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Old 07-20-2007, 05:08 PM
  # 4 (permalink)  
prodigal
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Join Date: Apr 2004
Location: Keepin' my side of the litterbox clean
Posts: 2,136
Welcome to F&F. I'm glad you're here. Al-Anon is the key. Just this past week, a woman returned to my regular meeting. She had left for three years - the three years her AH had maintained sobriety. Guess what? She's back in now that he's on a rip-roaring bender. She admitted she should have kept attending during his sobriety and working HER program. She probably would have been in better shape when he went back out.

I think it's time for you to seriously consider working a program. Without it, your at the mercy of his disease and being dragged down with him. You know it's progressive. Things are getting progressively worse, aren't they? That's the way it works. He's doing what addicts do. And you're paying a very dear price for what he's doing. He's getting high on drugs and or booze, so he's got what he wants. He's zoned out beyond Pluto, and you're the one having the nervous breakdown.

These are probably posted at the top of our forum where the stickies are located (please take some time to read them when you have the chance), but I'm posting it in this thread because it tells it like it is:

#1:
My name's Jon. I'm an addict. And this is what addicts do. You cannot nor will not change my behavior. You cannot make me treat you better, let alone with any respect. All I care about, all I think about, are my needs and how to go about fulfilling them. You are a tool to me, something to use. When I say I love you I am lying through my teeth, because love is impossible for someone in active addiction. I wouldn't be using if I loved myself, and since I don't, I cannot love you.

My feelings are so pushed down and numbed by my drugs that I could be considered sociopathic. I have no empathy for you or anyone else. It doesn't faze me that I hurt you, leave you hungry, lie to you, cheat on you, and steal from you.

My behavior cannot and will not change until I make a decision to stop using/drinking and then follow it up with a plan of action.

And until I make that decision, I will hurt you again and again and again.

Stop being surprised.

I am an addict. And that's what addicts do.


#2:
I spent so much time focused on the alcoholic, the self pity, the lies, the failures, that I couldn't see myself. I had become bitter, jaded, controlling, fearful, angry, self righteous, and pretty crazy. How could I sit in judgment of someone else when my own life was such a mess?

I finally realized that I wasn't living my life. I was living his, and not doing a very good job of it either. Talk about being a victim. I felt all the pain in my life was his fault. When I started taking responsibility for my own life, decisions, and actions, I stopped being a victim. I stopped trying to figure him out. I started to find some serenity and healing.

Straightening out my own life, and learning to allow others to be responsible for themselves has taken time and work. Seeking support and guidance from Al-Anon, counseling, and SR were absolutely necessary for me to get better.
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