I know we each have to answer the question, "why stay?" for ourselves, but I was just wondering about this topic. We're supposed to detach from the behavior of the alcoholic, but if alcoholic behavior is 95% of what we get from a spouse--what is the point? A future of more of the same. I may never be able to detach enough that I'm not ashamed when my husband calls my place of work sounding affected by midday and when people ask me what he does and I have to tell them that he doesn't work. It doesn't look like he has any plans to really quit drinking. I can live a fuller life without the bother. I'm just about to throw in the towel. It is easier to lead your own life when you're not having to step around a chaotic drunk. I will always love my husband and I wish the very best for him, but I am just about done. Why do any of you stay with a practicing alcoholic? 

Hello foggy , well i stayed  for very selfish reasons , my husb was very succesful in business and i wasn't prepared to give up the life style I had become accustomed too. And because I know today that i still loved him .  Al-Anon has given me back my life , when I learned to detach from his behavior and not take it so personally i began to feel better.  I started to get  happy regardless of what he was doing. I also was able to take responsibility for my part in the mess that we had created. When I was able to do that my anger towards him started to lessen. He was only doing what alcoholics do.

I learned to set boundaries for our relationship and things got better, I learned here how to be a better  mother by working this program in my home. I also learned how to be a better friend. this is a program for living and it works. I learned here I could leave but was taking me with me. I am not sorry I stayed , 3 yrs after I came to al anon my husb sought sobriety and has remained sober for `16 yrs . Things continue to improve and life is good. Some of us are able to stay and others have to leave their marriages, we are all different. But bottom line if we have lived with an alcoholic our thinking has become a lttle messed up , I too needed to recover from the disease. Al-Anon helped me do that.

What ever u decide to do please stay with the program,you have no idea where it will take you with or with out him u will be just fine.   Louise

Your question is a valid one Foggymac. I agree with you 100%. There is no room in my life for a practising alcoholic, which is why my A knows that if he drinks again, the front door is the way out, and he can take it! I have set that boundary, and I will keep it should the need arise. Like you, I will not be humiliated or embarrassed be the A's behavior, and I will not live my life having to deal with it every day. Yep, it is easier for me to go on alone than be saddled with someone whose actions may some time cost me everything I have. I love him with all of my heart, but I am smart enough not to stay just because I love him. Abuse is abuse no matter how you cut it, and I won't have it. No one's children deserve to be embroiled in it either. You question, "Why do any of you stay with a practising alcoholic?" I'll never know. Best to you, Diva

I decided not to stay after dreaming of leaving for several years. It felt great. I had always pictured the day I would leave kind of like Thelma and Louise, driving down the highway singing and happy to be free at last. The reality of it was me and a three year old in a mini van and a U-haul driving through snow storms down the Trans Canada for five days.

I don't regret it. It had to be done for me to find the true, strong me inside. From that day on I was no longer a victim in my own mind. Things ended up working out between my A and I and he moved here to us. We are happy about 75% of the time. I never planned on getting back together with him it just work that way and I'm glad it did.

Good luck to you in what ever you decide. Live can be a real adveture depending on how you look at it.

Agatha

I don't know why people stay either.  We all have choices to make in life and many of them are unpleasant and aren't easy.  I don't want to stay.  Like Diva I worry about losing everything because of his actions.  It is probably better to lose some now than all of it later.  So, I am starting my legal investigation of how to protect myself and what my next step should be.

I cannot handle the behavior.  I cannot handle the fact that he has chosen a bottle over a wife.  I cannot handle the lies, the deceit, the untrustworthiness.

When I sit in al-anon and I hear that my first step must be to admit that my life has become unmanageable due to alcohol, I cannot help but think that I have a choice... it doesn't have to be unmanageable. I can divorce the bottle.

 

 

Agatha, did your husband then get sober? Is that why he is living with you again? How long have you been back together?

