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.
Well I'm back. Things were looking good for a while for my AD. He quit drinking for about two weeks knowing that I was coming with my wife and kids and his brother and hit wife.
The whole Memorial Day weekend was really good. I talked with my Mom and she was telling me about here alanon meetings and that my AD had started going to AA meetings. He looked good and he looked like he was coming around.
We (me and my wife) did get reamed by my Aunt and Uncle for not telling them what had been happening. He is undergoing a kidney transplant next month and the last thing we felt they needed thrown on their plates was being told that his brother had fallen off the wagon.
Okay bad case of judgement on my part. I felt I what I did was the right thing but live and learn.
Now of course though the moment everyone left my AD was back hitting the bottle again. Talked with my Mom yesterday and she says he has been drunk since Thursday. She is still going to her meetings and if things don't start changing she is going to come and stay with us for a few days so she can get away and recharged her batteries. I think if it was up to her she would stay longer but she has to also take care of her 91 year old mother.
I guess right now I'm pretty dissapointed and angry about this. I honestly thought he had turned the corner because of the fact that he actually went to a couple of meetings, which was something he was totally against just a month earlier.
It is incredible to see what this disease can do. I worry more right now about my mother who has to live with this man that has invaded my Dad's body. Thankfully though she has been going to her meetings and you can see and hear the strength building in her again just from talking to her on the phone which is a good thing.
At this point I'm lost. I don't know if he wants to get well or if he is just playing us till we leave. The one thing I know is that I cannot and will not subject my wife or my kids to this kind of behavior. How can I if I don't trust him anymore ?
Shawn, It's so hard not to disappointed and angry. It's so hard to learn to trust them, to actually trust them, and it's virtually impossible not to feel brutalized when they violate that trust yet again. Glad your Mom can get away for a while. We never can know if they really want help or if it's all a big sham for someone elses benefit. We can only control ourselves and how we react. I'm learning to try to stop analyzing my AHs every move and what his intentions are. I find peace in that. What will be, will be. Hang in there. Bobbi
Shawn, I am very sorry that your AD is active again. Of course you feel angry. Most of us do when they succumb to the disease, but if love or just wanting to be sober cured this disease there would be no alcoholism. I know my AH wanted to get better long before he finally made it to solid sobriety. And all A's are at risk for falling off the wagon, no matter how long they have been sober. There is no cure for this disease. I thank my HP for this program that is here to keep us strong and help us find the serenity to deal with our loved ones who suffer from this disease, A's and Al-Anons alike.
For me it was much easier to keep my serenity when I reminded myself that it is a disease and my AH wasn't doing this to me. It isn't about me. Its about his fight to stay alive. The disease uses denial and guilt and self-hatred to keep its victim helpless to fight it. My only part is to keep my own side of the street clean and not add to its ammo, by adding my own hurt feelings to the burden the A already carries.
My AH told me one time (when he finally got near the bottom)," when I look at myself all I see is a monster." He was crying and this was not an act. I told him that I wish he could see what I saw. I see a kind and loving person who doesn't deserve to hurt like this.
Our program says we'll love you til you can love yourself. The other programs say that too. I am grateful that my program taught me to love my AH even when he hated himself. I learned to have compassion for him and see past my own suffering. It didn't happen quickly, but it did happen. And that's the way it works. Your AD probably won't get sober tommorrow, but with the support of this program, you and your Mom will be fine. Hopefully he'll see that and want some of it. Many do.
I don't think you all got played. I think your AD held it together as long as he could for all of you. Butremember he can't get sober for all of you. He has to do this for him. He has to find it in himself to love himself enough to save himself.
So the question now is what can you do for yourself? What do you need to regain and maintain your own serenity?
Coming here has helped me so much. So has f2f meetings and local program friends that I can call to help keep me grounded.
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
They call it a "cunning and baffling" disease for good reason.... when we think they have hit their bottom, or that they have chosen sobriety, or all sorts of other things, the disease sneaks up and bites them again.... Nobody knows the answer as to whether or not your AD is being purposefully manipulative or not, but the answer to that question really isn't all that important, or at least certainly not as important as the "what" questions.....
