Belated Introduction
Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Jan 2009
Location: NSW, Australia
Posts: 197
Belated Introduction
I joined this forum over a year ago, & shortly after I did, the yoghurt hit the fan in a rather dramatic way.
I sat up late that night, in shock I think, & typed the following post. Being too proud to allow spelling mistakes, I typed it in word & cut & pasted it into the "post new thread" box. And the darn thing wouldn't post. No matter how many times I tried, it just wouldn't work. I gave up in disgust & exhaustion & despair.
I have come to be so grateful that I couldn't get it to post. If I had, I probably would have spent the last year writing on & on bout MY particular circumstances & ins & outs & bells & whistles. And as many of us have found out, thinking that we are unique has been a trap. We're not. The alcoholic in our lives isn't. We're dealing with a disease & a behaviour pattern - not a person - both the alcoholic & the codependent. I see my story & myself posted on this board every singe day. It's been an eye opener, to say the least.
The other thing I've learned is how deep my disease is. I've been stunned, shaken to my very core with the realization. I am certainly as sick as my husband. Every darn thing he does in his disease, I match it in my own. It's truly frightening.
I've been feeling a bit guilty the last few months that all I do is post the odd response to someone else's thread, without ever having shared my own story. But, things having gotten much, much worse since I wrote the original post, I never had the energy or the motivation to type another introduction.
Something I read in someone else's post today motivated me to try again to post the original. So here it is.
May I also take this opportunity to say thank you to the SRF regulars. You have, over the last 12 months, along with my very dear, patient therapist, literally saved my life. I will never, ever be able to express in words my gratitude for the wisdom & support you have given so freely.
Love Helen
I joined this forum a couple of days ago & have only posted 2 comments on other member’s threads. I’d been thinking about writing a bit of an introduction & giving some background to my story. Before I could get around to it, this happened, so it will have to serve as my “introduction” to Sober Recovery!
This afternoon I was reading a thread on the forum & left it open on the laptop when I took the dogs for a bit of a walk. When I got back, my husband asked, “What’s that sh@t you’ve been reading on the Internet?” I told him what it was. He said something to the effect of “It sounds like a bunch of husband hating old bags whinging about how bad their lives are to me. None of them talked about anyone else, it was all about them. Why can’t you just get on with it?”
I was surprised he was so angry about it & asked what on earth could be wrong with me being interested in a support group for codependent recovery. I don’t know if he recognized my user name there – maybe that was what the real issue was?
Things escalated very quickly. I think his completely egocentric response to what he read pushed my most fragile button. The button that tells me that he’s so clueless & self absorbed I can waste the rest of my life waiting for him if I want to, but he’s NEVER going to want to leave dysfunction behind & embrace emotional health & true intimacy. And I HATE that button with all my might. Like a red faced, swollen eyed toddler lying on the floor screaming for someone to make the impossible possible right now – I want my husband to be the man I want, not the man he is.
He found his wallet & said he was probably going to the pub. We all know what comes next don’t we?
Yes folks, I tried to stop him. After 8 years of “Ground Hog Day”, that is just the most hysterical, illogical, ridiculous, bizarre, pathetically predictable reaction. But I did it. In retrospect, him yelling “Let go of me, let go of me” & me holding on to his shirt is so … well … you don’t need to be Freud to see what’s going on here.
You know I’ve read a lot about the alcoholic “quacking” here the last couple of days. But in our relationship it’s not him that quacks, it’s me. In our 8 years he’s very rarely represented himself as anything other than what he is & has made only the most modest commitments to the very smallest changes. He’s far too selfish to even pretend he wants to change! I’m the one who has almost killed myself racing around, not just organizing, but creating our life & keeping everything on track. It’s me who keeps the “smoke & mirrors” all happening to ”keep the wheels on”. It’s always me rabbiting on about … everything. I think I made up the whole relationship!
But back to tonight: Naturally, he resented me trying to stop him. When threatened, he always retreats. If he can’t retreat into the bottle, he’ll physically get away. I was out of control: terror/anger/frustration/resentment all rolled into one very explosive package. Push came to shove & I slapped his face. For the very first time in our 8 years together he (tried to) hit me with a closed fist. Luckily I ducked & have only a small split to my top lip. Well that (attempted) punch hurt my feelings more than my face & it hit that horrible reality button pretty hard too.
