming to light more and more but on a day like today... I just don't CARE anymore. I'm tired of 'working' it all day with no support and nothing but people in my life taking advantage. Today I just wanted a half hour to read something spiritual and center myself. I never seemed to get that. I got a ton of grief that set me back instead.
Woe is me, I know... But that is how I feel and I have no where else to vent this at the moment... you just can't imagine the afternoon I've had with my daughter over whether or not she's getting a certain expensive item for Christmas and she doesn't want all the 'crap' that I already bought her if she can't have that (yes, I removed all that 'crap' from under the tree and plan to return it). Then to have to put on a happy face all night at the inlaws... No wonder I have a stomache ache and a migraine...
This is not easy. At all. Even a drink won't help this situation. I've explored ways to help my daughter and my family in this situation. None of the ways are working...
I am trying to keep the alcohol issue separate from all of the others but when a person becomes very depressed it is hard to care anymore and you just become worn down. I know that this is when the higher power comes in and I'm trying... but when my 13 year old daughter is essentially emotionally abusing me on a regular basis, and particularly on Christmas Eve and ruining what is already a very difficult holiday for me that I worked hard to make nice for the family... wow... Disappointing to say the least.
Just not in a good emotional place tonight. Planning to get to a meeting tomorrow at night but in the meantime, so sad.
And tomorrow I will be full of guilt because I did indeed remove the 'crap' from under the tree and she will wake up to the one gift she wanted. Then if I know my daughter, she will continue to abuse me about all the gifts I DIDN't Give her and how I love her brother more because he got a bunch of things. And people wonder why I hate Christmas... where is the spirituality and the true meaning? It is not to be found in MY family, that much is for sure.
There is no winning in my life right now. This daughter aspect is just the tip of the iceberg.
Aloha ABETTERWAY...I use to work with kids...other peoples and at times my own... (exwife was considered the more nurturing parent by the judge...end of story resentment is handled) and most of them were attached to other parents. The parents brought them to me for much the same reason as you vent here.
A friend in program once told me that he and his wife decided to throw a 13 year birthday party for their daughter and after all her friends arrived and the party was going he was so proud of their daughter and so happy for her and then she excused herself from the party to go to the rest room for a while and 15 minutes later what came out of the rest room was the biggest B!tch that ever walked the face of the earth. 13 years of age is the chemical release age for both the males and the females...that and the age of possession. Notice the age of the female in the movie "The Exorsist" ...yep 13 and if your daughter hasn't reached the stage of walking up the stairs backwards with her head spining 360 atop her shoulders and doing atomic vomiting all over the house...practice patience and prayer.
What helped me work with adolescents was the miracle of a great memory of what it was like for me at that age...my clients use to accuse me of reading their minds and begged their parents to take me out of group therapy...lol No I can't read minds but I do know the trail were on so when I call them on their stuff it isn't from a guess.
Remember what it was like to be 13? Can you remember it clearly and intimately? Only difference twix you and your daughter is...age. You are even the same gender so that's important also. Remember how you felt, thought, desired, controlled, manipulated and lost control and then tried to regain it with power? Only difference is age. Try doing an indepth inventory of yourself during that age. You got tools there.
Another tool you have is this program...program is HUGE!! for self control with a Higher Power at hand including a sponsor when things get a "little" rocky. Your daughter doesn't have what you have...she is defenseless except for her anger. The tools of the program don't work only because I am alcoholic. They are actually the same tools that solidly normal people have and use with much less effort. The program is a program of re-behavior for me. I have learned to respond to life rather than react to it. I no longer drink at it or rage at it or destroy things at it or all the other stuff that use to result in finding myself in weird places with weird people doing weird things believing I was okay. There hasn't been any visits from the police to bring me under control because someone elses behavior resulted in me doing bizzare reactions.
Guilt is a choice...an option...guilt from taking all the other gifts away is one thing, guilt from reacting is another. Gratitude that she got what she wanted is also a choice. Program tells me I got choices beyond whether what I gonna drink is a Tangueray on the rocks with an olive and and onion or a Black Velvet Affair or a straight up 12oz of Russia's best Vodka or any other neurologicide within reach. Drinking isn't an option when sobriety is the real prize. Suffering is an option.
