Originally Posted by
sauerkraut 
For anyone who is holding out hope that the A will change, that if they just give him one more chance, or try something different . . . . What I would tell myself from the future is to give it up. The sooner you can visualize your healthy future and start to make it happen, the better.
What I finally realized after five years of trying to change my AH was what I still focus on today: the only person you can change is yourself.
Hi, sauerkraut! Nice to hear from you!
The part of your post I quoted above really struck me today. I am listening to a book-on-DVD in my work van and at one point, character A, an alcoholic himself, says to character B, who divorced his alcoholic wife and later kidnapped their daughter and started over elsewhere w/new identities, "
You ran away from your wife b/c she was an alcoholic! Your daughter didn't run away from me when she found out I was an alcoholic. She stuck by me and waited for me to get sober!" I was yelling in the van "But what if she NEVER got sober?!? What if YOU NEVER got sober?!" Later on, the (now adult) daughter is meeting her mother. Miraculously, the mother is now sober for 26 years, having come to her senses after her daughter was taken (b/c after all, we ALL know that a shock is all it takes for an A to see the light and sober up, right?).
I was again yelling in the van! The story was basically good until this crap started showing up, clearly written by someone who had NO experience with or knowledge of alcoholism and alcoholics. Not to say those things couldn't happen, but I felt it was SO misrepresented....
Anyway, that part of your post reminded me of how that very thing is quite possibly the most important thing we learn in our recovery, or at least I think so.
Thanks for taking the time to check in, and I wish you all the good things life has to offer in the years to come!