He was stone cold sober. Things have been so sweet recently & I’ve been chanting my mantra every minute of every day: “things are going so well, things are going so well, it’s going to be OK, it’s going to be OK.” Why the hell was this happening AGAIN! I must have forgotten the bells & incense or something … or maybe I was facing south instead of east????
Anyway, that big ol’ river in Egypt broke her banks & just swept me away. Reality didn’t come down on me like a tonne of bricks, it boiled up in me like a festering wound, it rose up & gathered momentum like a tidal wave. I HATE & RESENT reality when she tells me: “You can’t save him, you can’t change him. You can’t make him love you enough to want to stop drinking. You can’t make him love himself enough to stop drinking. You can’t, even with your most super human effort, make life good enough for him to feel safe enough to participate in it. You have to live without him. Many of the things you love about him are projections.”
I’ve been on this roller coaster all my life. My father was an alcoholic, my mother was/is a co-dependent who refused/refuses to approve of me, almost all my partners have had substance misuse issues, my 18 year old son has serious substance misuse & emotional issues & my 15 year old daughter is doing a great job of dealing with/recovering from substance misuse. (My first chid was stillborn at term & I also have a 20 year old son, who appears to have miraculously escaped the dysfunction.) I’m totally exhausted & burned out & over everything. The stuff I’ve written here is just a drop in the ocean of the bullsh@t of my life … every other post on this forum has been mine in the past, is mine now, or will be mine sometime in the future. At 45, I’ve been through just about everything there is to go through on this alcohol fuelled carousel … over & over … & I hope & pray that now I’m on my knees & ready to GIVE UP TRYING TO CONTROL ANYTHING EXCEPT MYSELF.
We ended up brawling across the room & onto the bed. For the first time, I felt he really wanted to hurt me. (Co-dependent aside, tongue sadly in cheek: yes I know it’s unacceptable to EVER be kicked or shoved or choked, but as a co-dependent, I reserve the right to view the first time he hit me with a CLOSED fist as a significant milestone … God help me.) My 18-year-old son heard the commotion & pulled him off me & restrained him from hitting me again. I called 000.
My husband is still on parole after his second jail term for drink driving/drive while disqualified. There is also a current AVO. He will probably go back to jail & serve the 7 months remaining on his sentence. I hate to have taken this action. But since he came home in August, I’ve stayed with my Mother, with friends, & slept in my car with my dogs to get away from him when things were too bad. He has tried to get his act together, but always in the old way, by trying to have enough will power to just stop drinking. By going to work & going fishing & pretending everything’s all right. By trying really hard to keep his mouth shut, stifle his temper & ignore the pain & the problems & in doing so imagine they’ve gone. He still hasn’t got his head around any of it. He hasn’t even really taken the most baby steps towards getting out of denial & into recovery. He’s 41 & has been using alcohol as an anaesthetic since he was 16.
And over the last 8 years, I’ve enabled him to do this, to prolong the suffering & to delay the inevitable “darkest hour before the dawn”.
I love this man. I adore him. Not only that, I like & care about him. In my misguided attempt to “damage control” our lives, I’ve created a tragedy that has engulfed us all.
One of the things I edited out of this post was a list of some of the horrid things he’s “done to me” over the years. However the reality is that it was a list of things I ALLOWED him to do & I chose to keep experiencing the consequences of. Probably the most important thing he’s taught me is that my issues with control are very deep. In fact, I’d venture to hypothesise (with no qualification whatsoever to do so!) that the amount of crap co-dependents go through with our alcoholic significant others is in direct proportion to our own unresolved issues. We were a perfect match: both terrified of intimacy, desperate for control & willing to settle for the illusion of it. Almost at the cost of our lives.
