bjmt

The notion of "soul mates" has been around a very, very long time. However, there are several viewpoints as to how to describe "soul mates"... even on how to spell it! Some spell the term as a whole word, soulmate and others, including us, prefer to keep it as two words, soul mate.
Others believe, like the ancient Greek philosopher Plato, that a soul mate is a person's "other half". This concept was the basis of the movie, "The Butcher's Wife" where the idea of "split-aparts".
"A soulmate is someone who has the locks to fit our keys, and the keys to fit our locks. When we feel safe enough to open the locks, our truest selves step out and we can be completely and honestly who we; we can be loved for who we are and for who we're pretending to be. Each of us unveils the best part of one another. No matter what else goes wrong around us, with that one person were safe in our paradise. Our soulmate is someone who shares our deepest longings, our sense of direction. When we're two balloons, and together our direction is up, chances are we've found the right person. Our soulmate is the one who makes life come to life. "
So can an alcoholic...be a true soul mate to any one??? Just curious.

StandingStrong

I don't have the answer to your question.

But as for your subject line:
No, I didn't marry my soul mate. I've had a lot of years to think about this and through that step of self inventory, I have come to admit that I married my AH for the wrong reasons.
I can only hope that now that I'm older and wiser (as well as working on my own recovery) that I have learned enough that I will not make the same choices for the same reasons again.

Time2Surrender

I sure hope so,I hate to think I am screwed,just because I am a recovering addict/alcoholic.

Gabe

Michael, you're not screwed.
Last time I checked, alcoholics are people just like the rest of us.
I believe that means they are entitled to love, and a soulmate just as much as anyone else.

best

With all I have put my wife through. With all that she has put up with from me and now with the solution in hand... even after 29 years married, we both can find happiness just being together.
My soul mate? Over the years I questioned that.
Looking back... Yes she is. God couldn't have picked a more perfect person to help me grow and become the sober person I am today. Without her I would be nothing. Because of her and the ways she delt with my ill actions of the past and then found the forgiveness for me that is giving "Us" a future...
Yes she is most certainly my soul mate. Just hope I can live up to being her joy for what ever days we have left on this earth. I can't change or take away yesterday but I sure can strive to make today and tomorrow the best that can be for her.

bjmt

Best..."Yes she is most certainly my soul mate. Just hope I can live up to being her joy for what ever days we have left on this earth. I can't change or take away yesterday but I sure can strive to make today and tomorrow the best that can be for her."
So beautifully put!
A recovering alcoholic can strive to make today and tomorrow the best they can. A alcoholic's main love is the drink. They cannot make.... life come to life for anyone!! What a waste!

Ann

I think people are soulmates or not soulmates based on their ability to bond with each other, and not whether they are addicts/alcoholics or not.

There are people who are and people who are not, on either side of addiction.

Hugs
Ann

frankly

I think that answer would depend entirely on each and everyone's definition of Soul Mate.

Just because my soul mate is in a situation of having a disease does not mean that changed anything about him being my soul mate. That person is still somewhere inside.

If my breast developed cancer and I removed it to prevent the disease from taking over my whole body, it would still be a part of me just removed. I believe that a soul mate can be an alcoholic or a junkie or even a syco. And when it becomes a cancer that threatens the rest of my body I would have to decide to remove it. But that would not mean it wasn't my soul mate.

Did any of this make any sense? I think when I removed my soul mate he was clinging to a part of my brain. HaHa

Time2Surrender

I am not even sure if I believe in soul-mates anymore.Can a person have more than one?I met a girl and fell in love.We were both convinced we were each others soul-mates.3 weeks before our wedding day,she was killed in a car accident.For a long time I thought she was my only soul-mate and could never love like that again.Since then,I have been in love.But nothing like with her yet.What we had was almost too good to be true.Well,I guess it was literally.I sometimes wonder if that was my one and only soul-mate,or do they exist.

frankly

time 2surrender Who really knows if they exist. I don't. But in the process of thinking about your question my first response would have been that I think you can have more than one soul mate. But only if you allow yourself to. Then I thought of my own situation and your question actually made me answer my own question. Will I ever love this way again? Yes I think I will but only if I allow myself to. Only if I love myself that much. Only if I find a way to let go and open my heart again.

Time2Surrender

It took me a long time.When my girlfriend died in 2000 I think I convinced myself I could never love like that again.Like you said,I didnt allow myself to love anyone.Since then,I am starting to allow myself to love again.And hopefully someday God will put the right person in my life again.Until then,I will keep working on my recovery,and myself.And even if I never find the right one,I feel blessed to have shared a love with someone that some people never get to experience during their lives.

gelfling

Boy, this one makes me think. At one point in our relationship, prior to marriage, I knew he was the one. I don't know about soul mate, but it felt right at the time. And through it all, the ups and down, our son being an alcoholic too, I would love to regain that feeling knowing he was the right one all the time with just a detour here and there.