Good luck, Ditto. I am working on the strength to do what I think I must. I am so sad about it, because this man has more  intelligence, humor, talent, and sensitivity than anyone I know and he continuously hides that light under a bottle of ale or whatever. The man is good at everything, but living well. Sober, everyone loves him, but drunk -- he's like the babbling alcoholic homeless. He falls down and has had numerous injuries, DUIs, altercations, hospitalizations and treatments, and humiliations. He sleeps at all hours (passes out) and doesn't brush teeth, shave, or shower for days on end.

I am not without understanding at how hard it is to give up an addiction as I was a terrible chain smoker. I would rather have cigarettes than food. I would get up in the middle of the night to smoke, but I quit when I was disgusted enough with myself. It took many tries over the years (when I wasn't ready), but 4 years ago I quit and told myself that no matter what I wouldn't smoke because I would be back in the same circumstances if I gave in. I know that I could not have even one cigarette now, because I'd be back to a pack and a half to two packs a day within a month. That is the substance I must avoid even when everyone around me is smoking. Nicotine is the drug that fits like a key in a little space in my brain. I was addicted to nicorette gum until a couple of months ago. I addicted myself when I borrowed a piece from my sister a year ago, and then the next thing I know I was buying it myself and chewing compulsively. I never smoked again, but I had a relapse. I gave that up too and now know I can never have Nicotine gum again. My point is, people do finally get enough and quit things that are bad for them. I just don't know what it will take for him to quit. He's always looking for the magic pharmaceutical from doctors that will make him feel normal sober. He just worked hard and investigated a new A.D.D. program, which will take a lot of paperwork and a month and a half wait to get into. He was diagnosed with A.D.D. years ago and he is hoping for a magic cure. I long ago gave up on magic cures from western medicine. I think only time and practice living off the sauce would do that for him. He has low frustration tolerance.

I'll admit I'm powerless here, but I have power in my own life. It is just hard working around his terrible behavior and the mess he leaves behind. I think I may find more serenity in my own space. I'm really not afraid to be alone, but it is hard to leave someone who you've spent more than half of your life with. I did promise for better or worse, sickness and health-- but I can tell you, there has been way more worse and sick than better and health. I am at a place that I need to make a decision, but I refuse to do it haphazardly. I need the strength to pull away. He will fight it as he always has and I have to be strong enough to stay gone if I really do leave.

 

I stayed. Partly because I did not have the program, to give me support and strength to leave. Partly because, on my own, I came upon many of the program's principles, and was able to change enough of my life that it really wasn't so bad. When I stopped fretting so much over what my husband was doing, and just relaxed and focused on my own life and those of the kids, the tension in the house dropped to the point that although he was often drunk, he was seldom, and eventually not at all, abusive anymore. When I became easier to live with, he stopped blaming me for his behaviour, and made some changes to it himself. He realized, on his own, how destructive the VERY heavy drinking was, and tried to control it. His methods of control weren't very successful, they led to a crack addiction. However, that was much easier for the rest of us to live with. He became a distant, gentle stranger. Not the man I married, but not the monster he was when drinking heavily either. Eventually, about three years after I made some real changes to my behaviour, he came to sobriety on his own (or at least without any push from me). Looking back, I'm glad I stayed. However, if things had continued as they had been before any changes were made - the fighting, the blackouts, the hysterical middle of the night flights to motels, all that insanity, then I think the damage done to me and the children would not have been supportable. We had enough joy and love in those three years to keep us afloat, and we were able to be here for him when he finally made his choice. I would NEVER condemn anyone for deciding to leave, but, sometimes, staying can be OK.

