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Alcohol concerns - March 2009
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Message 1.Â
Posted by Ellie May (U2222618) on Sunday, 1st March 2009
This is the March thread for alcohol concerns. All are welcome – whether you are worried about someone else’s drinking or your own, or are recovering from alcoholism or another addiction.
Here are links to some useful sites, although we are not aligned with any official group or recovery programme:
Alcoholics Anonymous
Al-Anon, for families of alcoholics whether in recovery or not
Al-Ateen, for teenagers coping with family members with drinking issues
AA Freethinkers, an online support group for agnostics and atheists
NHS site on alcohol misuse
Wiki site on alcoholism
Alcohol concern
Smart recovery
Women for sobriety
And finally, a link to the February thread
I’m Ellie May and I’m a recovering alcoholic and addict, six years and three months sober this month. I feel incredibly lucky to have found a way back to a normal life. Unfortunately this does come across as smug sometimes. I am working on that – it’s a fine line between happiness at one’s own good fortune and smuggery.
I am grateful to be here. I was told in treatment that if I didn’t change my life I wouldn’t see my son’s 10th birthday, and he is now 12. My life at the moment is kind of ok – not great, not terrible – and on a pretty even keel, which is just how I like it. In the madness of my life a few years ago, the prospect of being just ok seemed such a mundane way to live, it filled me with horror. I needed crisis and drama and excitement. I don’t miss it.
A lot of the time I don't think about alcohol. I have never really suffered cravings so the actual not drinking has got progressively easier, but dealing with things sober has been much harder. One of the great things about this thread is that it put Basia, who is now my sponsor, in my life. She and everyone else who posts here – and those who lurk – are part of keeping me on my even keel. -
Message 2
Posted by Fee (U3534148) on Sunday, 1st March 2009
Bookmarking. Will post later when I have a proper keyboard. Thanks Ellie May.
Fee -
Message 3
Posted by Cautious The Precious (U13709486) on Sunday, 1st March 2009
I'm bookmarking also. Glad the thread got going on time BTW. -
Message 4
Posted by won.glove (U11322764) on Sunday, 1st March 2009
Thank you for starting this thread!
St David's Day greetings to you all too.(Patron St of Wales) -
Message 5
Posted by Celebrian (U12324885) on Sunday, 1st March 2009
Hi Ellie and everyone, bookmarking too until I get my real computer on
iPhone is great but frustrating for visibility! Lovely sunny spring day here, daffodils burgeoning, happy to be alive and sober. -
Message 6
Posted by Fee (U3534148) on Sunday, 1st March 2009
I agree, Celebrian, and I find the keyboard a bit frustrating too - much better than my previous phone for texting - but much worse than a proper keyboard for proper composing. I've popped in from time to time whilst I've been away over the last few days (passing the time whilst waiting for my daughter to join me at various meeting points, mainly) but can largely resist the temptation to try posting until I get back to a proper keyboard.
Thanks for starting March, Ellie May - I do think the start of the month is a good opportunity for a reflection on current state of mind and to allow those joining the thread to understand where some of the longer-standing posters have come from.
I started posting here because I was concerned about my husband's increasingly bad relationship with alcohol. He is now sober, following a spell in a treatment centre and with the help of AA, after a struggle that lasted around eight years from the time he first recognised that I had grounds for my concern about his drinking (my concern had started some years earlier but I thought that I was perhaps fussing about a normal level of drinking). After getting sober, though, he decided to leave - partly because I'm not sure that he has yet come to terms with the mundanity of ordinary domestic life - and partly because during the drinking years a distance came between us that has not proved possible to bridge in sobriety.
I persuaded him to try AA after coming to understand more about it on these boards (neither of us is religious and he had previously thought it could not be for him on those grounds) so he partly owes his sobriety to these boards (although mainly to his own wish to get sober, of course). I discovered Al Anon also through these boards and although I occasionally have reservations about it it has been immensely helpful over the past year or so.
I continue to post partly because I want to share my experience and perhaps help others avoid the feeling I had that there could not be a problem because he was so far from the stereotypical drinking from dawn to dusk drunk. Very few people outside the immediate family ever saw him drunk and it had no effect on his working life. It pretty much destroyed our family life, though, and has almost certainly done lasting damage to our children. The damage it was doing to me included preventing me from being able to see the damage that it was doing.
Best wishes to everyone who posts or who lurks - it would be great if you could drop in and say hello for the start of the month. We are not scarey in here whatever anyone may say about us!