On re-reading this, it became clearer that my role & participation in the “wishing” game has been much greater than I recognize. I also sucumbed to the magical thinking without much of a struggle. The good parts of our relationship were so brilliantly good that I agreed to close my eyes to the rest. And like the home renovator who spends years & countless dollars renovating a condemned home, I’m raging against the fact that what I’ve got is a beautiful exterior built around a weak, damaged core. And it’s always going to come back to bite me on the @ss no matter how thick I make the new walls trying to contain & conceal the rot. I would have happily settled for a solid, sound, functional cottage, but I saw the POTENTIAL of this other great, but damaged home … & thought I could fix it … And the rest of the truth is that I felt comfortable here because it felt like home, never having experienced anything sound & normal in my life.
I humbly ask for the love & prayers of all the “husband bashing old bags” out there for both of us tonight, & for all who suffer in any way as the result of substance misuse, wherever they may be.
Thank you for listening. Thank you for creating this refuge in cyberspace where all of us can find a listening ear & a loving heart.
God Bless you all.
I sat up late that night, in shock I think, & typed the following post. Being too proud to allow spelling mistakes, I typed it in word & cut & pasted it into the "post new thread" box. And the darn thing wouldn't post. No matter how many times I tried, it just wouldn't work. I gave up in disgust & exhaustion & despair.
I have come to be so grateful that I couldn't get it to post. If I had, I probably would have spent the last year writing on & on bout MY particular circumstances & ins & outs & bells & whistles. And as many of us have found out, thinking that we are unique has been a trap. We're not. The alcoholic in our lives isn't. We're dealing with a disease & a behaviour pattern - not a person - both the alcoholic & the codependent. I see my story & myself posted on this board every singe day. It's been an eye opener, to say the least.
The other thing I've learned is how deep my disease is. I've been stunned, shaken to my very core with the realization. I am certainly as sick as my husband. Every darn thing he does in his disease, I match it in my own. It's truly frightening.
I've been feeling a bit guilty the last few months that all I do is post the odd response to someone else's thread, without ever having shared my own story. But, things having gotten much, much worse since I wrote the original post, I never had the energy or the motivation to type another introduction.
Something I read in someone else's post today motivated me to try again to post the original. So here it is.
May I also take this opportunity to say thank you to the SRF regulars. You have, over the last 12 months, along with my very dear, patient therapist, literally saved my life. I will never, ever be able to express in words my gratitude for the wisdom & support you have given so freely.
Love Helen
I joined this forum a couple of days ago & have only posted 2 comments on other member’s threads. I’d been thinking about writing a bit of an introduction & giving some background to my story. Before I could get around to it, this happened, so it will have to serve as my “introduction” to Sober Recovery!
This afternoon I was reading a thread on the forum & left it open on the laptop when I took the dogs for a bit of a walk. When I got back, my husband asked, “What’s that sh@t you’ve been reading on the Internet?” I told him what it was. He said something to the effect of “It sounds like a bunch of husband hating old bags whinging about how bad their lives are to me. None of them talked about anyone else, it was all about them. Why can’t you just get on with it?”
I was surprised he was so angry about it & asked what on earth could be wrong with me being interested in a support group for codependent recovery. I don’t know if he recognized my user name there – maybe that was what the real issue was?
Things escalated very quickly. I think his completely egocentric response to what he read pushed my most fragile button. The button that tells me that he’s so clueless & self absorbed I can waste the rest of my life waiting for him if I want to, but he’s NEVER going to want to leave dysfunction behind & embrace emotional health & true intimacy. And I HATE that button with all my might. Like a red faced, swollen eyed toddler lying on the floor screaming for someone to make the impossible possible right now – I want my husband to be the man I want, not the man he is.
He found his wallet & said he was probably going to the pub. We all know what comes next don’t we?
Yes folks, I tried to stop him. After 8 years of “Ground Hog Day”, that is just the most hysterical, illogical, ridiculous, bizarre, pathetically predictable reaction. But I did it. In retrospect, him yelling “Let go of me, let go of me” & me holding on to his shirt is so … well … you don’t need to be Freud to see what’s going on here.
You know I’ve read a lot about the alcoholic “quacking” here the last couple of days. But in our relationship it’s not him that quacks, it’s me. In our 8 years he’s very rarely represented himself as anything other than what he is & has made only the most modest commitments to the very smallest changes. He’s far too selfish to even pretend he wants to change! I’m the one who has almost killed myself racing around, not just organizing, but creating our life & keeping everything on track. It’s me who keeps the “smoke & mirrors” all happening to ”keep the wheels on”. It’s always me rabbiting on about … everything. I think I made up the whole relationship!
