Ok. So the last post I talked about this dinner I had with this Russian girl and another friend of mine (a guy). This was a strange night. It wasn't the dinner, but it was that my friend, not the Russian girl, is going through a similar experience as I went through with his wife.
I just met him too. And he, well happens to be helping me with my divorce. In any event, I thought this is bizarre. How is it this guy is going through the same crap I went through?
So, the prelude to all this is this. My mother said to me (as well as others who are not in Al-Anon), "How could you have married someone who was an alcoholic? Didn't you know the signs since you had it with your father?"
I have been asked this over and over. It doesn't bother me. I do know the answer now. We attract these people who drink. It is really, really weird. There are a few people in my AL-Anon meetings that have given up and they have decided that they are going to date alcoholics or recovered alcoholics. They have given up trying to find someone outside of alcoholism that might be interested in them. This sounds strange, but it true. Think about it. Think about it hard.
Anyway.Back to the Russian girl. She is telling me about a bar she went to. A big bar. Maybe 300 to 500 people in it. By the way - she looks not like a Russian at all. She almost looks a little Spanish. So she is standing next to the bar. And of all the 500 people who are there, up walk two guys who start talking to her.
Guess where they are from?
Just guess . . . Go ahead.
Yes. They are from Russia.
Are you kidding me.
Interesting I say to her at dinner. What attracted them to come over to you and start talking I asked? She had no clue. The clothes she wears are all American. Except when she talks she has an accent. I thought she was Mexican at first.
Interesting - two Russian guys walk across the bar and start hitting on her.
So, how do we attract people with this affliction? Because it is in our DNA? Yes?
Well, I am in repair mode now. No offense to anyone in recovery. I have grown up with it. I was married to it. And I too am attracting this into my life with my friend - not the Russian - the guy.
What a circus. I mentioned this at an Al-Anon meeting Sunday. A woman came up to me and told me to watch "What the Bleep."
I will.
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
Radar?
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12 comments:
OMG! I have had similar situations my whole life. Waitress's, Bus drivers, bank tellers, complete strangers, feel free to approach me, pick lint out of my hair,tell me all of their business etc. I used to think it was a compliment, emplying I was gentle and kind. Today after many years in recovery I believe it is my sickness attracting others. I do not want to attract needy people any longer.
Each time it happens I am still baffled, why me? Once in the middle of the night, a man walked up the front steps to my porch and banged on the door, stating his car broke down and he needed a ride.I was so pisssed that he picked my house I started yelling asking him why he made the effort to climb all my stairs to get the front porch, when every other home had no stairs. I am sure after hearing me holler about this he wondered why himself! He left about as quickly as he appearred.
I read your forum everyday.
Thank-You
The reason we attract the same kind of people over and over is because we let our emotional self rule our state of attraction, rather than our rational self. Your emotional self operates mostly in the subconscious so you don't know its there most of the time. But, its there and its operating. And, it will screw you up but good if you don't draw it out in the open.
What the Bleep? Over a year ago a group of friends told me to watch this movie...I didn't. Yesterday I was at my nephews and he hands me, you guessed it, What the Bleep...Guess I should watch it too.
I haven't posted here for awhile, however I do read your blog regularly. Your posts and the comments listed here are always an inspiration to me.
Good day to all today.
I have a question totally off the subject.
It seems to me that more AA members go to Ala-non meetings than Ala-non members going to AA meetings.
I have been told that a non-alcoholic could never ever imagine what it is like to be an alcoholic. This is coming from a recovering alcoholic with many years in the program.
That is probably true, but why lable me a "Normie" Is there such a thing as pure "Normalicy"? Why am I labled the "different" one?
Kind of pisses me off actually.
Can an alcoholic ever imagine being on the receiving end of the disease, the hurricane, the aftermath of what the alcoholic leaves behind?
Is it true that both programs are designed to help us all cope with the real world, the everday life, and not just the fenced off area of our life we call AA or Ala-non?
Looking for some clarity here, and hope you can provide your opinions.
Peace this Thursday.
KevinB.
I know better....Kev's not that dumb...lol
Sorry about the typo's regarding label vs. lable...
KevinB
It is our internal radar that attracts us to the alcoholic. I've been there and can vouch. They are needy and we are needy. It just fits together like two pieces of the puzzle that make a nice cloud.
Kevin - I really liked your response that you posted earlier to the person who was a recovering alcoholic who said to you "you can't imagine what it is like to be an alcoholic" and your response, "Have you ever been on the receiving end of an alcoholic?" and when she said "no" ... your reply was priceless "Then we have something in common."
I know I am not being compassionate. But an alcoholic or anyone who is an asshole (sorry everyone) or is arrogant or self-centered or holier than thou is my "button" and that grabs me everytime.
So I thought about your exchange and I thought - for several days - how "funny" that was.
I have been on the receiving end. I am strong. I have put up with crappy clients, crappy bosses, people, but a self-centered alcoholic who is crazy and who puts everyones life at risk when driving and acts like it's my fault that they drink is too much for me to stand.
I also recognize it is the disease. And my disease is allowing someone else's opinion to crawl under my skin.
All I can work on is my disease and detach (or separate or divorce) myself from such behavior for my sake and the sake of others (my child). It is abusive whether the person is a man or a woman (most people scarf at the idea of a man - me - 6'3" - can be abused by a woman).
Anyway, hope that helps
Joe
You guys are cracking me up which I need bc I'm having a really messed up day.
KevB, along with coining a fantastic phrase ("on the receiving end of alcoholism"), you touched on something that's annoying me today. I'm angry today because I know there will never be any "payback" for what I go through. Unlike working out or dealing with a jerky boss, I'm not suffering for any tangible reward. I can't expect that there will ever be a time when my boyfriend acknowledges what he puts me through. As sh*tty as this reality feels, it's kind of a good reminder.