Fee -
Message 7
Posted by Fee (U3534148) on Sunday, 1st March 2009
Just waving at Daisy and anyone else who who is concerned about their drinking but not to the verge of feeling they need to give it up completely - there are people who drop in and out of these threads who are of that mind - the most recent example that occurs to me is UglyFairy. This isn't just a thread for those who have reached the stage of having to give up completely because they have reached the stage of being unable to guarantee that they will be able to stop if they once start.
Fee -
Message 8
Posted by BasiainBrooklyn (U505001) on Sunday, 1st March 2009
Thanks for opening up today Ellie May. I do think it's a great service to the rest of us when someone starts the new month, and I agree with Fee about the value of the monthly check-in for all of us.
I'm Basia and have wracked up over 7 years with the help of AA and friends within it, and understanding and supportive friends outside it. This last group are important for the return to some semblance of normal life, people who don't question your reasons, don't try and get you have 'just one'. (Just quickly want to say by normal life I mean doing some of the things I did before I got sober, like going to parties and gigs....but leaving earlier and sober).
Last week at my Sunday meeting, which I'm about to go to, I sort of had a mini revelation. It's just one of those things that seep in slowly over the years, about not needing to struggle all the time with life, and I don't mean drinking - I, like Ellie May don't actually think about it very much at all - just not constantly worrying about money and bills and clients paying on time and all the usual stress that comes with being freelance in tight times. It made total sense to me what my sponsor said to me about wearing your sobriety like a lose garment, not a straight jacket, and I love that and that's what I think I now understand.
So while I do have worries like we all do, there's something that's happened to me that has enabled me to deal with them in a way I find more sane, and I often apply the expression Fee brought in here from AlAnon about not borrowing trouble from the future. If I've done everything I can to keep a situation workable, I have to know when to let go so I can enjoy the good things in my life.
I know this sort of thing isn't particular to those in recovery, it's just coping generally,but it wasn't at all the kind of thing I could have done when drinking, and it has taken me years within recovery to get to this stage and I'm okay with that.
I love these threads and I am indebted to them for valuable relationships in real life as well as showing me other sides to alcoholism.
< The damage it was doing to me included preventing me from being able to see the damage that it was doing.>
Fee, I love your insight. -
Message 9
Posted by BasiainBrooklyn (U505001) on Sunday, 1st March 2009
Hear hear, and in that spirit, I'd like to welcome posters who lurk who have been struggling and don't feel like posting. Stick around, we know you're out there. -
Message 10
Posted by Mabel Bagshawe (U2222589) on Sunday, 1st March 2009
Sun, 01 Mar 2009 18:56 GMT, in reply to Basia in message 9
Mabel B here - occasional poster and regular lurker. Someone who lost a close family member to drink (complicated by mental health problems) and hears occasional reports of concern regarding their partner. The thread was too late for the former situation but helps me identify my approach to the latter -
Message 11
Posted by E Yore (U1479700) on Sunday, 1st March 2009
Sun, 01 Mar 2009 19:10 GMT, in reply to Mabel Bagshawe in message 10
Just want to wish you all well.
I am only an occasional lurker and not having anyone around me who is at all interested in alcohol, leave alone addicted or in danger (attitudes to alcohol are very cultural,) I had stereotypical ideas of what an alcohol addiction was. These threads have taught me a lot about it, about addictions in general, about people in general, about what makes us all tick. I hope I am now more sensitive to others, thanks to you all.
Good luck! -
Message 12
Posted by BollyKnickers aka Lugh (U13689988) on Sunday, 1st March 2009
Waving back, Fee!
Daisyx -
Message 13
Posted by Redbookish (U1335018) on Sunday, 1st March 2009
Sun, 01 Mar 2009 19:28 GMT, in reply to E. Yore in message 11
Can I second E.Yore's post? -
Message 14
Posted by BasiainBrooklyn (U505001) on Sunday, 1st March 2009
Thank you E.Yore, Mabel and Red. It's really heartening for me to read of people wanting to learn about alcoholism and addiction in general and its incumbent sidekicks and taking a broader understanding of this condition (or whatever you wish to call it) that effects millions into the wider world.
There's still so much ignorance surrounding misuse of mind-altering substances, as has been witnessed on these boards over the Ryan SL, and Ed before that, and Luke before that, so any attempt at elucidation gets my vote.
Welcome Daisy. -
Message 15
Posted by Laggard (U11504915) on Sunday, 1st March 2009
Hello all,
March. Sounds like the end of winter to me.
Sorry, usually not in position to open up the month as I travel a lot and don't always have reliable/private enough e-mail access, as was the case this weekend.
