u/Dazzlng-Firenze

I am not a newcomer, nor is he. I am married and have done AA for years. So has he. Steps many times and all that. I have never cheated on my spouse nor do I plan to.

The problem is, I am so love with this man. It is awful. It has lasted for months and months. I cannot believe myself , that this has happened to me. He has acknowledged it too. It is just awful. Both of us agreed to not act on the feelings. It’s just an awful thing bc I think about this wonderful person night and day and it’s just hell on earth. I wish I had never come to this meeting. We do not flirt with each other, we are totally appropriate but of course people notice we have a special connection and are ga ga / goo goo eyes on each other. It’s really just the most terrible thing that has ever happened to me in AA. We actually are incredibly well suited and have a lot of (healthy) qualities in common which I think is why people notice as well

I am asking for God to remove these thoughts from my mind, trying to just ride it out, let the feelings pass. I can’t believe this has happened to me. I used to hear about people meeting one another in AA and I would think to myself, “oh my gosh really in an AA meeting? They are nuts, what a risk, it’s going to end in disaster” and so forth. Now this has happened to me. I guess I have more empathy for people now, this is a terrible situation

I assume I should switch meetings ASAP but I don’t think I can realistically make myself. I am just hoping the feelings will fade. I have seen other people develop crushes and then the feelings fade.

Any feedback welcome. Thank you AAs

UPDATE: Thank you all for the feedback. And for allowing me to be honest about my dysfunction. I read every single comment and took it in. I’m going to take some action on this today to protect my family and my sanity , also to reflect the integrity of the AA program which I do respect. Thanks everybody who was willing to tell me the truth .

I am a 49F and I have been severely enmeshed with my 82F mother for most of my life. She was abusive and cruel when I was young but still I craved her attention 24/7 and did anything to get close to her, including frequently being in crisis mode. I called her multiple times a day, would vent about all my issues, listen to her (toxic, unhelpful) feedback and then unfortunately act on some of it which led to me getting fired from jobs, losing friends and ending relationships. Her advice was always that I was never the problem, it was always someone else’s fault, and she had been through similar thing and handled it XYZ way and I should do that. OH NO!! Cringe memories

Anyway I eventually got married and she did work very hard to end my marriage by constantly critiquing my husband and saying she would hire an attorney to help me divorce him and saying I could move into her home with my kids , etc

Honestly for some many years I am embarrassed to say I didn’t even know it was a problem. Although deep down , I kind of did but I was in denial. It was just so painful and embarrassing to acknowledge that I was actually living like this. By the way, she is basically the ONLY person I would ever talk about and I made her life my life (she has a very colorful life, big career, lot of accomplishments so for some reasons I wanted to fixate on her although I would also bash her heavily to people)

Four years ago I finally got the courage to change, by attending 12-step recovery groups. It was sooooo hard. I was a heavy drinker so I did AA plus other 12-step groups focused on families. It took a long time but I slowly unwound from all of it. Stopping drinking helped a lot bc I was more clear-headed and not in crisis anymore. In the Beginning I got pretty “enmeshed” with the people in the 12-step group and some of the other, healthier members would point this out to me. I think that was my giant wake-up call ——- seeing I was literally doing the same behavior, enmeshing with a deeply mentally ill woman in our group who was honestly a lot like my mother, in terms of personality (not career). Someone highly controlling and manipulative.

Anyway over the years with the 12-step groups I slowly built my own life. My mother did not change, but I did. I still call but only every three or four days and I keep the conversation light. No personal stuff about marriage or finances or feelings, etc. it helps that my mother is aging and she is less controlling and less manipulative simply bc she is tired. I don’t know how I magically managed to do this through 12-step groups alone bc my enmeshment was really bad — like maximum level. I had worked with therapists in the past but I never trusted them and I always ran right back to my mother. Somehow the 12-step groups got through to me

When I was growing up, kids were meant to be seen — not heard. We never did anything fun as a family , my n-parents would literally NEVER contemplate taking the time, energy or money to take their kids to a fun fair , museum, special outing, etc. It was unthinkable. You played in the backyard, watched TV, went somewhere with friends and the n-parents worked, slept or drank alcohol with their friends. If we ever did something fun like visit the zoo or go to a park, etc. it was because family were in town or there was a special invite there.

