new raspberry; �HATES technological I am sick to death of erectile dysfunction, pass the tampons please |
Back to Basics It�s getting better all the time� Well, isn�t this special. If it takes two people to tango, how come only one of them is taking dance lessons? Actually I have to admit I am now grateful for the ultimatum given me to 1) start attending AA meetings again and 2) get some counseling. We went through this �you get counseling� no, �you get counseling� thing a few years back and we both ended up in individual counseling which was a good thing. The bad thing NOW is that, in my humble opinion, we are at a place where I think we need couples counseling. Unfortunately she is so pissed off at me that until I jump through some hoops, there will be no reciprocity. So you might think that I am here to bitch and moan about this state of affairs. Wrong, that�s another entry. Here is the place in which I am grateful. My most recent sober began June 21, 1997. I had tried to get sober for all the wrong reasons at various points in my adult life but because it was for everyone/everything but me, it never worked. I started trying to get sober for myself in June of 1996. Went almost a year, but I guess I still had a good drunk or two left in me and it wasn�t until 1997 that I was able to �do it for good.� Since we moved to Kansas�leaving behind my friends, family, and my entire support system�I have been a �dry drunk,� operating without AA and all the benefits that come from membership. That�s two and one half years in which I have pretty much devoted my life to getting us three settled in a new space; managing the house; the animals that came with us and the animals that came with the house; learning the things I need to learn to live a semi-isolated life in a rural area; and running a website to keep the folks left behind up to date on how we are doing. My days were filled; there wasn�t time to think about drinking or any of my other sordid vices. I have spent so much time focusing on the �we� and how we appear that I lost sight of taking care of the �me� and how I appear. All my anal-retentive, bitchy quirks that I used to be aware of via focusing on the 12 steps have crept back into my life until I have made myself unbearable to the people around me. I�ve missed the fellowship offered through AA. I�ve missed being around people who have the same crappy issues with addiction that I have. I�ve missed the honesty and humility that I acquired by following those steps and am grateful I was directed to return to the program. I look back at the time since the move and wonder how I was ever able to avoid drinking. I am so glad to be in counseling. It�s given me an outside perspective that�s been missing in my life. Ms., aka my better half, and I are both total control freaks so life is a constant struggle, albeit one that�s not noticed, as wrapped up in our own vision as we are. I�ve lost the perspective of what is a reasonable expectation and what is not and counseling has given that back to me. I can see where I am unreasonably full of shit and I am also validated where I am not full of shit and need to find a way to make Ms., aka my better half, see that what I want is not unreasonable and that her denial of that is disrespectful. So I have a counseling plan with goals and I have my 12 step program with the goals that have always been there for me, I just lost sight of them and hopefully in time, Ms., aka my better half, will see that she also needs some counseling for her issues and together we need counseling so that we can rationally express our needs and desires to each other without sounding like nagging harpies.
|
www.flickr.com
This is a Flickr badge showing public photos from KonzaDiary. Make your own badge here.
secrets pondering: Why the right wingers who want to keep the government out of their business insist on putting the government in my bedroom laughing about: It gets lost in translation crying about: bad habits: smoking totally ballistic about: amen sister: someone else�s take on childlessness regular reads: cactustree must see tv: |