I think about this blog more than anyone might think.
Seeing how I don’t actually post on it with any kind of regularity.
I read this fable once. (I can’t remember where but it was probably in reference to alcoholism.)
The tale is about two frogs that fall into an churn of buttermilk.
No matter how hard they try, they can’t climb out as the sides are too slippery.
One frog says,
“It’s no use. We are going to die.”
And he sinks to the bottom and drowns.
The other frog says,
“I dont know how I am going to get out but I’m not going to quit.”
And so she swims. She swims and she swims and she swims. All through the day and into the dark of night, she swims. Round and round she goes with no idea as to how she is going to escape but with a detemination to escape. By morning’s light, her little swimming frog legs have churned the buttermilk into butter and she hopes out!
Being married to an alcoholic is a lot like this!
We’re stuck. We’re trapped. There’s no way out. We sink to the bottom to drown.
I’ve sunk to the bottom.
I’m drowning.
But not a violent drowning. Not a drowning where I am flailing about, gasping for air, trying to grab hold of the nothingness of water. (Buttermilk.) No, my drowning is more lethargic. Just laying here.
I think as wives of alcoholics, this is our trajectory:
We yell, we scream, we rage against the beast – eventually more internally than outwardly.
We talk, we cry, we try to fix. We hope.
We hope and we hope and we hope some more. We hope when no reasonably human being would expect us to hope. We hope when we know there is no point in hoping. We hope after we declare we are done hoping. Every morning we get up and we hope.
First, we hope he will be different. He will change or seek help. He will see his drinking for the issue it is.
Then we hope for ourselves. That we will change. That we will stop expecting him to be different.
We hope we will stop hoping.
Until finally, all the rage, all that anger, all the grief, all that hope weighs us down and we sink to the bottom.
Some of us will indeed drown.
But something has caught my eye.
Is it the little kicking legs of a frog-sister?
I don’t know what I’ll do.
Or how I’ll do it.
But I can’t let myself drown.
I heard the tale as two mice on the film Catch Me If You Can with Leonardo DiCaprio. 🙂 You can do it.
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We must stop hoping and take real action. Choose to change in order to save our spirits and in order to show our children – they too deserve to be loved in a healthy way and not settle for something that quietly kills their spirits too.
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Can we create a supportive chat group with weekly goal setting focus?
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Good idea. Not sure how to do it. 🙂
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I’m choosing happiness today and heading to the beach for a couple days alone – maybe I will do some research to see what is the safest/wisest way to do so. Also I will email you and we could possibly chat briefly via yahoo messenger if time allows. Love your post today too – I have the happiness gene!! Take care and enjoy your doggies.
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Enjoy the beach!!
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I have 2 WordPress logins strengthwithin and peacefuldesire. I need to use just strength within, that was a mistake (on my phone logging in at almost 7am pacific time)
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I will not drown in this chaos. I’ve come too far and endured too much. We are trying to keep everyone afloat and keep it all together and losing ourselves in the process. Sometimes you need to let go of the rope. We need to save ourselves from drowning. How? One small step at a time. Do one small thing for yourself everyday. Just because. Let go of what we think it should look like. Let go of the way we thought it should be.
I am not in charge of how he lives or his choices. It makes me angry and crazy. I don’t want to be angry and I don’t want to be crazy. And I WILL not drown. Sister frog is right there with you living in this messed up alternate universe.
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