hi guys,

i feel a little silly posting here because no one posts anything here...but hay! i'll post all the same.

i havent been feeling great lately and tonight i realised why.

i've stopped enjoying things, because i have ptsd....but watching a dance film tonight with my hubby, i started talking about how i would love to learn latin dancing...and he said" why dont we jon a class"

and i feel happy for the first time in ages....i love singing and dancing and i just lost interest in them.

i think i learned tonight that i have to feed my emotions with the things that i love.
instead of feeding them with junk...which is what i have been doing lately

i think its not good enough to just have an ok days...i need to feed my minds with things that get me thinking positively.
things that make me laugh, smile, feel happy, excited about life!
things i like to do, but never did, because i have always been too busy sorting out other ppl problems.

to not do for others what they can do for themselves.

to look after myself and my own recovery/life


love in recovery.

irish.

Thank you so much for the Acoa Laundry list!

It fits me perfectly, thats me really.

and now you say about be doing things for others that they could and should do for themselves... me! did for long time, just rying to learn in focus on myself and help myself for a change, always so hard in judge myself and over responsible and all the laundry list fits me... if see another post here I said I did not know what a normal guy would be, as I never met one... thats number one laundry list and I did not know, I just don´t know what is normal, or a functional family...

Keep posting, you helping!

and many read and dont post, I have been reading every day, but sometimes in a hurry between a thing and another, so think of post and let for later but we are reading!



Lucia

thanks lucia.

you sound as shocked by the laundry list as i was when i frst started reading about acoas...god love my innocents i thought i was the most normal out of my family....turned out i was just as messed up as them, but i didnt see it...because i was always looking at their problems and fixing them.
acoa had made me look at myself...and what i seen there shocked me!

the traits i had mostly was over responsible,controling,minipulation in order for my own world to feel safe!
in my sick ways of thinking, me controling, fixing their lifes meant that there wouldnt be major trouble in my life....but yet i went from crisis to crisis and didnt realise it was because i TOOK on the responsiblity for other ppls problems.

acoa helped me change my life...and doing so helped me brake the cycle for my son....otherwise i would have passed on all the acoa behaviours...and he would have went into life with the same problems as me even though neither me or my hubby drink.
going into recovery was like throwing a stone in the water and all the ripples that happen because of the stone....recovery has the same affect on our lifes.


love in recovery.

irish

Hi

Yesterday was an awesome day for me.

I started the same as I was since last saturday night, when I was deeply hurt by other person action.

I react to it crying and asking myself why I was born to begin with... Is that a common ACoA question? In the mess of my childhood growing up I did a lot of cry and yesterday was feeling so abandonned and betrayed as the little kid I once was.

Trying to make for another minute without drink, as I am an alcoholic children of alcoholics, I prayed and prayed.

Yesterday was like miracle. Start day not knowing how would go through it without drink.

But was work day. I went to work. On my way something already started change, as I thought It would not be a reasonable action to destroy myself because someone else actions. Thinking that I have no control over others actions, but I can choose mines.

The miracle was that a just regular day in job became a wonderful day, as I met friends and felt useful, and saw I have a life and it is a good one if I just accept it as it is. To accept the others actions and understand it is their actions, it is who they are and not me the cause of why they did it.

And I guess this is my ACoA point on this. The willingness to destroy myself over other people actions has been caused by the believe that it was me, because I was less, because I was wrong, because me being me and deserving less of life and that would be why people would let me down.

Does anyone relate to it? Does it make sense?

Well, God did show up in my life yesterday and showed me I worth the good things I have in life, and who does not wish me well, can just please walk away and be out of my life. Guess this is a very hard thing for an ACoA like me to say, I am the one described in the Problems and Solutions written:

"we were dependant personalities, terrified of abandonment, willing to do almost anything to hold on to a relationship in order not to be abandoned emotionally.
we keep choosing inscure relationships because they match our childhood relationship with alcoholic or dysfunctional parents"

I am still here and I am still sober working in my recovery in both AA and ACoA, and thats a gift of the 3th step.



Hugs,
Lucia

Hhi lucia,
i'm sorry to hear that someones actions hurt you... but i am delighted that you realised that u can survive and go on.

ppl have often made me feel that my life wasnt worth living, but then something would happen to make me realise that i am worthwhile, and as worthy of a good life as the next person is.

and for that very reason we keep the focus on us, because it would be all too easy to take responsiblity for what others have done to or on us.

i recall many times saying, it was my fault, i shouldnt have done this, that or the other, maybe then the person who hurt/let me down wouldnt have done this.
and thats crazy thinking!

today i expect the respect i deserve as a human being.

i treat ppl as with the same respect they show me.

and the ppl who try to drag me back to the old ways...well they can just hit the road...cause i dont need ppl like that in my life.

one things for sure though, without the acoa 12 step program i would be lost and confused like i was all my life.

love in recovery.
irish