Kinda new here ; )
Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Aug 2011
Location: Lisle, IL
Posts: 11
Kinda new here ; )
Like my title says I'm kinda new here, but not...
In reality I've been putting this off not really wanting to talk about myself. The reason why is because since I've been on here I've realized a lot of things that I'm going through or have gone through are due to being around someone who was a substance abuser for the majority of my life.
That person would be my dad.
It was a normal thing for my dad to get absolutely hammered, create havoc at all hours of the evening, constant fighting with my mom; who would always threaten to leave, but never did.
I even joked around, up until recently, about how my dad was more of a father to me drunk than sober.
My Life was nothing that I thought it was.
And to think all it took was my inquisitive mind.
I think back at being younger, how introverted I was, how timid and scared I was of people and new places.
I mean it's slightly strange to see things from that "Aha" moment.
I really came here because of my relationship with my recovering s/o. From the beginning he was very open about everything. He started drinking at a young age, which led to smoking pot, then snorting lines and eventually smoking crack.
My very first reaction was "whoa! I can't do this..."
I have a 4yo daughter and her father is off in lala land, smoking a blunt with a beer or some other alcoholic drink in hand.
There was no way that I wanted to take the backseat to drugs again. I did as a child and in one relationship; I was not walking down that path again.
Something kept pulling me to talk to him despite everything that I thought wasn't "normal".... But I'm here now.
I started becoming obsessed with his recovery. I wanted to know everything I could about recovery and the process. I wasn't specifically bombarding him with any of this, because I felt like this was my dirty little secret.
Why should this be a dirty little secret, I thought?
I constantly wanted to know more, but I would never tell my s/o what I was researching.
Then my uncle passed away. He was the black sheep and scapegoat of our family. My own alcoholic father was so quick to point a hypocritical finger at him, telling him constantly your family is suffering from your drinking. After that talk it was pretty much the last time we saw them. When my dad was getting sober my uncle was trying to commit suicide by not moving from bed and only drinking alcohol.
*just a side note-- if any of you are wondering why his family didn't do anything, I'm not entirely sure. My aunt is epileptic and is a severe codependent and his children... well, that's a whole different story.
Skipping forward he passed away from a number of things he was fighting, but the main contributing factor was his scleroderma that really kicked into high gear when he was trying to kill himself. After his funeral before the 4th of July, I didn't want to know any more about sobriety, alcoholism, drug addictions-- it was all surreal to me.
It was normal people this and normal people that... I was living in my own deluded state of mind.
Then just recently something clicked again. Honestly it was my s/o. His previous sponsor was not staying in contact. My s/o found a new sponsor, stated attending meetings and going to church. When all this started unfolding with him and just how utterly happy he is, I started my own search for peace. I started with simple searches on google and then the next thing I knew, I was here on the site reading a post about codependency. I didn't put hardly any thougth into that word, I signed up started a few threads on the Friends and Family forum and it seemed as though almost every other response to my thread was something to do with codependency. I started looking into codependency and one website I found, "Click here to start the codependency quiz."
I clicked on it... I read throught the questions answering yes to most of them; and at the end it read, "If you answered “yes” to a lot of these questions, you may indeed have a problem with co-dependency. This does not mean that you are a flawed person. It means that you are spending a lot of energy on other people and very little on yourself."
My very first thougth was, "Damn."
Now, I feel like I have a slightly better understanding of myself. I'm never going to understand an addict's journey through recovery, but I want to be able to say that I'm not ignorant to it either.
I begin my own journey now, so wish me much luck and to everyone out there I hope you find everything that you are looking for. Best of luck to all!
In reality I've been putting this off not really wanting to talk about myself. The reason why is because since I've been on here I've realized a lot of things that I'm going through or have gone through are due to being around someone who was a substance abuser for the majority of my life.
That person would be my dad.
It was a normal thing for my dad to get absolutely hammered, create havoc at all hours of the evening, constant fighting with my mom; who would always threaten to leave, but never did.
I even joked around, up until recently, about how my dad was more of a father to me drunk than sober.
My Life was nothing that I thought it was.
And to think all it took was my inquisitive mind.
I think back at being younger, how introverted I was, how timid and scared I was of people and new places.
I mean it's slightly strange to see things from that "Aha" moment.
I really came here because of my relationship with my recovering s/o. From the beginning he was very open about everything. He started drinking at a young age, which led to smoking pot, then snorting lines and eventually smoking crack.
My very first reaction was "whoa! I can't do this..."
I have a 4yo daughter and her father is off in lala land, smoking a blunt with a beer or some other alcoholic drink in hand.
There was no way that I wanted to take the backseat to drugs again. I did as a child and in one relationship; I was not walking down that path again.
Something kept pulling me to talk to him despite everything that I thought wasn't "normal".... But I'm here now.
I started becoming obsessed with his recovery. I wanted to know everything I could about recovery and the process. I wasn't specifically bombarding him with any of this, because I felt like this was my dirty little secret.
Why should this be a dirty little secret, I thought?
I constantly wanted to know more, but I would never tell my s/o what I was researching.
Then my uncle passed away. He was the black sheep and scapegoat of our family. My own alcoholic father was so quick to point a hypocritical finger at him, telling him constantly your family is suffering from your drinking. After that talk it was pretty much the last time we saw them. When my dad was getting sober my uncle was trying to commit suicide by not moving from bed and only drinking alcohol.
*just a side note-- if any of you are wondering why his family didn't do anything, I'm not entirely sure. My aunt is epileptic and is a severe codependent and his children... well, that's a whole different story.
Skipping forward he passed away from a number of things he was fighting, but the main contributing factor was his scleroderma that really kicked into high gear when he was trying to kill himself. After his funeral before the 4th of July, I didn't want to know any more about sobriety, alcoholism, drug addictions-- it was all surreal to me.
It was normal people this and normal people that... I was living in my own deluded state of mind.
Then just recently something clicked again. Honestly it was my s/o. His previous sponsor was not staying in contact. My s/o found a new sponsor, stated attending meetings and going to church. When all this started unfolding with him and just how utterly happy he is, I started my own search for peace. I started with simple searches on google and then the next thing I knew, I was here on the site reading a post about codependency. I didn't put hardly any thougth into that word, I signed up started a few threads on the Friends and Family forum and it seemed as though almost every other response to my thread was something to do with codependency. I started looking into codependency and one website I found, "Click here to start the codependency quiz."
I clicked on it... I read throught the questions answering yes to most of them; and at the end it read, "If you answered “yes” to a lot of these questions, you may indeed have a problem with co-dependency. This does not mean that you are a flawed person. It means that you are spending a lot of energy on other people and very little on yourself."
My very first thougth was, "Damn."
Now, I feel like I have a slightly better understanding of myself. I'm never going to understand an addict's journey through recovery, but I want to be able to say that I'm not ignorant to it either.
I begin my own journey now, so wish me much luck and to everyone out there I hope you find everything that you are looking for. Best of luck to all!
Community Greeter
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: Upstate New York
Posts: 51,569
Hi Beckalee - it's great to have you here. I didn't like to talk about myself either, but when I came here it seemed very natural. Everyone had similar experiences, and I was no longer alone. I hope you'll keep posting & sharing your thoughts here, and on the Friends & Family Forum.
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