Telling my story

I'm going to tell my story at a meeting tonight. I don't think that it's a particular dramatic story. And maybe because of that, people will be able to identify with it. It's pretty much your run of the mill story of a person who has been affected by alcoholism for an entire life. I decided this time to focus more on the process of recovery through the steps. That to me is the real "meat and potatoes" of the program.

One of the interesting things that I ran across in my reading is a list of the primary characteristics of adult children of alcoholics. I found that I could identify with many of these:

• Guessing at what normal behavior is--I never really knew what normal was, other than what I surmised from books.
  
• Having difficulty following a project through from beginning to end--never had trouble with this.
  
• Lying when it would be just as easy to tell the truth--not something that I did chronically
  
• Judging themselves without mercy--oh yes...
  
• Having difficulty having fun--I did have fun but also restricted the fun that I would have.
  
• Taking themselves very seriously--definitely
• Having difficulty with intimate relationships--sometimes
• Overreacting to changes over which they have no control--I never liked changes
  
• Constantly seeking approval and affirmation--definitely
• Usually feeling that they are different from other people--all my life
  
• Extreme responsibility or irresponsibility--mostly responsible to a fault
  
• Extreme loyalty, even in the face of evidence that the loyalty is undeserved--definitely
• Impulsivity - tending to lock themselves into a course of action without giving serious consideration to alternative behaviors or possible consequences. This impulsivity leads to confusion, self-loathing and loss of control over their environment. In addition, they spend an excessive amount of energy cleaning up the mess--I've been known to be impulsive at times.
  

From going back over my past, I can see that many of these characteristics were acquired during childhood. And add to that a long-term marriage to an alcoholic, it isn't hard to see how unmanageable my life was. It's now comforting to see as I think about my story just how far I've come. There's still a ways to go, but every day is a new opportunity to practice what I've learned.