Characteristics of ACOA

[MajestyJo]

My sponsor told me to clean my side of the street. Take an inventory of what is mine and what is an old learned behavior that I need to change. I can't change other people, but I can change me with the help of my Higher Power.

My son continues to act out his anger. He still continues to use. He still continues to ignore boundaries. He came in here last night after work. It was after 8 p.m. I said, "Are you just getting off now?" He said, "Well I finished work about 4:30 p.m. but I had a few beers with the boys after work at the shop." He came to use my phone to call a guy about getting cigarettes and to use my bathroom. I gave him the left over pasta from my supper because I don't like eating it more than once. As it was, I had made it the day before, and ended up eating it again yesterday because I was too tired to make something new or he would have gotten the whole thing. He had food at home and wasn't planning to eat but he never turns down food unless he is using in the moment and that is the priority.

I told him "You stink! I am glad I didn't have to sit beside you on the bus!" He said, "Really! I didn't know." I have always hated the smell of beer, second hand is even worse. He knows he is not suppose to come here when he has been using yet when he wants something, the self-centered alcoholic and addict does what he wants anyway.

The worst was when he came here to use my bathroom and passed out on the floor. I was kind enough to put a blanket over him and go back to bed. The next morning he was on my couch. When he woke up, I said what happened to my rule about not coming here when you are using. His response was, "I was too drunk to walk home, your place was closer."

He says that I don't understand. I have been there done it. Didn't drink beer but I did take advantage of my father. I drank his liquor and mine. Ate his food and stayed in his home and became his drinking buddy until one night he had enough and kicked us out at 11 p.m. at night. My son was 10.

I don't use the same substance as he does but the feelings, thoughts and actions are all too familiar. The substance is but a symptom of the disease. I had the same feelings when I used relationships, work and food as I did when I used alcohol, pills and cigarettes.

It isn't about what I used but why I used people, places and things to make me feel better. It is about why I kept looking outside of myself instead of going within to get my needs met.

Some of it is old, learned behavior and some of it is just the nature of someone who is human and chooses not to work the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions into their lives or doesn't know about them. To some people, what I learned in the rooms is something they do and believe all the time. I thought it was something new. I was surprised when I said to my cousin about living one day at a time and her husband and her looked at each other, and he said, "Doesn't everybody do that."