I have to do what I can to make my life not just tolerable but happy. Does it make me happy to win an argument with a person who is mentally ill? No. Will I ever get him to see the light? No -- and it's not my job to do so. Thanks everyone.
Oh, and as for attracting the same winners over and over again, it's scary how honed-in that attraction is. (There's an argument for arranged marriages!)
AA - HOUSE OF SATAN
God’s Sword of Truth - The Word
Alcoholics Anonymous
By The Holy Spirit’s Disciple, Raymond Laginess
“KNOW WE NOT THAT THE UNRIGHTEOUS SHALL NOT INHERIT THE KINGDOM OF GOD?”
. . . BE NOT DECEIVED: . . . NEITHER DRUNKARDS . . .SHALL INHERIT THE KINGDOM OF GOD”.
1 CORINTHIANS 6:9-10
Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) is not of the Lord…it is not Christian, and is, in fact, against the Spirit of Christianity. One cannot be a Christian and belong to AA. AA is of the devil. Its “Twelve Rules” are evil, and (like religious laws or rules) positively saves no one.
AA was co-founded in 1935 by 2 men; Dr. Bob Smith and Bill Wilson, as a fellowship. It has religious and social rules, covering social sin with a philosophy of principles, which were brought to AA from the Oxford Group where it all began.
In China, in 1918, Frank Buchman, a Lutheran minister from Pennsylvania began holding a series of meetings called “house parties”, or informal gathering of friends in an attempt to bring about a revival of what he thought to be 1st Century Christianity, therefore His group’s first name - “First Century Christian Fellowship”. Actually, this was the very first group of Alcoholics Anonymous, better known as the “Christian Fellowship”. This group was founded by the rich for the rich and had a Cult (religious) basis, as it still does today under the title of AA.
Frank Buchman, the leader of the group was very involved in the Oxford Group (same as AA), but never claimed any ties to the internationally prestigious Oxford University (New World Order ties). Members of this group felt they had a “patriotic” duty to dedicate their lives to being the bearers of the secret of sanity and all those who oppossed their plans for “world peace” (Oxford Group’s world domination) were public enemies, thus, this was considered a “moral crusade”.
They began with the “five C’s” (methods of help) for those who were too insane to join on their own, and once helped with the 5 C’s, they could live sanely, in accordance with these procedures. They also had the “4 absolutes” - Absolute Purity, Absolute Honesty, Absolute Unselfishness and Absolute Love, their yardstick of sanity, something to judge ones actions and thoughts. The five C’s: Confidence, Confession, Conviction, Conversion, and Conservation, were the “scientific” method of “changing ones life” , or making the insane sane, presented in an Oxford Group manual called “Soul Surgery.”
You can see, according to their methods, that these men were doomed to becoming insane and that alcohol or drugs was a “medicine to illiminate a guilt feeling”. And to this “Groups” way of thinking, there is no “born again” chance in life….they told society then and they are telling us now….”once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic”….or “once a drug addict, always a drug addict” or “once”some form or type of “habitual addiction, always an addiction”.
True Christianity (knowing Jesus Christ as Saviour) was never a cure to them. What they are saying, through their program, is that the Holy Spirit could never cure them, when in actuality, the alcohol or drugs was never the cause to begin with. In plain words, the CAUSE IS SIN. They used, and still use, their organization as a crutch of Satan….or as a tool of Satan, to control the flesh and the soul.
Alcohol makes you a victim of Satan, but the ONLY CURE IS JESUS CHRIST. It is the Holy Spirit Who helps you overcome the flesh and Satan. . . .and needs NO RULES OR LAWS OR 5 C’s OR 4 ABSOLUTES! The tools of the systems of men (even like man’s religion) simply place you in bondage, under Satan. In Christ there are no addictions, only forgiveness. To be “free” in Christ …that is true “freedom” from all addictions of the world. “Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.” - Gal. 5:1.
You do not have to join a group of bureaucrats in order to be “saved” from anything…..salvation comes through Jesus Christ only! You just need Jesus and His Spirit in your daily life, and if you live Christ every day, then you will overcome all things of the flesh and the world. You could still have a drink and not be an alcoholic. “All things are lawful unto me, but all things are not expedient: all things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any.” - I Cor. 6:12.
Alcohol is not the sin…man is. Man can be saved, and he already has been, by Jesus Who was crucified on the tree. “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” - 2 Cor. 5:17. “For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.” - 2 Cor 5:21. If you accept this in faith, and live it daily, then you become a Christian, not an Anonymous Alcoholic. Christian is NOT a religion…it’s a belief by “faith”. Living Christ-like every day of your life is putting on the Spiritual Armour, the Breastplate of righteousness to wear against the battle of the flesh!
“But let us, who are of the day, be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love; and for an helmet, the hope of salvation. For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ, Who died for us….” - 2 Thess. 5:810
I, PATRICK, AM THE LIVING FOUNDATION STONE OF THE CHURCH.
Ahg! This last posting is exactly why some AA's do not proceed into religion. What an idiot!
Christ is a fisher of men, first you have to catch a fish in order to clean it. AA is a beginning of a spiritual experience, not an end.
The words in "How it Works" states, God could and would if He were sought.
My God works through people. We are His hands, His feet, His mouthpiece. We are here on this earth to build up, not tear down.
I say whatever process gets a person sober, God is definitely behind it. Sober is a good thing.
Good things are from a Power Greater than myself.
LOL - we laugh about this often in my F2F meetings. My sister pointed out to me some time ago, how, even in a crowd, those people we immediately feel comfortable with will have some connection to either growing up in an alcoholic home or live or have lived with an alcoholic. So now I too just accept it and have fun looking out for the connection as we talk
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