Reading Past Blogs!!

Boy did I have a deep day yesterday!!

You can truly see your mindset/moodiness/surroundings/craziness/humbleness (if that's a word), repeativeness, etc.......when you read your past blogs!!!

My main goal for blogging as I say on my title is to record my progress and drawbacks....so it can help me "see" .....It is serving this purpose! Sometimes when I read them I do feel like "Sybil"!

I notice that I blog about things I read alot. I also make physical notes about them in my recovery books, and written journals, etc. They give me inspiration. They give me strong feelings that I don't want to just pass by. I write them because I do want to remember what they meant to me at the time and who knows...maybe they can help others too....
(Being the philosopher that I am!!! Really..... Codependent (with a capital "C", always wanting to help others!)

When I comment on blogs I relate to others what parts of what they said makes me feel included. Makes me warrant my feelings......It also feels like this when people comment on my blogs.....Thank you!

I do want to say how in awe I am on a daily basis reading peoples blogs and what a way they have with words and perception. My preconceived notion of alcoholic families was always what they were shown in movies.....bums...(except me of course!!) When I hear others in meetings and I read your words...I am envious!!! You are all brilliant!!

I know like the rest of you that have dealt with alcoholism for a very long time....we are also Patient, Loving, Kind, Creative.......and all the other words that mean GREAT!!

Praying and God.....

This morning I was reading the reading for today in ODAT...It was talking about Step Eleven: "Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, ........." "If we are living by the Al-Anon counsel First Things First, prayer and meditation come before all else, since it is in this way that we receive guidance for our decisions." ........

As I was reading this my mind was saying "If I only had time!"
Well Al-Anon seems to tell me exactly what I need to hear because the Today's Reminder directly below said:

"Am I too busy to pray? Have I no time for meditation? Then let me ask myself whether I have been able to solve my problems without help. As I face them day by day. I want to acknowledge my need for His guidance. I will not let this day pass - nor any day from now on - without making myself consiously aware of God."

Well here goes.....I am setting myself a "Thursday's Resolution" and from "consciously" now on ...to set aside 10 min to "Pray" and "Listen"! Two of my most difficult things to do! How can I have direction if I don't take time to be grateful and to say it.....and to listen for a response or to just take a breathe!

I have always had a problem with "God"....A problem with "believing"...I hear others feel the same way when they share in meetings. I know someone is responsible for beauty when I look at our beautiful mountains and sunsets.....and when I go home to Florida, the beaches..... I think I am more spiritual than religious...

I read something in a recovery email recently that helped my perspective:

Not only then has each man his individual relation to God, but each man has his peculiar relation to God.
-- George MacDonald

Each of us sees and experiences God in a way somehow unique to us. No two people see things exactly alike. That's why our program has no dogma. Each of us is encouraged to follow a spiritual path that seems to have been created for us. And we need not worry if we're on the right one, because every path leads to God. Would God let us lose our way? Of course not. We will know if a course correction is needed, and God will lead us to it.

Each of us understands God in a way no one else does. There's a place in God's love for each of us. And out of that place we can bring light to other people, just as our own special people have brought their light to us.

I will cultivate my unique vision of God so that I may bring light to someone else.


This made me feel more accepting of whatever path I want or need to choose.....

Vegas!

Every year we put our son in camp (and daughter too when she was younger) then we would go somewhere for a few days.

I use to tell people we would go so we could talk and remember why we love each other! That was the illusion that I told......The truth was.....We would have fun talking and laughing until about noon...until the first beer was cracked or the first drink was ordered. Then most likely I would try to join him...and last about an hour, feel sick, then need to go to bed....sometimes he would come back to the room with me, but most of the time I was either to bored or to drunk that I would leave him at the bar.

The next day usually went with me giving him guilt trips about his behavior and the amount that he drank.....he would apologize and then not start again until about 3....then the roller coaster continued day after day. I always had an aprehension about traveling with him. We went to beautiful places, but trying to control his drinking (which of course didn't work) always put the focus on the alcohol rather than the surroundings.

This year on my birthday in April when I put my memory card into my computer to transfer our pictures from Hawaii....I realized that all the pictures that I took were either of just landscape or of me taking pictures of myself with the landscape in the background. He wasn't around for any of these. This made me really sad. This is what made me start saying "no" to traveling with him.

Last week my husband and I drove my son to camp. He asked me if I wanted to go to Vegas. We could drive. (We never drove anywhere because he was always drinking...he already had a dui and paid the consequences!) I asked him if he was sure, if he was ok with being in Vegas of all places trying to stay sober!! He said he was.......I told him that I was concerned that he was trying to hard to be normal. That he was placing to many pressure on himself. I didn't expect him to be everything....I just wanted him to be honest and sober.

Well of all places to be sober.....Vegas!! We had the best time!! The Best Time!! We went to shows....restaurants (and remembered), night clubs, etc.......and to top it off.....
We went to an AA meeting in Vegas and he got his 30-day chip!!
I want to scream this from the mountain tops!!

(I need to cut this here....I haven't blogged in forever......and this will run forever!! Just needed to get this part out!!)

Trust or Faith......

Is "trust" the same thing as "faith"?
I think "trusting" sometimes sets us up to fail. Trust has a difficult time living up to expectations. Trust is something that is broken in an alcoholic home frequently.
"Faith" may be a better way for me look at things, a better way to turn things over to a Higher Power. Faith is a type of "neutral". If I'm let down, I'm not destroyed, I just need to realize that it isn't my time to have this problem fixed just yet.

