Qualifier pretending to be sober
Hi everyone, I'm new here and have been attending al-anon for four months.
Overall I love al anon, but lately I have been confused by the behavior of one of my qualifiers, and I guess I'm not so much confused with the qualifiers behavior but more so about how to understand my action in response/how to not get frustrated-- here's my problem:
My qualifier has always been the woe is me victim type, I've known her my entire life and she manipulates every situation back to making our entire family (her parents/my grandparents especially) ooh and ah over her every sensitivity. She is wealthy, has no responsibilities yet life is too much for her and we need to handle everything related to her with kid gloves. In my family if she lies we are all supposed to sit there and nod along, I've historically been the truth detective in my family but am learning to let that go. I know I have resentment toward her, I'm exploring and trying to remedy that, and I think it comes in large part from having to pick up her responsibilities so often as a child, but for the first time I have come to some peace through beginning al anon and now my qualifier is pretending to be sober and even can tell you the number of days she's been "sober." I've finally come off of trying to investigate whether she is or is not sober (through the first two months of al anon) and am living my life around my needs. The only time I see this qualifier is at family gatherings and she constantly forces her sobriety on me, when I happen to know she is in fact not sober. I'm trying to employ what I have learned so far and not "control" the situation by calling her out as a liar but im finding it to be difficult. I'm also hurt an angry that she's pretending to be in a program when 1) that would be a dream of mine and would make me so happy for her and 2) my program has meant everything to me and she's still lying to get attention that is undeserved at 57 years old.
Does anyone else have this problem or advice?