I stay with my husband because despite his alcoholism, he is a kind caring and loving man. The times I have been embarrassed because of something he has done fall short of the compassion he has towards others. He has always been my soft place to fall when there is a real crisis. When my Grandmother was dying and we were low on money, he got me from Washington State to Indiana. When my Mom had a stroke, he said "quit your job" be with your Mom. When my cousin's husband committed suicide, he said stay with her as long as you need to, we'll be fine. He not only paid support for his childrenand stll is for secondary education, but when the court system failed me and my two daughters he raised them too and never complained. He's held the same job for 17 yrs. Sometimes he leaves early to drink, comes home smashed, though difficult, I can recall who is inside this disease and what he has done for my children and I. It was my A that my daughter asked to walk her down the aisle when she married, not her biological Father, though she has always had contact with him. It's certainly not easy to live with someone that drinks day in and day out, leaves me alone on weekends while he is at the bar. There have been some pretty awful things that had to be dealt with due to his disease. He's not dependable for things like running our son to his guitar lessons or coming home on time. One time I had car trouble and couldn't get ahold of him because he was passed out. We don't do much on a social level because I'm not willing to do what I call "drag-a-drunk". My choice, my boundary. Those are just a few of the constants. Do I think I'm stupid for staying? Nope He makes decent money, he would do anything for our kids and I don't really care if if anyone thinks it's not smart to stay for love. Because I do love him, very much. Christy

FoggyMac,

Yes he did get sober. After My son and I left, my A took on three roommates that he worked with. One other A and another two guys that like to party. From what he tells me they drank to the point that they didn't even seem to get drunk anymore. After five months his Dad came to visit and partied a few nights with them. One morning he sat my husband down and asked him if he ever thought of going to Alcoholics Anonymous. This hit my husband like a ton of bricks because he tells me now that his Dad has always been the biggest A he has ever known. He figured that if his Dad thought he needed to go then he must have a problem.

After he had been sober about six months he arranged a transfer with his company to work here. This past May my A celebrated six years sober. It has not all been smooth. After a car accident and he was forced to stop with his new addiction, work, he then has had to really face all the underlying problems that started the drinking in the first place. He is curently off work on LTD because of rage, depression, and anxiety. This has been very hard but he is slowly working through it. This past winter he was a big immovable lump on the couch but with the nicer weather that got better. Just in the last few days we have decided to start loosing some of the old relationships that we have been hanging onto. We have AA and Al-Anon friends and hope to hook up with more couples in the program or that are healthy, positive people.

There are still old issues that come up but the longer we work the program and talk to each other the easier it gets. I still have to remind myself to live my own life and do thing that I would do if he were not here or I would slip back to waiting for him to live for me. We have learned to parent together ( I still have final say) and he now gets the whole stay at home parent thing since he is the stay at home parent. It took a long time for our son to forgive him for not being around but they have a good relationship now. Just in time too, the teen years are just around the corner. He also got the opportunity to spend the early years with our daughter that he missed out on, or gave up, with our son. He is very close with our little four year old.

I didn't really plan any of this I just did what I felt I needed to do for me and the rest just fell into place. I try very hard listen to my HP. I thought when I left it was the end. It turns out it was only the end of the really bad stuff and the beginning of the life I really wanted.

This is probably more info then you wanted but there it is. Hope I answered your question.

Agatha

Kudos to you all, those they stayed, those that left and those that haven't decided. For me, Al-anon isn't a place, necessarily, to get the strength and support to leave.  It is a place to find the peace of mind to make a clear decision.  Taking care of ourselves and letting go of the anger.  Then we can better decide what we are willing to live with but also how we can reclaim our own lives and be happy despite the disease.  Some of us can go on with the A still doing their thing while we do ours and can enjoy the moments, the seconds that occasionally show themselves.  Or we clearly decide that enough is enough and move on and out.  Neither is wrong and that is what Al-anon means to me.  A place where you are not judged in whatever you decide, what you can live with as a human being, to be able to look at yourself in the mirror every day knowing that you are working your program in the way that is best for YOU and your HP will have a hand in guiding you when/if you let Him.  Bless  you all because you are such a source of my strength.  Thank you for your postings.

