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Old 03-29-2009, 07:59 AM
  # 4 (permalink)  
freya
Member
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Upstate New York
Posts: 1,636
First of all, I don't see any indication in your post that your husband is trying to get sober. Basically, what that means to me is that you are sitting around making negative projections into the future -- and these are negative projections are not even based on your current troubling reality. They are negative projections based on an alternate negative reality -- and an alternate reality in which, in your imagination, you are trying to turn something potentially very positive (your husband's sobriety) into something problematic and negative.

Why? It sounds to me from what you've written that you've got plenty on your plate with what's actually in front of you right now. Why are you spending time and energy worrying about the future, let a lone a future as yet totally unconnected to your current reality? What are you getting out of spending your time and energy in this way?

There is a phenomenon common among people who are emeshed in someone else's alcoholism in which these people actually become, in a certain sense, "addicted" to the pain, drama, and chaos of their lives. They become suspicious of happiness and things going well in their lives and actually do things to sabotage and subvert good things that happen. When the pain and drama of their current reality is not enough of a "fix" for them, they either drag the pain and drama of the past into the present to obsess on and/or they imagine all the possible "wreckage of the future" and bring that into their current reality to live in their head rent-free.

You don't have to live this way! You have choices.


One of the truest and funniest things I've heard in an Al Anon meeting:

"I've lived through thousands of crises and catastrophes in my life, and a couple of them actually happened."

What do you suppose might happen if you tried to sit quietly and focus only on what you are feeling right now and what you want right now and what you might possibly be able to do to get it?

What so you suppose might happen if you sat quietly and really considered carefully what you can control and what you cannot?

What do you suppose would happen if you kept your mind out of the future and concentrated on doing the best you can to take care of yourself in your current reality, trusting that, if you do that, the future is sure to be much better than what it will be if you continue on as you are right now?

If any or all of this sounds hard, or impossible, or totally incomprehensible, then Al Anon (support for family and friend of alcoholics) would be a great place to learn how to do these, and many other, things that can lead you to a better life regardless of whether or not your A is still drinking and regardless of whether or not your A is still in your life.

Good luck -- freya
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