ichabod

My DH is in recovery and doing very well. He's working hard on his steps, goes to AA almost every day, and I'm really proud of him. He has been sober for over a year.

Yesterday he was heading out to a meeting in the evening. Our son wasn't home and I was looking forward to some quiet time with him. I blurted out without thinking, "alcohol used to be your life and now AA is." I know that I'm carrying around a lot of resentment that I'm truly trying to deal with and I guess I'm transferring the old resentment of the drinking to the newer resentment of AA and how time consuming it can be.

I wanted to write this out so I can mull it over. The level headed me wants him to go to AA as much as he needs, but the selfish part wants to be a focus sometimes too. Eh, I guess I'm not as far along in my recovery as I thought.

Learn2Live

What I have learned for myself is that in order to be healthy, I need to be self-sufficient in all aspects of my life. And that means entertaining myself and taking care of myself, BY myself, whether I am in a relationship with a man or not. Of course, I am not the expert at deciding how much autonomy is healthy and how much is unhealthy, but as I said, I am still learning. Practice makes perfect. Glad you recognized this in yourself. Awareness is half the battle. Give yourself a big pat on the back for NOT remaining in denial.

TeM

I think a little selfishness can be healthy in certain circumstances.

One bit of advice I see often here is "Take care of yourself". Now, this will obviously mean different things to different people.

For me, it means little things, like buying my favorite brand of coffee instead of the cheaper store brand, or ordering that book I've been wanting from Amazon, even though it's an unnecessary expense.

I find these little things therapeutic, and I'm sure others have their own little favors they do for themselves.

One thing I'm learning is that the alcoholic in my life will suck the energy out of me if I let her, so I'm doing whatever I can to keep my sanity.

Still Waters

I've heard this before, from those who's A's actually embrace recovery - that recovery takes their focus like drinking did. I think that's normal.

And I think your reaction is normal too.

Don't beat yourself up about it.

Freedom1990

What support system do you have in place for yourself, dear?

SteppingUp

Wow, that is one of the most important life lessons anyone could ever learn!

Thanks for posting!