The material presented
here is not Al-Anon Conference Approved Literature. It is a method
to exchange
information, ideas, feelings, problems and solutions on a personal
level.
I can't even make it through a post without crying, I can now see that I'm not alone. I feel like my life has been ripped apart over the past year. I starting dating a guy a year and a half ago. I knew he liked to drink, but I never knew what alcoholism really was, but I found out. We had fun for a couple of weeks then one day he just turned on me and started making accusations. I had no clue what was going on and I pleaded with him that what he was saying was not true, and that has been the pattern ever since. I don't even understand why I would sit there and take it, I needed him to believe me. Why? I got pregnant (not good news at the time, but i wouldn't take it back for anything) and he likes to say he was soooo happy about it but when I look back at it I don't remember happiness, I remember him telling me I would have to take the test in front of him (after I showed him the second test I took) for him to believe me. He tried to quit numerous times before, but after he found out he was going to be a father he actually made progress. For a little over a month. Then one day he again turned on me telling me what an awful person I was doing all these terrible things to him. During the pregnancy he'd leave me messages that he loved me one day and the next day he'd leave me a hateful message. I fell for every promise he made me, moved in with him so our child could grow up with a mother and a father. But even with him there I was the only parent taking care of my child plus one. I started packing my stuff one day, when he came home and saw this, he told me to get the **** out. Its been a few months since then and he had given up on me because I wouldn't leave our son with him without supervision. Now he's in jail (drinking related - numerous charges) and I miss him. How can I miss him?
Thanks for this message board, it puts some sanity back in my life.
You are definitely in the right place. I remember right after I moved out missing the chaos of living with the A. I felt like part of my life was gone, the exciting part LOL. As time has gone on, I have changed so much as a person and all I can tell you now having left about 16 mos ago is that it gets better, it gets easier and it sounds like you are doing really well with setting boundaries. My A just got out of jail in Oct. and has been living in a shelter since then. I am sorry that you have to go through this but I promise it will make you stronger! Take care of you and your son and put the two of you first in everything.
"without such spiritual help, living with an alcoholic is too much for most of us. OUR thinking becomes distorted by trying to force solutions, and we become irritable and unreasonable without knowing it."
"we too were lonely and frustrated"
"the family situation is bound to improve as we apply the alanon ideas"
When I first started going to meetings, I was just - amazed - that apparently intelligent people clearly felt - by the fact that they made the effort to be there - that alanon could help with this kind of helpless feeling.
I encourage you to look for a f2f (face to face) meeting near you - www.al-anon.alateen.org/meetings/meeting.htm has links to sites for various states and countries. When you go to a meeting, you can get a free newcomer packet that has several good pamphlets that talk about alcoholism, alcoholics, and our relationship to them. Some meetings even have child care. And in between, online meetings or the forum are great.
I never understood why the thing people kept saying was, "keep coming back". Then after I had been in the program for a while, and started trying to figure out what the very best thing was to say to a newcomer, I realized that as long as a newcomer is HERE (or there, lol, at a meeting) they have the opportunity to continue learning and absorbing and sharing and helping others, in whatever way and order is right for THEM. Sometimes it's slow and frustrating; but if they quit coming to meetings - they don't have that opportunity at all.
dgm, not that this really matters but it is also possible that he has some undiagnosed mental illness issues, from the sound of it. Some of what you wrote reminds me of bi-polar disorder or borderline personality disorder. Just a thought. REGARDLESS, you are welcome here and coming here will help tremendously, so will attending face to face al-anon meetings. hugs, J.
His sister was just diagnosed with bi-polar disorder. I kind of thought he might have had it but everyone just blamed it on the alcohol. He thought that someone was paying me to mess with his life and to get pregnant. He would wake up in the middle of the night when the dogs would bark and shoot his gun into the cornfield, the dogs didn't even have to bark and he'd do it.
Bi-polar disorder is inherited genetically so if his sister has it, its in his genetic family and he could also. Many are "dual-diagnosis" as in both Bi-polar and alcoholic/addicted to drugs. or they self medicate using alcohol and illegal drugs instead of prescribed ones under a doctors care
My AH is bipolar. Not on meds and not in recovery, hence we are now 2 years separated. Nuf said! laughing (not crying thank goodness because of al-anon), J.
PS: your post reminded me of the time when I thought having a baby together would make him love me more and make him straighten out some how. Boy, my HP sure was protecting me on that one, thank God! I now know that it would not have made a lick of difference and I would have been saddled and connected for life, to boot.
