what has been most helpful during your recovery?
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Join Date: Feb 2015
Location: Seattle, WA
Posts: 254
what has been most helpful during your recovery?
when i first "got out," the show Intervention was seriously what introduced me to the idea of addiction and alcoholism being a family disease, and that I, even though i had gotten away from my AM and she was 'the one with the problem', might need treatment and support as well. i think the first resource i found was you guys!!!! hallelujah!! 
(there are several forums out there for acoa's which are nowhere near as nice as this one!)
I'm pretty sure all the books I've loved most have already been added to the stickie for books... I've got the iPhone app for the language of letting go and read it every morning, and also the daily reader from ACA which is a lovely book for us ACOAs.
ACAWSO, Inc. :: Books :: Strengthening My Recovery - Soft Cover - Pocket Size
In no particular order, over the next six months, i found out about CODA, ACA the group, and Al-Anon. I have gone to Coda meetings and Al-Anon meetings. Both have been really helpful, when I've felt alone in my experience, and isolated from other people, and not had a sense of what to do with myself or where to go from here.
I just went to my first ACA meeting and that felt like home even more than the other two groups, though I will be keeping them in rotation as well. Even though the substance abuse with my mother didn't start until she was in her late 60s, and I was in my very late 20s, the dysfunction - in thinking, in the family roles and dynamic - was always there, and I was told at the ACA meeting that that's enough.
I haven't really started Step Work, exactly, but I still plan to. (if any of you have done non-addiction step work I'd love to hear about your experiences). I would really like to find a sponsor in any of the three groups I go to. My atheistic route around having a higher power for now is to just interject 'jimi (hendrix)' every time. "Jimi, take my mother's bs into your hands and put it where you see fit." I have been reading material lately that points out all the parallels between 12 step programs and buddhist practices - I can't believe I didn't see it before! This seems like an interesting book but I haven't purchased it yet -
Mindfulness and the 12 Steps: Living Recovery in the Present Moment
Mindfulness and the 12 Steps: Living Recovery in the Present Moment: Therese Jacobs-Stewart: 9781592858200: Amazon.com: Books
I found out about being ACON. I already theoretically knew about Narcissistic and Borderline Personality Disorders, but I read books about being the daughter of parents of each and they REALLY hit home for me, but much more the NPD mother/daughter dynamic was too eery to describe. "There's a NAME for this?" It was, at once, a relief, and a horror - so much recovery to do. I found out about Complex PTSD.
I found out about inner child/self-mothering work/attachment work. That as adults of parents who were not/are not available to be supportive parents, we must nurture and support ourselves in that way - that there is a supportive mother/father inside all of us. I haven't really had a good time to delve into this, but I have the 'authoritative' text and could start soon... I am waiting until I am not so raw in my day-to-day.
I also have found out about Underearners Anonymous - anyone else know about this? I'm a bit weary and leery of yet ANOTHER 12 step program/list of characteristics to latch onto and identify with, but the resemblance is undeniable. I've been dealing with the patterns described there since grade school. I haven't really delved too deeply and can't speak to the efficaciousness of that program, but thought I'd mention it.
I've been NC for almost 10 months now (you too ajarlson??). At first, I was doing SO well in that post-trauma freedom bubble, and then when I was faced with THE REST OF MY LIFE I really crumbled under the weight of it all. Major depression, nightmares (a drug called Prazosin was helpful in the short term for nightmares), a lot of bad luck, very low self-worth. I didn't feel guilty about going NC, but I had done so much cutting away of toxicity in 2014 that somehow my sense of purpose had gone out with the bathwater.
I read this https://books.google.com/books?id=JW...nnaire&f=false
And it seems so dire. "Middle aged female ACOAs report lower levels of perceived social support, family cohesion, and marital satisfaction." I know my fate is in my own hands, but right now that statement just seems SO TRUE. I ended a 13 year relationship last year (the right choice, but still...), my family is coo coo bananas, and I don't feel like I will ever be married. The thought is laughable right now. I guess a comforting factoid from that study is that we are among an estimated 30 million Americans with an alcoholic parent. :/ I am afraid that I have developed a 'fearful attachment style'. Yeah, I read that sentence too. Bah!!
