The Three C's

When I first entered the world of AA and Al-Anon I saw people wearing t-shirts with the slogan "The Three C's" on the front. I wondered, "What are the three C's and why is it on their shirts?" I didn't ask my then alcoholic husband because I was fearful he would call me an idiot or that he would preach at me for the next 3 hours about AA.  So I went on wondering.....for a long time.

The topic of one of the very first Al-Anon meetings I went to early in my recovery was "The Three C's". This meeting discussion not only helped to give me a since of power but also was enlightening. I learned so much that night about my thought process, my behavior, and choices that I had made.  What does it mean? The Three C's? We didn't cause it, We can't cure it and We can't control it.

My eyes were opened because I was working so hard to cure his problem--alcoholism. I was begging him to go to meetings, I was monitoring his meeting attendance when he was actually going to meetings and I was loving him so hard that he couldn't possibly have a problem. 

I also worked hard to control him.  I woke him up in the morning forced him to go to school. Questioned him about where he was, who he was with and what he was doing.

Ultimately I felt because I couldn't cure him or control him that I must be the problem.  He helped me believe this because he often if not always blamed me for the problems he was having.  When he was working the program he took most of the responsibility for his crap but when he would go back out he would throw all the blame on me. And I believed him. So I worked hard to cure and control....whatever it took.

All of this to say--here I am again. He's gone. We're divorced. He's relapsed. He's been gone out of our lives since July 31st. But oddly I feel like I've done something wrong.