Can't Fix Him

I woke up a bit ago after falling asleep with my babies. Came downstairs and thought I'd check in with my MIP friends. And a new person stumbled upon our group. She sounded just like I did a few months ago. Her situation, with the children and all paralleled mine to a "tee." I tried to give her insight and to help her. But, like with anything else after it is done you think of things you wish you would have thought to say.

Here are some of those things:

Most people come to Al-anon wanting to know how to help their alcoholic or how to cure their alcoholic. That is a typical syndrome of the "codependent enabler." We want to take care of him, we want to fix him, we want to make life great for him -- because if he is well, he will be that person we fell in love with and then we would be happy. But, Al-anon wants us to learn to make ourselves happy.

Fixing him would be like the old cliche, "the blind leading the blind." or as I've said time and again, "you can't make someone else happy if you are not happy."

If he is not willing to be in recovery that does not mean that we can't find ways to cope or to recover. Some do say that the program sounds selfish, but as one of my friends says it is not selfish it is learning to love yourself.

My advice to her was to learn to take care of herself and then she could be her best for her babies.

I should have told her about setting boundaries and take time for her and the children to have a break from the insanity, to take them to the park if he is drinking and not to "babysit" him and cater to him. Drinking is his thing, not hers.

She sounds like a good mom, I hope all works out well for her.

I hope I helped her and I will pray for her and I hope that she will come back, because it really helps.

Now on the lighter side: (I'm stealing this from Freak Magnet, who stole it from another blog)

You're a Wild Drunk

You can get enough drink. Seriously, you'll just go puke and start pounding them back again!

What Kind of Drunk Are You?

I answered the questions as if J**** was taking the quiz. Yep, kinda sums him up.

You can tell we are about to have a full moon, because several of my favorite blogs are talking about a deep desire right now to just "throw back" and get sloppy drunk.

Oh well-good thing I've never met them, because as an enabler I'd be their DD (Designated Driver) and hold their heads when they were bringing it all back up. As my youngest would say, "Ewwwwwwwwwwww."