Character is how we act when we think no one is watching.
Walk Softly and Carry A Big Book
When I saw this, I thought of the phrase "Monkey see, Monkey do." How about that other phrase, "Children have big ears."
When I hear about my son's actions in addiction, I generally, or now I can say occasionally, I take them back to me. I think of the slogan "Let It Begin With Me." I keep thinking it all began with me, when in fact, my son has his own choices.
I don't have to pay for my actions for the rest of my life. I did the best I could for where I was at in that time. That doesn't make them right. It doesn't justify them. It just is, and I had to pray and turn all those feeling over to my Higher Power.
Not only my feelings but my son. His recovery could not come from me. The best amend I can make to him is stay clean and sober myself and show him by my walk not my talk.
I need to take responsibility for my part. I had to learn not to take on his anger and projections.
A good example is the liquor I hid in a tall gold tupperware glass to drink when my dad and my ex-husband passed out. I either forgot it or figured I would save it for later, but my son found my stash and drank it. I didn't know that until many years AFTER I got into recovery. He made the decision to drink it. I certainly didn't want him to drink it or did I tell him to. He could have a beer but not my rye!
It took a long time for me to look at myself and take responsibility for my own actions. I was too busy looking at my dad, husband and son. They had the problem, they were drunks. I could handle my booze. In today I know I was the functioning alcoholic whose addiction to pills (dried up alcohol) escalated, until they stopped working for me, and I needed more. More no longer worked, and I even had guilt about my guilt.
They had their disease, but so did I, in fact I have heard that people in Al-Anon and Nar-Anon are sicker than the alcoholic and addict.
I told myself that I had to drink because I couldn`t stand to be around them sober. What a cop out! The reality was, my husband quit for 6 months and I couldn`t, but that is okay, because I didn`t have the problem. It would ease my guilt by looking at others, comparing, and wearing that blanket of denial that wouldn`t allow me to look at myself.
Posted on another site in 2013.
I can still get a twinge now and then when I see him growing in his disease.
