Just back from a meeting. My Christian nurse friend after 11 days off of psychotropics has went from anger at God to mistrust of God. With not being angry at God and she is not angry at herself any more. With the mistrust of God she was talking about her mistrust of herself. She has successfully accepted the first step. She is accepting the group as a higher power. It is a start towards her working on the second step. She is working with her doctor about giving up the sleeping pills. The doctor is cutting her prescription to half of the sleeping pills she was taking. She wants complete abstinence but realizes she has to work with her doctor. She feels that with taking the sleeping pills she was being dishonest. We told her that not only was she being true to herself but with us as well. I don't know if she has disclosed herself as being an addict to her doctor but we feel she is working the steps. We know she wants her RN back and we are trying to instill self-confidence back into her. So far she is passing her UAs. We feel that her conscience is coming back. She wasn't overcame with guilt and anger this time. We are finding that her craving of recovery is greater than her craving of the drugs. She seemed more at peace with herself this time and was looking forward to seeing her daughter after the meeting and has been getting along better with her mother. It was nice to share the NA way and good to hear that she will be going into a treatment center soon.

I no longer have my qualifier in my life; and while I found some meetings, my meeting list mysteriously disappeared recently. I still know where and when my local meetings were and I will be getting back to them as soon as I finish some self-help work I have been doing on shame and loving "too much". I am grateful for the online friends who have supported me through this time of change. I know the hardest part is still to come....

You might want to check into the Naranon Family Support Group on Yahoo Groups.

I'll look into that, thanks. Yahoo! is not particularly mac friendly, I'm afraid.

I didn't know that. I wonder why.

Not sure....but as I get stronger enough to do it, I will be sure to investigate.

Went to a NA meeting, tonight. Had a great time. Our RN nurse trying to get back her license had to go to the state hospital. Her mother had came to the meeting on a day that I wasn't there to let us know. The chairperson told me that she needed more help than we could give her. The topic was on drug dreams and some addicts have them when trying to recover. Fortunately, for me I haven't had them in a while.

My meeting list and welcome kit for Alanon was stolen and discarded but I have gotten back to meetings this week. It was a turnaround for me, as hard as it has been. I feel understood and that I am also a great support to my peers, both male and female.

Even when the qualifier is no longer in our daily lives, the effects linger on. I know I have a long road ahead of me, but I have willingness. I am healing myself and making a positive atmosphere for my family. Letting go was hard and my emotions have me wondering if it was premature. But, my common sense tells me it was not. I did what was right for my emotional health and the safety of my family.

That is awesome that you were able to make a meeting. I am really addicted to the meetings. I am going to one tonight. I am so glad I was able to get back on third shift because most meetings here are during second shift hours. Yeah, sounds like you have been getting some second opinions. Meetings are great for lifting you up. They help me to feel not so alone and the problems I am having are had by people who are not drinking and drugging, too. The use of drugs and alcohol cause me not mature like normal folks were doing. I am getting a lot of help and it feels good to help others.

How does one prevent replacing one addiction for another? Especially if someone has a compulsive or addictive type personality....not necessarily someone who abuses substances.

When I drank, I drank to not feel bad
When an overeater eats for the wrong reason, it's to fill an emptyness, or not feel bad.
A sex addict who engages for the wrong reason does so to not feel bad.

Maybe it just has to be okay to have an unhappy feeling. Maybe?

You don't know how excruciatingly painful, frightening, heartbreaking, and panic inducing that is for some of us!

But I agree. One step at a time....one small step at a time....

Learning how to deal with unhappy feelings is how we mature emotionally and become adults.

And yet, not one feeling is fatal. Not one. After a hospitalization for 12 days back in early 2007 I came home to my wife gone, and a frienemy stealing about $2000 worth of my property, and starved my cats.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=naXCGpABh9I

Good question. I planned to go to the meeting but got called into work instead. I guess my workaholic addiction replaced my meeting addiction. They let me go when I got 8 hours in. I have the compulsive and addictive personality. I just try to make better choices. As we say in the meetings, "Just keep doing the next right thing." I am glad I am trying to live just one day at a time. More than that is just too much for me.

-copyright 1967-1991, Peter McWilliams (excerpted from How to Survive the Loss of a Love)

Got to make two NA meetings in a row; Saturday night in Flippin and tonight in Bull Shoals. It is awesome because I got to make a Thursday night AA meeting in Flippin even though I missed my own home group AA Friday night meeting. It was like I all I got to hear last night was one woman venting and tonight one woman venting but tonight was different because I got to vent, too. In our NA meetings we are having more court ordered people just coming to have their papers signed. It was like just the one woman and me were having a private conversation because everyone was talking at once but I felt better after the meeting because I got to share something that was bothering me. We got to share about the frustrations of our jobs - She was sharing about the frustration of having fold two hundred napkins for silverware that was already supposed to be folded and I got to share about the frustration I had with a resident. It kind of reminded of what my sponsor was sharing one time about a rich woman and a bum - That puking is puking. I was glad I wasn't an addict alone tonight.