Grieving Who We Used To Be

Last nights Al-Anon meeting was about grieving the loss of our childhood. For those of us who grew up in dysfunction we might not have ever realized that it is okay to grieve this loss. Or some of us may not have realized we even lost anything. That was just the way it was. By the time I had married my qualifier I had all ready made peace with my family regarding my childhood. I thought that was a sure sign that I had a good head on my shoulders. Once I began the downward spiral into the disease of alcoholism I began to lose myself. There was one day in particular that I looked in the mirror and literally didn't recognize myself. When I started out in the Al-Anon program I spent a great part of it wishing to be like I was, before the alcoholic. I thought I had it figured out and that this marriage was just a misstep. If I could just get to where I was then I would never fall for this disease again!! But the further I went on my 12 step journey the more I learned that I was going to have to grieve my loss of "who I was." I was never going to be the same. Any kind of catastrophic event will make a psychic change in you and trying to erase that seemed futile to me. The only way out was up. So I had to leave behind this perception of who I was and embark on a journey that would slowly but surely show me the person that I had always wanted to be.