It has been hard to know, with the immense genre of recovery books and groups and methods out there, what to focus on, how much to do every day, to know you're doing the right thing and that you're doing enough. That's probably pretty ACOA right there
I have a stack of self-help books and I've got a pretty good handle on the 'what's wrong' and 'why' and now that it's really time to retrain my mind so that the fear response is replaced by a feeling of safety and knowing I am not alone... I am stark raving frightened.
So that's what has helped so far, and that's the plateau I have reached. But I started seeing a new shrink, and he has a focus on trauma / mindfulness and I think he is insightful and kind (from our one session so far), so hopefully a lot of good will come from that.
I must also report for the first time here that my lack of ability to handle my stress level lately is impacting things mr. seasaw - he has placed some distance between himself and 'the stressors in my life' - and TOTALLY want him to practice self-care, but it's really hard not to take it personally when it involves moving himself away from me.
really...hard.
(there are several forums out there for acoa's which are nowhere near as nice as this one!)I'm pretty sure all the books I've loved most have already been added to the stickie for books... I've got the iPhone app for the language of letting go and read it every morning, and also the daily reader from ACA which is a lovely book for us ACOAs.
ACAWSO, Inc. :: Books :: Strengthening My Recovery - Soft Cover - Pocket Size
In no particular order, over the next six months, i found out about CODA, ACA the group, and Al-Anon. I have gone to Coda meetings and Al-Anon meetings. Both have been really helpful, when I've felt alone in my experience, and isolated from other people, and not had a sense of what to do with myself or where to go from here.
I just went to my first ACA meeting and that felt like home even more than the other two groups, though I will be keeping them in rotation as well. Even though the substance abuse with my mother didn't start until she was in her late 60s, and I was in my very late 20s, the dysfunction - in thinking, in the family roles and dynamic - was always there, and I was told at the ACA meeting that that's enough.
I haven't really started Step Work, exactly, but I still plan to. (if any of you have done non-addiction step work I'd love to hear about your experiences). I would really like to find a sponsor in any of the three groups I go to. My atheistic route around having a higher power for now is to just interject 'jimi (hendrix)' every time. "Jimi, take my mother's bs into your hands and put it where you see fit." I have been reading material lately that points out all the parallels between 12 step programs and buddhist practices - I can't believe I didn't see it before! This seems like an interesting book but I haven't purchased it yet -
Mindfulness and the 12 Steps: Living Recovery in the Present Moment
Mindfulness and the 12 Steps: Living Recovery in the Present Moment: Therese Jacobs-Stewart: 9781592858200: Amazon.com: Books
I found out about being ACON. I already theoretically knew about Narcissistic and Borderline Personality Disorders, but I read books about being the daughter of parents of each and they REALLY hit home for me, but much more the NPD mother/daughter dynamic was too eery to describe. "There's a NAME for this?" It was, at once, a relief, and a horror - so much recovery to do. I found out about Complex PTSD.
I found out about inner child/self-mothering work/attachment work. That as adults of parents who were not/are not available to be supportive parents, we must nurture and support ourselves in that way - that there is a supportive mother/father inside all of us. I haven't really had a good time to delve into this, but I have the 'authoritative' text and could start soon... I am waiting until I am not so raw in my day-to-day.
I also have found out about Underearners Anonymous - anyone else know about this? I'm a bit weary and leery of yet ANOTHER 12 step program/list of characteristics to latch onto and identify with, but the resemblance is undeniable. I've been dealing with the patterns described there since grade school. I haven't really delved too deeply and can't speak to the efficaciousness of that program, but thought I'd mention it.
I've been NC for almost 10 months now (you too ajarlson??). At first, I was doing SO well in that post-trauma freedom bubble, and then when I was faced with THE REST OF MY LIFE I really crumbled under the weight of it all. Major depression, nightmares (a drug called Prazosin was helpful in the short term for nightmares), a lot of bad luck, very low self-worth. I didn't feel guilty about going NC, but I had done so much cutting away of toxicity in 2014 that somehow my sense of purpose had gone out with the bathwater.
