pazza

Hi everybody, I'm an ACOA and sometimes I can't figure out whether someone's drinking is "normal" or "too much" because my father has been an alcoholic all my life and I just feel like if anyone exhibits any behavior similar to something he does I get anxious that they too are an alcoholic.
Anyone else sensitive like this?
Also, anyone know of something that would say "what is normal drinking/what is not normal"?
and yes i am an al-anoner just in a different country right now where it is really hard to go to meetings so I'm asking you! Thanks!

Peter

I dunno. I guess "normal" would be the person who does not think about alcohol or drinking, It is the person who can get up and walk away from a half full glass without a second thought.

I give you an example. I was out shopping with a friend six months ago and she bought a bottle of wine.During dinner she drank a glass. Two weeks ago I went to her house and she still had the same bottle of wine with the cork in it.

I am always wary when I see someone drinking alcohol, but I tend to process what I observe instead of becoming alarmed. I know I have strict boundaries where drinking is concerned and these boundaries extend to how much drinking I will tolerate from others.

SaTiT

yes..it takes time to recover.
i still havn't totally recovered from it. i don't re-act as much, but I still
get triggers. My father is such an over bearing personallity or perhaps
I just suffered so much from it. i recognize it more today. I'm more
aware of how my thinking process gose. i catch my self faster, but
not all the time. it's suttle sometimes.

it just depends how we used to react as a children as we started
behaving or think a certain way to survive. I don't get a total
anxiety being around my father, but i can sense that dark feeling
as if I'm surpressed, so I go into an automatic survival mode. But sometimes
I'm still in survial mode when I get home or somewhere else. But I recognize
it more.

It feels like I'm going against the grain of everything just so i can get
well. When something bad happens becuase life is not all rosie...the first
thoughts or feelings i get is to blame myself and I can sink pretty fast
if i don't applied my program.

What has helped me is to always remeber there's a kid inside of me..
I'm reparenting him..so I don't beat up on him no matter what.
The more I pratice loving myself, i better i can cope or just learn
how to live different...but it starts in my thinking.
My minsitor always told me "there's a different way of looking at this"
So it's just a matter of me suffering enough with my anxiety or depression
until i get to that piont of asking myself or telling myself
"there's a different way of looking at this"
Once i get there..then i started reparenting the kid or loving him
instead of hating him..then hopfully i snap out of the funk.

The responsibility belongs to me. i wish there was some other way,
but the fact is....i live with myself 24/7 and the only person that
can fix me is me.

I guess you can call it being positive.

i hope that make sense.

GingerM

I gave up trying to figure out what "normal" was, and started focussing instead on what "healthy" was. I think Peter was spot on with his assessment that "healthy" attitudes towards alcohol means the person isn't always thinking about it, that they can stop at a half glass and not think about it. Alcohol is no different to them than soda is to me (well, maybe I have a cola problem, I do tend to need a fair amount of caffeine to make it through some days).

As to reactions - every time I see people drink, something in my stomach does a bit of a squirm. In my mind, I acknowledge the squirm, I acknowledge that the squirm is to be expected given my background, I do not judge my squirming, nor do I act on it. I just experience it, and sit with it.

My husband drinks maybe 4 times per year. I've seen him drunk twice in 10 years, both when we were much younger and in a different place in our lives. I still twinge a bit when I see him drink even though he almost never drinks more than two fingers of wine when he does drink. I think we have a beer in the back of our fridge that's over a year old that one of our houseguests left behind at some point.

So I would say it's healthy to feel aversion to behaviors which caused you pain. Whether you act on that aversive feeling needs to be thought through (versus knee-jerked through). In some situations, it is certainly advisable for me to leave people who have started drinking and seem to be drinking more than is healthy for them.

BigSis

Add me to the list of not knowing what is normal. I do direct sales (home party "spa" gigs) in the evenings, and sometimes the women have wine. It always makes me uncomfortable, and worried that I am taking advantage of their altered state.

Often, I imagine that one or more of the ladies is likely an alcoholic... but what I KNOW, is that it is not my business. Not. Not. Not. But I don't like it, and don't suggest "wine parties" or "martini spa parties" to my gals. I also don't object to them.

