TACTICAL DEPLOYMENT BASED AROUND ALCOHOL AND CHOICES

Ok, this is definitely a weird title for a blog but it is a phrase that made both Mark and me laugh this morning. Mark went to his usual morning AA meeting and was in a bad mood when he left. He is a bit of a dry drunk these days with wild mood swings, unable to handle anything that deviates from a plan or might be a little chaotic. that is OK..he is working on his recovery so it is easy for me to use all the tools of my alanon program and let things go and "roll off my back".

I changed my morning routine with our son this morning and instead of lying in bed and reading and lounging my son and I got dressed and went for a bike ride with the dog to a nearby deli for breakfast. It felt great to get out in the fresh air.

When Mark came home from his meeting we talked for a bit and then he got into his work clothes to clean the house. He came into our office, where we write from, in his "uniform" as if to announce "look at me, I am cleaning the house, aren't I wonderful!".. I made a bit of fun of him and he got a bit sensitive an then laughed. I asked him to recall what life was like a year ago.

A year ago for me was full of fear, anxiety, panic, inability to function and having to hold it all together for our son. A year ago today Mark would show up at the house late at night and call me all sorts of horrible names, blame me for his horrible life, spit on the floor of the house, scream and yell...all the other stuff active alcoholics do. A year ago today there was no laughter, peace or serenity in my life and our son suffered terribly.

Mark's answer to where he was a year ago today was "I was somewhere trying to get sober"...When I said what was life like a year ago today, if you were here with me. Answer "tactical deployment based around alcohol!"

Today we both laughed when he said this...We laughed because life is so much better today because he is not drinking, we laughed because we are able to, we laughed because instead of just one of us (me) knowing how ridiculous that behavior is/was, now we both know this.

POWER OF CHOICE

I have recently been sucked in to some of the online chat postings on alcoholism and have felt under attack for my thoughts. People continue to argue with me about alcoholism as a disease and state that I am making alcoholism sound like rocket science. They make statments about me that are insulting to me and it is really upsetting me. I feel like responding and telling them how rude and stupid they are and that I do not appreciate name calling. But frankly what is the point. THIS last sentence is my gift of recovery. Responding to them is truly is not that important and arguing with people who are irrational is pointless. Let it go. If they are in denial it is their business, if they do not choose to accept the facts of alcoholism as a disease for whatever reason that too is their business. If they choose to call me names or make accusations that too is their choice. MY CHOICE is to engage or not engage. I HAVE POWER OVER MY CHOICE and no one elses. What is the point of engaging such negative people? My first inclination it to be confrontational and say something like how dare you speak to me like that..But why..These people mean nothing to me. These people posting in an angry accusatory way are not in recovery. It is not my place to tell them this. It is my choice to not react and it is my choice to not engage. It took me a long time to learn the power of not engaging. So much more is said by silence and so much more is achieved by asking myself first, "How important is it". Alcoholism is a disease of irrationality. It brings out all things that I find distasteful such as anger, nastiness, argumentative behavior, tension and so much more. There is nothing fun, interesting, productive, necessary, or usefule, that can dome from engaging with these people or paying attention to what they say. People who do not THINK before they speak (is it Thoughtful, Honest, Intelligent, Necessary, and Kind) are frankly just not worth my time I struggle daily as part of my recovery to remember this and practice this behavior. Over the past few days, in an effort to spread the wonderful experience of strength, hope, and recovery that my husband and I are experiencing, I have been sucked into dialoging with toxic people who have not been Thoughtful with their words, Honest in their acceptance, Necessary in their words, or Kind)..I made a poor choice because I engaged and I feel hurt. I have power over this I have the power of choice to not engage. My addiction makes me want to engage. My recovery shows me the power of choice and the power of choosing not to engage.

Today's thought from Hazelden www.hazelden.org helps me look at this in a different way:

"Make plans but don't plan results."
This is a simple phrase cautioning us against unnecessary worry and stress.If our plans involve other people, we would be wise to work joyfully toward realizing our dreams, but we should not expect or worry if others do not want the same goals. Nor should we worry if others are not as enthused about our ideas as we are. We know, by applying the Serenity Prayer, that we can only change ourselves; we cannot force changes in others.Another cause of unnecessary stress in planning results comes from our ingrained habit of regarding ourselves as inadequate. All too often, those of us who make plans give up on ourselves when we predict the outcome of our dreams on the basis of our past experiences. We falsely conclude that because we failed or felt empty in the past, we'll most certainly not succeed in the future; thus, we quit too soon and rationalize our resignation with a "Why bother to try?" attitude.TODAY I will make plans but not plan results. I will work out my plan, one day at a time, knowing that my past performance is NOT an infallible indicator of my present or future success. I will look forward with hope, not despair.