I read this https://books.google.com/books?id=JW...nnaire&f=false
And it seems so dire. "Middle aged female ACOAs report lower levels of perceived social support, family cohesion, and marital satisfaction." I know my fate is in my own hands, but right now that statement just seems SO TRUE. I ended a 13 year relationship last year (the right choice, but still...), my family is coo coo bananas, and I don't feel like I will ever be married. The thought is laughable right now. I guess a comforting factoid from that study is that we are among an estimated 30 million Americans with an alcoholic parent. :/ I am afraid that I have developed a 'fearful attachment style'. Yeah, I read that sentence too. Bah!!
It has been hard to know, with the immense genre of recovery books and groups and methods out there, what to focus on, how much to do every day, to know you're doing the right thing and that you're doing enough. That's probably pretty ACOA right there
I have a stack of self-help books and I've got a pretty good handle on the 'what's wrong' and 'why' and now that it's really time to retrain my mind so that the fear response is replaced by a feeling of safety and knowing I am not alone... I am stark raving frightened.So that's what has helped so far, and that's the plateau I have reached. But I started seeing a new shrink, and he has a focus on trauma / mindfulness and I think he is insightful and kind (from our one session so far), so hopefully a lot of good will come from that.
I must also report for the first time here that my lack of ability to handle my stress level lately is impacting things mr. seasaw - he has placed some distance between himself and 'the stressors in my life' - and TOTALLY want him to practice self-care, but it's really hard not to take it personally when it involves moving himself away from me.
really...hard.
Member
Join Date: Sep 2013
Posts: 2,805
Wow, Seasaw. Thank you so much for the resources. You have been such a delightful, helpful, supportive member of our group. (that no one would voluntarily want to be a member of! LOL)
This is what my recovery history looks like. Growing up, I was a sensitive stressball, pleaser child. I was the kid who was 50 when she was five. My sister was the rebel and while growing up, I waffled between an innate sense that there was something sincerely wrong with my parents and my family of origin and then sometimes going along with my parents and putting all of the blame on my sister. (but not really) I remember as a teenager going to the library and finding my first FOO self-help book. It was called something along the lines of "When Parents Love Too Much." The title worked for me because I still had so much guilt in ever second guessing that my parents were anything less than perfect. I remember the book made me feel better about my gut intuitions and it talked a lot about boundaries and enmeshment, etc. My sister, being the rebel, was put into various therapies to "fix" her which ended up being a God-send (in her words) because she had several of these adults tell her that my parents were seriously messed up.
When I was a teen, my parents were not alcoholics although they drank a great deal and while we had many strict rules (mostly concerned with appearances), my sister and I were actually encouraged to drink from early teens on. In some sense, we became drinking buddies to our parents but also got to witness their many, many alcohol soaked arguments. So, while I do not believe that my parents had crossed into alcoholism at that time, I never realized that most of America doesn't drink on a nightly regular basis until I was much older. Like most of us, I was always guessing at "what is normal?"
I escaped to an out of state college and I married my college sweetheart at age 23 and started having babies almost immediately. I realize now that this was all escapism and a way for me to add "blocks" to my parents' (particularly my mother's) intrusions in my life. When my husband received an out of state job offer and my parents put me through literal hell about the possibility of moving, I went to my doctor with huge anxiety symptoms. He put me on Paxil and told me to get to therapy. So, in my twenties, through an excellent therapist I learned that my parents probably were both narcissists and my mother likely had other personality disorders, to boot. At the time, my sister and I both joined an on-line ACON support group and I voraciously read all the self-help books that I could find discussing narcissistic parents.