Part of me STILL does not believe in "normal drinking" for the majority. I can't get my head around why a normie drinks... perhaps because I am an alcoholic in addition to an ACOA.

Good thread, helps me see this issue more clearly. Thanks.

pazza

Thanks for all of your responses. The whole "what is normal?" thing has been bothering me quite a bit lately because I know that I am an alcoholic (even if I only exhibit the behaviors for a few days at a time and then not again for months) because I know what my internal dialogue is related to drinking. I know that my goal is to get drunk (and genetically, I have a very high tolerance, so this means drinking way way more than the average person). But how can I know what another person's internal dialogue is? I can't really.

Anywho, knowing that my drinking is not normal I have been in a relationship with someone for 4 years who has had a full range of behaviors related to drinking. At the beginning of our relationship he was drinking 4-8 beers a day, then went to not drinking at all, then for a couple months where he needs 2-4 beers every night, then the over-drinking only when with friends (this is where the embarassing, sad moments have happened), then not drinking at all, then in times which I deem more stressful back to 2-4 beers a night. This bothers me so much, obviously I'm so glad it is much better than in the beginning but I still feel his drinking is the one thing in our relationship that really gets me upset, even if it is only "2-4 beers."

A big part of me wishes I could say, "here look as this info that talks about what is normal drinking/what is not, and evaluate your relationship with alcohol." I feel like just my verbal concern promotes his anger towards me, makes me doubt myself, makes me angry towards him. Yeah, can you tell I really need Al-anon?

Peter- I really appreciate your example of "normal" I tend to forget that behaviors like that are choice you can make, or maybe it is just as you said, not thinking about the alcohol, so it isn't even a choice it is just not an issue. Isn't it sick that I am astounded someone would leave an open bottle sitting there so long?

SaTiT- Thank you, I sometimes forget that the focus does need to be on loving myself, not reacting, taking responsibility for my own actions and not those of others. Oh how I need some Al-anon!

GingerM- I hate to say it but I'm envious of you, that your husband only drinks maybe 4 times a year and when he does it is so little. But I understand how even that can create a reaction inside. It brings me back to the question which so many ACOAs have dealt with which is "why did i chose to spend my life with a person who has so many behaviors that remind me of the alcoholic in my life that has hurt me so much" I'm still very confused about that. Squirm is a great word for it by the way.

BigSis- Thanks for making me not feel so alone in this, being an alcoholic and ACOA too I know what you mean about not really understanding "normal" drinking. I mean, aren't non-As trying to get drunk/tipsy if they have a drink, or is it the taste? is that good? gosh, so confusing.

Anyway, I'm just happy you guys joined me in the dialogue. thanks

GingerM

There's a concept in psychology called "repeat until resolved". It's a little catch phrase to describe why people continue a behavior that in the past has never gotten them good results. We WANT DESPERATELY to get good results. So if we fail, we try again...and again....and again...each time hoping we get it right.

There are two ways around this - one is to accept that the issue will not be resolved. That the person in your life (or people) who set you up in this dynamic will never help you to resolve it and that it will simply remain unresolved. Sometimes a lack of resolution is a resolution in and of itself.

The second is to seek counselling and work on resolving the issue IN YOUR OWN MIND. This also requires that you accept that the person who set you up will never be able to help you resolve the issue.

Either way, finding resolution to the initial set-up is what's required to stop repeating the behavior.

If you think about it, it makes total sense. That's how we're wired to learn. Try something, if it doesn't work, try it again, keep trying until you figure out how to make it work. But with people, that isn't a viable option. So you're following hard-wired learning processes which are guaranteed to make you fail *in this circumstance*.

I wish you luck. Many years of therapy later, and I'm getting there. I still have my baggage, and recently a situation arose with my husband and I which dragged a bunch of it back out again. He and I took a trip to my therapist, and I will be seeing my therapist again solo this coming tuesday to sort through my end of the issue. I don't think we ever fully "get better", I think we just get better at getting better.

SaTiT

I'm also a recovery alcoholic
I'm also a codi
I'm also acoa

I'm not sure if i was born with alcoholism or i'm a product of my environment.
it dosn't matter to me with the differences are anymore.
I've been affected by alcoholism.

Alot of my decfects of charecter traits over lap.
I apply the 12 steps to my life as best as I can.
it's been a long journey since I go sober. it's been peeling layers
and layers away.

