Why do I lose my serenity and everything I've worked for in my AA program as soon as I start to try and deal with my adult child issues and codpendency issues? Why does just merely hanging out in those other program for a few days blow it all out of the water for me!??
__________________
Thanks for everything. Peace and Love on your journey.
You want to be like I wanted to be ... ... ... It's not that I wanted to control anything, I had learned better .... ... it's that I thought I had to "UNDERSTAND" every freakin' thing ... I knew certain things worked and certain other things did NOT work ... I knew that I would feel great and on top of the world one week and feel like shit and so undeserving the next week ...
I had to stop 'dissecting' the whole puzzle of life ... I could not be satisfied with finding the place for a few pieces ... I had to try and figure out why these damn pieces had different shapes to start with ... and if the puzzle piece I got for the day didn't fit, I'd try to alter the shape to force it to fit ...
Stop trying to force your daily puzzle pieces to fit your puzzle ... cause some of them pieces belong to someone else's puzzle too ... ACCEPTANCE can go a long way to making us feel better when things don't make sense to us ... acceptance allows us to feel good about ourselves because we come to realize WE can not force the day to turn out as we might wish it to ... but just simply be grateful for the day we had ... and to know that we have 'hope' for a tomorrow ...
__________________
'Those who leave everything in God's hand will eventually see God's hand in everything.'
aaaaaaaaaaaaahhhh... yes.... I need to just not think. Not wonder. Not imagine what if.... just breath and have faith that everything will be okay in the end. How soon I forget. Thank you Pappy
__________________
Thanks for everything. Peace and Love on your journey.
aaaaaaaaaaaaahhhh... yes.... I need to just not think. Not wonder. Not imagine what if.... just breath and have faith that everything will be okay in the end. How soon I forget. Thank you Pappy
NEVER EVER FORGET ... ... ... sometimes, God's greatest gifts, are un-answered prayers ... ... ... (I'm serious here!!!)
__________________
'Those who leave everything in God's hand will eventually see God's hand in everything.'
Why do I lose my serenity and everything I've worked for in my AA program as soon as I start to try and deal with my adult child issues and codpendency issues? Why does just merely hanging out in those other program for a few days blow it all out of the water for me!??
for me its when things dont go as I planned, like my plans are better than what God plans.. i gotta work on matching MY will with Gods and not GODS will with mine.
now, i gotta question for ya: would ya rather work THE program or YOUR program. why i ask is THE program helps me to match calamity with serenity and MY program takes serenity and throws in a crapload of calamity.
As some of us travel this raod of recovery, we, me included, find there are issues ( i hate that word. Issues i need tissues ) that are not alcoholic by there nature but complicate our alcoholism. Im an ankle grabing codie but not an addult child. My parrentsdidnt drink. They had their own brand of disfunction. I was given up for adoption @8 months old and have deep seated abandonment issues. Even people who are not alcoholic suffer from these things and need to find recovery for them. It took me a long time in AA to to drop my angry macho @#$hole attitute twards it and start to look at and seek help for them. This last relationship i been in brought me to my knees. It was six years long and was ending for five. Three years ago i made it to alanon and started to look at how frickin codependent i was and how sick i had become. Recovery there is a whole lot slower cause i think its a whole lot sicker. Alanon led me a few other places and have been making some progress. Two months ago i hit my bottom and had to be willing to go to any lenths AGAIN. I left her, Gave up my house, got a transfer with work and moved 400 miles away. Some may think it was running away or a geographic i dont. Its what i needed to do and im slowly starting to rebuild Bill again. I keep AA and the other stuff separate most of the time even though there is a measure of codependeny weaved through or alcoholism ( big book talks about it a few places ) because i know that first and formost i am an alcoholic and if i dont treat it nothing else is possible. Some of the authors ive read and read are Melodie Beatty ,Bradswaw, Alice Miller, Robert Burney and although he has nothing to do with the previous books, Eckhart Tolle has been knocking my socks off lately. Your not alone Tasha theres alot of us on the same path. Thanks for sharing what you did and giving me an opertunity to share a little of this. I needed it.
