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Hi all, Thank you for the responses from the last post. Maybe I came off as a little strong, but I want to make it clear that I didn't set the alarm clock because it's not my responsibility to make sure he gets up to go to work drunk.......
Anyways, I made a big mistake today. My AH has been drunk for so long, and I'm scared that he's killing himself. He even looks discolored, yellow tint, like jaundice. So I called his mom and we decided to intervene and take him to a detox facility. When he woke up, I told him " Your mom is coming over because we're going to take you to detox, because we're scared you're killing yourself and we don't want you to die". His response was a bunch of cuss words I can't use here and he went out to the storage closet off our patio to smoke and to drink his case of beer he had hidden in there. I went to go smoke also, and he said, "Well if I'm going to detox I'm going to get F****d up!" I called his mom and told her nevermind and he didn't want to go. I felt so stupid for thinking that I could make him get help. But I feel that he's so far gone maybe he can't help himself. Am I stupid for thinking that? He's lost so much in the last year, and he is progressivly getting worse. I've read all the books, like getting them sober, which was a very helpful book, and coming here helps. But I'm to the point where I'm so tired of it all. I'm so ready to just give up. I want so bad for him to just leave and go live somewhere else. He's said before that he doesn't know what he'd do if I ever left him, and I'm the best thing that's ever happened to him. So I'm scared that if I do leave or kick him out, or whatever.... if things get bad enough that he'll try to kill himself. He has threatened that so many times after actually trying it once. So it's in my head, and I know I can't do anything to stop that, prevent it, or anything, but I still worry.
I just want him out of my life right now because I feel like I can't handle it anymore. I feel I've been strong for 9yrs and very supportive, and loving, but I am trying think about me now. And he is not good for me.
I guess that's why I was excited when I thought he was going to detox. He would be somewhere safe for a little while and I wouldn't have to worry about him. I would finally get some sleep, and be able to go to work and function and go to school, and not worry if he was going to be able to get home that night, drunk.
I'm just in a very lonely, bad place right now and I need to get my mind right. I wish so much I could call home and ask my parents for help. But I don't want them to worry about me. Especially when I'm not ready to leave everything here yet, like my job and school. They live across the country. I miss them and home so much I want to cry.
I'm such a downer, I know... thinking positively, I have all A's in my classes, and he's asleep for now. And all I have to worry about is me for the night.
I feel anger and I hate alcoholism. I pray that one day they'll find a cure for it.
Thank you all for listening. I really need to work on staying positive and not letting this disease affect me that way I'm letting it now. And I will try my hardest, CJ
CJ, if I were in your position right now, I would get my butt to as many F2F al-anon meetings as possible. I am a straight-A student also and just about done with graduate school and I needed to not be in contact with my A in order to focus and do as well as I have. I really desperately needed to get A's so that I would get tuition waivers. No tuition waivers, no school for me! I had to put myself first. He has been madder than hell ever since and I am pretty sure I will never hear the end of it until the moment I die.
Put yourself first- a really great way to do this is to go to as many meetings as you can. They really are one single hour of sanity in your day/evening, guaranteed.
Take care, you sound like you have a lot going for you. Hugs, J.
What you are going through is terrifying; and what you described... I have been there, too! Thinking, "This is it, he is going to die!" and wishing he were out of my life so that I could have some peace. Don't you feel like a yo-yo? Except mostly on the downswing?
Our A's manipulate us so badly into NOT CHANGING (for the good of ourselves) so that they can keep on benefitting from us... they keep us right where they want us. Ugh!
I have a very hard time sharing with my family what I am going through, too. Don't want to worry them; don't want to disappoint them for not taking their loving suggestions, they won't understand, etc.
We isolate then instead. Keep it all inside. Get all anxious and then angry... then the feelings we have turn inside toward us and we start to get depressed & hate ourselves. Some of us even get to the point where we just want to die to escape it all. Ugh #2!
I'm proud of you for not setting that alarm! What a very difficult thing that had to be... to resist doing for your A what he could do for himself.
Recently I didn't help my A into treatment... I left him out there on his own to fend for himself. But his family came along and rescued him, because I wouldn't.
They have him going through the motions of hospitalization, then rehab again... and then he will attend meetings for a couple of months. And then... he will drink... again! Over & over & over again. It's happening more & more & closer together, too.
But I am so happy that I didn't "do" anything this time. There was "nothing" I could do, so that it exactly what I did... NOTHING! How liberating!
I'm still sad that he is alcoholic and I miss the guy I used to know. And I still get anxious, angry, go into rages and feel depressed. But I also feel better because I have stepped away from it and am getting some much-needed fresh air.
First you are in NO way a downer. I am glad you came back.
I want you to know, and believe, what you are going thru, we all have felt in some way or another. Most of them do threaten suicide, the thing is C they are already doing it slowly. We have no control over that.
My AH died twice that I know of and was zapped back.I told him to get out both times. I never felt a tiny bit of guilt.
There is nothing you can do for him, except take care of you.
Hey no it was not a mistake at all!!Your A is sick and out of control. If he would go to detox, at least he would dry out for awhile. Every day is precious. As long as you don't put any expectations on him, take him to rehab. It is true unless they get themselves there themselves, doing a recovery program is not likely. But those thirty days, he does not use, and may learn something.
Think of it as a remission.
We do relate to "OH please put him in jail so I can rest!"
C I drove for almost four hours to get mine to detox. Then the idiots sent him home to wait for a bed in the rehab part.....They have to be sober to go in the VA rehab.
Most all get loaded or whatever before they go in. Just natural for them.
I took him again to rehab, next day he took the bus home. rrrrrrr
Your roller coaster is slamming you into the ground.
If you were my girl, I would want you to call me,that is for sure. I invite you to call them, but at the beginning tell them what you need from them.
You need to vent, you need to be allowed to make your own decisions.Then ask them for their input.
It may help you in ways you never thought of.
Believe me he does not like what the disease is doing to him, and he really feels guilty and horrible inside to see what it does to you.
If you are ready to have him leave,have him leave. You will know you are ready when the disease is much worse to live with than you finally being on your own.
does not mean you cannot love him.
I know it is horribly hard, but we know from experience, some A's need to be super super miserable to get the survival part of their brain and heart to take over, and get him to crawl to AA.
Going to face to face meetings will help you. Just the atmosphere of being with others who relate feels good.
I can see how sick you feel.Must be horribly hard to be going to classes. I went back in my fourties, if anything was off in my heart,I was a dipstick at college.
Please keep posting, it helps sooo much to get it out. I spent hours and hours in the chat room when my AH left the first time.I was so in love,he was so sick.I never ever thought this would happen, we were so in love and so close. Soul mates all our lives.
I know you will be ok no matter what you do. I can feel the miracles in you.
hugs,debilyn oh ps, maybe encourage mom to come with you to alanon.She must feel so afraid for her son and you.
Mine did kill himself, a slow death that took several years. He contracted AIDS shortly after I left him, and was buried last year at the age of 47 due to complications from AIDS.
There was nothing left of the marriage, and he had become violent and psychotic. He completed a 30 day rehab and went back to the same old same old.
I don't regret for a minute leaving him because I was drowning in the insanity.
I will keep you in my prayers, dear lady!
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"If a dog will not come to you after having looked you in the face, you should go home and examine your conscience." - Woodrow Wilson
