A Year in Numbers - Not Just Any Kind of Year and Not Just Any Kind of Numbers

With January 2012 my trying to do everything I could turned a full year around.
In couple weeks my blog will turn 1 year of age.
It's been 6 years since I knew my dad has a problem.
It will be 4 years since I first called that problem alcoholism.


Almost 20 years I lived in an average family. Then my family turned to more negative average. All of us 'averagers' have issue with being 'average' but only with the negativity it started getting on my nerves. I was turning into quiet little girl, accustomed to the way things were supposed to be, waiting for someone to help and became a always terrified person. Before 2011 I trembled for life, always in a hiding/running away mode. I might have had a break down even. With January I made a resolution to do everything I can to make things change. I worked on it from day one and things did start to change. With ups and downs I was moving on but hit the bottom couple months later. That's when I was down.


Someone caught me off guard - in one of that rare moments when I wasn't trying to be the smartest person around - and planted a seed of an idea in my mind. This seed was growing into a beautiful green plant. Then one day I thought somebody else might make it grow better than I can. And the plant started fading. My seed couldn't grow into a real plant without my care. So I started taking care of it with more love and attention. It was getting clearer what that little seed is growing into: Not caring about yourself gets you down because YOU are the one and only person you can change, be and love.


The others can either do it themselves or they don't. It's their right. What an idea that was!


You're supposed to feel better when helping others, except we're not helping ourselves when we're stubbornly trying to make others change instead of changing ourselves. I don't need to stop drinking. But I need and want other things, like living without alcohol running my life. Stop blaming myself and everyone else and just move on taking this grand lesson in. So I made myself my No. 1 priority, leapt up to the sky and am the change I want to see in the world! (M. Gandhi)


I tripped over my own feet at first but then caught a little air in my hair and started flying! To keep things shorter than what they usually come out through my keyboard - I've been TRYING so damn HARD for more than a YEAR!! Yet at the end of last year it looked like I've done nothing!! Dad's still drinking, everyone else keep giving him advice saying: Just drink less ... And god! I moved back home!! Now that's the biggest change of last year of all!


But I'll be damned if I'm the same person as I was at this time last year! I threw all of my ambitions and desires aside, putting my family first. Now I've got nothing to hold on to, no job or any other obligations, no place of my own and basically no social life - one big sorry again to my ex who'd had quite a time with me through all this! - and you'd only feel sorry for me if you knew how much time I spend hanging out with - my pets! Yet, somewhere in the middle I started doing sports regularly and I'm keep doing it! I'm doing it because I enjoy sweating like a pig couple hours a week! And I spend more time in nature again! I've been  writing as well as making some other things I used to love doing. After a year of serving my family I rediscovered what makes me feel good and am dedicating this new year to ME!


I think my nearest will appreciate most this change I'm trying to be. The fact that I'm not telling them what they should do 24/7. Something I thought to be imposible. Come on, I'd say I already got down to ... hmm ... 12/5? The rest of the time it's all about ME. Successfully working on getting the me-myself-and-I chapter of my life to those full 24/7 when I used to worry about others.

I am my No.1.
I have cousins in various knees in 5 countries over the world, awesome friends in more than 10 countries.
I have one blog who was read about 500 times and has ... 0 comments. Oh, well, I can't have it all!

As long as I've got me ;)

How dad accepted my Al-Anon meetings?

           He didn't.

From New Year's resolutions to denial ....

Going to Al-Anon meetings clashed with my decision to cut the bs/smart-a**ing to absolutely everybody including those who really don't want to hear it. In the latter segment falls my family, which -I feel- is tired of me always bringing this topic of 'alcoholism is a desease that can be treated' aboard. My New Year's resolution (well, one of them) of course is not to do that anymore ... and I'm doing my best to keep it. Just like a true AA - one day at a time, one conversation at a time. If noone asks I don't start babbling about, no matter what.

I'd say I'm about 60 % efficient in it this month. Yet it seems like every time I fail and blurt out something before I can stop myself - well, it seems like nobody noticed I was ever quiet at all! This has been quite a harsh resolution so far!

Anyway, I am holding on to it when it comes to Al-Anon. When dad asks me, where I go, I answer: I have an Al-Anon meeting. Followed by a dumb but expectant-for-me-to-tell-everything-about-it look is silence on both sides. And of I go.

