No Sticky but Alcholism individually addressed first ,creates a opening to see the whole picture! Or as IJme said, gloss it over and dismiss it and try and make spirituality some kind magic spell without the right incantation:(
Billy

penntucky- you're 53 years old. Get over it. This kind of negative baggage is not good for you. Learn to forgive.

Yes!! living we all need to do that at whatever age I'd say ,defending mine or my parents adults skills at the time would have only made the veil Thicker as I've aged :( Thats what I've noticed!
Billy

This can be flipped. I was adopted and still don't know my biological parents. My parents never deserved what I put them through. I never even seen a drunk person or drug until my teens when I met my best friend(alcohol), it took years to find out it's only job was to fuel a symptom that was out to put me 6 feet under. I was hardwired for failure.
Penntucky I feel ya though, I have many guys that come from toxic families that have completely learned these behaviors and know no different.
However, there is always a way out, there is always a solution. You just have to stay vigilant and seek.

Yes agree Oki. If I hadnt gotten sober I would have never begun to deal with the underlying issues that I used alcohol to numb. Sort of chicken and egg thing....
I'm grateful to be sober. I'm grateful to not have to blame everyone and everything. I'm grateful to be able to say no, and to have boundaries, and still feel OK in my own skin. All things I couldnt do drinking.

Welcome to the board penntucky.

My parents were both alcoholic. Home life was filled with fear. Cops called a couple times a week, yada, yada, yada.

When I started daily drinking of alcohol, I would put their picture up as a kind of shrine to drink at (both deceased).

Once I stopped drinking and began accepting responsibilty for my unhealthy choices, I began to realize that my parents did the best they could with what they had. At that point I forgave them.

It took time and a lot of painstaking work. Well worth the effort.

I did not have to become my environment. The choice to drink was truly mine. My mother in her loving way gave me a well versed lesson of the affects and effects of Ethol. I had the perfect teachers for what not to do! Choices...bad ones...my environment does not dictate who I become.....choices...I know plenty of people who come com great homes where nurturing is plentiful and become one of us..............
My choices good bad and indifferent sent me to a place for where I could hear what was being spoken. They said rarely have they seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed their path.
I began that path and found blame is a rejection of the truth.

Pretty harsh there LivinLife. I am 50 and don't think it matters hoe old you are if you have things to work through. You sound like you are being a judge without knowing what penntucky's whole situation is. Good for you if you have been able to "get over it" whatever your "its" are. Lets give penntucky and others some leeway to use this forum to express and get things out if it is of benefit to them. No matter what our ages are we all still have "stuff" to work through and it is not as easy as snapping your finger and then just be past it. But i wish it was that easy.

I apologize for saying "get over it". It was insensitive of me.

But I do firmly believe that this type of negative venting is not healthy. In order to get past this stuff, I've found that we need to forgive and look forward. Dwelling on the negativity can eat you alive.

Before things could get better, I had to admit that they weren't so great. For me that went as much for my denied booze problem as my denied family of origin problems. Doesn't help to live In the problem, but doesn't truly help to bury it. Trudge through, be willing to see it for what it is.

I know that a good game of 'wooden leg' is fun, but gets me nowwhere. "What do you expect from a guy with a wooden leg?? Of Course I got drunk, what do you expect from an alcoholic? If you had my family, you'd be a jerk too!" Etc etc

Been thinking a lot lately, they call people like me "the sulk"...sitting in the corner of the room (or the bar) waiting for someone (mummy and daddy!) to ask me what's wrong! Time to grow up, put away childish things...

Painful business though, no wonder so many people run from it...

P

Dwelling on negativity is not the same as working through stuff we may be stuck in from the past. It is what we try and cover up through denial and pretending it never happened that will eat us alive.

I worked through so much of my childhood stuff and I am so grateful for that. I released so much anger and resentment-and in my gut truly can see that it is over, that I was justified to feel abused (always blamed myself-like I deserved it), and that the people who were not kind were sick themselves. But holy crap did it take a ton of venting and that sort of thing to move beyond it. I am so much lighter now-not entirely free perhaps but I do not live in the past like I use too.

I can say that these issues will always come up if you live long enough and don't address them. A family member who is 75 and recently retired-now is facing the anger and resentments of childhood, something which he worked too much to really look at. It is like he is a kid again-miserable and angry at the unfairness of it all. I pray he can work through it-through venting, forgiveness, etc.

This stuff is real, and boy how I wish we could all say POOF I am leaving this in the past and moving on. Not that simple for all of us-no matter how we intellectually see how ridiculous it is to carry it.

The emotional baggage from childhood is scary and illogical-I can say that it is one of the most powerful influences in all of our lives-good and bad.

Livinlife, can you enlighten us as to how you were able to completely forgive and get past all of your stuff? How long did it take? How did you do it? Was it the 12 steps or some other method? How long were you sober before you were able to make such positive strides? I have been sober 452 days and still struggle with resentment, blaming issues to a lesser degree now, and have gotten past and over a lot but not past and over everything. I think the path is a long and never ending one, it just continues to get better and richer. I have heard from too many in my AA meetings with many years of sobriety and who have done and continue to do the step work yet still are open and honest to say they still have a lot of work to do.

I continue to hear to turn things over to God, my God, and I do. To pray, and I do. To let resentments go, and I do, I try. But my opinion is that these are all great parts of the exercise, the daily exercise to maintain hope in our sobriety. The longer I am sober, and I am a newbie, the more convinced I am that there is not finish line where you are free of ALL resentments, over ALL your stuff, cured of the need or want to drink.

So I support penntucky and others who will continue to be honest, put it out there for all of us so that we don't think we are all just fuckup's who can't seem to do it right. There is no right. There is not drinking one day at a time. This is why I now count my days and not months. It is a daily thing for me. A daily struggle. It is why I am now going to stop typing and go into my AA meeting.

I would welcome a magic pill that makes me a normie, wow that would be great, and to be ridded of all the things that the 12 steps help us to improve on. But I am not polyanna about it. Like anything else, it is work. And good things come from consistent hard work and effort.

Whodathunk this is the internet! Keep moving.. judging a airwaves account of healing I think is like a wishing well, hard to see the shiny pennies deep down in that well:) Face to face hmm where'd BBh damn!
Oh well ha!
Billy

These are all personal opinions based on personal experiences whodathunk. Maybe our experiences were different?

I"m simply talking about the value of forgiveness. But I will leave the rest of this thread to others. I've said all I need to say.

Karmic I love your response. Today I choose to walk through the pain, as I know avoidance/ denial just compounds it. When Ive faced it, its never as bad as I anticipated. And never as bad as the alternative.