I am not singling out anyone here so if it doesn't apply to you, let it fly on by. But I'd like to share one of the biggest reasons that all of my attempts at Recovery never worked before.
I didn't want to be honest with myself.
I thought that because I never physically or sexually abused my Son that I was a good Mom. He wore the best clothes, had the most expensive, newest toys on the market and I gave him just about everything he ever wanted. Except me.
I didn't have time for him until I got a mess of pills in me. When he was a baby, there were times when I would finally find someone who had the drug I was trying to find and he had a dirty diaper. Did I stop to change him? Nope. I took him out with a loaded diaper. I'll change him later, I told myself.
I could go on and on with the list, but what I'm trying to get at here is that we need to be honest about what our addiction lead us to do. How many times were we low on money for groceries but still found money to buy a bottle or didn't pay all of the electric bill in order to buy that 12 pack? How many times did we yell at our kids for being too loud watching cartoons on Saturday morning because we had the hangover from hell? And then that very evening, we expected our kids to play a video game with us after we had a few drinks. This is confusing and hurtful to kids and other family members.
Just because we didn't physically or mentally abuse our families doesn't mean our addiction didn't cause them hurt and pain.
What does this have to do with honesty? For me, I minimized what this disease of addiction did to those around me. I couldn't imagine how my getting drunk and high effected my family and close friends.
And what does this have to do with Meetings? I wonder how many individuals out there who "dog" AA just don't want to take a serious and honest look at themselves.
Thanks for letting me share my feelings and thoughts,
Judy