But back to tonight: Naturally, he resented me trying to stop him. When threatened, he always retreats. If he can’t retreat into the bottle, he’ll physically get away. I was out of control: terror/anger/frustration/resentment all rolled into one very explosive package. Push came to shove & I slapped his face. For the very first time in our 8 years together he (tried to) hit me with a closed fist. Luckily I ducked & have only a small split to my top lip. Well that (attempted) punch hurt my feelings more than my face & it hit that horrible reality button pretty hard too.
He was stone cold sober. Things have been so sweet recently & I’ve been chanting my mantra every minute of every day: “things are going so well, things are going so well, it’s going to be OK, it’s going to be OK.” Why the hell was this happening AGAIN! I must have forgotten the bells & incense or something … or maybe I was facing south instead of east????
Anyway, that big ol’ river in Egypt broke her banks & just swept me away. Reality didn’t come down on me like a tonne of bricks, it boiled up in me like a festering wound, it rose up & gathered momentum like a tidal wave. I HATE & RESENT reality when she tells me: “You can’t save him, you can’t change him. You can’t make him love you enough to want to stop drinking. You can’t make him love himself enough to stop drinking. You can’t, even with your most super human effort, make life good enough for him to feel safe enough to participate in it. You have to live without him. Many of the things you love about him are projections.”
I’ve been on this roller coaster all my life. My father was an alcoholic, my mother was/is a co-dependent who refused/refuses to approve of me, almost all my partners have had substance misuse issues, my 18 year old son has serious substance misuse & emotional issues & my 15 year old daughter is doing a great job of dealing with/recovering from substance misuse. (My first chid was stillborn at term & I also have a 20 year old son, who appears to have miraculously escaped the dysfunction.) I’m totally exhausted & burned out & over everything. The stuff I’ve written here is just a drop in the ocean of the bullsh@t of my life … every other post on this forum has been mine in the past, is mine now, or will be mine sometime in the future. At 45, I’ve been through just about everything there is to go through on this alcohol fuelled carousel … over & over … & I hope & pray that now I’m on my knees & ready to GIVE UP TRYING TO CONTROL ANYTHING EXCEPT MYSELF.
We ended up brawling across the room & onto the bed. For the first time, I felt he really wanted to hurt me. (Co-dependent aside, tongue sadly in cheek: yes I know it’s unacceptable to EVER be kicked or shoved or choked, but as a co-dependent, I reserve the right to view the first time he hit me with a CLOSED fist as a significant milestone … God help me.) My 18-year-old son heard the commotion & pulled him off me & restrained him from hitting me again. I called 000.
My husband is still on parole after his second jail term for drink driving/drive while disqualified. There is also a current AVO. He will probably go back to jail & serve the 7 months remaining on his sentence. I hate to have taken this action. But since he came home in August, I’ve stayed with my Mother, with friends, & slept in my car with my dogs to get away from him when things were too bad. He has tried to get his act together, but always in the old way, by trying to have enough will power to just stop drinking. By going to work & going fishing & pretending everything’s all right. By trying really hard to keep his mouth shut, stifle his temper & ignore the pain & the problems & in doing so imagine they’ve gone. He still hasn’t got his head around any of it. He hasn’t even really taken the most baby steps towards getting out of denial & into recovery. He’s 41 & has been using alcohol as an anaesthetic since he was 16.
And over the last 8 years, I’ve enabled him to do this, to prolong the suffering & to delay the inevitable “darkest hour before the dawn”.
I love this man. I adore him. Not only that, I like & care about him. In my misguided attempt to “damage control” our lives, I’ve created a tragedy that has engulfed us all.
One of the things I edited out of this post was a list of some of the horrid things he’s “done to me” over the years. However the reality is that it was a list of things I ALLOWED him to do & I chose to keep experiencing the consequences of. Probably the most important thing he’s taught me is that my issues with control are very deep. In fact, I’d venture to hypothesise (with no qualification whatsoever to do so!) that the amount of crap co-dependents go through with our alcoholic significant others is in direct proportion to our own unresolved issues. We were a perfect match: both terrified of intimacy, desperate for control & willing to settle for the illusion of it. Almost at the cost of our lives.