Sue

hi, Well for me it was more becuz I am very close to my hp, the creator. The Bibles says we are not free to remarry unless the other spose dies or commits adultery. Also hp hates divorce, and i believe marriage is a gift from hp. I made those vows and meant them,as did my A. Alcoholism to me is no different than any other disease he might have. I would think on the lines of brain cancer. I have known my A husband all my life, seen him thru everything, a cute country boy horribly abused by his A father, watching his mom be beaten too. He was beaten when he was an older teen. I asked him recently why he did not clobber him back. He said, "He would have killed me." I don't live with my A. I wanted him too until I realized he really does not have the feelings for me he did when we got married. (a brain tumor was found when we were only married 2 mo. †he surgery cost him years of sobriety and he medically relapsed. I was not in alanon then, I had no idea what was happening. He left, he came back so many times. But this time I have not asked him to come back. I have learned so much about commitment and suffering and forgiveness by staying married to him. Also compassion is such a very very strong thing that staying with him, I have so much of. When he acts so awful or is the "pod" person, i call him that, I do my best to look for him. He also has mpd. makes it even harder. Just the last few days, he will say, yea it is me. The others don't say that. they don't all use, some do heroin, some alcohol, another nothing at all. Just being A would be enough!!! So I love him very much and thank the creator for him everyday. There are times I want to go see him at his moms. I will sleep there sometimes. If I divorce I cannot do that. When we are together, we are still one person. It is so wierd. Anyway I stay for so many reasons. I never get embarrassed by anyone elses behavior. I used to many many years ago. my mom told me we don't have any reason to be embarrassed by someone else. that anyone who judges in the first place is not anyone on want on my list of friends anyway. There were so many times i wanted to get a divorce then so many times I was so glad i didn't. lol I don't send him away, becuz it would be like cutting off my own arm. Marriage to me is forever. I know myself well enough after all these years of loving him, 36 years, writing when he got drafted to viet nam, dieing for letters from him Having his son I adore, his scent, his voice still melts me, there is no one on earth I would rather be held by, no one. sigh. more than you wanted to know eh? Those scriptures in Corinthians are why. love,debilyn

FoggyMac wrote:

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 Why do any of you stay with a practicing alcoholic? 

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Because practice makes perfect?

Dear FoggyMac, Hi, can't answer your question. My late husband was ACOA. Ha, no prob to me, so I thought, until daughter became A. Also, at same time, husband had stroke, left him paralysed in wheelchair, unable to speak. Still not enough, my son got in trouble with police, caught with Ecstasy tabs, thought it would be easier to run the country than keep my family on the straight and narrow! Well, husband died, after 27 yrs of mariage, daughter found AA and sobriety, son grew up, stopped getting in trouble. So, all is well, why didn't I get better? Maybe because this really is a family disease, we start to act in ways, we later learn, are madness. Now, I am sorry I didn't find Alanon when I much younger, realise my marriage could have been happier. But, the truth is, after the stroke, we found that old spark that brought us together in the first place. Without it, we would have been finished. I too, grew up to believe, when you make vows, you keep them. Heard on radio (or somewhere), someone said, after 20+ years of married life, spouse dies, 2 days later, you die, reunited in heaven. Except, married life on earth was horrible. We have one life, sometimes it gets down to just survival. And, remember, those vows, love, honour and keep only unto him ...... where does it say live with him, put up with all the horrors? When you are strong enough - the answer will come. It took me a long time to detach from my A daughter - now more or less resolved, but still detached, would have it no other way. Now my son, not A has psychosis, again having to detach, so hard to do, but, I have to live my life, we are given this life, it is not our choice. The choice is to live it to the best of our ability, or not. And remember, we can easily make these loved ones into false gods, how do we explain our lives were used up making excuses - we were given them to live. I sit in f2f, and hear young women talk of the nightmare of living with active As. I do not judge, I do not give advice. But, my heart says, get out of there, you worth better. Then, I realise, without recovery, they would just fall into another abusive relationship. What do I know? You are worthy of better. It will happen for you, if you work the program, whether you stay or go, working the program is for YOU, take care of yourself. Lots of love, Flora xxxx