Getting on with Life

Hello from Hunter-

Interesting that mark blogs more about his recovery and less about our relationship. He is so very sensitive and overreacts to everything. I am aware that he is in conflict and so is he as he appologizes frequently. IN some ways this reminds me of the drinking days when he used to appologize every morning and say he does not not want to drink and then fall apart duringthe day. BUt I know this is different as I know he is truly focused on his recovery, is changing slowly each day, and recovery takes time. I ask myself a lot why I want to stick this out. I believe in marriage and "in sickness and in health". He is on the road to health and I have stuck by him all this time...I will continue to as I love him and he is a good man. BUt it is not easy and recovery takes time.....

I am grateful for the more peaceful environment we now have at home and I am seeing behavior in our son that needs to be dealt with. Today the house is calm enough to deal with it....BUt Mark still acts out and it is upsetting to me and our son and has to be dealt with...Our son has had poor role models in terms of anger and expressing needs for most of his life and it is now time to work on undoing this damage.

This is the type of damage that kids who live with active addicts-alcoholics or drug addicts are subject to. I learned recently that 1 i 4 children under the age of 18 live in a house where there is alcoholism or drug abuse. It is a huge problem and is not given enough attention. Recently I have started volunteering with a non-profit called NaCoa (National Council for Children of Alcoholics www.nacoa.org). NaCoa's mission is to help raise awareness and provide the education, tools and resources to help kids cope, survive, and thrive through this kind of situation. One big area is to help these kids concentrate and do well in school and to help them not repeat this addictive behavior themselves. I am going organized a road race or marathon in the Northeast where the group does not have a presence and am very excited about this project. Mark too is going to get involved and we are going to enlist support an dpartidipation of the many people in AA, Alanon, and Alateen taht we know.

More later....Hunter