Multiple Identities and staying in touch

I went over to Twitter and I saw that Syd was there. Syd has done a great job of being Syd in so many places. I haven't mastered the art of acting quite so well. I find that I am "Tari" here, but someone else on Twitter, and someone else in email. I'm confused about what to do next. Google has come out with Google + which makes it easier for you to be selective about who sees what and Blogger has a way to do multiple pages on one blog now. Some bloggers are using that to have different pages for different blogs basically. They can blog about politics on one page, and music on another. Or they could blog about recovery issues on one page and blog about family or job stuff on another or whatever...

So I'm unsure what to do. A part of me wants to unify myself. To take these pieces that are scattered all over the web and unify them and claim them all. I want to say This is me, and this is me, and this is me... and all of this is ME....   and then I get scared. Why fix something if it isn't broken? And 12-step stuff is supposed to be anonymous... so maybe I should just keep this thing here, and keep my mouth shut about my Twitter account, and not fix anything that isn't really broken.

Comments? Helpful advice? I'd love to hear it...

Calling all Adult Children of Alcoholics! Help me here please!

I feel like I'm really done. I mean it. I'm tired of empty threats from the alcoholic parent. I'm tired of empty threats from myself. I want to be DONE with the drama. She's been bothering me for weeks. I keep stepping back, hoping she's calmed down, and then I pick up the phone and try to reach out to her only to have her go nuts again. She's not that far away right now, less than 20 miles, but I haven't seen her in a while. So at the beginning of the week she left some crazy messages on the answering machine. I waited until tonight to call her back because I didn't want to feed into the insanity. She started right up though. 20 minutes later she's in tears slamming down the phone for the 3rd time and I'm angry that I got sucked into another fight that I wasn't looking for. I want this to END. I know my daughter deserves to have grandparents in her life, but this grandparent doesn't possess the qualities I want her to see. This grandparent is untrustworthy and mean and a huge blackmailer.
So what do I do? How do I make it end? Do I confront her and let her know that I am cutting her off? Do I tell her why (not sure I can explain it anyway, and she's so irrational she won't understand etc)? Or do I just stop returning phone calls and let it "slip away"? My father has been divorced from her since I was less than 2 years old (he says she cheated on him). He says that if I cut her out of my life completely I will regret it later. I don't know. She's been gone from my life before for months at a time (her choice). The difference now is that she is older and not in good health. Well she's never been in good health. That's always been one of her ways of getting at me with her blackmail.. but anyway... I keep asking myself "How much more do I have to take before I am allowed to walk away?" and if I am allowed to choose when to walk away then I want to do it soon and get it done with. There is a CHANCE that she will move away in April or June next year, but it's not a guarantee. So I could wait until then and just let her go but that seems like a long time to wait, especially with the holidays on the horizon.
So if you've got any advice or experience on this, please...!!! I'd love to hear it. I'm exhausted from this roller coaster ride that I've been living on for the last nearly 40 years and I think it's time to get off.






thank you.

a week already??

Sigh. A week has gone by and I haven't posted. How sad. I did have a couple of brief interactions with my mother this week. Also my brother dropped his Facebook account (again), effectively cutting me out of his life. The only way I have to keep tabs on him is through FB. Oh well. I don't know if it was my fault or not that he dropped it. I might have been the cause. My mother called me in an effort to reach him (supposedly) and I sent him a message on FB saying she was trying to reach him. Then I told her that he was alive at least since he had updated his status at some point over the weekend. Then he pulled the plug on his account. His loss and mine. We aren't close but I like knowing what's going on in his life even if it's just a message that says "I'm all alone and drinking, come on by...". Now I won't even have that for a while.








On a more personal note, as I posted before I am trying to lose weight. I am surprised (or not surprised) to see some commonalities between the weight-loss and Al-Anon. The website I am using is very much of the "take what you like and leave the rest" approach. Everything you do is really up to you to do it. There is a lot of middle ground. Don't want the diet, then leave it and eat what you want. Want to track what you eat? Great, here's how to do that. Community, health, nutrition, fitness, etc... it's all there if you want it. Message boards, teams, challenges, friends... take it or leave it. This is good for me. I'm not "failing". I can go at my own pace and take what I like and leave the rest without spending a dime. So far I'm liking a lot of it, but I'm doing my own food. I'm leaving their diet alone because it doesn't work for me. The pounds are coming off though, at least for now. Here's hoping I can keep it going because it's a long, long road. I want to be healthy by the time I'm 40.

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

What happens when we aren't paying attention

Thanks for your comments about the Burning Man link that I posted.

This is what happens when I'm not paying attention. I actually have 3 blogs now. (I just started a new one this week.) I had MEANT to post that link on one of the other blogs. If I had done that hardly anyone would have seen it probably, and I doubt I would have gotten any comments. Instead I posted it here even though it had nothing really to do with Al-Anon, and look at that... some of you liked it!  :-)

So now I have your attention let me tell you about the third blog. I'm not going to give you a link and tell you to read it though. It's about taking care of me. Today is -1. Tomorrow is September 1st and I am setting goals for myself to lose weight and eat better. Tomorrow I begin. I've been warming up to this for about a week, but tomorrow is the official start date. The ice cream is out of the freezer and chips are no longer going on my plate. By the middle of March I want to see a lower number on that scale. I have a number in mind of course. I don't know if my plan is drastic enough to get to that number but I guess time will tell. My third blog is about losing that weight and it is tied into the website that I am using to help motivate me in that direction.

My husband has done quite well in losing the pounds, and if he can do it I know I can do it too.I am going to miss my friends Ben, Jerry, Bart, Breyer, and a few others but I know what I want for my birthday and it's up to me to make it happen.

Image by Getty Images via @daylife