Laggard (freeriding) -
Message 16
Posted by Bizzie Lizzie (U2255808) on Monday, 2nd March 2009
Mon, 02 Mar 2009 07:02 GMT, in reply to Laggard
Hello, I'm Liz and I'm a lurker on these threads. Reading them has helped me come to terms with my relationship with my A - a close family relative who died ten years ago of a cancer which was masked by the effects of their drinking - and lifted the feelings of guilt that I could have done something more or something different to have stopped the drinking. Hearing about the three C's - you didn't cause it; you can't control it; and you can't cure it - was intensely liberating for me.
I am currently supporting the children and grandchildren of a distant relative who is alcoholic, and reading these threads has helped me in that.
My very best wishes to all who post and lurk here. -
Message 17
Posted by BasiainBrooklyn (U505001) on Monday, 2nd March 2009
Welcome back Lizzie, you've visited before haven't you? I'm glad to read that you've been helped by the notions of the three C's which was news to me as a recovering alchy with friends in trouble.
I hope you are receiving some help in your caretaking and that you have AlAnon locally to buoy you up.
Basia -
Message 18
Posted by Fee (U3534148) on Monday, 2nd March 2009
Hello to all who've posted since I last did. Good to see E Yore and Redbookish in here.
My husband told me last night that he didn't think our daughter had seen him drunk all that often - he thought she'd more often just had him crash out and not be around. I'm debating whether or not it's worth bothering to quote chapter and verse at him putting him right on that.
I'm a bit behind with something that needs doing for work so I'll get that out of the way first and then think about it.
Fee -
Message 19
Posted by BasiainBrooklyn (U505001) on Monday, 2nd March 2009
Fee, all the best with that. I can't comment other than as a recovering alchy, I'd rather know the truth but we all do this differently.
My thoughts are especially with lurkers tonight.
Bash x -
Message 20
Posted by BootsNo7 (U8853924) on Monday, 2nd March 2009
Morning all - my name is Boots and my A is my only son and thanks to AlAnon I no longer ask whether or not he is drinking but just try to keep focussed on my own affairs and not stress about him.
At my home meeting last week a newcomer asked if he should draw a particular article concerning the levels of alcohol consumption and the link with cancer to one of the problem drinkers in his life. One of our "old timers" immediately said simply, "No. Keeping the focus on us does not mean pointing out to others what dangers/pitfalls/help is available to them."
We all laughed at the simplicity of the answer but I did think about it afterwards and blushed at the efforts I had made in trying to draw my son's attention to articles detailing the evils of excessive alcohol consumption - even not so long ago when after years in AlAnon you would think I should know better.
Ironically, I have had a medical condition diagnosed which means that I have lost the enzyme which helps my liver de-toxify alcohol so that means no more odd glasses of wine for me and I am so thankful that this is not a problem for me and set me wondering how I would cope if I suffered from an alcohol addiction. Totally pointless but that is how my mind works sometimes. -
Message 21
Posted by E Yore (U1479700) on Monday, 2nd March 2009
Mon, 02 Mar 2009 11:43 GMT, in reply to Fee in message 18
Fee, for what it is worth, imo only, if you want your husband to take this point of past behaviour on board, it would be better, starker and much harder for him to ignore or airbrush out, if it came straight from your daughter. IMO only. He cannot then pretend your comment is due to the past aggro between the two of you and it is some sort of payback. -
Message 22
Posted by Fee (U3534148) on Monday, 2nd March 2009
Good point, E.Yore. In fairness, I don't think my husband would see it as a payback and there has actually been very little aggro, certainly on his side, since he got sober - just no meeting of minds or attitudes. Difficult for me to comment much further on the issue here without talking about my daughter (which I prefer not to do) - I probably shouldn't really have posted about it in the first place except that I was so struck by it as an illustration of how someone can appear to know something and yet in reality not really "get it" at all (further illustrated by the fact that I gather that his mother, who in theory knows all about it all, actually asked my daughter if she had ever seen her father drunk).
Hi Boots - good to see you. It's difficult, I sometimes think, this pointing out the dangers of things - I found myself having a conversation the other day with someone about the risks of illegal substances - there's no point my trying to influence anyone's conclusions about their own behaviour on the basis of the facts they have gathered - but some of his factual information was not correct and it did seem appropriate to point him in the direction of a sound source of information. I always come back to the fact that if I hadn't told my husband what I had discovered here about AA not being religious, he would never have gone near it and might well not now be sober.
Fee -
Message 23
Posted by yulzerzo (U10301639) on Monday, 2nd March 2009
hi
Just checking in - off to an AA meeting tonight. I feel in need of it. Not that I feel like drinking but just somehow feel I need the companionship if other recovering alcoholics! I've never felt like that before. Perhaps someone with more experience of meetings could tell me if that is a normal feeling - or perhaps I'm just feeling a bit low for some reason? Anyway hope the meeting will do the business for me and make me feel a bit more positive.