__________________
Since it cost a lot to win, and even more to loose, you and me gotta spend some time just wondering what to choose.
Tasha, Those other programs are taxing. That's why we need to have a grounded AA program before we work too hard on anything else. Also. "Easy Does it". You're not going to perfect by bikini season lol. All this stuff takes time. I like to work on one thing, per program, per year.
The co-dependence thing was never one of my issues, not to say I didn't have warped relationships that couldn't be improved.
Outside of the AA teachings, I have probably learned the most from Stephen Covery's 7 Habits books/tapes and a lot of his teachings parallel with what we learn in AA. The section on dependence/independent/really helped me understand what I needed to strive for.....and I wasn't confused about going into another fellowship. I could just integrate it into what I was learning in AA.
I can identify with the issues you have in attending other fellowships. I went to a few al-anon meetings at a time when my wife started drinking. I did learn some things and was grateful, but I figured my time was better spent keeping my AA program in order trying to be of service to the drunks I was qualified to help.
__________________
Rob
"There ain't no Coupe DeVille hiding in the bottom of a Cracker Jack Box."
((((Tasha)))) Once I read the psycological description of the alcoholic which contained the presence of the characteristic of being "risk takers" and I identified. Left to my own devices I get curious and start poking at things and looking under rocks and such and when I learned that I was of age with many experiences I also understood why I often identified with stuff. We're made up of stuff and some of it just doesn't sit right all the times...doesn't feel good or sound right or fit just so and I ask questions like...WHY? and then WHY DAMMIT!! and so on. My reactions were often disturbing and like your post here, I didn't like them and so my sponsor walked me back over the slogans and in this case the slogan "Easy does it" before I go poking under rocks and into walls and scarey places. Let sleeping dogs lay and wait until later on in recovery. Give yourself more time in your own recovery and then take small bites. You have time...one day atta and another later.
Nothing somuch has the power to rock your peace of mind and serenity than something you permit to do it.
My former sponsor after I had time in recovery use to answer my why questions with "why not"? and I was pleased that he then felt I was able to look into the swamp without falling in.
My journey started with buying an adult children of alcoholics daily meditation book by accident about 4 yrs ago. That was the start of my awakening. From there I joined the other aca forum until it shut down, then some of us came over here to Johns board. After a while a friend took me along to my first f2f al-anon meeting even though she was very sick with cancer. She gave me her small collection of literature just before she passed away a few months later. Then only last year it hit me in the middle of the night that I was no different to the people I had trouble with. That I have the same addictive traits that they had and I was causing just as much trouble for them as they had for me. Nothing like being brought back to earth...
Guess what I'm trying to say is that sometimes you're led from one thing to the next. It's been one hell of a journey at times, especially when things hit home. I've yelled, screamed, cried, laughed but in the end, I wouldn't change it for the world. The benefits have far outweighed from where I was before.
@Biker Bill: : A late thank you to this post - How did things turn out for ya almost a year later?
@Tracey - I get it now thank you so much.
@Jerry - This sounded like that teacher on 'the peanuts' waa wa wa waa waa - I remember thinking that back then that I was reading another language or you spoke in tongues (of course it was you not me loLolololol). Now I get it and this is beautiful and makes perfect sense Oh My oh mY..>Thank you God for this forum where I can go back in time and re read at a time where I can comprehend it...
@Dean - woops - I did a little bit more than that... but hey - I had the time :) This is my last year as a stay at home mom who does internet work and can pop on here every hour or so for a break. :( I will miss being able to be here often, but I am guessing I'll also be ready since I believe that power greater than me knows exactly what He's doin...
@Pappy - This reminded me of how special to me it is and was that you were always here for me when I needed someone to talk to. You're so awesome.
@Bob - Your one liners have a thousand messages behind them... I love ya.
@Rob - haven't seen you on the board lately - what's up?
@Tom - Thank you for your thoughts...
__________________
Thanks for everything. Peace and Love on your journey.
