It is certainly commendable and difficult to be honest about your struggles to anyone, much less a crowd this rough. We all screw up sometimes, or fight battles that feel insurmountable, or run away from our feelings… My preferred coping mechanism is food and internet distraction, personally, and while the consequences aren’t as dire, it’s still some kind of weakness.
I think people being harsh/critical are doing it out of a genuine desire to help.
Though I will add, I think you can indulge in some musical therapy on a Sunday afternoon without it signaling that you’re avoiding your problems. I really find music therapeutic, and since I don’t know shit about recovering from alcohol addiction, that’s all I’ve really got to offer.
This is it exactly. And it is apparently working. I don’t have any issue with that and commend anyone who wants to help. This isn’t his “rock bottom”, it is a last ditch feeling that he is ok. He isn’t.
And as for this comment, well, all I can say is that once you enable it’s hard to stop. I’ve done it and you have as well, I’m sure. Has it really helped?
Enabling and contributing to someone getting his shit together are two different things.
Agreed.
Quite the opposite with my son. His mother, on the other hand, is the enabler in chief. When I point to my success with him regarding my hard line with him during his opioid period, it’s brushed off for some reason. She is now in the position of having nearly depleted whatever retirement savings she had, and he keeps landing in the ER and conning everyone around him.
I heartily agree with Tee’s opinion. Getting straight has to be a self-generated endeavor. If my son ever contacts me directly, gives me his plan of action (one that I can monitor and verify), and asks for assistance, I’m there. Otherwise, I can’t engage in a futile and heartbreaking effort to save him from himself. I do send money to my daughter, who helps him out with necessities (food, mainly), but that’s it.
Thank you all again for everything so far. I’ve thought quite a bit about what some posters on here have posited, and there’s some truth there. The next step for me is probably standing up at my next AA meeting and owning myself, as tough as that’s going to be. I guess I’ve mainly been avoiding this step because I am not sure I can get through talking about my situation with strangers without completely breaking down and weeping uncontrollably.
My father was not an alcoholic but a compulsive gambler. I believe it is a disease too.
Try to remember that everyone in that room has been there. And I think that’s the biggest thing you might get out of AA… the realization that other people have gone through this and come out the other side. Now is their chance to be there for you, and someday it will be your chance to be there for someone else.
Although the spiritual underpinnings of Alcoholics Anonymous can be off putting to some, the 12 Steps can be a useful framework.
Most of all, it’s about getting real and making real changes in your life.
http://addiction.lovetoknow.com/wiki/12_Steps_Of_Alcoholics_Anonymous
Known a lot of alcoholics and drug addicts, by blood, by friendship, by love.
The biggest lesson I learned is that you personally can’t save any of them. They can only save themselves by their own actions to halt the progression of dis-ease (because that’s what addiction is, it’s a disease, a killing disease).
The fact that you love these people – or want to love them, because they’re your family – can take you down some strange streets as you – consciously and unconsciously – enable them to continue in their addiction. Learning how to really support them in their sobriety is a whole 'nother thing.
For those with addicts in their lives, Al-Anon can be a life saver. Literally.
In one of the ironies of life, addicts saving themselves means reaching out to other people on the ground where they actually stand.
While the internet can be useful in so many ways it also has a major drawback; it makes it all too easy to facilitate living inside your head. That sense of unreality can shield a person from dealing with things they really don’t want to look at, or wrestle with, or resolve.
What is going on in your real life besides not drinking?
And so what if you do?? You’re only human. HUGS
It’s okay if you do.
They’re not strangers. They’re friends you don’t know yet.
One of the things about adulting is that we tend to want to run through life not only Doing The Right Thing Always but Looking Really Good as we do it. It’s like “Never let them see you sweat” and existence as a series of victory dances. How you look is as meaningful as what you are.
Which is total bullshit.
Life is messy. And we are sometimes elegant but more often fumbling and clumsy, working towards better, striving to succeed.
It is in those moments that we are most human and most real.
Embrace it.
Yes, standing up and talking is likely a critical next step.
I have contributed. Please take care.
God, I am sitting here with my eyes brimming with tears as I read all these replies. You guys have been so generous to me with your time, thoughts, donations and advice.
How crazy is this place? It’s literally the only place I feel “at home” on the web, yet I know none of you.
Well, there’s no cake, if that’s what you’re after.
Damn.
I’ve done it. The ‘breaking down and weeping uncontrollably’ bit. In a meeting. I’ve seen it happen quite often.
Lets say you do break down. What, exactly, is wrong with that?
I can pretty much guarantee a couple things. If you break down, it won’t be the first time it has happened to someone at the meeting. Second, no one will be upset or offended. Third, pretty much everyone in the room will understand because they have been there. I can also guarantee that your story won’t be all that shocking to a room full of alkies. Trust me, they have done similar things and likely worse. What they did doesn’t matter much as far as you are concerned. What matters is what those folks are doing now to ensure that they are healthy and live a good life.
Owning your past is essential. You have to own it, fix things where possible and let the rest go. You can’t do that by hiding it, you have to talk about it.
Slee
Thanks Slee. You’re right. I will do this at my next meeting. I dread it, as I don’t enjoy speaking in front of people, especially about myself, but I agree it’s necessary.
Also, a special shout out to whomever it was that made a large recent donation. The depths of the kindness from fellow Dopers has been staggering to me. From the bottom of my very soul, I thank you.
Now I can get that oil change on my car that’s almost 4,000 miles overdue…
:smack:
You guys have been fantastic. I cannot stress enough how generous you all have been. It isn’t even really the money so much as it is the time and though that you have expended on my behalf. Thank you so very much all. This is incredible, the outpouring of support. I simply cannot believe it.