Yulzerzo -
Message 24
Posted by Fee (U3534148) on Monday, 2nd March 2009
Hi, Yulzerzo. Don't know about AA but I do from time to time feel that quite strongly about Al Anon meetings - a need for a group of people who will almost certainly understand what I'm talking about and will listen non-judgementally. It often co-incides with feeling low about things as well.
Hope you come back feeling more positive about things. The last meeting I was at people were sharing about the importance of eating and sleeping properly as an antidote to feeling low - don't know if that applies to you.
Fee -
Message 25
Posted by BasiainBrooklyn (U505001) on Monday, 2nd March 2009
Yul, this is exactly my experience too. I too go not because I feel in danger of drinking, I just like the calm that descends when I'm sitting in that chair and all the frayed nerves and jangled thoughts of a day fade away and I always hear something I need to hear. Sometimes I feel like talking, other times I just listen to what others are saying.
It's perfectly normal.
When I'm having a hard week that has nothing to do with alcohol I know I'll be pulled out of it by other alchies We're lucky we have that to go to rather than the bottom of a bottle and I always end up laughing at meetings because of the dry humour and propensity to self-effacement.
Hope you enjoy your meeting.
Basia -
Message 26
Posted by won.glove (U11322764) on Monday, 2nd March 2009
Hi All.
I am secretary at an AA meeting and I have been asking the meeting for someone to take on the treasurer commitment for many weeks now. There have been no volunteers out of a meeting of about 50 people.
I nearly lost it last week. tried humour. snarl. Woof Woof. snap.
Tried explaining that it's not very good for me to have two commitments in one meeting! Carrying money round.£££££!!!
So on Friday I had two chaps sort of 'volunteer' but one just really wanted to tell me he might be able to do it but just for a couple of months as he has to go abroad for health reasons. Great.
So he just wanted me to listen to his story.... meanwhile I can feel the resentments rising, and pretending to be civilised.
I did not want some useless offers, some blokes in AA just want to dump all their stuff on someone. Oh Yes! It's true.
I just wanted to tell them to shut up! and eff off!!!
Look at my face, I am not interested.
I did none of this. suggested to one chap to check it with his sponsor first....
But. the main thing is.
The meeting had a really good speaker with a strong message.
Here is what I heard.
FEAR provokes courage.
Courage is grace under pressure.
And. With reference to my alcoholic brain....
"I am not what I hope to be,
I am not what I ought to be,
I am not what I want to be,
But thank God I am not what I used to be."
(You can use the word God as you understand God)
I use it to describe 'the healing power of the universe'
The supreme creator.......
G.ood
O.rderly
D.irection
If i don't get a treasurer next week I am going to .........
This irritation is annoying me!
I actually feel like handing my commitment in. (My year will be up in May) But it's just an 'I'll show them" moment!
Childish Behaviour and sulking. Inwardly, On the outside I'm the picture of serenity. Ha Ha Ha Sreeech.
Going to a meeting tomorrow!
x -
Message 27
Posted by BasiainBrooklyn (U505001) on Tuesday, 3rd March 2009
Won, glad you're handling it....
Feeling a bit blah tonight because an open-ended chapter of my drinking life finally came to a close. Oh bloody hell, I've started this a few times and I can't get it out. I just feel tired and hacked off with people dying from this crep.
It's too long and too sad and too ridiculously dramatic to properly go into but Ijust found out an old friend died two years ago. It's taken me 4 years to call his sister to find out how he was and I knew there was a strong possibility that he would be dead.
He was my running buddy towards the end of my drinking, a clever, funny, talented gay man with a lot of demons and a lot of bitterness and when things were really bad for me with my drinking, he was neck and neck with me.
He was not happy when I got sober. He came to a few meetings with me, but it was a sham so that I would continue to let him stay at my apartment; he told me what he thought I wanted to hear, but I wasn't blind. He didn't want to know the sober me and I could only hang out with him if I sat and watched him drink himself into nastiness every night. I didn't want to live like that, his way or the highway, so we stopped seeing each other.
A hideous series of events followed that ended his life in prison alone dying of brain cancer despite his extremely long suffering family trying to be there for him. He was due to be released in four days time when he died, so that he could die at home, but instead he died in a maximum security wing of this jail because of his medical requirements.
The irony is that he didn't die directly of an alcohol related illness, but his drinking put him in the wrong place at the wrong time and engaged his mouth with the police in a way he may not have done sober. God, it's all surreal. Skipped bail, FBI, hiding out... it's ridiculous.
