wow

[Ago]

wow....just.........wow

I can't even begin to convey how many feelings this thread just brought up for me,
http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...-feedback.html (Major confusion-Need feedback)

I just went through a very similar situation with my family/mother/sister/uncle/stepfather, except I was the one who left 2.5 months ago.

I left with no notice after 3 years....no money, no job, just couch surfed until I found a place to live, just got a fairly attractive job offer today actually.

The last thing I said to my mother, who...is my mother...I love her...so much ...was, I never want to see you again, I never want to talk to again, even on your deathbed, you are too harmful for me to have in my life any more.

I have now severed ties with my uncle, mother, grandmother, 99% of my sister, pretty much my entire matriarchal family...and the truth is I like them as people....they just happen to be super harmful as family.

anyway, some background.

my parents are both alcoholics that separated, I split time between them, hitchhiking up and down northern California from age ten spend time with both parents, until I ran away from Home at age 16 to live in Hawaii.

My mother is a "caretaker" alcoholic, and my father is a "here's ten dollars buy some food and sit in the truck with the dog every night outside the bar until 2AM kind of alcoholic."

I basically stayed with my father, living on boats, in other peoples houses, in warehouses, as we moved around so much (17 schools in 15 years)

from about the age of ten I was stoned every minute of every day, to by the time I was 13 I was a daily drunk, by that time I was "moving" kilos of pot, had a machine gun and a pistol, and wasn't afraid to use them, I started taking guns to drug deals at about age ten I guess. Needless to say I was the only kid at these deals.

by the time I was 21 I had moved into bartending (as in moved my life towards legal occupations) at around 25 I got sober, went back to school, became a fireman/paramedic, started giving back to the community, stopped going to jail, volunteered for the local Fire Dept., trained local kids how to do Cliff Rescues, in short became "respectable" and began "growing up".

I've spent the last 20 years being used a tool by my mother to "rescue" my heroin/meth/opiate addicted sister, to getting her in rehabs, to driving to Mexico to get her when she was pregnant with the junkie she married in Prison....to letting her live with me 5-6 times over the years, even having to stay in hotels while she "kicked" heroin at my house.

so anywaaaay

What happened was, 3 years ago, my mother got sick (alcohol related), my sister was the one who took her to the hospital, then my sister was rushed into the emergency room with a burst appendix.

I was living down south a few hundred miles away, I had a business that was plugging along, worth about 120k a year when i even put a small effort into it, 70k when i hardly ever worked, and considerably more when I actually got off my butt. I lived with a wonderful woman, had long term sobriety, wasn't bursting with joy on a daily basis, but it was a good life, it was my life.

My mother called me, and asked for help, she said if I didn't come up and run her restaurant until she got well, it would go out of business, and it was supporting her, my sister, my niece (infant), and my stepfather.

So I went up to help, I'm a good son you know? I went up three weeks in a row, trying to commute three hours each direction to keep my own business afloat, while I was there I watched my mother, her wrists and ankles were no larger around then pencils, she was working 100 hours a week paying for my sisters place to live, supporting her husband....my mother was dying...literally wasting away in front of my eyes, supporting my sister..."co'ing" my sister who kept relapsing on heroin/meth etc.

They were literally murdering each other.

My mother begged me, on her knees, begged me to move up and run the restaurant, she promised to sign over the restaurant, and her portion of 30 acres so I could build a house, as long as I put the land in trust for my niece ( her granddaughter )

I said no repeatedly, she kept begging.

I finally said yes.

Thus began three years of hell.

After six months, my girlfriend called me, and said "If I'm going to be alone, I need to "be" alone, this is no longer your house, you no longer "live" here, so this is no longer your house. I need to move on"

rightfully so, I had hoped that I would build a home, and eventually we would go back and forth between "the property" and Marin, but I understood where she was coming from, I had just dumped all the money I made selling my business into building my new home.

Thus began my descent into further depths of Dante's Inferno.

I had worked for a few months for free, and finally brought it up to my mother, umm excuse me, my savings are gone, I'm working more then full time, may I have some money please?