You're doing the best you can with what you have...believe that or not either way has its own consequences. If you knew better you'd do better and then your daughter wouldn't change and you cannot change her...powerless. Sooooo
Allow her the dignity of her rant...smile...love her anyway...remind we all have choices and get the outcomes (they just had the word consequences) and then Merry Christmas.
Or you can do any other thing that comes to mind along with go to that meeting with your sponsor. Is your daughter acting like a newbie alcoholic? Try remembering.
(((((hugs))))) Have as Merry A Christmas as you can manage.
This all sounds totally normal for early sobriety, that's why meetings and the fellowship is so important, listening to others dealing with the same exact day to day issues but sharing about it in such a way the entire room is laughing takes away the power my mind holds over me, it takes away the "poor me poor me pour me another"
Time takes Time, and I never ever wondered why I drank, the miracle is I don't any more
Let me see if I can explain something, some years ago a situation arose between my girlfriend and myself that knocked me on my butt for a month, I tried communicating, I got angry and stamped my little foot, I begged, I pleaded, I suffered greatly trying to get the situation to an acceptable resolution to me
I was ruminating on my intense suffering about trying to change the situation or even trying to accept it when suddenly it came to me in a flash that the same thing had occured maybe a year before, but I was so busy working my Program that I handled it without even thinking, almost with my unconscious mind like driving for a long distance while daydreaming, and the entire situation lasted less then 3 minutes
One situation I had brought all of my attention, all my skill, all I had learned from self help books, and therapy and asking others for advice in AA, and I suffered intensely for a lonnng time, the other, I got out of my own way and my intuition handled it because my ego was occupied elsewhere, and it was over painlessly and rapidly
When we come to AA we fix our insides, and our outsides handle themselves, all by themselves, it's only when we try to run the show do we suffer, this is what the old timers are trying to teach us
We have many tools, I surrounded myself with other new people and we'd spend hours giving each other a lot of specific advice and validating my reality and insanity as we learned to crawl together, the old timers wouldn't even listen to me, I'd call and start blathering and they'd interrupt me and say "Go to a meeting and help a newcomer, then call me back"
I would and the problem would have been removed and resolved
I can't convey how comprehensively my life changed when I work the steps, since I write down all my fears, all my resentments, all my relationships and go through each one in a step by step fashion, dissecting them, breaking them down, and admitting my own character defects that not only caused them to happen in the first place, but keep them going, these are removed, to be replaced by something different, a sense of acceptance, and a new toolbox to navigate complex emotional interactions between myself and others
we know a new freedom and a new happiness, and we intuitively know how to handle situations that used to baffle us, those are some step 9 promises, and we have found them to be true
When I worked the steps I changed, and my perceptions of the world around me changed, and when me and my perceptions changed, so did the people around me, both in their reactions to me, and how much I took on their stuff as my own, and the world became a more comfortable place, in the mean time, it's a mean time, and we know doors open and doors close but the hallways are a bitch, theres a door right up ahead called a new freedom and a new happiness, all you have to do is walk just a few -steps- and that door will open for you
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it's not the change that's painful, it's the resistance to change that is painful
Awake at 3 am... the issues of the day are keeping me up and my stomach churning... and then I just read posts from Jerry and Lin and suddenly I feel better.
I think I can sleep now. Thank you. Going to reread later in the morning... and just try to start Christmas day with a clean slate.
Jerry, what you say really made me think. Interesting stuff (and for me, the psych major in college... you'd think I would 'get' stuff more but of course in an alcoholic mind, I've heard that our emotional intelligence/maturity basically stops when the alcoholic drinking and thinking starts... Don't know if there is any truth to that but in my case, I've been told early on by 'professionals' at the dual diagnosis outpatient program I signed myself into around the time I attended my first AA meeting that I had the coping skills of a teenager. When I heard this I realized: 'This is so true'. And thus, I have worked hard at my coping skills... which is why it's a challenge to remain sober and 'feel' the feelings that I have been numbing for so long. lol. (Instead of 'dealing' with all the adult hurts in my life, I numbed them) and when I stopped drinking... yikes!!!!