He was the first person I've ever detached from in the interests of my own sobriety and every time I reached for the phone over the past few years, thinking I might go and visit him in prison, something stopped me. I just couldn't invite all that toxic drama into my life again, and the last I heard he was angry with me for getting sober and called anyone who was in the programme an AA nazi.
I now have to make my peace with someone I didn't want in my life anymore, who died unable to eat unassisted and without me being able to say goodbye. I am sad about that for selfish reasons, but I'm finding it hard not to beat myself up over not reaching out sooner, while at the same time knowing I just couldn't and I wasn't ready. I distinctly remember going to dial his parents number and feeling a darkness descend and not wanting to let it in.
It was good talking to his sister tonight. Her phone number just fell out of a pile of papers and I felt it was the right time to call. She was brutally honest about what happened and gave me the background to her part in his sobriety, or not. She did an intervention years before I'd ever met him, a paid for scary one which had him in detox against his will, and against his deeply enabling parents' will. He hid his drinking from them for the rest of his life.
His sis is no fool although she may have been desperate before, and all the stories of what a mean cow she was all make sense now; she had learned to detach with love ages ago, after trying to help him every which way. She bailed him out all her life until she couldn't take it any more.
She made me laugh at one point describing how horrified she was that a friend of hers suggested she go into therapy, and she said, indignantly, "It's my brother who's the alcoholic not me" but went anyway and immediately understood why she needed help. She also knew her parents were the biggest enablers to his detriment and were harbouring him when the authorities caught up with him.
Oh hell I'm rambling. He died at the end March in the same year that Nick died in the August of. Perhaps I was only ready for one.
RIP Michael -
Message 28
Posted by Fee (U3534148) on Tuesday, 3rd March 2009
Powerful post, Basia - glad you've got to the point of being able to share it.
I think you are right about having to wait for the right time and things creeping up on you. I go to a meeting with someone whose son died (alcohol related) just under a year ago - this is a meeting where people explain at the start briefly how they came to be there - this woman has always talked about how one of her sons "was an alcoholic" and left it at that - at the last meeting she added "and he died about a year ago". She didn't say anything else and no-one remarked on it afterwards - but I felt it was a significant step forward for her that she could say it.
I spent some time yesterday trying to explain to someone how liberating it is to recognise that it is not possible to get others to behave in the way that we want them to - the person I, and some others were talking to, had said how depressing and lacking in hope she found the "you can't control and you can't cure" message.
Won - hope you find a treasurer soon - I don't think reluctance to volunteer for things is special to AA or even to AA and Al Anon - although it's hard for those of us who cannot resist saying yes, I'll do it (even when we sensibly probably ought to be saying no, sorry, I can't) to understand.
Best wishes to all. Hope you had a good meeting, Yulzerzo.
Fee -
Message 29
Posted by won.glove (U11322764) on Tuesday, 3rd March 2009
Basia. Thank you for sharing that!
It is very healthy to be able to write down what has happened.
It brings a clarity and I find it very cathartic. Sometimes writing it down is even more powerful than speaking about it.
Focusing on what it really is that we remember and want to clear out. To clean up and heal the scabs of the past.
The benefits of being sober are many, but being able to see the past clearly is a great gift!
I hope you have a better day and that you... I don't know!
CARRY ON!
And to all the other posters.
Have safe day.
I will be keeping my mouth closed today.... -
Message 30
Posted by BootsNo7 (U8853924) on Tuesday, 3rd March 2009
Basia - thank you for posting that. The fact that you denied yourself contact with him surely means that your goodbyes were said then - his awful death simply draws a line underneath a sad life.
How brave of you to post about your feelings toward him and this awful addiction and clearly explaining the multitude of emotions which those on the outside experience whilst watching the self-destruction carrying on.
I am sure you made the right decision in taking your own way away from the toxic situation - I have always considered that the word "toxic" is so descriptive not only in alcoholic situations but also in others I have come across in life.
For me, your post echoes the loss of someone who was my best friend, not from alcohol but because she met a chap who did not like either me or any of her other friends and has gradually succeeded in isolating her.
I have felt her loss acutely but in sharing with my sponsor have realised that the relationship was toxic but there are still times when I look at my wedding photographs, for instance and cry for the loss of my friend. She is not dead but may as well be so I will have to learn to live with that.
Boots -
Message 31
Posted by won.glove (U11322764) on Tuesday, 3rd March 2009
Someone who did a really great chair last week, has just sent me this. Thought it appropriate.
<"The most satisfactory years of your existence lie ahead"-reference "A Vision For You" in the Big Book, through practicing all the principles in our affairs which leads to wisdom and discernment and then HELPING OTHERS through the promises which is our scars(a scar is a wound that has healed). Living a life based on principles(Truth)-rigorous honesty in a very dishonest world, is very rewarding but very very painful! We do not pick up the first drink. We are enabled to cope with temptation, criticism, rejection, fear, betrayal, doubt, disappointment, etc.