Minimum wage.

for running a restaurant.

from120k a year to 16k a year.

the same week, a number of things happened, her husband drove up to look at the house I was building, with my own two hands, and said, "wow, this place is really shaping up, don't spend too much money, I don't want to feel too awful when I kick you out and move into it.

My mother had sat down with me, and we made plans to open for dinner, just all these plans how we were going to make all these changes, quack quack blah blah.

Everything I tried to do met resistance, everyone was saying, Andrew, you can't just burst in here and take over. I was like, ummmm OK, I'm just doing all the things my mother said she wanted done.

That week she told me, "I made a mistake son, I really didn't need you here, I should have just hired a waitress. Sorry. I also really don't want to make any of those changes we talked about, that was just barstool dreaming, I had no idea you would actually try to implement any of it"

She then reneged on everything.

everything.

So there I was....making $250 a week, not nearly enough to get by, living with 3 practicing alcoholics (my aunt and uncle will get their own chapter later) and a junkie who now had a retarded daughter to care for.

I can't even begin to describe the next few years, the lying, the passive aggressive manipulations these people never told the truth about anything never not once not ever, it was all back stabbing power play manipulative bullsh1t.

stepfather had a few old trailers where I was building, it took me 3 months to clean up the area, the beer cans, the trash etc. I asked him to take his trash and...well...I learned....NEVER ask G to take responsibility for his own actions or the repercussions are bad. I think if I remember correctly, my mother decided to hold back a large part of my paycheck that pay period as she said "my drawer was short"

it wasn't about the $$$ being short, it was about showing me who was boss, and "punishing" me for trying to get G to take responsibility for his own stuff.

that sort of communication became the norm, nothing was ever said to me directly, but "punishments" were handed down.

I felt so trapped, I was in my early forties, was always broke, lived 2-3 hours from the nearest large town even, and had no idea what I'd do if I even could leave for a career, I had owned my own business, but it took a lot of money to start, and I wasn't young enough to start over in that line of work (basically a logger that specialized in large and dangerous trees).

When I tried to confront anybody about anything, they lied to me, and then they couldn't understand why I was getting so upset, like for example, my mother announces one day she's done, she's retired, and I'm running the restaurant, but I need to give up my waiter shifts (the only thing keeping me afloat) because she's decided my sister needs to come work, but my sister doesn't feel like cooking, so she's giving my sister all my wait shifts, so my hours doubled and my pay was cut in half.

chapter two tomorrow, I'm sorry to vent, but that thing between tortoise and healthy limits just blew my doors off.

[catlovermi]

Like, wow.

Thanks for sharing in such graphic detail. I have to say it was horrifing for me to read.

I hope chapter two says something about seeing the light, and getting out, and breaking free. About forging a new life with a good quality to it, choosing and surrounding yourself with people who are healthy and such.

And releasing the guilt for doing the right thing, too.

Quite a story, and sorry about the "childhood" you were dealt.

CLMI

[Ago]

Originally Posted by catlovermi

Like, wow.

Thanks for sharing in such graphic detail. I have to say it was horrifing for me to read.

I hope chapter two says something about seeing the light, and getting out, and breaking free. About forging a new life with a good quality to it, choosing and surrounding yourself with people who are healthy and such.

And releasing the guilt for doing the right thing, too.

Quite a story, and sorry about the "childhood" you were dealt.

CLMI

Thanks

basically yeah, I've moved back "home" to where what I consider my "real" family live, ended a relationship that I started while I was living up there, another stellar example of my amazing powers of observation and outstanding "life choice" Skills

http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...-new-post.html

it popped up again for a minute here

http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...-new-post.html

have been working on things like

http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...-new-post.html

and

http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...-new-post.html

Life is getting better

I am surrounded by healthy people and I am making healthy choices, I have had "recovery", "sobriety", "mental health", and a happy and healthy long term relationship in the past so I know what that looks like, it's like finding the trail in the dark after I got lost rather then reinventing the wheel to mix metaphors and sound like a complete a$$

about the childhood...well it was something but it really wasn't a "childhood", I had a lot of fun, it was like being Huck Finn with a gun in Jim Carrol's "The Basketball Diaries" that segued into "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" but I at least got a chance to kind of "redo" High school when I got sober...silly slumber parties, making out, hard to explain but there was a pretty large group of us that got sober at the same time, and for a few years it was like going to high school in 50's or something, it was pretty healing.

