I just read the roller coaster post and wow!! i am certainly not alone. I also read a reply about journaling and remembered that I had said that on the last ride. Perhaps I will start tonight. I am sitting here while my A is "at a meeting" I highly doubt that is the case, as I have that gut feeling that he has picked up again. I found myself checking the cell phone, looking in the hiding places etc as soon as he left. wow, how quick I revert to that behaviour. I remember his promises when i visited him in rehab last month. I am going to come home and things will be different. I will get a sponsor, go to meetings everyday, go to therapy, get involved in the program, go back to mountainside to "keep it real" yada yada yada.. Meetings are getting fewer, no sponsor, no therapy, no service commitments, no going back ad keeping it real. I want to believe that he meant it at the time. It was the best I had seen him in so long. Did he want it, was it yet another manipulation??? I want it all to just end, I am so tired. I believed it would get better but it is not, and now I cannot even talk about it with him. I am lost again and feel like I am sinking. I have been trying to use some of the tools I am learning in Alanon, however, they only seem to be working in other areas of my life. I guess I was a fool to think it would just poof go away..

Hi Confused,

I am so very sorry you are feeling this way.  I am feeling the same way you are.  I just wish it was over.  I can't handle the manipulation, the lies, the mistreatment, the distrust, the drinking, the stupid behavior, the mean behavior... the man in the bottle.  I've come to the point that it doesn't matter if he "meant it at the time".  Meaning it and following through on it are separate issues.  I've decided that I want to be treated better, that I don't diserve this treatment, that even though I am frightened at the thought, I am selling the business and divorcing him.

Hang in there.  You can survive this.  You have the power to make your life better.  Examine what you want and go for it.  It is scary, it is frightening, it is the unknown,  but it has to be better than what you are currently experiencing, and it will be your choice.

Sending best wishes.

 

 

 

 amen to that!

Hello Confused , you don't say if your going to al anon meetings for yourself.If not I hope u will go soon for both your sakes .  I was told that a A cannot go home to an old idea and stay clean and sober.  I was also told tht I was the old idea .  Everyone  has to change not just the Alcoholic . i was not impressed when someone told me that . But I know now what they meant  even with a program I watched (he knew I was watching)  i slid  into victim role way too easy you know poor me  How could u do this to us? well he wasn't doing it to us he was doing it to himself  Al-Anon educated me about t his disease and my part in it.

My hsub slipped too , but thanks to this prog  I was able to leave the problem where it belonged with him while I continued on in my recovery.  I  had to learn to stay out of his face and off his back. and I believe that when your husb made those promises to you he meant them but this disease is way to powerful to handle alone and if he isn't reaching out may be too much to handle . Pray that he finds his way back and you will find your way to our rooms .

good luck  Louise

HI.... you weren't a fool for being hopeful that it would magically disappear, just naive.  And I would venture that we ALL have been there, some of us for long periods of time...

I would just encourage you to stick with YOUR recovery, in Al-Anon and your other tools.... 

One of my favourite lines from my recovery, told to me by a counselor in a treatment center where my wife was attending:

"she is either gonna drink, or she won't..... what are YOU gonna do?"

 

Take care of you first, and the other stuff will become clearer...

Take care

Tom