The material presented
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I have not posted in a few days and I feel like I miss you all....so good to read some of your words just now. My boyfriend is home from re-hab for 5 days now...we are taking it one day at a time. He is happy and sober and strong and so am I...both really focusing on ourselves and our programs and on our lives. Two things I struggle with in these early days of his recovery here... First, it is hard having someone else really push me with the questions that I have been asking myself. He is so attune to me and my ways of reaction, my not owning my own words/feelings, displacing my feelings onto him to take responsibility away from myself. He calls me on my knee jerk responses every time and he is really frustrated...and I am too. These are things I have been focusing on myself, and now to have him point them out to me in a moment , I find it much harder to maintain my attempted evenkeel. I am like...hey how about what is wrong with you?!...a childish response I know...and he is right about what he points out because I am totally aware of it after the fact...and he has the right to tell me what is frustrating to him.He has been gone for 6 weeks and our dealings have been in short spurts on the phone - limited in that way and with a built in space for thinking before reacting. Now in real life I have to put those limits on myself...another challenge. Second, now I have lost my focus and don't remember what the seond one was :) Anyhow, it is good to have common language in the 12 steps and slogans and it is good to have common goals for ourselves in wanting to live more honest lives in every way...it is good to believe that change is possible, it is good to believe in miracles. Blessings and strength to you all in recovery,love, fifi
Hello, Fifi. I can understand what you are going through now. When my A came home from re-hab the first time, I think both he and I had expectations of each other. Relieved and happy he had gotten help but not realizing that it all takes time. It took a long time for things to get as bad as they did before he went to re-hab and it will not all change over-night. He is only at the beginning of a new journey - he got sober and was given tools. The hard part is learning how to use them. And the same goes for us. We just have to learn what these tools are and how to use them, I would say. And I think you each need space. You can't let the things he says get to you. He's new at clear thinking and still may not be thinking clear. He may not even understand emotions since his were buried for so long. So I guess this is where detachment comes in. You have to ignore a lot of stuff. Don't let it get in your way. Go around it. It's hard sometimes but we're all here to help and learn from each other so just stay posted. You can glean something from everyone who posts here. Take care....jaja
Hugs as you enter another door in recovery. I've learned that each has to work their own program and not be calling the other on their inventories, and though your A is in recovery and that's so awesome, he's still an A.
Don't look for your image in a cracked mirror hon, that's what you have alanon for.
yours in recovery,
Maria123
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If I am not for me, who will be? If I am only for myself, then who am I? If not now, when?
jaja wrote: Hello, Fifi. I can understand what you are going through now. When my A came home from re-hab the first time, I think both he and I had expectations of each other. Relieved and happy he had gotten help but not realizing that it all takes time. It took a long time for things to get as bad as they did before he went to re-hab and it will not all change over-night. He is only at the beginning of a new journey - he got sober and was given tools. The hard part is learning how to use them. And the same goes for us. We just have to learn what these tools are and how to use them, I would say. And I think you each need space. You can't let the things he says get to you. He's new at clear thinking and still may not be thinking clear. He may not even understand emotions since his were buried for so long. So I guess this is where detachment comes in. You have to ignore a lot of stuff. Don't let it get in your way. Go around it. It's hard sometimes but we're all here to help and learn from each other so just stay posted. You can glean something from everyone who posts here. Take care....jaja
Jaja,
I know your response was for Fifi, but I wanted to thank you because your response was an exact answer to my life questions.
I am glod you and he are both working your programs. It is a hard time when they get out of rehab. From my experience, however, sometimes the A will direct attention away from himself on to us by questioning our progress. It is a way of him to blame you. --Most of the time Al Anons are pretty codependent and if you are like me all he has to do is say it and you will dig in and start lblaming yourself. Meanwhile, He sits back and snoozes. Focus on you, hon. Set some boundaries about him correcting your behavior. His blaming you is another form of denial and will lead to relapse. I know, I am experience that relapse. The relapse, for me, has been worse than the events that lead to rehab. You, not him, know what you need to work on. You, not him, know your thoughts and motivations. You, not him, know how much you are working the steps and turning to your higher power. Please don't get sucked into to enabling him to continue with his behavior of blaming and denying his own problems. We are here for you.
fifi - much love and my prayers to you and your bf
i keep myself focused on "what does HP want me to learn???" usually that always leads me to the right path. the road is not easy, but, in my opinion, if we don't learn what HP wants us to learn, then maybe we'll have more hardship to learn it again in the future.
brightest blessings cj
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time to stop going to the hardware store to buy bread.
It's hard to deal with a sober A because of this - if he is truly trying to work his program he is becoming aware of the sickness in your home. He is starting to see unhealthy behaviour for what it is, and trying to speak about it honestly. However, he is still an A, and still more comfortable with shoving blame away than with taking it.
