Thank you for your support. The BigBook is available online. I decided to read the whole thing, I'm on chapter 6. I haven't made it to the spouses chapter yet.
The Al-Anon is helping me--it makes me realize that I am not alone. That there are other people out there dealing with the same thing. Their story is *my* story... some facts may be different, but it's all basically the same. And they're all just like me--codependent, hurt, trying to find a way to be happy... or they've been through it and now are happy... It's helped me to realize that *I* can't control anything other than myself. It's also helped me to accept him the way he is (within reason). And that's only step 1.
I'm stuck on step 2, the higher power. I've never been much of a believer--I mean, I know there's something else out there, but to have faith that he/she/it will take care of things and everything will be okay is out of my grasp for now. I figure I will just give it time and hopefully it will come to me.
I have a sponsor too. She's awesome. She's helped me work through a lot of things. I think sponsorship is the key.
As far as H goes... we were talking the other night... I was talking about how, though I'm working on it, I still have a lot of anger, resentment, guilt that I had to deal with. He said he did too--he didn't know how to deal with it, which is why he drank. It made me think about it. Not to justify, but a lightbulb definitely came on. It makes sense... in that way we are just the same too, everyone just handles things differently. If he didn't drink, he would be angry and moody and controlling (like me)... instead, he drinks so he doesn't deal with it. Anyway, it just made me see it differently and understand him and the disease so much better. I hope he will quit and learn to deal with things on his own, just like I hope to learn to deal with things on *my* own.
I think the counseling will help both of us a lot. I am thinking and feeling very positive right now. I hope to keep that feeling!
