Old 12-08-2013, 12:14 PM
  # 10 (permalink)  
EnglishGarden
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Join Date: Jan 2012
Location: new moon road
Posts: 1,545
When the alcoholic is drunk, so are we. We generally do things we would not ordinarily do, say things we would not ordinarily say, then later wonder over what we did and said.

Your experience, even after 15 years of Al-anon and a divorce, is not uncommon.

So you have to keep practicing. You have to have a game plan, in your pocket in writing if need be, about what you will say and what you will do regarding ex AW. And if you have to pull the paper out of your pocket and read it while she is right in front of you, then that's what you do.

Some suggestions:

Have 2-3 Al-Anon members' phone numbers always with you, and whenever exAW calls you and upsets
you and/or asks something of you, tell her you will call her back in 30 minutes. Then call an Al-Anon member and talk it through for 15 minutes. This is the equivalent of an AA calling a fellow recovering alcoholic because someone has just set a beer down in front of him.

When you walk into a room and find her drunk, don't sit down. Don't talk. Have the local AA phone number in your pocket, hand it to her, and walk out. If she texts or calls or threatens or ends up in the ER or the psych ward, keep handing out that number to her, if you feel you have to do something. If you cannot completely disengage from her life, then at least stop it with the enabling/rescuing/hand-holding/pitying/hovering/excuse-making.

She reaches out to you when she should be reaching out to AA. So put a stop to it. Because you are not helping.
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