Originally Posted by outofthedark2
Teke, I'll be sending you a private message...I hope today is a better day for you
Thanks VIC and everyone else for your response. YES I READ a lot on the ANON forums, but unfortunately, to ME anyway, when I LOVE someone, part of my loving that person is also trying to understand them. Although the ANON forums are ENCOURAGING and provide a place of a sort of 'comraderie and fellow-suffering", it gives me no insight into what ADDICTS are feeling or why they do what THEY do.
Hi Out...
My name is BigSis and I am an alcoholic. I stopped drinking/drugging in 1983 but did not get into a 12-step program until my 2 children developed raging addictions.... so I guess I am an Alanonic Alcoholic.
Anon forums do provide fellowship/fellow-suffering and comraderie... but if that is all you are seeing there, perhaps you might consider reading a bit more.
What I have discovered, is that as the addicts are addicted to their drug of choice, *I* am also addicted... to the addict.
To everything they say...to what they do... to how they think. When I was active in my disease of codependency, every waking moment was filled with my thoughts of my children and if they were using, who they were with and how they were obtaining drugs.
My LIFE became one long saga of trying to "get" them clean.
What I have learned in Alanon is that all I was doing was increasing MY pain, without having ANY...NADA... NO .... effect on whether the addicts in my life used, or not.
What I also know, is that I was not ready for Alanon, even when I found out what it "really" is (as opposed to MY idea of it - which was some sort of team work approach to curing alcoholism... grin)... I was not ready for it until I HAD tried many things. Until all those many things failed. Until my PAIN was so great and my tool bag so empty I had NO OTHER CHOICE.
I would love it if you did not have to travel down the road I did, but I understand that each of us has our own path, and if that is where you gotta go... then that is where you gotta go.
Please keep the Anon forums, or even better, face to face Alanon or Naraon meetings in mind if you ever need some additional support AND ideas on how to live a happier life. Alanon is a program of 12 steps, only one of which even mentions a drug. It is a program of introspection and learning and much, much more than "only" support.
I do wish you the best.