In the morning before anyone is up I have a cup of coffee outside and read: Al-Anon's ODAT, Courage to Change, Hope for Today......and Melody Beattie's The Language of Letting Go.....Sometimes I say a prayer...This helps me start my day.

Today's reading in Hope for today gave me some inspiration for my post....

Hope for Today:
........I've found that I can surrender my control and my will endlessly, but surrender is meaningless unless I follow through with action based on "faith". When I forget about the "faith" part, I take back my worries over and over again........
..................................................................

I have trust issues with my husband when it comes to alcohol or drunken binges. In the past couple of years, lying was a staple in his life. Especially when he was traveling.
Yesterday was his 23rd day of sobriety. He left yesterday morning to go to California for work. He told me he would call me when he got there and he didn't. Usually when I don't hear from him, he's already drunk.....(that's why he fly's first class!) I didn't want to call him because my motive was to check up on him. But of course, I waited until mid afternoon, but did call him. Everything was fine. He then called me around 10ish and he was with people from work (the same people he always got drunk with) and was still sober. He commented on how he hates being with "drunk" people and it can be exhausting! Really???? - Was my comment!!

He mentioned that his friend in California tried to sneak him a vodka, and his other friend was ribbing him about his AA stuff.....I told him that I thought his friends would try to sabatoge him.....he said he expected this....

This is where I need to have "faith". I need to give this over to God. Trust has never worked for me in this situation......I have no control over his sobriety. The only control I have is over my recovery and my strength and courage to know that
"I CANNOT LIVE WITH ALCOHOL IN MY LIFE ANYMORE!!"

I love this man I married. I could be married to him my entire life. The drunk is not my husband. The drunk is vial. I'm keeping my perspective as simple as I can: Don't Drink - Have us, Drink - Lose us!!

Never Alone

In Al-Anon a man said something that made an impact and made me feel good.......

He said, "I went to an empty church yesterday and sat in the pew. A woman came in and sat next to me. After a few minutes of silence, she leaned over and told me "Even though the church is empty......You are never alone!!"

I am reading the Paths of Recovery - Step Three - and going to answer the questions in the back of the chapter to go over with my sponsor on Friday. I only have two more sessions with her until we both leave for summer. She wanted to get me through the first three steps so over the summer I could work the Blueprint Step Four workbook. I feel a bit rushed but she said that I was the kind of person that can obsess and analize to much and this is the way she sees that I should do it. (BTW She is so right with the obsession/over analazing etc. etc.!)

Things that stood out while reading about Step Three;

*No one compels us to turn over our will. We choose to "try" because the way of life we created on self-will alone was neither satifying or serene

*I feel sometimes God is looking down on me, shaking his head, and thinking "When will she ever learn!"

*I know God gives me the priviledge of making my own decisions. Sometimes I do the wrong things and he let's me experience the consequences of my own mistakes.

*He is always with me and loves me unconditionally

*Step One gave me Honesty; Step Two gave me Hope; and Step Three gave me Faith..
........................................................................

I do believe in God....God is the one who provides us beauty, like sunsets, to love and appreciate....even when there is ugliness all around us.

Ho Hum!!

I am having one of those days that I'm just not happy. I'm not depressed either......I have alot to be grateful for......People around my house seem happy....

Maybe it's because it's an overcast day outside....maybe it's because I worked out pretty hard and I'm just tired.........Maybe it's because......

Going to Make it Work No Matter What!!

That was what was in my mind in my relationships when I was younger. Especially with the one who is now my husband!! I felt he was funny, made a good living, was cute......I could make him into something I could live with. Yes he drank, but back then in my late 20's (he in his 30's) that was what we did!! Yes he drank alot, but I could be good enough that he didn't need that.....I would be all that he needed me to be!! Then he would quit.......

This went on for about 15 years, I am a slow learner, and evidently so was he!! I wasted alot of my life thinking it was a matter of time before he would get "it"! (Whatever "it" was!)

"The Language of Letting Go" daily readings by Melody Beattie has been extremely helpful in my life. The readings really help me to see myself and my situations. Today's helped me write today's post. I am just going to write just a few pieces of it: (The text is mixed, it is written in the parts that apply to me)

June 7 - Into Orbit
It doesn't matter if they're hurting themselves. It doesn't matter that we could help them if they'd only listen to, and cooperate with, us. IT DOESN'T MATTER, IT DOESN'T MATTER, IT DOESN'T MATTER!!

I think I can change him.....Nobody's ever really given him a chance.....Nobody's ever really believed in him...Nobody's ever really appreciated him enough...Nobody's can do for him what I can.....
These are warning signs. Red lights. Red Flags. Stop Signs. If we have gotten hooked into believing that somehow we will be the one who will make the difference in someones life, if we are trying to prove how good we can be for someone, we are in trouble. This is a game. A deception. It won't work. It'll make us crazy. It will be self-defeating.

We may be the "one" all right - the one to winds up victimized. This thought pattern is not being responsible for oneself. It's a set up. It sets us up to stop paying attention to ourselves while we focus too much on the other person.

This is a rescue. It's a game move, a game we don't have to play. We don't have to prove we're the one. If we're the best thing that ever happened to them, it may be time to see if they're the best thing that ever happened to us.

God, help me let go of my need to meet dysfunctional challenges in my relationships
..........................
My goal for myself is this prayer above......my feeling good enough that I don't need to look to other people for validation. I am there most of the days...especially these days......Which is a nice feeling.
Also, to be able to even recognize what I did in the past, to reflect on my wrongs and to get out of denial, is part of recovering.