Topic of the Week - Perception

[caressa]

Worry and fear can alter our perception until we lose all sense of reality, twisting situations into nightmares.

- Courage to Change

This is a disease of perception. How I saw thing is not how other people see things. Even in recovery, my perception can be off.

I pray and ask for my own knowing. What is right for me. I try to see where the other person is coming from and not close my mind to what other people are saying.

It doesn't matter if they are alcoholic or not, they are a person and it is important to see the person behind the disease.

It is a lot like reading between the lines. Looking at body language and trying to figure out what they are really saying!

I didn't realize I had a problem. I didn't know I was walking around stoned. I was taking what my doctor prescribed. As he put it, it is not my fault that she choses to abuse them. I didn't take them by the handful, I just kept waiting for them to work and when they didn't, I took one more! What I didn't know was that the one medication didn't work and if it didn't work in five months, it never was going to work and my doctor had me on it for five years. I was stoned on the first one and ended up taking them as prescribed 3 a day. I was looking for that quick fix and it wasn't happening. Things just stopped working, including me!

I thought I was okay. People on my floor, and people from the 3rd and 5th floors were coming to me for mothering and advice. They called me the Den Mother of the Fourth Floor. I took on the cares and woes of my whole universe which was the YWCA and seldom went out, it became my world. I didn't think I was isolated, I had all these people around me. I didn't realize that I was alone amid st all those people.

I started pushing my son away, instead of going out for dinner and a show on his pay day, I ended up seeing him for 10-20 min. because I was too sick. I was too sick alright. Mentally, emotionally, spiritually and physically bankrupt.

[caressa]

Not sure whether perception is the cause of thinking the worst case scenarios, but if the quote above is true, it probably is.

I remember one night my husband was out and didn't come home. He was with his brother, had left in the afternoon on a tear. The Legion closed and then I really started worrying, by 3 a.m. I was phoning police, hospital, friends, etc. He came crawling up the stairs at 4 a.m.

I met him at the top of the stairs and the fear had changed to anger. I don't remember shouting, but the words that came out of my mouth were "Where the H*ll have you been." I managed to stand up, even though he was so drunk and pushed me through the wall and left an imprint of my body in the plaster. the building was old, but there was no way, that he should have shoved me through it and left the impression that he did. Anger and alcohol sure don't mix.

Not sure he even remembered doing it until he saw the imprint the next morning. He later brough a friend in and he said, "Most people carry pictures of their wives instead of leave imprints of them in walls.

The sad thing was I stayed with him for another two years. I kicked him out, but took him back when he made the decision to quit drinking, I felt like I had to support him. We didn't know about AA, he was sober 9 months on his own. When he picked up it was worse than ever.

For the most part, I didn't drink either but on occasion, I did have a few drink, I felt that it wasn't my right to go to bed smelling of alcohol. Often it was just a glass of wine, after all he had the problem not I. I think looking back, that the reality was, I couldn't stop.