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Okay, I have a question about binge drinking. I know when we're practicing al-anon, we only worry about ourselves and not the alcoholic, their disease is their thing etc etc. Yet, when you have an A that is a binge drinker and has been on the wagon with the program AA etc, and they relapse, are you 'allowed' to step in to help them stop their binge or do you only step in if and when they ask for help to stop? (with binge drinking they go through a dry period and when they relapse, they are unable to stop normally without medical help or what not)
What i'm trying to say is he went from a sober to a complete binge, when this happens, it's extremely heavy drinking for a week or however long it takes before he ends up in the ER, so i leave him to drink himself to death until someone else ends up calling 911, or intervene to get him medical care?
Thank you
I should also add that his last binge was almost 2 years ago...
I'm afraid I can only come up with a question, in answer to your question....
How would you think you'd be able to "help them stop" this binge drinking??
In my opinion, you can't "cause his sobriety" anymore than you can "cause his drunkenness"..... I don't see that there is any difference for a binge drinker, over an everyday drinker....
Tom
__________________
"He is either gonna drink, or he won't.... what are YOU gonna do?"
"What you think of me is none of my business"
"If you knew the answer to what you are worrying about, would it REALLY change anything?"
Many of us have tried to stop an A from hurting themselves to no avail. The only person you can control is you.
If I do something to try to shorten a binge then i am enabling by not allowing him to feel the full consequences of his behavior. I would be cushioning his fall so to speak.
Of course if he collapses in my living room (and I don't just mean passes out), then of course I will call 911.
I agree that I don't think it makes a difference if its binging or not. You can't control his disease and you are not the cause of him getting hurt by it.
The question is what can you do to preserve your own serenity. I am glad you found us here. There are some really great people on this board. Have you found a face2face meeting yet? They have lots of good liturature.
Keep coming back.
In recovery,
__________________
~Jen~
"When you come to the edge of all you know you must believe in one of two things... there will be earth on which to stand or you will be given wings." ~Unknown
"We" (i.e. myself & A-bf's family) have intervened numerous times with his binge drinking. It seems that it has only gotten worse & worse & worse over time. We, too, fear that he will die from it eventually. We are actually quite powerless to stop it. I gave up; but his family is still trying. It has to be a hell for them.
It got to the point where I would only "do" something if he finally asked for help. Prior to that, I would call hospitals, or 911, or Rehab Centers and be told, "We cannot make him go into treatment... he has to want to go."
Over time he has become a shell of a person; a habitual liar; a person who is quite good at covering up his drinking. Alcoholism has a powerful hold on him. I don't know if he will ever be "in recovery" again. It is in God's hands. I lost him to alcoholism a long time ago; I lost contact with him earlier this year.
#1 - I need to let him do whatever he's going to do as if I'm not even there. Not like I'm really "there" in my A's mind, anyhow, when he's drinking. He's too wrapped up in his disease to see past his own nose.
#2 - I try to put a different spin on it: How would I feel if I were in his shoes and I had family and friends pushing me and pushing me and pushing me to do something that, while they have good intentions, I personally have no intentions of stopping? I CAN relate to my A in the terms of weight loss. I used to weigh 220 pounds, and every time a family member or friend would let me know they're concerned about my weight, I only took it as something hurtful they said about me. I KNEW I was in a very unhealthy situation, but I was NOT ready to change until it was MY time to do it. I was the one who would decide, and it would NOT have been based on doing it to make my parents or my friends or other relations happy. I didn't start to fix myself until I got to my own "bottom" with my weight issues to where I said "jeez - I've had ENOUGH of this! I'm going to seriously work on myself!" It was then that I honestly sought the help that I needed, and THEN was the time where I loved family's encouragement, but I really, REALLY resented it if they saw me eat a piece of cake and told me "are you supposed to be eating that?"
So - if you have a fault of your own that you know deep down needs work on, even a fault that's downright unhealthy and/or dangerous but you're not ready yet to work on it, would you appreciate having family and friends pushing the issue with you all the time? Probably not. A lot of us get pretty stubborn and keep up the bad behaviors, etc. just to spite others... or, we feel guilty about it and all it does is drive us to perpetuate the faults more and more.
Been there. To me it is like putting water into a leaky bucket,no matter how much water you add, it leaks right out. There is nothing anyone can do to stop them.
The first step is we are "powerless." I checked to see if my A was breathing all the time. Was always afraid to leave him alone. that did not stop him as he went home to mommies and on two occasions that I know of he od'ed and had to go to be ambulanced to er.
They are so sick. it is sad. hugs to you.love,debilyn
You already got it...call 911 and ask for the professionals. That may help save a life. The thing about relapse whether it is binge or just a return, it is worse than anytime before because the disease keeps running while they are sober and when they return the compulsion and body are doing "catch-up" to make up for lost time. They don't return to where they started they return to when they left off.
You don't need his permission or request to call 911. Drunkeness is also known as intoxification or poisoned.
Good reach for help...keep coming back. (((((hugs)))))
My A would avoid home during a binge. He would just disappear. What I would have done then and what I would do now are two totally different things. I agree with Jerry!
I have to be so careful with the over responsibility issue. I got lost in it last summer with the A I was with. For me its about am I taking care of me rather than them. Can I live without them. When I couldn't live without him I did EVERYTHING but everything to make him stop. I intervened over and over an dover again and I called that caring unfortunately the caring wasn't for me, it was for him. I then came here and started to work the program and did all kinds of tools here. I started to detach and when I detached I realised there really wasn't much I could do about his drinking/using/whatever. He carried on using regardless of what I did, how I was, what I contributed, whatever. He used and I reacted that was about the sum of it. I think it may sound incredible to say focus on yourself but when I focused on myself I moved myself out the vantage point of his disaster. Then I could choose whether I acted or not and not feel compelled to. I was no longer re-sponsible to him. These days I leave the responsibility for his life to him because he (the exA is after all an adult) and I have too much to do in re-sponsibility to my own life.
There are no hard fast rules here, no one is going to rip you to shreds if you "help" the A. I did for years, every single person here has done that. The issue is do you want to re-cover yourself rather than focus solely on him.
