That means today, usually no matter what...I get to heal in one way or another.
Now granted I'm still grasping at straws sometimes and some of the people there I don't like and sometimes I just don't wanna go, but I'm still getting what I need.
I have gone away from my program a little more than I have wanted to, but I have always made sure to go to my home group.
I feel good when I am there, I feel like I am around people who understand what it is like to be in a relationship with a active addict/dry drunk and to grow up under a dry drunk and codependent. The things that I learn about myself and how these relationships affected me is amazing, scary and eye-opening all at the same time.
I didn't realize until I got into Al-Anon that my father was the picture of a dry drunk. Everything he did radiated it. I never knew anything about my dad's past, my sisters really didn't talk much about it and most of what my mom told me was fabricated in some way. My father was a very lost soul, and most people don't really understand that. The level of abuse he suffered went far beyond what he dished out, the level of anger that he encountered was about what he dished out and I know that he never got any help for it.
When I met Eric I think it was the same kind of attraction. Oh, here's a guy and he's like my dad and maybe I can help him instead. Now that wasn't my front brain telling me that...I just think that was a subconscious motive. He was a active user, pretty much anything he could get his hands on short of heroin, he'd do. Things got better with that as time went on until it was only alcohol and weed...which I was for a long time ok with.
In my recovery I am learning that we all become what we are taught and the vast majority of people don't get out of that cycle, even when they want to. I am learning that the behaviors that I were taught have followed me into adulthood. The only difference now is that the things I learned to cope, defend and protect myself from aren't protecting me anymore, they are actually hindering my growth.
The alcoholics in my life were never the problem. They are just doing what they do, I'm the one going crazy trying to fix everything. I'm the one reacting to it. I'm the one overreacting to it. I'm the one trying to fix things when I shouldn't be.
I remember when I met Eric, he had a warrant out for his arrest. Long story short, he got picked up. I spent 16 fucking hours trying to figure out how to get him out of jail so he could get back to work that night so he wouldn't lose his job. Would him losing his job have affected me, sure. But was it my responsibility to spend all that time trying to fix his fuck up, absolutely not. That was my life with Eric, fixing every mistake and it made it easy for Eric to never see the consequences, never see the result of what his choices brought him. Cause I always fixed them before anything got really out of control.
That was never my responsibility, but I felt like it was, cause he was my boyfriend/husband and that was my job...to take care of him no matter what, no matter when. But it wasn't, now that I am learning that, I hope it makes it easier for me in future relationship(should I have any).
I am not anyone elses caretaker, I am my own and this caretaker is going to take her ass to her meeting!
Pan
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