Have a blessed day.>
x -
Message 32
Posted by yulzerzo (U10301639) on Tuesday, 3rd March 2009
Hi Basia
Thanks for your posts. The meeting last night did the trick and I really felt much better after it. As I said not sure why I felt a bit down. Perhaps the euphoria of actually taking the bull by the horns and going to AA has worn off and I am beginning to realise how life changing this step is going to be and the work I have to do within the fellowship. It's interesting but I'm beginning to realise that AA is not only a support for those who wish to stop drinking but could also be a gateway to a different life (if one wishes to use it as such)
Yulzerzo -
Message 33
Posted by Ellie May (U2222618) on Tuesday, 3rd March 2009
‘Gateway to a different life’ just about sums it up for me, Yulzerzo. I never really experienced the pink cloud effect, so I never had to feel it wear off. I think I realised from the start that everything in my life was going to have to change. I was relieved that I wasn’t going to die imminently, but incredibly apprehensive and scared about just how I was going to manage life from now on. I remember sobbing all the way through a meeting when I was 16 weeks sober, thinking I was never going to get the hang of it, never. I didn’t want to drink but I didn’t know how to do THIS, either. I quite often feel like that still. It comes and goes.
Basia, I’m really glad you shared that. -
Message 34
Posted by BasiainBrooklyn (U505001) on Tuesday, 3rd March 2009
Thank you so much for your thoughtful replies. I have astounded myself by how weepy I feel today, whereas I was just numb last night. Hang on, thanks again for making me feel it was ok to post that. I was mindful of posting anything moddable, and anything that his family could have objected to.
I'm going to either write to his parents or phone them today and I've decided I'd like to get the train upstate to visit his grave when the weather is nicer.
Yul, I love reading your posts.
Boots, thank you for your account of your friend; that was powerful and I could see how AlAnon could really be of invaluable help in a situation where alcohol isn't even in evidence. Times ten.
And it's weird how things happen. I was asked this morning to chair the Tue night women's meeting because the regular girl is ill. (By 'chair' here, we mean the person who leads the meeting as opposed to the speaker, who you in the UK call the chair, excl mk). Just what I needed.
Warmest wishes to all for a good day,
Basia -
Message 35
Posted by jane_berry (U3025755) on Tuesday, 3rd March 2009
Boots
briefly de-lurking because your post rings alarm bells for your friend. Isolating someone from their friends is often the sign of an abusive relationship -
Message 36
Posted by BootsNo7 (U8853924) on Tuesday, 3rd March 2009
Jane - I am touched at your concern but it is something which I have thought about long and hard.
However, F has made it abundantly clear that she wants nothing more to do with me, even after a few months when I rang her extending an olive branch (although I had done nothing wrong I thought, just being irritated when said chap rang her twelve times when we were out for lunch) and she said she had no plans for the rest of the year (this was in early June) and we must do lunch.
She was then married in September that year having had it all arranged since the beginning of the year, they were married in a church when neither are church people at all (not a crime I know and I am not criticising) and my big birthday followed in November (the first I had not spent with her for nearly twelve years) without any acknowledgement whatsoever.
I don't need a postcard to tell me that I am not a friend any longer and sadly, she is the adult child of an alcoholic and I feel I could have been some help to her but there you are. There is absolutely nothing I, or her erstwhile friends can do except watch on the sidelines and let her get on with the life she has chosen.
The only reason that I posted about her was because AlAnon and my sponsor have both helped me work through most of the feelings I have had and the parallels with the alcoholics in my life and the lessons of powerlessness are just the same in both cases.
Boots -
Message 37
Posted by Oz (U6102444) on Wednesday, 4th March 2009
I haven't posted here before and there are a lots of issues that I too have to get straight before I can be as brave as most of you but Boots you post regarding your friend has thrown a switch that I feel I must add to.
We all have close friendship some going way back to school, into uni. We attend their graduation, marriages and are there soon after they give birth to the children. In their turn they are there for you. A natural symbiosis of love for a friend.
In my case this was the case. My friend was there when I met my first husband, she had even bought the engagement gift two months before we had made plans. I sat with her while she was in labour and sat with her when life wasn't all she deserved .
Life moves in stages but isn't immune to change and change doesn't announce itself it jsut happens altering everything.
In my mid 30's my marriage was a sad one and I had thrown myself into work in order to start digging my escape tunnel. I had to be able independently to provide for myself and my children. During this time , and quite out of the blue I met someone else. Like me a stale homelife, all the expectations none of the perks as another mate once put it.