ok, must.have.coffee.

bbiab

[GiveLove]

Hey there,

I'm glad you're getting this all out on paper! I know I couldn't start to step away from things until I got them all out of my dark, sticky memories out into the bright light, where I could sort them clinically.

You're making all kinds of progress, friend. But keep talking. We're listening out here.

GL

[DesertEyes]

Hey there Ago

Congratulations on your insights, and on getting your life back on track. My childhood was somewhat like yours, except without the father to hang out with. Your straightening up and doing the righteous thing for the community shows the kind of man you _really_ are, and not the one created by the drugs.

Sounds to me like you hit your "bottom" in drug addiction some time ago, and that you are now going thru the "bottom" of a co-dependent.

That feeling that you describe from watching two other people live _your_ life is called "a moment of clarity". It's the reason why there is a "12th step". It's why it's so important for me to spend time with newcomers and listen to _their_ story. It helps me see _my_ story from a different perspective. I've had my "doors blown off" several times in the last few years.

A little overwhelming, kind of like realizing that I just passed a sign on a foggy freeway that said "Road Closed, Bridge Out". I better turn my life around, and fast, or I'm going to end up like the guy I just 12-stepped.

Welcome to your new life, Ago Now that you know where you _were_ heading, you can join the rest of us on our road to a new life that is truly "happy, joyous and free"

Mike

[Ago]

Thanks you two

The support I've gotten here has been "key" I've been able to "vent" and "process" in a way I've never experienced before, it's like "journaling" with feedback.

I'm not quite sure where I am in my "process" around all this, writing that stuff last night at some point became "uncomfortable" not because I'm "stuffing" more because I just didn't have the energy to "revisit" the story, it's like I've told that same story so many times at some point it stops being helpful and I'm just reliving it, and by telling the "blow by blow" it just brings up all the same feelings, and I just don't have the righteous indignation necessary to relive it all.

It just doesn't feel helpful any more.

That make sense?

I'm kind of wondering at what point I just "let go", rather then "relive" the whole episode, there are lessons there, extremely important ones, but where does "processing" just become "picking the scab" you know?

I don't care any more that my mother is drinking herself to death and know there is nothing I can do about it, and actively "co'ing" my sister, but I do care that they will try to suck me back into their sickness. I just don't ever want to hear from these people ever again, they are dying and going down the tubes, and if possible they will and have pulled me down with them.

My sister is raising her little girl, and she is a practicing junkie, and I am supposedly "Uncle-Daddy". Up to this point (as far as I know) my sister has been a good mother to this little girl, but the wheels ARE going to fall off if this continues, and I know who's going to get the "come save me" phone call when they do.

No one in my family knows where I live, but they have my email and phone number, I've been giving some serious consideration to changing them so my family can't find me any more.

I was talking to my xragfbff this morning, we talk every morning (coffee talk with T and A) and we were discussing this, among other things, she "did" ACOA meetings from 88-92 and we discussed different stages of recovery and various places in your "process", it was very interesting.

She's known me for maybe 15-16 years so she's able to make pretty insightful observations about things I've said in the past, different things I have gone through etc. but one of the things we spoke about was when we were dating, we had "stuff" but our dialogs were .... intense... in that I was always able to set my stuff aside and "hear" her, and honor her feelings, respect them and ....adjust myself accordingly ....and she was always able to do the same for me .... the reason that's important and pertinent to this conversation is I have the ability to "heal" while "processing" with a healthy person, but one of my patterns that's become clear is I don't have the ability to "heal" while dealing either with an active alcoholic, or someone who's active in denial, it's like I stand in front them and say "do you see me? do you see me? do you see me? until I'm screaming it and acting out.