I'd encourage you to figure out, for you, what you need to get better from all this crud..... Sometimes it sounds weird to hear that WE need recovery from their drinking, but I believe that we do..... This can come in the form of posting at boards like this, going to F2F Al-Anon meetings, and reading good books on the subject matter (preferably all three of the above!). One book I would highly recommend is "Getting Them Sober", volume one, by Toby Rice Drews..... It was a virtual lifesaver for me, and I think it will help you understand a lot more about what to expect, and likely what your AD is going through.
Take care, and keep coming back
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?"
Shawn, I agree with Jen, she is right own. We love the person, and hate the disease. I am glad your Mother is going to f2f meetings. That is great. Have you been able to go yourself? By attending meetings I have found the strength and hope to deal with the problems Alcoholism causes in my life. I am so thankful for the Al-Anon Program, and the Members here on MIP. I like a lot of Members must always remember Step #1 of our program. "We admitted we were powerless over alcohol - and that our lives had become unmanageable." Keep coming back, get to some f2f meeting, and accept that you have no control over your AD's disease. RLC
Just my two cents to the rest of the guys who are right on.
First it is normal for an alcoholic to drink alcoholically and not normal for them to not drink at all. Your Dad is doing what is normal...not good normal. He has a life threatening disease that cannot be cured. It can only be arrested by total abstinence. He went to a couple of AA meetings maybe something will take hold in his heart and head. Maybe. Maybe HP has set something up and needs a little prayer from the mutual son. Serenity prayer is a good one ask your Mom how it goes.
This is a disease...nothing more nothing less. To me it is the grand-daddy of all diseases for lots of reasons. It is said that one alcoholic will negatively affect 20 people in their life. The number is low for me...I've seen worse. The liver transplant? I've known of one alcoholic who has gone thru three livers and continues to drink toward his own demise. Cunning, Powerful and Baffling; stick around with an open mind and you will see that one of the choices an alcoholic has besides death and sobriety is insanity.
You are not alone. Hang with the people in the program especially recovering men. Why because men will usually try to tangle with this disease with their brains, analytically. I have never met a man who figured this whole thing out and arrived at serenity as a recovery...I thought I as close until I got honest with myself. Much real recovery comes from feeling recovery, experiencing the changes, becoming aware of what I have and what I don't in order to exist on the same planet as the disease without it taking any part of me away.
Keep coming back. Listen to the suggestions and followup. (((((hugs)))))
Thanks for all the responses...It is good to know that there is a place where I can vent
My feelings right now is that this isn't going to have a happy ending, just from having converstations with both my mother and Aunt that have talked to him this week. I know there is not much I can do except hope that somewhere down the road my AD sees the light.
Friend in the Fellowship We Really Wish Was Family,
The title of your post caught my eye and that takes some doing because neither one is very good, they don't work together, but here's the joke: I'm becoming known as a successful (of sorts) Fine Arts Photgrapher.
Things like that are hard for me to say, to think....those things that others see no reason why they wouldn't apply to me, but I can.
So.
Not having read anything but the title, with the greatest of compassion, and not knowing
anything of "seeds" planted so long ago, we forget who helped: THE POINT OF PROGRAM: Me.
Any boy, am I talking to myself, because in every painful experience can be traced to either instigating of enabling the game itself and really play the game....at least I never do, I think smugly.
I always have to back to First Cause: There was a question and it only required a "yes," or a "no," and then at that age in my life is when I realized that now's difficulties in any situation is always eased when I look honestly where my part was. Too often, it would start with me being "the nice guy." They don't do very well because they are dishonest.
I always have to ask if I can even have enough imagination to see so far ahead, that when looking back, I see now, where I started it. Or didn't stop.
I owned up to so much of that; it hurts, but I'm more whole...dark and light.
God Bless and forgive if my words offend; but your words caught my attention and I did not want to read the specifics, but instead, take off into the part people point to, but don't act out because it's so hard: feelings