Now that I am an adult with my own family I find it hard to relax and do things with my own kids. I feel like it is a a huge “treat” to go to a concert or drive somewhere , do things. I fight this feeling and I do things with my kids and take them places and expose them to the community and normal people doing healthy things bc I think it’s sooo important. But I struggle figuring out how to do it. Sometimes I feel guilty if they even have a single quiet afternoon doing nothing bc I am scared I am turning into my n-parents. It’s a huge fear of mine that I am a lousy parent and that if I let my foot off the gas and stop “doing” for my kids, this secret monster will come out that is my n-parents and I will become this neglectful, resentment monster. Of note: I do NOT drink so I am nothing like my parents in that regard and if we are home, I am NOT drinking in front of the TV.

I have 555 days today; I’m a daily AA meeting attendee and I’ve done the whole program - sponsor, steps, daily inventory , you name it I do it.

It took me four years to get 555 days, by the way. When I showed up to AA, I was a broken person..just awful in terms of making suicide threats at my husband and family, screaming at kids, so depressed, I couldn’t even handle making a cup of coffee without breaking down. I also had an addiction to prescription meds so yeah it was a bad scene. Grey skin, so weak sometimes I thought I would pass out in the shower.

It took a lot of work and time but yeah what has happened in my life is nothing short of remarkable. Four years ago I stumbled into AA not even with a will to live, I am sorry to say. Just a mess. I could barely sit still for an hour and I HATED the AA literature. But I was out of money and out of treatment options and out of hope and so I figured I would just sit in misery in AA and see what happened.

Long-timers in this program are AMAZING. I got lucky, someone took me under their wing. I know there are no saints in AA but my family actually refers to this person as a “saint” using a nickname. That’s how we literally refer to them. This person just made me feel very welcome and listened to me, encouraged me to kick ALL my addictions in AA, introduced me to other members, encouraged me while I cycled through sponsors (yeah, I was crazy) and to this day, this person is still a part of my life. Unbelievable. This person NEVER wanted a dime from me, never asked for anything, actually believe it or not, now that I am healthy we are real friends and we tell jokes and laugh and remember fun stuff from meetings. I can sort of see why long-timers DO need newcomers, now that I am healthier I can see how it keeps the program fresh and alive.

Anyway I can’t post before and after pictures here but it’s like a rebirth. Someone rising from the dead. Today I have energy. I smile. I get along with people. I am completely sober off alcohol and any other intoxicating substance. I have my family. My kids are thriving. They smile. We can hug, laugh, go outside , play at the pool. I don’t really too much friends anymore but in my life that’s a good thing, really. I hang mostly with people in recovery and yes it can be a mixed bag but overall it’s so refreshing and honest and relaxing to be around fellow AA’s. I have discovered that people in AA are very funny and some of them are the most salty joke tellers and have all the witty observations on life, there are times when I am nearly collapsing with laughter at just the jokes . I can also laugh at myself bc frankly some of my antics in AA four years ago were fairly humorous including seeking out the most unhealthy relapsers in the back of the room and having to be told repeatedly to pls stop doing crazy things for people like trying to give them money which I didn’t even have.

At any rate, THANK YOU AA. Yes, it’s okay to laugh at me bc if you knew me in the meetings you would be snorting too. I also used to be paranoid that everyone was trying to date me while they were in fact trying to make sure I am okay and trying to figure out my day count. This was years ago.

I am opposed to psychiatry for my particular mental state, and for most other mental states as well. I don’t believe in most clinical psych disorders. But what about schizophrenia and some forms of OCD? I do believe these disorders are over diagnosed but certain people do need treatment IMO. What say you ? Thanks guys .look forward to learning people’s thoughts.