Sally1009

Despite all the very kind replies I got yesterday about my daughter's silence, I silence, I still woke up dying to hear from her. So. I textedit her again, saying 'Ok Hun. I guess I shouldn't have textedit you. I have learned now that you need distance ATM. Love from your sober Mum xxx'.

But although I was hoping that sending that text would stop me wanting and fretting for a reply, it hasn't-I'm still waiting every second for the.beep from my mobile phone to indicate an incoming message. My heart pounded in hope a moment ago, but it wasn't her.

So my obsessive mind runs on, desperate to hear, knowing I must resist the overwhelming temptation to text her AGAIN,but unable to settle to anything else.

Am just praying for strength and sense. I know a big part of my terror of losing her is from having lost my husband so recently, and grief is an all-consuming feeling.

Anyway, I'm not drinking, so that's the one good thing I'm doing right now that I dare feel a bit proud of.

bellakeller

When in doubt, I pray. This one has been so helpful to me lately:

Prayer Of St.Francis

"Lord make me a channel of thy peace
that where there is hatred, I may bring love
that where there is wrong, I may bring the spirit of forgiveness
that where there is discord, I may bring harmony
that where there is error, I may bring truth
that where there is doubt, I may bring faith
that where there is despair, I may bring hope
that where there are shadows, I may bring light
that where there is sadness, I may bring joy.

Lord, grant that I may seek rather to comfort than to be comforted
to understand, than to be understood
to love, than to be loved.

For it is by self-forgetting that one finds. It is by forgiving that one is forgiven. It is by dying that one awakens to Eternal Life...

Also, the Serenity Prayer ALWAYS helps me (though sometimes I have to say it 50 times a day)
God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.

bellakeller

Also, I found a meditation that helps me out when I read it.

... from the book The Language of Letting Go Melody Beatty

Letting Go
"How much do we need to let go of?" a friend asked one day.

"I'm not certain," I replied, "but maybe everything."

Letting go is a spiritual, emotional, mental, and physical process, a sometimes mysterious metaphysical process of releasing to God and the Universe that which we are clinging to so tightly.

We let go of our grasp on people, outcomes, ideas, feelings, wants, needs, desires - everything. We let go of trying to control our progress in recovery. Yes, it's important to acknowledge and accept what we want and what we want to happen. But it's equally important to follow through by letting go.

Letting go is the action part of faith. It is a behavior that gives God and the Universe permission to send us what we're meant to have.

Letting go means we acknowledge that hanging on so tightly isn't helping to solve the problem, change the person, or get the outcome we desire. It isn't helping us. In fact, we learn that hanging on often blocks us from getting what we want and need.

Who are we to say that things aren't happening exactly as they need to happen?

There is magic in letting go. Sometimes we get what we want soon after we let go. Sometimes it takes longer. Sometimes the specific outcome we desire doesn't happen. Something better does.

Letting go sets us free and connects us to our Source.

Letting go creates the optimum environment for the best possible outcomes and solutions.

Today, I will relax. I will let go of that which is upsetting me the most. I will trust that by letting go, I have started the wheels in motion for things to work out in the best possible way.

jamdls

Sally, I know it's difficult but be patient and try to give your daughter as much space as she wants. I have a 29 yr old daughter who only lives 15 miles away from me and rarely speaks to me because she still has resentment over what I put her through as a teenager, I've been sober for 3 yrs but she's the type to hold a grudge and I've finally accepted that she may never completely forgive me; mainly our communication is I email her once a week --my email contains 2-3 paragraphs she responds with 1-2 sentences; we generally only see one another on holidays and then just for 1-2 hours and she barely says a word, the visit is mainly so I can see my 2 grandsons. I wrote my daughter lots of letters, but I never mailed them because I realized it would be unfair of me to burden her with my anguish as my drunkeness was already enough of a burden to her. You need to let your daughter go and learn to accept that she might not come back to you, it's hard yes and it's taken me the last 2 yrs to accept that my relationship with my daughter is possibly permanently damaged, the damage is my fault.
I have a plaque on a bathroom wall that was in my mothers bath as far back as I can remember it says:
“There are only two lasting bequests we can hope to give our children: One of these is roots, the other, wings.” – Hodding Carter

By giving them wings we let them go to make there own lives and that new life doesn't have to include us parents. Let her go and take care of you.