Marigolds

Hi all,
I've been in personal counseling (2 years) & marriage counseling (1 year), al-anon for about 8 months. After today's meeting, I came home feeling so good, which was the direct opposite of how I felt after yesterday's counseling session - defeated, angry, and worn out. It feels like a waste of money a lot of the time. In marriage counseling, we just keep going around and around the same old stuff.

I have been thinking alot about stopping counseling and focusing on al-anon. Is it possible to make more progress with Al-anon? I also wonder that maybe I'm just getting to the hard stuff in counseling and I don't want to face it. But I sure feel better after an al-anon meeting.

I'd love to hear others opinions on this. Thanks!

GiveLove

Hi Marigolds,

I have dumped couples counseling when it wasn't helping me any, and was only bringing me pain and frustration.

I have dumped a bad counselor who wasn't helping me, and found myself another one, and I've also told this new counselor (after a number of sessions, when I felt like I could finally go it alone) "I'll call you when I need you again." (and I do)

I've never dumped Al-Anon

We all need different tools at different times. Do you think you'd get more out of individual counseling if you had someone who better understood you? If you had a really sharp one, for example?

Astro

I had an experience in early recovery that taught me to try different forms of therapy, and focus on the methods that helped me most.

I'm an alcoholic, so I started in AA, tried Al-Anon for awhile and it helped much, and eventually settled on AA and CoDA as my programs of recovery. After 2 weeks of sobriety I had a short stay in a mental hospital, when they released me I had to put together an outpatient plan that included AA and individual therapy. I went through three therapists until I found one that I felt was really trying to help me.

Well, after two or three sessions with him he asked me to stop wasting his time and my money, and to just go to AA meetings. Why? Because every time he talked to me about AA he could see my eyes light up, he knew it was a positive experience for me.

It works if ya work it, so I just keep going back.

freya

Wel, this is like one of those bizarre, crazy things that always seem to happen to me.

My last therapist was a couples' therapist whom my partner and I started seeing in the middle of her (my partner's) dry drunk relapse. About 15 months into seeing the therapist and about 9 months into my starting Al Anon, I threw my partner out. At the time, I was also looking for a sponsor in Al Anon and having zero luck. All of the women I asked said something to the effect of: "I don't feel qualified to be your sponsor, but I will certainly be there to help you in any way I can." I was getting really frustrated with the whole situation. (Things like this do happen to me a lot, and although rationally I understand why and "get" that these people are, in some sense, "complimenting" me, on a different level it triggers some really core "no one to parent me" issues related to my basically having been born 30 years old with my dissertation in hand!)

But, overall, my program was really going great and helping me a lot. So much, so, in fact, that the therapist decided to join a (different) 12 Step program herself. Then, since I still didn't have a "real" sponsor, we decided to do our 4th and 5th steps together. Somewhere in the middle of that process, she told me that I was helping her more than she was helping me, and that, basically, she didn't feel comfortable taking my money.

So, I guess you could say she kinda dumped me...although we are now very good friends, which is more accurately where the relationship between us was going anyways.

Yeah, it's kinda stranger-than-fiction, but, really, that's my life.....and that's my story and I'm stickin' to it!

freya

NYC_Chick

I no longer attend alanon. I think it's a wonderful program, but I found that it wasn't for me.

After my break-up with xabf, I attended alanon weekly and attended open AA meetings a lot to gain understanding about my xabf. Once I felt I understood, I stuck with personal counseling because that's what I found helped the most. For me, it was important to figure out why I kept ending up in relationships with addicts/alcoholics. I also needed to find out why I allowed myself to be treated so badly for so long with xabf. I figured all that out and so much more.

Here's a thought that may not apply to you, but I'll share it anyway. I found that the most difficult sessions, the ones I walked away from feeling the worse, were actually the ones that pushed me to a whole new level. I remember my therapist would say something that triggered something else, then it was all to the surface so I could deal with it and put it behind me. It's like a roller coaster, but different than living with an alcoholic. This one can actually be a lot of fun and give lots of light bulb moments.

That's just my two cents for whatever it's worth. I would not trade my experiences in therapy for anything.

Also, I see our old couples therapist alone now. She will not see him. He, of course lied about his drinking to her for the year and a half we saw her before we broke up. Had she know, she said she likely would not have agreed to see us because he was still clouded with alcohol. I found he only learned new ways to manipulate me under the guise of being "healthy." For example, in the past I have tended to run from people and situations that were upsetting to me rather than deal with them directly (this DOES NOT apply to toxic people). He would be verbally and emotionally abusive. I would tell him I was going home for the night. He would say "You're not supposed to run." Obviously, there is a BIG difference between running and self-protection, but it took me a while to figure that out, so he used it to his advantage.