We moved away which helped a lot and my thirties was a time that I was busy raising my big family and in a way, experiencing a little of my own rebelliousness that I had never explored previously. Unfortunately, I think my initial foray into therapy helped me to understand what was wrong with my FOO, but I didn't do the next step of exploring what it had done to me and how I react to life and relationships. So, my thirties I think I floundered a bit. I created toxic friendships, did a lot of compulsive shopping, hoarding, etc., fought a lot with my husband and drank too much. Then when I turned forty, what I thought at the time was the worst thing that ever happened to me, ended up to be the best thing. Isn't that always the way? My husband was laid off from a very highly paid management position in the middle of the recession and our lives were basically turned upside down. We moved again for my husband's new job; had to start a whole new life in a whole new state, with teenage children and basically had to start our lives over from scratch. The blessing of all of this was the gift of self reflection and realizing that I had lived my whole life for "the image", liked my parents had, and I had no sense of who I really was and what was really important to me.
So, in my early forties, after witnessing my mother descend from a heavy drinker to a full blown alcoholic, I decided to quit drinking and to take full responsibility for what I want my life to look like for me. And that brings me here at age 44, revisiting my childhood wounds and trying to fully heal instead of just "band-aiding." My biggest goal in life, since the birth of my first child, was to stop the unhealthy familial cycles of control and codependence and insecurities. So, I have changed a lot in the ways that I parent my kids than how I was parented, but I have a long way to go as I am seeing so much about how my idea of "caring" was really a control issue for me.
Thanks for helping me to get this all out! I am interested in everyone's stories and how we can help each other move forward and no longer take the "victim" roles in our lives.
This is what my recovery history looks like. Growing up, I was a sensitive stressball, pleaser child. I was the kid who was 50 when she was five. My sister was the rebel and while growing up, I waffled between an innate sense that there was something sincerely wrong with my parents and my family of origin and then sometimes going along with my parents and putting all of the blame on my sister. (but not really) I remember as a teenager going to the library and finding my first FOO self-help book. It was called something along the lines of "When Parents Love Too Much." The title worked for me because I still had so much guilt in ever second guessing that my parents were anything less than perfect. I remember the book made me feel better about my gut intuitions and it talked a lot about boundaries and enmeshment, etc. My sister, being the rebel, was put into various therapies to "fix" her which ended up being a God-send (in her words) because she had several of these adults tell her that my parents were seriously messed up.
When I was a teen, my parents were not alcoholics although they drank a great deal and while we had many strict rules (mostly concerned with appearances), my sister and I were actually encouraged to drink from early teens on. In some sense, we became drinking buddies to our parents but also got to witness their many, many alcohol soaked arguments. So, while I do not believe that my parents had crossed into alcoholism at that time, I never realized that most of America doesn't drink on a nightly regular basis until I was much older. Like most of us, I was always guessing at "what is normal?"
I escaped to an out of state college and I married my college sweetheart at age 23 and started having babies almost immediately. I realize now that this was all escapism and a way for me to add "blocks" to my parents' (particularly my mother's) intrusions in my life. When my husband received an out of state job offer and my parents put me through literal hell about the possibility of moving, I went to my doctor with huge anxiety symptoms. He put me on Paxil and told me to get to therapy. So, in my twenties, through an excellent therapist I learned that my parents probably were both narcissists and my mother likely had other personality disorders, to boot. At the time, my sister and I both joined an on-line ACON support group and I voraciously read all the self-help books that I could find discussing narcissistic parents.
We moved away which helped a lot and my thirties was a time that I was busy raising my big family and in a way, experiencing a little of my own rebelliousness that I had never explored previously. Unfortunately, I think my initial foray into therapy helped me to understand what was wrong with my FOO, but I didn't do the next step of exploring what it had done to me and how I react to life and relationships. So, my thirties I think I floundered a bit. I created toxic friendships, did a lot of compulsive shopping, hoarding, etc., fought a lot with my husband and drank too much. Then when I turned forty, what I thought at the time was the worst thing that ever happened to me, ended up to be the best thing. Isn't that always the way? My husband was laid off from a very highly paid management position in the middle of the recession and our lives were basically turned upside down. We moved again for my husband's new job; had to start a whole new life in a whole new state, with teenage children and basically had to start our lives over from scratch. The blessing of all of this was the gift of self reflection and realizing that I had lived my whole life for "the image", liked my parents had, and I had no sense of who I really was and what was really important to me.
