Tuesday, April 1, 2008

All kinds of losses


I had the meeting topic last night. I had thought about a topic but decided to change it after I received a call from a fellow Al-Anoner. He was dealing with some painful feelings around changes in a relationship. So I went with a reading from the new Al-Anon book Opening Our Hearts, Transforming Our Losses about loss of a relationship.

I know that alcoholism has affected my life in lots of ways. And there have been feelings of grief and loss. Maybe I only felt the anger though and didn't recognize my feelings as being those of grief.

I don't think that many of us know that we are grieving what has happened in our relationships with an alcoholic. I masked my grief in many ways but I ultimately felt the pain and gave in to it.

After my father died, I read the book on Death and Dying by Elisabeth Kubler Ross. She indicates that the grief process includes five stages: denial, anger, bargaining, sadness, and, finally, acceptance.

Maybe it's because I'm a scientist, but it gave me some comfort to read that grief was a process. And that eventually I would be able to accept my loss and move beyond the grieving.

With the alcoholics in my life, I don't think that I really got to the acceptance part until I went through the steps. I came to realize that alcoholism is a disease and that the alcoholics didn't purposely want to hurt anyone. I had been stuck in the anger, bargaining and sadness phases of grief for a long time.

And there are still moments where I experience feelings of loss in recovery. I've changed in many ways from the way that I used to be. That can generate uncertainty, especially in the dynamics of a relationship with another person. It may be that I'm changing and the other person isn't. Or perhaps that giving up the character defects that I had lived with for so long can bring on self-doubt and a feeling of loss.

But I can see that the Twelve Steps provides a program for dealing with grief and losses. As I'm learning to accept and forgive, then I can feel happiness and love.

"There are as many nights as days, and the one is just as long as the other in the year's course. Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness, and the word 'happy' would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness."--Carl Jung

8 comments:

  1. i wish more people would grieve. for other reasons than just the death of a person. you had to with al-anon, i had to with giving up alcohol, others do in their own particular areas. 'cause once you have grieved the thing you mean to give up/change/have to accept/can no longer do, it makes it so much easier to move on without harbouring resentment or guilt. and only then can you live a full life. going through the grief process was actually something they encouraged us to do in rehab. it made sense then and still does now. thanks for the reminder!

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  2. hiya syd! i haven't had a chance to go to any of the blues festivals as of yet. i just found this though that lists a bunch of them for clarksdale: http://www.clarksdale.com/

    kewl huh. thanks for bringing that up b/c I may have not looked into it. i am going to Jazz fest. in New Orleans at the end of this month. looking forward to that.

    i listened to this audio recently on doubt and it is really good if you want to take a listen: http://www.abhayagiri.org/index.php/main/medium/doubt/

    love that one when feelings of self doubt / uncertainty creep in. good one!

    have a great rest of your day friend!

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  4. I had never really thought about it that way..that there are stages...yet it is so true.
    Great post.

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  5. Great post...beautiful picture!

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  6. I love the picture too :)
    yeh the stages of grieving, are so true. I notice them when I stop a habit, or change something, or something changes, people come and go etc. Its not just about physical dying like you say.

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  8. Thank you for your blog. Your statement that alcoholics are not purposely trying to hurt us brought tears to my eyes. I am so hurt by my recovering son. I have been to one Alanon meeting but will be attending more. I really feel I need the 12 steps. I hope I can find you again. I have trouble finding blogs and attaching links and favorites on this website.

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