I guess your path would be to accept what is true about what he says, while not letting yourself get sucked into a "blame Fifi" mindset. A difficult and narrow path, but health and serenity lie further along it.
One thing, if he is calling you on your BS, you have the right and obligation to sometimes call him on his. Again, a narrow path between being honest and growing closer in trust on the one side, and taking each other's inventories rather than focusing on self, on the other. Neither of you has to be perfet at this, though. You are both growing and learning, and it takes time. Compassion and a sense of humour will stand you in good stead just now.
Hi Fifi , there is nothing like new sobriety hehe . They are sober and now we don't look so good. We went thru the same thing in early sobriety when he starts in on your defects gently interupt and say thanks for pointing that out I will work on it. argument is over. And believe it or not u won't choke on the words . gulp maybe but not choke.
My husb and I made a deal I don't get to take his inventory and he dosen't get to take m ine . most days it works . occasionally we blow it. but it sure keeps the house calm , since we both had a program and people to talk to we got out what we had to say with out hurting each other. I heard early in recovery to take my problems to a meeting or a sponsor and come home with a solution . When I remember that life is good.
The post rehab story isn't unusual. The alcoholic gets a little "dry" time and some intensive recovery sessions and come home to do the same things dry that they did while under the influence. Your alcoholic is "dry" not sober and not following a program of recovery if he is trying to inventory what you may or may not be doing. A suggestion if I may is get a sponsor in Al-Anon that you can have a stronger attachment to than your alcoholic. When he starts taking your inventory?...suggest he call his sponsor. (You cannot be your alcoholics sponsor or reason for his sobriety.) If you attend some open AA meetings you will be able to pick up what they talk about when they talk about sobriety and how long it took them to achieve what they have up to that day. I have never met a recovering alcoholic who considered 6 weeks solid sobriety and I have met thousands of them. I have rarely heard an alcoholic consider themselves "recovered" over the past 27 years. Since they are still attending meetings, have a sponsor, are working the steps, traditions and concepts of the program and working with other alcoholics to achieve sobriety, they consider it a process in progress and not and end achievement.
Get a sponsor to give you feed back on your recovery and suggestions from her own experiences.
Your alcoholic does not have the "right" to call you on your short comings or what ever you consider them to be unless you are giving him his rights. That is one way we participated in the disease. In this program I attempt to arrest that participation while the alcoholic attempts to arrest the compulsion to drink.
If you are not attending f2f Al-Anon meetings I suggest you find some. Find one to call your "home" meeting and maybe you'll find a sponsor there also.
Hi Fi, well since I am in mourning still I have to say thank you to JERRY for saying so much of what is in my heart.
Fi are you guys going to AA and Alanon face to face? Remember I suggested what AA does? 90 meetingsin 90 days?
When a person goes into rehab and I gotta say 4 weeks is minimal very minimal, it is like taking a class in Native American Literature, it is all that is on your mind.
So I suppose after all that therapy and learning he is focusing out instead of in. If it were me, I would say, hey in my experience it is better to focus on my own stuff. If he hits at you again, you could just agree. Not that ya mean it, but it makes them be quiet.
When a person is sick with a disease lets say cancer, do they start looking at you and seeing lumps and tell you to get it checked?
No, they are busy taking care of themselves.
Same as I have thought before, to me it is no different than surgery, ya get out of the hospital but it takes a long time to get your balance back.
Never mattered to me if my A was clean, meant only that it was nice to be around him for awhile. Unless he was in AA and on program, it was only temp. for sure.
Fifi - Thank you for your post, I am going through a similar situation. My AH went to rehab 1.5 years ago and has been relapsing off and on ever since. Every time he has some sober time under his belt he starts to turn his new found knowledge around on me. He is attempting sobriety again by attending meetings and he just got his first sponsor last week. Just this morning he described some relatively mundane accomplishment he made followed by, "you should try it". I wanted to punch him, but I reminded myself that he is working his program and becoming enlightened. He was not trying to critisize me, but was truly try to help. Unfortunately for him, it is not the kind of help I am interested in. Doing the dishes, yes; pointing out my flaws, no. I simply said, you worry about yourself and I will worry about myself. He acknowledged that it was inappropriate to take my inventory and apologized.
With regard to returning from treatment, this year and a half has been so much harder than pre-treatment, because there is a constant expectation that he will stay/become sober, whereas prior to treatment that didn't exist. Until your A reaches a point where he has learned how to live in the real world without alcohol, the road for you will be rough. Just don't expect for everything to be the way you dreamed it would be. Work your program, and try to be adaptable to the changes around you. And don't forget to "say what you mean, but don't say it mean." You don't have to walk on eggshells around him, just be honest and kind.
