Do you believe you can control another person's drinking or maybe even all of their behavior?

And what consequences have your attempts to control someone else led to you?

Welcome to episode 207 of the Recovery Show. This episode is brought to you by Jennifer and Lucy. They use the donation button on our website.

Thank you Jennifer and Lucy for your generous contributions. This episode is for you.

We are friends and family members of Alcoholics and addicts who have found a path to serenity and happiness.

We who will ever have lived with the seemingly hopeless problem of addiction understand as perhaps who others can.

So much depends on our own attitudes and we believe that changed attitudes can aid recovery.

Before we begin, we would like to state that though we at the recovery show, maybe in a 12-step program,

we represent ourselves rather than the program. During this show we will share our own experiences.

The opinions expressed here are strictly those of the person who gave them.

Take what you like and leave the rest.

My name is Spencer and I'm your host today.

I wanted to start with a reading.

This is from the book How Al-Anon Works, Chapter 4, titled,

Understanding Ourselves in Alcoholism.

This section begins, we can't control it.

Even though we might admit we didn't cause the drinking,

on another level we may still feel responsible.

Although we try everything the alcoholics still drink,

we attempt anything that makes success and much that doesn't yet we refuse to give up because we feel it makes us look weak and out of control there must be something else we can do the only thing we didn't do was give up.

When we finally surrendered, we realized that we were only giving up our futile struggle against

an incurable disease. Then we were free to focus on what we could do something about rather than trying to change what we couldn't.

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