bellejar

Good morning all. I am so glad to have found you! I have so much to say and ask but don't know where to start.

I guess an introduction would be in order? I'm a divorced, 38 year old single mother of two daughters. Both of my parents have been functioning alcoholics/drug users for as long as I can remember. My mother is also mentally ill (bi polar) but has, in the last several months, stopped drinking and started attending meetings. They were both highly functioning, we never did without in any way, and there was no physical abuse. I have trouble even saying there was emotional abuse, because they weren't particularly mean or anything...just not really "there". So I have a good amount of guilt placing any of my issues on their addiction, but the bottom line is, I fit every single description of an ACoA to a T! I live very far away from them so I don't deal much with the day to day stuff, and haven't since I was 19 or so. I married and got the heck outta there.

So I have finally realized, after years and years of unhappiness, depression and self hatred, something must be done. Not just for myself but for my sweet daughters. I am not doing as good a job with them as I should. It's almost as if they're being raised by an alcoholic, even though I don't even have a drinking problem, ya know? I want them to have self esteem befitting the wonderful smart loving girls they are.

For myself, I am just tired of this life...I want to live while I still can. I am somewhat overweight and have a food addiction I believe. I've been divorced for 5 years, and in that time I've made a complete and total mess of every relationship I've tried to have. They never last more than a few weeks. In fact these days, I never get past the first date! It's getting harder and harder to imagine letting someone in, yet I am so very lonely. The only way I've been able to "connect" with someone in the past few years is physically, and that just makes the longing for love and understanding worse, so I've stopped that mostly.

My first question I guess is, what should I be doing to start healing? I've been reading the Adult Children of Alcoholics book and have ordered a couple more by the same author. I have looked into meetings but the closest ACoA one is about an hour away and on a night I can't make. Would an Al Anon meeting be appropriate instead? And what can I do right now, today, to begin to raise my self esteem? I don't think counseling is really possible as I will be a student without insurance very soon.

Thanks to anyone who took the time to read this book lol. Any and all help is so appreciated.