So, in my early forties, after witnessing my mother descend from a heavy drinker to a full blown alcoholic, I decided to quit drinking and to take full responsibility for what I want my life to look like for me. And that brings me here at age 44, revisiting my childhood wounds and trying to fully heal instead of just "band-aiding." My biggest goal in life, since the birth of my first child, was to stop the unhealthy familial cycles of control and codependence and insecurities. So, I have changed a lot in the ways that I parent my kids than how I was parented, but I have a long way to go as I am seeing so much about how my idea of "caring" was really a control issue for me.
Thanks for helping me to get this all out! I am interested in everyone's stories and how we can help each other move forward and no longer take the "victim" roles in our lives.
Guest
Join Date: Jun 2011
Location: The Deep South
Posts: 14,636
These have been my favorites so far: the iPad apps for The Language of Letting Go and Amy Dean's Morning Light/Night Light, Strengthening My Recovery soft cover, Beyond Belief: Agnostic Musings For 12 Step Life, Mindfulness and the 12 Steps, Waiting: A Nonbeliever's Higher Power, The Pocket Pema Chodron, and The Pocket Thich Nhat Hanh.
I've read lots of other books but these are probably my favorites that I keep going back to, especially the two iPad apps which are so convenient.
I've read lots of other books but these are probably my favorites that I keep going back to, especially the two iPad apps which are so convenient.
Member
Join Date: Jul 2013
Posts: 350
Falling out with a brother in Xmas 2011. Eventually went to counseling feeling all kinds of wrong inside (lots of shame). Still going to that counselor today! once a week.
A few months of counseling and it was suggested that I try Al-Anon. Unfortunately, there is no ACOA or equivalent in Fairbanks, Alaska....
I might do a phone-in meeting some day.
Went to Al-Anon for a few months and discovered...hmm...maybe I should make this temporary no-booze thing permanent. It was originally temporary because my wife and I were trying to have a child.
Went to open AA meetings and heard my story. Learned there were stages to the disease and decided that I was in an earlier stage. However, booze was not my friend, and I needed it out forever.
I worked with an AL-Anon sponsor for a few months - completed steps 1-4 and started 5. Sponsor was a female (not a lot of males in AL-Anon in Fairbanks) and suggested I find a male sponsor. I completed a life-story for step 4 and read it to my counselor over several months. Very HEALING process.
For me, it was really amazing when I felt a lingering feeling of disconnect dissolve when an AL-Anon member replaced god with higher power when reading a step. Wait...I didn't have to read everything exactly as written...even out loud to other members? Other examples were where a female member would replace "he" with "she" when referring to god, etc. The god thing didn't work for me. I grew up going to the mormon church and never liked it. I have some baggage with that and wanted something that fit me better.
Picking my own higher power? Yep...I'll take that.
For me, it was the universe around me. The group itself. Everything else other than me. I didn't have to use g.o.d. to recover. My sponsor would sometimes say "good orderly direction" or some other paraphrase. I literally believed that using "higher power" instead of "god" worked better for me. IT felt way more all-inclusive. Just my humble perception.
I attend an agnostic AA group, so they can help quite a bit in how they interpret the steps from the agnostic or atheist perspective.
I've completed steps 6-10 as well. The amends was extremely powerful. Not every one wanted to hear me out, but WAYY more than expected did. The feedback I got shocked me. It goes to show that the world isn't as scary as I thought and my biggest critic might just be....ME.
My relationship with my wife has improved dramatically. I have written here about experiences with her and find that 12-step work has helped me save my marriage. My counselor has explicitly stated that if I hadn't walked down this road, I would probably be divorced and in the family enmeshment, in a later stage of alcoholism...and most importantly...miserable. My outside life isn't necessarily the best (wife can get into a rage, we argue/have our fights). However, I feel a tremendous energy inside of myself that is surging with positivity. 12 steps is just amazing. I love it.
