I just had to add to this thread.
There are so many preconditioned responses that we have to unlearn, this is a large part of why we, too, need to recover.
I am no longer with XABF, and I still have some of these panics.
The most notable one was when a high school friend texted me just before midnight the day before her wedding. When I heard the text go off and saw who it was from, my initial reaction was, "She's calling off the wedding, and she wants me to know, so I don't drive all the way out there for something that's not happening."
What
really happened was that she never sent me a paper invitation, and panicked the day before to make sure I was still coming, and knew the times and addresses.
After seeing this text, and realizing what an honor that was that the bride of the wedding was up the night before in a panic worrying, not about any of the arrangements for her big day, but about whether or not
I was coming... I felt extremely ashamed about my reaction.
The truth of the matter, though, is that I had never met her (now) husband, so it was not any reflection against him, and I always held her in the highest regard, so it was not any reflection against her - it was a reflection of my "relationship" (or lack thereof, rather) with XABF, that I was still working to overcome.
This takes a toll on a person, and these conditions are why a great many relationships fail even after the alcoholic stops.
That said, in your case your
emotions may have been your past experiences, but your
reactions were new and healthier, and
this is how you know that your recovery is working.
Sometimes I think that we judge ourselves so harshly with this. Controlling thoughts are hard. If I post, "Whatever you do, DO NOT think about elevators," I am going to bet that right now you are thinking about elevators, yes?
With the alcoholic, they may still have the urge to drink, but the ones with a good recovery don't give in to that urge, and don't take the first drink.
So in our case, we might still have some of the old thoughts, but as long as the things we do with them are healthy, and we do not revert to our old unhealthy behavior patterns but rather come up with healthy ways to recover from the old/bad/learned thinking, then we are doing well, and we are where we need to be.
