Tuesday, October 25, 2011

The Empty Chair at the Table -- Part 8

The Empty Chair-Coping with The Holidays
Our family  group often discusses this subject at this time of year. I have heard and learned a lot about the distress at Holiday time over my 22 years working in with families of addicts. My experience has taught me that there are at least two separate problems wrapped into this issue. Problem number one is that we have a total fantasy in our recollections of our perfect families gathered at the dinner table celebrating during our childhood. Accepting this fact offers hope of resolving why we feel so bad at this time in our lives.We envision that earlier perfect family and compare our present situation with an empty chair at the table,where we believe the addict should be seated enjoying our celebration. And without the addict (who hopefully is suffering the consequences of his/her behavior,)how can we have a celebration? This thinking diminishes us terribly and increases the overwhelming negativism we project on our perceived failures as parents.
This brings us to the second issue which requires resolution. The addict who is not in GOOD recovery, and 18 years old or older, does not belong in our homes, much less be celebrating the Holidays with us. We need to understand that bringing addicts into our houses when they are not in good recovery sends a terrible message to them . That message is"the old(very sick)relationships are in play once again". That is the last message we want convey to our addicts. Additionally the addicts who are not in good recovery should be celebrating the Holidays in the midst ofa the Recovering Community who know exactly how to deal with them because they are recovering from the same disease. The importance of our addicts' involvement with  the Recovering Community cannot be overemphasized.
We also need to take an honest look at our recollections of our childhood where the "perfect "family celebrated. The truth is that the "perfect" family was very imperfect-we just did not know who drank to excess or did far worse things to wives and children. Most families had all those problems;but no one talked about them. That is the difference between the perfect family of our childhood and our families. We are all flawed and so were they. The difference is communication. I am sure you have all heard the old adage:"we are as sick as our secrets." This is one of the main reasons we attend FA-to learn how to unburden ourselves,clear the air of denial, and open the door to our recovery.
What are the lessons contained in this writing? First stop comparing a fantasy world(our childhoods) with reality. What we face today  is reality ,I hope. No one gets better if we do not see,,understand ,and speak the absolute truth. That is what ACCEPTANCE is about. We see reality and we accept it. We move beyond the fantasies about ourselves and the nature of our addicts' disease. And no more fantasies about how we are going to fix that disease.by having the addicts join us for the Holidays so we can prove how much we love them. Haven't we already proven it a hundred thousand times?


Finally, we should all read Detachment over and over as the Holidays approach. When we have read it and Accept it the empty chair issues will go away forever as we all get better. Say the Serentiy Prayer at least 3 times a day and go to extra meetings. Use the phone list! It works when you work it! We need our recovering community- and the addict needs his/hers. We and our addicts cannot make this arduous journey to recovery alone.
Mort

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