If he ever turned the first page of those Al-Anon books I brought home for me, and whoever might be interested in reading, I wouldn't know. But since my mom joined me for the last meeting ... I can't say precisely what he knows about where we were, except that he decided he's against us going there. For those living with an addict - I'm sure you can imagine the determined negative aura around him, saying: Grrr... They're doing something against me and this 'problem' that I DON'T have!


PS: Would someone please help me with abbreviations for profanities - my English level can't seem to move up from 'bs' and  'wtf', which just aren't enough when there's some shitty going on in life! ;)

12 Steps - (Successfully?) Trying to Make Amends to ex BFs

Recently I broke up with another great man. Great because he fully supported me in everything I tried to achieve. He was attentive, loving, caring, fun, smart. He left the toilet seat down and clean. He cooked and cleaned. He wasn't aggresive towards me, he wasn't ashamed of drinking juice in a bar with his friends.

Another great man. We had ups and downs and knew it's the natural flow of how things in life go. We loved and cared about each other, we made compromises or fought when we couldn't get to a common point. Everything was fine.

But it didn't feel right.

Something felt wrong all the way through, for more than a year. I wanted and tried to find that thing and point the finger at it. As I couldn't find that thing, I thought it's only my modern being of not wanting to settle for the rest of my time with one person. Wanting more, wanting new.

He was with me through my toughest times when I admit to myself dad's alcoholism and that we need help. He was with me when I was searching for help and working on changing things. Another great man was with me couple years ago, when I knew about dad's drinking problem but was hoping things will change everytime dad tried to drink less. When we were spinning in this vicious circle faster and faster.

In many things I have changed so much, I know more about myself and who I want to spend my life with. I can point the finger at the things I want. I am a becoming young woman. Yet I'm still just a daughter, daddy's little girl. Afraid of turning into my grumpy, always annoyed and complaining mother in that exact moment when I grow up.

Since my last break up I changed in knowing more precisely what I want my partner-for-life to be and I changed in knowing that I shouldn't keep searching for him as long as I'm afraid of myself. I know who I want to be and I know who I can turn out to be. Until I can regulate on which side of this line I'm standing without swaying left or right, there should be no another great man who'd have to suffer of my crossing the line. He does not deserve it. And I don't deserve to be afraid of my future self. This is what I'm working on now, this is what I have to go through alone.

Thank you for being with me, especially through last couple of months.

I'm sorry for the times when I hurt you. It wasn't you, it was me ;)

It still is about me. So please accept my apology and if anything, take this thing out of our relationship: make yourself your first priority.

Letter II

Don't ever feel sorry for me, I would not want my life and family to be any different. I've done some silly things without which my life could be much simpler and easier but I have no regrets. Without those silly things, I wouldn't have become the person I am. Deeply depressed and painfully honest at times but with loudest and most true laugh on other occasions. Getting through those bad days step by step and leaping up to the sky on the sunny days.

I love my life, my family, my friends and myself just because we are. I am truely sorry if I hurt you on my way but I don't regret it. It was to happen just as much as this chance for me to now say: I'm sorry. I love you.

My first Al-Anon meeting

It's been some time since I last written. I can't say much has changed but much has happened. Good and bad. Lazy and busy.

Before Christmas I was very upset about everything and hit another bottom of pain. Every night I went to bed hoping that tomorrow it'll be behind me. My Christmas miracle happened when I finally did feel better just on the Xmas day! We've had nice holidays and I prepared myself well for new year: with optimism, faith and positive energy.

2012 will be a better year for me! I'll make it work!

Of course I have my list of resolutions, some for my soul, some for my body, some for my mind. And I'm already working on them! I'm also proud to say I was quite successful with last year's ones, I dropped out on some but added some other in.

In the meantime, my family started the year bad. In one week we had two awful outburts. One involving breaking bottles into pieces (the collection was lying in one corner for couple days as a reminder), the other grandma visiting in order to talk to her son about drinking moderately. I cried on both occasions. Fuck crying! I cried today too!

So, my part of the story is, that I finally went on a Al-Anon meeting, couple hours ago. There were women like my mom, with kids like me and some of who were kids like me themselves. It felt good but I wish my mom would go, I'd help her more. And ... drum roll ... I'm searching for an appartment! My time has come to leave family, start on my own for real and let others face their problems without me backing up for them. We all deserve this, let's say second chance. Sure, I have no job and no income at the time but that would only be another excuse, which worked for me for last couple of months. Al-Anon, thank you because you too believe I have to care about myself first!