I am currently a band member for a steel-pan band. I just love playing. I have no doubt whatsoever that I would never have even started if it weren't for my recovery.
People send me private messages thanking me for my honesty and ask for some support (in fb). Many relationships that were inherently healthy got better. Toxic relationships got worse and eventually...died off. That toxic stuff doesn't seem to live very well when a person recovers. I'm not sure if my marriage will survive. We have our ups and downs. But I know this...I've got my recovery work to help me through it all. The storm and everything.
What is the most helpful? Getting out of myself, not trying to lone ranger it, and accepting help. Put myself out there in the world. Charge through the fear, the shame. I've got to.
My two cents.
A few months of counseling and it was suggested that I try Al-Anon. Unfortunately, there is no ACOA or equivalent in Fairbanks, Alaska....
I might do a phone-in meeting some day.
Went to Al-Anon for a few months and discovered...hmm...maybe I should make this temporary no-booze thing permanent. It was originally temporary because my wife and I were trying to have a child.
Went to open AA meetings and heard my story. Learned there were stages to the disease and decided that I was in an earlier stage. However, booze was not my friend, and I needed it out forever.
I worked with an AL-Anon sponsor for a few months - completed steps 1-4 and started 5. Sponsor was a female (not a lot of males in AL-Anon in Fairbanks) and suggested I find a male sponsor. I completed a life-story for step 4 and read it to my counselor over several months. Very HEALING process.
For me, it was really amazing when I felt a lingering feeling of disconnect dissolve when an AL-Anon member replaced god with higher power when reading a step. Wait...I didn't have to read everything exactly as written...even out loud to other members? Other examples were where a female member would replace "he" with "she" when referring to god, etc. The god thing didn't work for me. I grew up going to the mormon church and never liked it. I have some baggage with that and wanted something that fit me better.
Picking my own higher power? Yep...I'll take that.
For me, it was the universe around me. The group itself. Everything else other than me. I didn't have to use g.o.d. to recover. My sponsor would sometimes say "good orderly direction" or some other paraphrase. I literally believed that using "higher power" instead of "god" worked better for me. IT felt way more all-inclusive. Just my humble perception.
I attend an agnostic AA group, so they can help quite a bit in how they interpret the steps from the agnostic or atheist perspective.
I've completed steps 6-10 as well. The amends was extremely powerful. Not every one wanted to hear me out, but WAYY more than expected did. The feedback I got shocked me. It goes to show that the world isn't as scary as I thought and my biggest critic might just be....ME.
My relationship with my wife has improved dramatically. I have written here about experiences with her and find that 12-step work has helped me save my marriage. My counselor has explicitly stated that if I hadn't walked down this road, I would probably be divorced and in the family enmeshment, in a later stage of alcoholism...and most importantly...miserable. My outside life isn't necessarily the best (wife can get into a rage, we argue/have our fights). However, I feel a tremendous energy inside of myself that is surging with positivity. 12 steps is just amazing. I love it.
I am currently a band member for a steel-pan band. I just love playing. I have no doubt whatsoever that I would never have even started if it weren't for my recovery.
People send me private messages thanking me for my honesty and ask for some support (in fb). Many relationships that were inherently healthy got better. Toxic relationships got worse and eventually...died off. That toxic stuff doesn't seem to live very well when a person recovers. I'm not sure if my marriage will survive. We have our ups and downs. But I know this...I've got my recovery work to help me through it all. The storm and everything.
What is the most helpful? Getting out of myself, not trying to lone ranger it, and accepting help. Put myself out there in the world. Charge through the fear, the shame. I've got to.
My two cents.
Member
Join Date: May 2013
Location: east coast
Posts: 1,332
For me it has been learning about myself, who I really am. It started with me hitting rock bottom and surrendering. When that happened my biggest fear was quitting drinking and nothing else changing. I really didn't want to live if everything stayed the same. So, I found online support. Reached out to those who had what I wanted and went from there. Those people are my friends and mentors. I have quite a few. I also learned how to treat my depression, what it really means to be an introvert, and started delving into my foo. I am almost 43 but I figure better late than never.
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