seek

The alcoholics I love are family - so no divorce option. I can't seem to choose whom to love either . . . I do not want to be a victim . . . trying to juggle feeling "safe" in my own world, with the time bomb of having alcoholics in my family. It is all very disturbing . . . I can avoid them . . . but every now and then a bomb goes off and I react. I can't seem to shake the fear and possible horror of their self-destruction.

I try to remind myself "we are all here for a reason" - and I saw an Oprah interview of Goldie Hawn where Goldie said as a sixth grader she was taken to watch a movie at school, which she thought was going to be fun and they showed an imminent atom bomb attack . . . she said she was scared out of her whits every time she heard testing sirens - and that it was only the Bible quote "Psalm 23" (I think) "While I walk through the valley of death, I fear no evil . . ." So I think MY solution will also be a spiritual solution.

I want to enjoy life, not be constantly scared of "what's going to happen next?"

lillamy

You can love someone from a distance. With addicts, that's usually the healthiest way.

hopeful4

For myself, I just cannot do it. The anxiety was ruining my own life because I was always walking on eggshells waiting for the other shoe to drop. Sad.

I agree that you can still love, at a distance.