Family

[MajestyJo]

From "The Family Afterwards":

"Cessation of drinking is but the first step away
from a highly strained, abnormal condition. A doctor
said to us, "Years of living with an alcoholic is
almost sure to make any wife or child neurotic. The
entire family is, to some extent, ill." Let families
realize, as they start their journey, that all will
not be fair weather. Each in his turn may be footsore
and may straggle. There will be alluring shortcuts and
by-paths down which they may wander and lose their way."

Alcoholics Anonymous, pgs. 122-23

Had many issues with my family, to some I got a lot of condescension, and I had a difficult time with it, until I could see it as their problem, not mine.

Some couldn't accept me because of their own denial, and they didn't want to accept me, because they drank with me, and they didn't want to look at their problems.

As they say, the person living with an alcoholic, is often sicker than the alcoholic. They take on the alcoholics issues, either by trying to fix them; if you can't beat them, join them; they looked at it as a 'sin' instead of a disease. To my aunt, I was a sinner saved by grace. For me, it was to live because of the grace that brought me to the program and allowed me to stay sober, one day at a time.

My son never wanted me to go back to where I came from, even in today, 22 years later, he will say go to a meeting, you know what to do, because he doesn't me want to be that person I use to be, and yet, he continues to use himself and has been in treatment 5 times.

Some friends think I should be okay after all this time, and it is alright for me to go into a bar, and a little glass of wine won't hurt me, you are over all that.

Some resent the fact that I went to AA and it could do for me, what they had been trying do for years. They resented that I didn't listen to them and do what they said, especially those in the church. They couldn't help me until I was willing. I had to be willing to change and go through whatever came my way without picking up one day at a time. I was no longer alone, I had a fellowship of people who walked the recovery road with me. They saw me in today and my family were looking at me in the past. It was a great day when my aunt and my sister came to me and asked for one of my hugs. Our family had never been demonstrative and seldom said the words to let them know that they were loved.