It's has onlty been within the last 3 years since i started accepting
that I was codependent and only within last year that I looked into
ACOA.

I hit and emotional bottom after being sober for over 10 years.
I relaped for a couple of weeks into drinking but I'm greatful that i stopped.

I had to accept my codendency becuase my gf relaped into drinking.
After 3 three years of trying to battle her alcoholism..my codependecy
the madness of it all...i ended up getting drunk myself..

But all of that madness and pain forced me to look deeper into myself
and to look deeper into my childhood and that way i was raise by an
alcoholic. i had a hard time accepting thatr my father was an alcoholic.
but after doing of reserch and reading on codependecy..it made it cleaer
becuase all of the pages in the books was as if one wrote about my life.

on he down side..my father alcoholism is taking for the worst or it's
becoming less and less managable for him..
As cold and mean as father can be to me...I still love him very much.
Sometimes i still wish he can just hold me or love me..he hasn't held me.
i can't even be alone him today because he is still drunk.

the seeking of aprrovel from my fathter all of my life has affected me
i ways that I didn't understand..Those traits are the same as my
codependency.

pazza

Ginger, thanks for helping me out with that question. I've heard "repeat until resolved" before.....and a part of me feels like yeah, I was never able to "fix" my A father, so I should try and find another one to fix. Then again, I feel like it was more like I was attracted to someone who had a personality similar to my own in terms of subtance use/abuse, that was my own behavior wouldn't be looked down upon but would actually be facilitated.

I think you're right in that I need to resolve it within myself. I've done counseling before for this but once I get back to the states in august...let me just say i am going to get counseling up the wahzoo and i certainly don't see it stopping for a few years. Like for you, and i guess so many others I think it is going to just take a lot lot lot of time to work on my own substance use issues and then all the anger, resentment, hurt, fear that comes along with loved oned using.

SaTiT gosh, you've really made me think about codependence. I never really considered that it might apply to me but many of the things you've said have rung true. My anger, resentment, whatever bad feelings have been coming up lately in regard to my boyfriend's renewed drinking, and I have had about a week while he was gone on a trip where I drowned it all by falling back into drinking myself. I never really saw the connection until you shared your story. I too have found that I seek such approval from my father that I create uneeded stress and anxiety for myself even when his opinion shouldn't really matter....why oh why do we want approval from the people in our lives who are As? That really doesn't make sense to me, but I just want to say thanks very much...off to go read up on codependency.....

It feels so good to know others understand and have had the same or similar feelings.....something about reading your responses and then talking it out with myself as I write replies gives me much more insight than if I just read and walked away. I've been living in Italy for a year and my support system isn't too strong here, so......I appreciate your responses!!!!

SaTiT

yeap...yeap..my minister would put it in other ways.

The universe sends me lessons over and over again until i grasp them.
Sometimes i wonder if I actually created those situations on a sub-consiouse
level.
She would also say..the universe sends me what I ask for..though.lol

I would think, that i didn't..becuase it wasn't my chioce that my gf relapsed.
As bad as it got..I finally got it or got to the bottom of it.

The phrase "opportunities in a crises" kept jumping out at me.
While it's true the I should work om my current life situations,
but a lot of my decision making or perception of life came from
my childhood.

So basically it was like pulling weeds out by the roots instead of
cutting them down on the surface with a weed wacker..

I guess it was time for me to work on those deep inner pains I had or
time for me to get well..
It took me a while to grasp it, but i finally did. Honeslty my ass did fall off,
but after i understood it a bit..my attitude changed.
i knew it wasn't going to be easy but my attitude towards the process
made a big difference. My focus came totally right back to me and working
on myself.

and you know..people say "you're excatly suppose to be where you're suppose to
be

pazza

I hate to sound like a broken record "you're right, that makes sense, thanks, you made me think about it on a different level" etc. but dang!

I've always kind of had the philosophy (when giving others advice/comfort) that whatever happens in your life, it might seem bad at the time but it eventually leads you where you were meant to be. so, same concept you're expressing. I guess I just forget to apply it to myself.

yep, it is a time for change, a time to take responsibility for myself and a time to start healing. thanks again for your insight SaTiT