Sharing and Caring

[MajestyJo]

This disease is cunning, powerful and baffling and it is a family disease. I don't know when I crossed over from being an Adult Child of an Alcoholic to being an active alcoholic/addict. I remember the first taste of my drink at 10, was given Valium and 16, didn't start drinking until 21, but didn't drink regularly until I was 27.

When I made the decision to quit, my way I was 41. Figured men where my problem, (and they can be if I allow it to happen, I lived my life through many people in my lifetime) and never got more than three months at one time. When I came to the program at 49, I was able to stay stopped. The biggest part of my recovery has been service. The best way to get out of me and my problems is to help someone else; yet I can use other people to not look at my own issues, so I need the balance of meetings, a sponsor, outside interests, and working the Twelve Steps into my life.

It is a living program. Not a one time "fix" or a remedy to cure my "ills", it is about me learning to live instead of existing and living in the shadow of others and life.

Service helped me with my self-esteem, self-respect and self-worth.

Just keep coming, don't leave until the miracle happens. You may be the only Big Book someone will ever be willing to see.

This was posted on another site in 2003. I am still so grateful that I found AA before I found ACoA or I may have died in my denial. I was so caught up in the blame game, that I couldn't see myself.

I kept saying: I am not as bad as they are. I didn't do what they did. I was embarrassed for them. I put my life on hold for them. After all I did for them, how could they do this to me. I compared instead of identified. The list goes on, and on, an on....