I left my first husband and moved south to start a new life with him and my wee brood. From the start I was honest with my friend about my feeling for this man. She immediately leap to the conclusion that we were having an affair, at this point I hadn't even kissed him. Her attitude was that of disloyalty to her! How could I betray her trust. For many months she had known that my husband and I were in two very different places and that I was trying to leave. My health was suffering and so too were the children.
When I finally moved on she cut off all contact. I had changed, was her retort. Her family made contact from time to time and wondered why I had become so distant.
Two year later I had a call from my Mother. My friends husband had left her just before Xmas for the usual younger woman. I immediately called to offer support and help in any way.
The only thing she said was that my help was no longer required. I had been bluddy sacked!
I grieve for that friendship just as you do Boots.I still don't quite understand but perhaps I am just thick. I am sure she would have a string of reasons why I had let her and myself down. However since she never speaks to me I shall never know. -
Message 38
Posted by Lindfield (U11070610) on Wednesday, 4th March 2009
Hello everyone,
I've never even lurked on this thread, let alone posted on it, until today when my attention was drawn to it.
My story is that i am the child of an alcoholic. I held my darling fathers' hand as he died of liver failure ten years ago in August - and i still miss him every day. He drank from before i was born - in fact i rarely remember him completely sober. He never acknowledged his addiction - even as he died he was blaming infected meat in the Middle east - and we all supported this lie. Perhaps it was the easiest option - he was a successful man at the top of his profession.If his alcoholism had become public, he would have never worked in that profession again. He had a difficult childhood and was in a profession where 'de briefing' meant going to the pub and drinking to forget.
Two things resonated for me on this thread, the first being concern for the children of alcoholics. I guess i am here to say - yes, it will always affect them but they will survive and they might be stronger for it. i suspect that without my darling Pa i would be a lot more judgmental about addiction, about people in general...My own attitude to alcohol is interesting - i think it no coincidence that my partner drinks very little. "6 O clock Fawlty" really does mean 6 o'clock in our house and when life becomes stressful and i'm thinking about alcohol at 11am, it brings me up short and makes me examine what's going on.I hate being out of control - i question every pain killer i take.. cont P.94.
The other thing that resonated was the loss of friendships some of you mentioned. Many years ago a wise person told me that when people do and say mean or inexplicable things, it is more likely to be about them than the recipient. it changed the way i looked at the world. When someone 'triggers' something in me, i stop and think why that is, and it's usually about my own insecurities. They might be being a complete pl*nker but my reaction is about my own stuff. Similarly when someone disses me, i try not to take it personally. in the case of people who have been 'sacked' - perhaps you were braver than your friends could be and they 'sacked' you as a defence. Sometimes, once the deed is done, the shame is too great to ever move beyond. To single you out, Mrs Oz (although it equally applies to others) perhaps your friend knew her marriage was in trouble but felt helpless to do anything. Perhaps she would have liked to have provided herself with an escape route - but wasn't brave enough. Perhaps her anger at you was really a defence against being angry with herself.
I've nearly cancelled this post several times. You lot are incredibly brave - my posting style is usually light and frothy and doesn't let anyone get too close. But this thread is different - this thread is honest. -
Message 39
Posted by Oz (U6102444) on Wednesday, 4th March 2009
Thanks for that LL
I think we discussed this in Sydney and long before on owls but I thought that a problem is best shared and perhaps it will be of help to anyone else.
my mate from all those years ago was in a relationship that was critical of her and her friends. I think there is some truth in her needing to take control and not doing so. In the end it was her OH that took the tiller.
However when you know that they are suffering and try to throw a line it is extremely hard to deal with the rejection and the spiteful way it was delivered.
Boots
hang on in there kid your mate may need you someday and you might be able to do what I could not.
LL your father appears to have been a quite remarkable man and it must be a dreadful situation to watch such talent poisoning themselves. To this I now address my self and all here.
I am far too quick to self medicate and now have got to the point in my life when I have to admit that I have no control. None at all.
One glass is never enough. It is never too early.
6 o'clock Fawlty is often in the morning not afternoon.
i may feel more confident with a glass but that is an illusion that we all perpetuate.
When I held down a powerful job and was unable to get near a bottle I don't ever recall thinking that I lacked the confidence to do it. So why do I think that a bucket of booze makes me better.
i bluddy doesn't. It makes me weak.
So things are to change and the first step is admitting my own addiction. -
Message 40
Posted by BasiainBrooklyn (U505001) on Wednesday, 4th March 2009
Wed, 04 Mar 2009 05:23 GMT, in reply to Lindfield-Lady in message 38
Really good to see you Mrs O and LL.
