hugs to you backforgood

From reading your words...what stuck out at me was your first line...that they are the ones with thier sh!te together and yoiu're a loser. It looks like you are judging yourself first and foremost, you're not a loser!!

That said, time takes time. how long have you been sober??

I know for me...i had to remove myself from toxic relationships in my family until i had a little knowledge of my program,,,some tools to help me deal with life on lifes terms. I am powerless over other people. What others think of me is actually none of my business. I need only concern myself with what I think of me. And the longer I don't drink the clearer my world is coming into focus.

I hurt my family alot when i was using...it's taken  some time for my family even to have anything to do with me. And actaully i did that on purpose. The guilt and shame I felt kept me at a distance from them.

You;ll see after some time passes and you stay sober that your relatrionships with your family change, they're not so hostile anymore

I just know that i have to do lots of work on myself first before anything else changes.

Look at things a different way, and the things you look at change.

We do have to be selfish in  a different way now. Have you gone to a meeting yet??

\\//Wendy

Hey Back4good,

I found out early on that no one was going to pat me on the back for my sobriety, I wasn't in the program for 6 years and a lot of toxic stuff was dumped on me and I dumped alot on others. I have lived off and on for the last 20+ years with my alcoholic husband, he now appreciates my sobriety but I better never talk about his or his lack of sobriety.

I found the support I needed through the programs of AA and Al-anon.Keep going to your meetings. I remember hearing over and over I needed a sponsor, sooooo I started praying God would show me who to ask. One night it became so clear who I was to ask. When I did she said yes, I found out we had so much in common, stuff you don't hear about in meetings.I have a new family in the program, they are the ones I get to choose, not the ones God gave me at birth, and they have helped me to deal with the biological family.The neat thing is my family now trusts me , they don't real know why, we don't discuss it , but I know why, that's what matters.

Keep doing what your doing, going to meetings, meetings and more meetings,posting here and staying sober one day at a time. As Wendy said let time take time, there are alot of things I will be working on for the rest of my life. You are in my prayers and I'm patting you on the back.

(((Hugs)))

GammyRose

It amazes me to see the people so critical of us and our codependencies, yet they do the exact same-- actual, I'm wrong.  They don't even make an attempt at recovery.  :)  This post reminds me of my ex boyfriend, who I broke up with in January due to his family lifestyle with drinking.  I could see how all of them controlled him-- had him going in all different directions, had him living his life for them and I tried so hard to hang in there but couldn't.  I will love him for the rest of my life, even though I will never see him again.  However, he chose to allow his family to intervene, instead of living his own life and eventually I had to walk away.   How can a person break a cycle if they are not willing to set firm boundaries on who and what is important to them to their families.  The intimidation and guilt that is put into others in a family because one tries to recover sucks to put it mildly.  (Pardon me)  :)

Of course, the healthier we want to become, the more resistance we will get from people who live the same life we were taught to live.  Why?  Because they are not where we are at in looking at what it is they need to do in their life to break the cycle that we are typical taught coming from a family of addiction.  

I don't know about everyone else here, but what I have found with recovery is that in order to completely turn my life around, I had to make choices that included EXCLUDING my family when they overstepped boundaries-- to the point that I have had to say, that's it, you need to leave my home so often.   It took about 5 years though for them to start respecting my boundaries and rarely do they act with me as they used too. 

I love my family, but know that for my mental and emotional health I NEED to be able to completely separate from them to be okay.  Before I learned about my codependency, I also said to my ex-husband, Just because they're family, doesn't mean you have to like them, nor does it mean that you have to deal with the crap.  If anything, you shouldn't have to deal with the crap.  In turn, I found with the discovery of my own issues that this concept was completely correct and God has provided so many positive people in my life to offset the negativity of the people where I learned my unhealthy behaviors and thoughts. 

There will not be a day that goes by that I do not thank God for showing me that the most important and first in my life should be Him and as Jesus swept the sand off his feet and turned to walk away from the people that didn't even welcome him in his own hometown, at times I must do the same to continue to walk the path God has planned for my life.

I truly believe the most difficult aspect of recovery is that once we realize we have an issue and may even be in unhealthy relationships, whether they are personal or business and choose to walk away that the cycle continues because most people learned their behaviors from their family of course.  So if someone decides to seek recovery or leave an unhealthy relationship, yet only has their family in their life, then they end up in the same type of behavior again....  Ultimately, if someone truly wants to recover and break a cycle, they really need to understand that wherever they learned their behaviors from needs to be resolved FIRST and if that means walking away, then that is what they must do-- whether it is family or not.

Thanks for sharing and listening...  Take Care!  :)