It's like I become enmeshed in their illness and get "ill" myself, and the way I learned to deal with that was by only having "healthy" people in my life, I made a company where for the most part I only hired sober people, I walked away from customers i didn't get a good "hit" from, my girlfriend was sober and "recovered", all of my friends were sober and "recovered" and when I returned to the "real world" I was pitifully unequipped to deal with everyone.

I was living in an extremely isolated place where the poverty level was up over 75% according to the census bureau and approximately 70% of the people made their living by growing Pot. It made for a very strange dynamic, where everyone was paranoid, and keeping tourism down and strangers out of town where was a large priority, even to all the locally elected "officials" that was their platform, made it hard to run a restaurant, lemme tell you.

Everyone lied about everything. Every business dealing I had, 95% of the people I dealt with...like... it was like I was still in Kindergarten (from that book everything I needed I learned in Kindergarten) where you learn to share, don't lie, don't hit people, naps are good etc. and everyone else was in "high school" where people stole from you, slept with your girlfriend, your girlfriend slept with other people, lying was the norm, people stole from your parents and trashed your house if you had a party....

It was very confusing, so anyway, what I'm wondering now, is how much of my "codependency issues" did I just "hide" by only having select people in my life, you know? Where do I draw the line between "recovery" and just walking away from sick people?

I'm not too worried about it, because if there is one thing I have learned it's "more will be revealed" and the entire last few years have definitely had a "theme" between the family stuff and the relationship I chose while I was "in that place" (emotionally) and I haven't done a 4th step around that stuff yet, so I'm thinking there will be quite a bit of solution with that, well it's been my experience anyway, if it makes it to my fourth step, those parts heal, and don't reappear in my life, but that's just my experience.

OK, ttyl folks

[catlovermi]

I've found that recovery is often so counter-intuitive.

For example, the process of feeling all the messed up things, that place where I want to throw my hands up in despair, is actually my means of processing through it and past it. I don't feel the movement while I'm in the thick of it, but after a while, I realize that some of it is behind me. I don't generally feel progress day to day, or even week to week or month to month, but when I start to look back on quarters, then I see differences. It takes a lot of faith, and patience, to wait to see progress. And a lot of willingness to be openminded, and to follow the next right step in today.

But most of all, I've found it's a function of how much I want that change, in my gut, to put up with all that seemingless endless time where progress is infinitely slow and not apparently measureable.

Oh, and also, the progress for me is also predicated on not polluting myself with toxins. I have to go totally insulated from such people and influences in life, or I get dragged right back into the fray. Absolute boundaries in this respect makes for the most crisp recovery pathway, for me.

CLMI

[DesertEyes]

Originally Posted by Ago

....I'm kind of wondering at what point I just "let go", rather then "relive" the whole episode, there are lessons there, extremely important ones, but where does "processing" just become "picking the scab" you know? .....

When you stop repeating the same actions over and over again expecting a different result. When you no longer expect your Mother to magically change into some kind of fairy tale princess, and accept that she is just another human being that has chosed to hide from reality, that is when you will no longer have that "need to process".

Look at it this way, in your life you have come across _thousands_ of people just like her. But you don't spend a minute of your life processing those encounters. Why not? For me it's because I have no expectations of those thousands of other people. It's only the ones that I have a "codie addiction" to that suck me into that sick cycle.

Originally Posted by Ago

.... It's like I become enmeshed in their illness and get "ill" myself,.....

That is a perfect description of "co-dependency"

Originally Posted by Ago

....Where do I draw the line between "recovery" and just walking away from sick people? .....

Around here we don't draw a line. Recovery from codependency _is_ walking away from toxic people. Notice that I make a distinction between "sick" and "toxic".

Originally Posted by Ago

.... it's been my experience anyway, if it makes it to my fourth step, those parts heal, and don't reappear in my life, but that's just my experience. .....

That's exactly my experience too.

Ago, sounds to me like you're "trudging the road of happy destiny" and making great progress

Mike