I'm glad you're both here. This thread is for anyone whose life has been touched in some way at any point by addiction, so I hope you can both stick around.
Your posts have given me a lot to think about.
Bash x -
Message 41
Posted by Lindfield (U11070610) on Wednesday, 4th March 2009
He was a remarkable man Mrs oz - which makes me think what a bluddy awful thing addiction is - and anyone who looks it in the eye and tries to deal with it is a brave and heroic soul.
And anyone dealing honestly with someone with addiction is braver than we were. -
Message 42
Posted by BasiainBrooklyn (U505001) on Wednesday, 4th March 2009
Wed, 04 Mar 2009 05:43 GMT, in reply to Mrs Ozarch in message 39
Mrs O, our posts just crossed. Well done, and keep posting, ask for real life help and don't forget to accept it, excl mk. I'm so, so glad you're here. Say as much or as little as you like, but how fab that you've taken a step.
Bloody well done.
Flaming huge kiss,
Bash x -
Message 43
Posted by BasiainBrooklyn (U505001) on Wednesday, 4th March 2009
Wed, 04 Mar 2009 05:50 GMT, in reply to Lindfield-Lady in message 41
Oh Lindfield, if you had had the info that we here have today....I don't think bravery comes into it. You do what you believe is best. It works both ways too. Had I known about AA sooner...I might...who knows?
And I think your last post is brave and no doubt helping another lurker. That's the beauty of this thread.
Bx -
Message 44
Posted by Oz (U6102444) on Wednesday, 4th March 2009
Hi Bash
Long complicated day today and has just got more so.
earlier before I posted I started to make a case for why one small glass tonight was OK.
Then I realised, bluddy hell what am I thinking of.
LL you tried to protect yourself and your parents. You said that things were rough at home some time ago on another thread. Kids never want to make things worse and soon it become a way of life. -
Message 45
Posted by Lindfield (U11070610) on Wednesday, 4th March 2009
I've just read my post again and realise i have fallen into an age old habit of mine - attempting to make everyone feel better.
Basia and mrs Oz - you have both hit the nail on the head - i have spent a life time doing my best to keep everyone happy and missing the point entirely!
Mrs Oz - i realise that in telling you what i thought was going on in your friends head, i completely ignored the pain you feel from her rejection. Of course you know it's about her not you, but it still bluddy hurts! And it was a feeble attempt to make you feel better.
Sorry. -
Message 46
Posted by Oz (U6102444) on Wednesday, 4th March 2009
LL
You always cheer me up :O)
I knew what you were saying so apologise not -
Message 47
Posted by BasiainBrooklyn (U505001) on Wednesday, 4th March 2009
I suspect that Fee and Boots will be able to contribute more lucidly to this point LL, but it's the sentence that really yelled out from your posts.
I think the kind of grin and bear it and stoical putting up with it that a lot of families grow up with is not always (is it ever?) the best way as a lot remains repressed and the issues that come about as a result remain untreated so the stronger which you talk about here may be the hanging on for dear life kind of strong, rather than the 'I've faced it and worked through it and am still doing so in a calm way' kind of strong. I now some people prefer it under the carpet, but that's not the spirit of this thread, so I'm really glad you've spoken about your circumstances.
I know that for everyone that thinks like I do, there's someone who says "Rubbish, that's all in the past, move on, there's nothing here to see" but that's not how I choose to deal with all the alcoholics in my life.
Just want to say quickly that one can't choose ones family growing up, but one does choose ones friends and it's no accident that I surrounded myself with alchies, which is why I like both programmes AA and AlAnon.
Well that's nice to hear Lindfield. There are those in your position who do not think like that, people who prefer not to learn about it and just carry the bitterness around and think they don't need any kind of help. I feel for people who don't know that help is available, or even necessary.
Anyway, welcome.
Bx -
Message 48
Posted by MV Whitby May Rose (U6862284) on Wednesday, 4th March 2009
I have just realised whilst reading Mrs O and LL's posts that it is 7 years this week since I stopped letting alcohol control my life.
The best ( and only) advice I can give to anyone who is struggling is to just not have that first glass. It works for me. -
Message 49
Posted by BasiainBrooklyn (U505001) on Wednesday, 4th March 2009
Congratulations Whitbyrose, I will raise my glass of sparkling Valencia blood orange juice* to you, and second what you said about the first glass and thinking it through to the bitter end,
Bx
* Blame Trader Joe's. -
Message 50
Posted by MV Whitby May Rose (U6862284) on Wednesday, 4th March 2009
Thanks Bash. I will join you in similar and yet again give thanks for how my life ( and that of my family ) is now.
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