I am new to ACOA...my mother is a recovering alcoholic and my father was only as he said a "heavy drinker". I was raised by my grandparents on my father's side...my grandmother was an alcoholic and my grandfather was a dry drunk. My bother also fell into the trap. As for me...I took care of everyone. I am working Step 1 and today I feel angry...

I bought the ACOA big book and have been reading it. I also have the workbook but the more I read and write the angrier I get. My therapist told me that I would feel this way. I don't like it...I don't like it at all...

I am looking foward to moving through my recovery and working the steps. I look forward to the day when I can see things with more clarity and in a more positive direction. I am the responsible child. I took care of my bother, my mother, my father, my grandmother, and my grandfather...I never took very good care of me. Now that I am a mom, I saw life in the third person almost with my son. I married an addict and the cycle continued. I recently left my husband, moved out on my own, and decided to get my son into Al-non and me into ACOA. I don't want my son to have the life I had.

-- Edited by Bea on Tuesday 23rd of October 2012 02:26:58 PM

whendoesitgetbetter wrote:

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I still want to believe that I can fix my life.  I am having the hardest time accepting this.  Until I do, I can't really move on.  I just keep thinking if I try harder; if I'm a better daughter, wife, mother, friend, coworker - my life will be ok.  How do I quit trying? I'd like to ask for help...but I'm afraid to trust...afraid to be weak...afraid to be vulnerable.  So I just keep soldiering through.  But I find myself sinking deeper and deeper.

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Here's a way to look at it.  Imagine you fell into a deep pit with very smooth sides against which you could find no leverage.  The pit is too deep for you to just leap out of.  The walls, as I said, are too smooth to climb.  You have no utility belt like Batman.  But you are able to speak.  If you want out of the pit, what do you do?  You stop trying to do it alone and cry for help.  It would not be a failure of you as a human being in my scenario to call for help.  And it is no failure to cry for help in this one.

If someone gave you an anchored rope, you'd pull yourself out of that pit.  But you won't get the anchored rope unless you cry for help.

As long as you want to get out of the hole, there's no shame in needing help to do it.

I was working Step I yesterday and I read something that meant so much to me...it really helped me see a few things I didn't see before...it is from the ACOA big book...

"while many adult children appear cheerful, helpful, or self-sufficient, most live in fear of their parents and spouses in in addition to fearing an employer"...I have lived in fear my whole adult life. I was afraid to go out at times. I was afraid of my bosses over the years and have actually quit jobs because I felt I was going to get let go for being who I was and that my work wasn't as good as others. I have a lot of limiting beliefs about myself. I don't sleep with the windows open and I lock myself away all the time. I was a successful business owner at one point and sold it because I didn't want to stand up for what I wanted and say no.

"shame is the deep sense that our souls are inherently flawed. Abandonment means more than beingl eft alone or left at a doorstep." I now know that Step I is the place I need to start and work because I admit I was powerless over the effects of alcoholism or other family dysfunction, that my lives is (had become) unmanageable.

I am thankful to be here....

I know this thread hasn't been visited for a while, but I'd like to start working the steps.

My life has become unmanageable. The worst part is knowing that I'm doing this to myself...and I can't stop. I have a wonderful husband and two beautiful daughters and there was a real peace in my life. And it made me soooo uncomfortable. I was waiting for the other shoe to drop and when it didn't I took it off and threw it myself.

I think I should be able to be a good person and enjoy the blessings in my life. Blaming it on my upbringing feels like a cop-out. It's tough.

I am powerless. I feel weak and humiliated for admitting it. I feel sick and lost and dishonest. Why can't I fix myself?

Thank you. Intellectually I understand what you are saying. Plus, the evidence is all around me. I guess its silly to think I can do it alone.

lostinoz wrote:

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After being here for weeks and mulling it all over, taking it all in, I finally did step one.  I found it a bit hard to keep focussed on me, without putting in the victim me.  The hurts are still raw and angry, so it leaked in here and there.  I am trying to illiminate that, and I will keep trying.  It's hard not to want to defend why I have kept doing the unhealthy behaviours.  I want to defend myself. BUT, 
i got through it, and now i'm mulling it over, taking it all in, and streamling it.  Hopefully, I will get better at this.

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Congratulations on starting.  You will find threads here where we discuss each of the steps.  If you'd like feedback as you do them, feel free to post to them.

It's quite an ego blow to realize that you cannot do it yourself, especially since our FOO creates an expectation in us that we can and have to do it all ourselves (since the FOO is unreliable and unspportive).

Wow, just had an epiphany there.  Apparently I have intellectually known what I just typed to you, but for the first time I felt that, all the emotions behind constantly having to be more reliable and in charge than a kid should have to be.

I need to process this a bit more myself.  Thanks.