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Old 01-22-2010, 02:50 PM
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Cowgirl1265
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Join Date: Aug 2009
Location: In the barn
Posts: 324
Its amazing how hard our codie responses can be triggered when things get stressful!

You did a great job standing up for yourself in October and declaring yourself free from a life with alcoholism. Have you been attending Al-Anon? There is a lot of other work that has to be done when we have spent a long time in a relationship with an alcoholic. Just shedding the alcholic spouse or partner is usually not enough to help us shed the ingrained behaviors and responses we have when they do what they do.

I think its important to recognize that your feelings of needing to DO something or KNOW something RIGHT NOW are just feelings. Try to breathe a little and let them come...eventually they will pass. A therapist years ago taught me that my feelings were like great big waves when you are standing at the edge of the ocean. Some of those waves are pretty huge and threatening and some will even tumble you head over keister, but like all waves, they build up, they peak, and then they will pass. The feelings will ALWAYS pass. So when the feelings that you need to call him, that you need to control the outcome, that you need to fix him come upon you, remind yourself that these feelings will eventually pass. They come, they peak,they pass.

If you haven't gone to an Al-Anon meeting or read Codependent No More I highly recommend them.
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