I was once told that we are all soul mates to each other. Connected by love.

Time--you loved and will love again. With the same intensity. The only difference is that it will be in a different form and expression. Expressed loved is shown and felt in millions of ways. You've only hit on a few of them. It will happen. Put your wishes out into the universe. It will happen. Put out crap, you get crap back. Put out love, compassion and blessings, it will happen. Believe.

gelfing

Time2Surrender

I really like that.Thank you.Words to live by.

Dan

I'm an alcoholic. Actually, I'm a chronic drug addict. But alcohol was my main gig for a long time.
And if I'm drinking, the way I can drink, the only thing that really occupies my mind 24/7 is the next bottle, and where and how I'm going to get it.
I have very little time to look at things that don't immediately impact the main purpose of my existence; my alcohol.
I can't make life come to life for myself, let alone for someone else.

But once I got sober, and started living with new objectives and parameters, i.e allowing myself once again to entertain the possibility of loving another human being, I quickly discovered that in order to do that I needed to love myself. And as the sober days go by, the esteem I hold for the man I am when sober increases by leaps and bounds.
I'm grateful today, for my alcoholism, and what it has taught me about my inner self.
I won't be the one to argue the path I chose to find serenity.
My job in recovery is to be grateful for who I am, and to make my life come to life.
And in doing that, I open up my heart to the wondrous possibility of love.

Can a recovering alcoholic be a true soulmate to someone?
Absolutely.

Prophet3276

Hello Everyone, I don't think i've told her this but she felt like a soulmate to me because when we were together there was that unbreakable bond between us both. It's like we could talk about anything and nothing could stop us, we were like two peas in a pod. But she says i broke up with her because she couldn't have kids, i want to have kids some day. Let me just say that all is not well down in the basement with her and so therefore she can't have kids. I love her to death and she can shun it all she wants but love is such a harsh avenue to go down. So i'm kind of standing at a crossroad right now. I've never been a happy guy with the way things have gone, i've always wished that things were easier.

But you know i find that often times when i'm making my way through all of this that i find success in talking to others rather than just focusing on one person alone. Because one person alone does not solve ones troubles and so i'm kind of branching out in all directions at once. Which reminds me there's a beautiful piece of piano music on this one website that my aspie friend Brian sent me on the discussion boards the other night that i'd like to practice some time. I play piano by ear, maybe i can try to pick that up while i'm going about my business. I hope to hear from you soon,good luck in all you do.


Signed,
Greg

itsallaboutjoy

I know I didn't marry my soul mate. I think I must of chose this man on some deeper unknown level beyond comprehension because in the grand design of life there are lessons that I still must learn and overcome. (he has many of the same characteristics of my mother) I am still trying to come to grip with the fact that I am married to a man that does not nor can he ever meet my deepest needs. I will never be able to be connected to him on a deeper more spiritual level. He is not that type of person. He is narcisstic, self aborbed, self centered and an alcoholic. However, right now I have made a choice to stay with him. I will make the best I can of that choice. I will love him for who he is. I will embrace the wonderful qualities that he has and cherish the good things he does. I am trying to accept his alcholism as a disease and not a choice and I am trying to detach with love and compassion. This is the choice I have made today. Prehaps in another life or time I will learn my lessons and then I will meet my soul mate and recognize him when I do meet him.

minnie

I agree with Dan - an alcoholic in recovery has the potential to be a soulmate. An alcoholic NOT in recovery? I don't believe so.

Surely a soul mate is someone who knows you (and loves you) inside and out and vice versa. How can someone whose thinking is dominated by drink ever have enough interest in someone else to really get to know them? And I believe that an alcoholic drinks to blot out parts of themselves, and their past, that they don't want to think about. If they don't know themselves, how can anyone else get to know them?

Blondie

I guess I'm a "wet blanket", but I don't believe in soul mates at all. I just think that some people are more compatable with us then others and that there are dozens upon dozens of wonderful people out there that we could have a successful relationship with. I believe the first key to a successful relationship is for us to be happy with ourselves and confortable with who we are. Then we can truely be ourselves and attract the people that would be compatable with us in a healthy way.

I do believe that one could have a successful relationship with an alcoholic in recovery, but if they are an active alcoholic it is impossible.

minnie

Blondie

I agree that there are lots of people out there with whom we can have successful relationships. The notion of there being "The One" is totally alien to me. I also believe that becaase we change as we live our lives, the most successful relationships happen when two people allow each other to grow and, in a sense, grow together.

I also agree that great relationships come out of each person being self-aware and comfortable in their own skins. This is why I believe that active addiction kills relationships.

Movies, music and books have a lot to answer for when it comes to promoting the idea of "soulmates".