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Go Back   Bluidkiti's Alcohol and Drug Addictions Recovery Help/Support Forums > Alcohol, Drugs and Other Addictions Recovery > Alcohol, Drugs and Other Addictions Recovery > Family and Friends of Alcoholics and Addicts

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Family and Friends of Alcoholics and Addicts This forum is for families and friends whose lives have been affected by someone else's drinking and/or drug abuse.

 
 
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Old 08-13-2016, 12:47 AM   #1
MajestyJo
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Join Date: Aug 2013
Location: Hamilton, ON
Posts: 25,085
Default Guilt

Character is how we act when we think no one is watching.

Walk Softly and Carry A Big Book

When I saw this, I thought of the phrase "Monkey see, Monkey do." How about that other phrase, "Children have big ears."

When I hear about my son's actions in addiction, I generally, or now I can say occasionally, I take them back to me. I think of the slogan "Let It Begin With Me." I keep thinking it all began with me, when in fact, my son has his own choices.

I don't have to pay for my actions for the rest of my life. I did the best I could for where I was at in that time. That doesn't make them right. It doesn't justify them. It just is, and I had to pray and turn all those feeling over to my Higher Power.

Not only my feelings but my son. His recovery could not come from me. The best amend I can make to him is stay clean and sober myself and show him by my walk not my talk.

I need to take responsibility for my part. I had to learn not to take on his anger and projections.

A good example is the liquor I hid in a tall gold tupperware glass to drink when my dad and my ex-husband passed out. I either forgot it or figured I would save it for later, but my son found my stash and drank it. I didn't know that until many years AFTER I got into recovery. He made the decision to drink it. I certainly didn't want him to drink it or did I tell him to. He could have a beer but not my rye!

It took a long time for me to look at myself and take responsibility for my own actions. I was too busy looking at my dad, husband and son. They had the problem, they were drunks. I could handle my booze. In today I know I was the functioning alcoholic whose addiction to pills (dried up alcohol) escalated, until they stopped working for me, and I needed more. More no longer worked, and I even had guilt about my guilt.

They had their disease, but so did I, in fact I have heard that people in Al-Anon and Nar-Anon are sicker than the alcoholic and addict.

I told myself that I had to drink because I couldn`t stand to be around them sober. What a cop out! The reality was, my husband quit for 6 months and I couldn`t, but that is okay, because I didn`t have the problem. It would ease my guilt by looking at others, comparing, and wearing that blanket of denial that wouldn`t allow me to look at myself.

Posted on another site in 2013.

I can still get a twinge now and then when I see him growing in his disease.

__________________

Love always,

Jo

I share because I care.



Last edited by MajestyJo; 08-13-2016 at 12:51 AM. Reason: editing
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