On re-reading this, it became clearer that my role & participation in the “wishing” game has been much greater than I recognize. I also sucumbed to the magical thinking without much of a struggle. The good parts of our relationship were so brilliantly good that I agreed to close my eyes to the rest. And like the home renovator who spends years & countless dollars renovating a condemned home, I’m raging against the fact that what I’ve got is a beautiful exterior built around a weak, damaged core. And it’s always going to come back to bite me on the @ss no matter how thick I make the new walls trying to contain & conceal the rot. I would have happily settled for a solid, sound, functional cottage, but I saw the POTENTIAL of this other great, but damaged home … & thought I could fix it … And the rest of the truth is that I felt comfortable here because it felt like home, never having experienced anything sound & normal in my life.
I humbly ask for the love & prayers of all the “husband bashing old bags” out there for both of us tonight, & for all who suffer in any way as the result of substance misuse, wherever they may be.
Thank you for listening. Thank you for creating this refuge in cyberspace where all of us can find a listening ear & a loving heart.
God Bless you all.
Member
Join Date: Nov 2009
Posts: 594
Originally Posted by Helenlee 
I HATE & RESENT reality when she tells me: “You can’t save him, you can’t change him. You can’t make him love you enough to want to stop drinking. You can’t make him love himself enough to stop drinking. You can’t, even with your most super human effort, make life good enough for him to feel safe enough to participate in it. You have to live without him. Many of the things you love about him are projections.”
Wow Helenlee, thank you so much for the post. I jumped on a plane tonight and have arrived at my vacation destination. I thought I'd check in and found your post right away. I don't know why it makes me feel stronger, but it does.
I'm a little unclear about the time of the events though, did you just recently go through this horrible fight with your husband? If so, I'm so sorry. Are you ok?
Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Jan 2009
Location: NSW, Australia
Posts: 197
I'm a little unclear about the time of the events though, did you just recently go through this horrible fight with your husband? If so, I'm so sorry. Are you ok?
The original post, beginning: "I joined this forum a couple of days ago ..." was written over a year ago. As hard as it is to believe, I went & got him after he got out of the watch house & brought him home! The next 12 months were hell for both of us. He's now in jail for the 3rd time for drink driving/drive while disqualified.
He has 3 months to go until he's released & I'm working as hard as I can on my recovery to ensure that this time I stick to my decision not to take him back into my life. (Yes, I'm the one who keeps telling you not to bother finding out what you're missing out on by going back to ol stinky undies
)
Enjoy your holiday. Without the drama. That's gotta be good
The original post, beginning: "I joined this forum a couple of days ago ..." was written over a year ago. As hard as it is to believe, I went & got him after he got out of the watch house & brought him home! The next 12 months were hell for both of us. He's now in jail for the 3rd time for drink driving/drive while disqualified.
He has 3 months to go until he's released & I'm working as hard as I can on my recovery to ensure that this time I stick to my decision not to take him back into my life. (Yes, I'm the one who keeps telling you not to bother finding out what you're missing out on by going back to ol stinky undies
)Enjoy your holiday. Without the drama. That's gotta be good
Member
Join Date: Nov 2009
Location: Waterford MI
Posts: 4,202
(Yes, I'm the one who keeps telling you not to bother finding out what you're missing out on by going back to ol stinky undies )
Thank you HelenLee for posting your story. Wow, you said it so well.
I was joking on another thread about my last night of drinking, and hitting my ex in the head with a pot. You know how much led up to that night. Oh yes, you know, as do all the husband bashing whinging nags on this forum.
The realization that I had lost control (gotten violent) was an AHA! moment for me. The fury has always been bubbling and festering like you said, but I managed to avoid a lot of feeling by drinking. (Who knew right?
)Yes, yes and yes to the alcoholic father, 2 out of 3 children with serious addiction issues and me just now getting it about my codependency. But, I will get it. I will.
I love those dogs in your avatar, they look like the best of friends.
