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Old 04-15-2007, 11:30 AM
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appleblaster
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Join Date: Jan 2007
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over 10 years ago my father was in his first halfway house after many detoxes at the hospital. i visited him there the very first sunday that families were allowed. the whole family was there. he was so ashamed but i could tell he was willing to try. he complained about a couple of other people there and their terrible behaviour.....not wanting to do their part, being lazy, sneaking booze, etc.

geographically I was the closest child he had with a vehicle (there were 5 children, i'm the youngest) so he called me on a rainy night to come pick him up. he was furious with someone there....they got into an argument and he wanted to leave. normally he would yell at me with such a ferocious voice and scare me into doing things but he was subdued and defeated. that made me feel worse than if he would have yelled at me. back then i knew nothing about codependency or al anon.....i barely knew what AA was. I was about 24 years old. i do not know where the decision came from but I told him NO. I told him that I believed in him and that he could use his incredible intelligence to figure this out. He insisted that he was going to walk back home if he had to. It was storming out and he lived an hour away!!! I told him that if he was that certain of going home that night then he should bring an umbrella. That was the end of it. He didn't leave that night but he did leave the following week (early of course).

i totally didn't get it then but he was complaining about the behaviour he was guilty of. he wasn't a lazy man but he drank while saying "never give up" all at the same time. his recovery was an unfinished symphony of highlighted lines, scirbbled notes and 3 monthly sobriety chips taped securely into the back cover of his AA big book. he died at 56....basically drank himself into a coma he never could come out of. sad....my mother had to make the decision to pull the plug after the doctors were sure there was no more they could do. weather or not i picked him up that rainy night he still would have walked the path he chose.

point is....i've felt a little pang of guilt for not going to pick him up that night for the longest time....until I began recovery and realize that no matter how unnatural that felt, it was the right thing to do. I wish I had taken that attitude with my exabf. But you live and learn I guess.

They yell, they make threats, they demand, they project, they insist, they squander, they seem so strong and undefeatable but.......its all a front. He will be fine weather you get him or not. I say don't go. Sorry I rambled....I didn't mean to thread-hijack but I was hoping to shed some light.
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