I need to remember what those coping skills of young, hormonal teenage girls are... Usually anger and blaming (of a parent). lol --- yes, I did all that as a teenager (although I was always conscious of hurting my mother and didn't have the 'meanness' that I see in my daughter)... But anyway... (end result my mother emotionally disconnected from me a bit and to this day remains that way... and this is what I see happening to me and my daughter... the pain is so great for me, yet I am repeating a cycle here when what I need to do is understand it and be the adult here. Know that I am not in control of all of this this and can't be... and accept that this is what comes with the teenage territory. Coming from a very low/middle class family but marrying into a better situation and being able to give more to my kids (at least before the economic crash)... I have helped set the stage for some of this behavior... and now I am desperately trying to undo at a time when she (daughter) is at an age where her hormones are raging (as are mine), AND I am trying to become sober. Not a good combo... but Jerry, I certainly appreciate your view of it and plan to digest it even more in the morning... Thank you. Merry Christmas.
A friend in program once told me that he and his wife decided to throw a 13 year birthday party for their daughter and after all her friends arrived and the party was going he was so proud of their daughter and so happy for her and then she excused herself from the party to go to the rest room for a while and 15 minutes later what came out of the rest room was the biggest B!tch that ever walked the face of the earth. 13 years of age is the chemical release age for both the males and the females...that and the age of possession. Notice the age of the female in the movie "The Exorsist" ...yep 13 and if your daughter hasn't reached the stage of walking up the stairs backwards with her head spining 360 atop her shoulders and doing atomic vomiting all over the house...practice patience and prayer.
Jerry, I so relate to this... We also had a big 13 year old party for our daughter here at our house. I was 'sober' for it and wow, what a wake up call as to what 13 year olds are like (male and female) in 2010... (something like what 17 year olds were like in my day - the 80's, only without any type of emotional maturity).
And you are right... I joke that literally the DAY she turned 13, my beautiful daughter turned into someone I do not know. lol. To the day...
Said it before and I'll say it again -- in early sobriety I have GREATLY benefited from regular sessions with a therapist in addition to AA meetings every day. It really helps me deal with these sorts of issues that are way beyond the scope of a 3-minute meeting share. I strongly encourage you to talk with a professional.
Hope you got some sleep Betterway. One of the key things ins our program (AA) is letting go of resentments. And then learning not to ACQUIRE resentments in the first place. I think a big part of this is just learning not to take offense. It seems that may be especially true with teenagers. Like everybody has said, they're smart, physically mature, but their hormones have just not caught up yet, and they don't know how to handle things. And our society is not there to back parents up with expectations of maturity, the way it may have been 80-100 years ago.
I know I said stuff to my parents that, in retrospect, was absurdly immature, almost incomprehensible. Given the passage of time, I see they were doing the best they could, and my reactions to them were over the top. I'm betting your daughter will realize the same in time. Maybe try taking the long view? Just a thought.
Merry Christmas BTW. About 2 inches of snow in my town.
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Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's, and unto God that which is God's.
Thank you GG. Good advice. I have been doing the therapy thing since before I became involved in AA. I go faithfully once a week and even admitted myself into an outpatient dual diagnosis program for 2 weeks (I stayed almost 5) at the same time I started AA. Life happens... and continues to happen... I'm just not so good at coping with it, even with all the help. You'd never believe I have all this 'stuff' going on to look at me... High functioning mama here... But boy I have a lot going on. A lot of fears and resentments. Between AA and therapy, I have to get a handle, and I have been, but some things just throw me way off. ;-(
I have 2 masters degrees in psychology and that didn't stop me from being an alcoholic, nor did it stop me from having to go through the painful, but very worth it, process of learning how to cope with life of life's terms without drinking. I know it feels like the world is crashing down around you right now, but it's not and you are managing. You are lacking perspective though... You have a family that you love, a roof over your head, transportation, food... You are not "about to lose it all" like you may have been when you started this journey in sobriety. Your alcoholism wants you to see the world as so intolerable and chaotic that you will drink over it. Stay in gratitude. You have to. That is how I changed from constantly being in a muck of problems. I either don't view them so dramatically now or I make changes. Relax, be grateful, don't drink, work the steps and you will be amazed at how things just unfold and all the answers come to you.
P.S. - When they say put your recovery before everything, they mean it. Don't let your daughter, your marriage, or any of that stuff distract you from recovery. Recovery will unlock everything and if you let yourself get distracted by real or imagined chaos, you are the one that will suffer.
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Keep coming back. It works if you work it. So work it. You're worth it!
Emailed her, she later called me back which was great, except I was in full meltdown mode with my ridiculously self centered and spoiled teenage daughter. (MY meltdown, not hers... she could care less how hurtful she is).
Have as Merry A Christmas as you can manage.