(peeing in the wrong places notwithstanding, mine goes on the bathroom floor sometimes, and looks terribly embarassed about it.)
thank you again for posting your story.
Beth
Member
Join Date: Jan 2009
Location: Australia
Posts: 285
Helen
Thank you for sharing your story so hoenstly, raw and ugly and beautiful at the same time.
It is an honur to bare witness to your journey. I love your insight.
I to am a 45 year old Aussie codie.
Love to you.
Thank you for sharing your story so hoenstly, raw and ugly and beautiful at the same time.
It is an honur to bare witness to your journey. I love your insight.
I to am a 45 year old Aussie codie.
Love to you.
Member
Join Date: Jan 2010
Location: South Africa
Posts: 330
I see my story & myself posted on this board every singe day. It's been an eye opener, to say the least
This is why I LOVE THIS PLACE. I also came here whan worst was over. I was just too ashamed/weak/paralyzed to join in> but I read here for years .I reset my brain by doing it. I un -brainwashed myself. And I am a 46 year old South African codie LOL.
Hugs to you Helen
This is why I LOVE THIS PLACE. I also came here whan worst was over. I was just too ashamed/weak/paralyzed to join in> but I read here for years .I reset my brain by doing it. I un -brainwashed myself. And I am a 46 year old South African codie LOL.
Hugs to you Helen
Member
Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: Wizard Land Downunder
Posts: 2,615
Welcome from one of those "old bags", and congrats on you coming out of hiding.
I had no violence in my marriage, until the very end, and it was me who wanted to get out before I hit him out of sheer anger and frustration.
I was too tired of seeing him spend the evening, sitting out by his bar swigging on his whiskey or wine, muttering obsenities to himself til he flaked out.
I was tired of pretending we were the perfect married pair, and taking care of all I could, of his duties as President of a large volunteer organisation, we were both involved in.
When he told me that he was going to keep drinking and I could "bugger off", that is what I did....much to his surprise.
I no longer cared if he injured himself when drunk, or stuffed up his role as President or let the family and the whole damned world finally see what had been hidden for the last 5 years.
He did as expected, and ended up a sick, crippled and demented old man, bedridden in a nursing home, til his death last year....something that can reduce me to tears when I see him in my mind.
I made the mistake of being involved with another alcoholic, gone thru more pain and finally learned from SR and other means, how to start to detach, be less dependant on what others think and that my life is MY life.
I hope you are free of the misery you have had in your life and build a new, exciting and wonderful one for yourself very soon.
You have 20 extra years to play with, as I am 65 now.
God bless
I had no violence in my marriage, until the very end, and it was me who wanted to get out before I hit him out of sheer anger and frustration.
I was too tired of seeing him spend the evening, sitting out by his bar swigging on his whiskey or wine, muttering obsenities to himself til he flaked out.
I was tired of pretending we were the perfect married pair, and taking care of all I could, of his duties as President of a large volunteer organisation, we were both involved in.
When he told me that he was going to keep drinking and I could "bugger off", that is what I did....much to his surprise.
I no longer cared if he injured himself when drunk, or stuffed up his role as President or let the family and the whole damned world finally see what had been hidden for the last 5 years.
He did as expected, and ended up a sick, crippled and demented old man, bedridden in a nursing home, til his death last year....something that can reduce me to tears when I see him in my mind.
I made the mistake of being involved with another alcoholic, gone thru more pain and finally learned from SR and other means, how to start to detach, be less dependant on what others think and that my life is MY life.
I hope you are free of the misery you have had in your life and build a new, exciting and wonderful one for yourself very soon.
You have 20 extra years to play with, as I am 65 now.
God bless
Member
Join Date: Dec 2009
Posts: 61
Helenlee,
I was hanging on every word of your post, as I tend to do when reading here at SR--looking, hoping, waiting for similarities in experience, thought, feeling....anything that helps me to know I am not *quite* as crazy or alone as I might feel at times. Your strength, determination, and intelligence are apparent. You are in good company! 
I was hanging on every word of your post, as I tend to do when reading here at SR--looking, hoping, waiting for similarities in experience, thought, feeling....anything that helps me to know I am not *quite* as crazy or alone as I might feel at times.
Your strength, determination, and intelligence are apparent. You are in good company! same planet...different world
Join Date: Sep 2006
Location: Butte, America
Posts: 10,946
Thank you Helen....
but as a classic serial fan ... where are you now?
What's going on in HelensTree these days?
i agree.
i thought that once I'd done the 12 Steps of AA I would be this 'new person'
well I DID become a new person.
But as I went deeper and deeper
to find the Source of my dysfunction....
I found myself repeating the saying
"Insanity is doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result"
Well, the story of my life's relationships reflected just that.
I've learned SOOOO MUCH hanging out over here,
reading ... posting laughing crying....
this place is ONE insanity
that I WILL do over and over again
IN HOPES of the same result!
thanks so much for the wonderful insightful post!
but as a classic serial fan ... where are you now?
What's going on in HelensTree these days?
i agree.
i thought that once I'd done the 12 Steps of AA I would be this 'new person'
well I DID become a new person.
But as I went deeper and deeper
to find the Source of my dysfunction....
I found myself repeating the saying
"Insanity is doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result"
Well, the story of my life's relationships reflected just that.
I've learned SOOOO MUCH hanging out over here,
reading ... posting laughing crying....
this place is ONE insanity
that I WILL do over and over again
IN HOPES of the same result!
thanks so much for the wonderful insightful post!
Being Silent so I can Hear
Join Date: Nov 2008
Location: USA
Posts: 2,521
In fact, I’d venture to hypothesise (with no qualification whatsoever to do so!) that the amount of crap co-dependents go through with our alcoholic significant others is in direct proportion to our own unresolved issues.
Great post Helen, thanks
Member
Join Date: Oct 2009
Location: minneapolis, mn
Posts: 2,762
Oh, Helenlee, too too much stuff to pick anything to quote and respond to.
But! You really nailed it when you said that you were every bit as sick as he was. Ain't that the truth? It's a hard, hard one to swallow.
I have seen a couple of posts by you, and I, like you, have done what you said you've been doing here the past year. A couple of times I went out on a limb and started a thread, and gotten great responses; the most recent one I didn't even consider not posting - my daughter had binged bigtime and ended up in the hospital. The support I recieved here was overwhelming - it BLEW ME AWAY.
Thank you for sharing, and keep coming back.
:ghug3
But! You really nailed it when you said that you were every bit as sick as he was. Ain't that the truth? It's a hard, hard one to swallow.
I have seen a couple of posts by you, and I, like you, have done what you said you've been doing here the past year. A couple of times I went out on a limb and started a thread, and gotten great responses; the most recent one I didn't even consider not posting - my daughter had binged bigtime and ended up in the hospital. The support I recieved here was overwhelming - it BLEW ME AWAY.
Thank you for sharing, and keep coming back.
:ghug3
peaceful seabird
Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: floating
Posts: 4,822
Welcome to the Family HelenLee!
Thank you for taking the time to introduce yourself and tell us your story. I can certainly relate to most of your story. I really appreciated this:
Things have been so sweet recently & I’ve been chanting my mantra every minute of every day: “things are going so well, things are going so well, it’s going to be OK, it’s going to be OK.” Why the hell was this happening AGAIN! I must have forgotten the bells & incense or something … or maybe I was facing south instead of east????
LOL, I must not be holding my mouth right - or I forgot to spin three times to the left!! Ah, good times.....not!
We're glad you found us!
Thank you for taking the time to introduce yourself and tell us your story. I can certainly relate to most of your story. I really appreciated this:
Things have been so sweet recently & I’ve been chanting my mantra every minute of every day: “things are going so well, things are going so well, it’s going to be OK, it’s going to be OK.” Why the hell was this happening AGAIN! I must have forgotten the bells & incense or something … or maybe I was facing south instead of east????
LOL, I must not be holding my mouth right - or I forgot to spin three times to the left!! Ah, good times.....not!
We're glad you found us!
Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Jan 2009
Location: NSW, Australia
Posts: 197
Sincere & heartfelt thanks to every one of you who welcomed me. It's so good to have a place to go for support when life in the real world feels like crawling over broken glass.
Thanks guys
Thanks guys
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