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.
In April, I met and fell in love with a man living at the local Salvation Army in their recovery program for alcoholism. He was nearing the end of nine months there and had been sober for 12 months. He presented himself and his situation very well. He talked about his transformation, his shift in perspective, and how he was entirely through with drinking.
I trusted him. I believed him. More so, I believed in him.
When it was time for him to leave the Salvation Army, there were no attractive housing options for him -- being that he has no money and no job. He could have moved into a half-way house, but this felt like it would be stalling his ability to get back into working as well as restrict the development of our relationship. So, instead, he moved in with me.
That was the beginning of June. I have been dealing with some anxiety over the two months as I have watched him cease attending AA meetings and put distance between himself and that world of "recovery". I did not expect this to happen, though I understand his relief to be away from the world where all of his moves were being policed - and that he is undergoing some big adjustments. What has transpired for me are feelings of isolation.
On Monday morning, I went to work. Everything seemed normal.
Around mid-day, I got a phone call from him --- over which he became hysterical, very emotional, and seemingly very depressed - though, he said that it was the opposite, he was very happy - but he could not stop crying, and it sounded like there was a lot of pain in his tears. He kept saying that he wanted to talk. He wanted me to listen but he wasn't able to verbalize what was going on with him in any kind of coherence.
He kept saying "what am I supposed to do with all of these feelings?"
I suggested that he sit down and spend the afternoon writing. I was having my own trouble with the fact that he was calling me like this while I was at work. What was I supposed to do? I gave him what time and emotion I could and then I had to go back to work.
He called back, having reigned in the tears, and said that he was going to walk up to the store and buy a cigar. He was going to smoke the cigar and undergo a personal transformation. He asked if I was ok with him doing this. I said that was his choice. At this point, I am already thinking that he may have already started drinking - or would shortly -- but again, I cannot let myself be too effected by this. I am at work -however, I realize that I have no idea what I may find when I come home and I must prepare myself for this.
When I get home, he is asleep on the bed. The vibe is very different than other days. Usually, he would have music on and be starting dinner. I wake him up and immediately smell the alcohol on his breath. I ask him what's going on with him and he's evasive.
I ask him if he drank. He says "No". I ask him if he smoked. He says "Yes". I ask him again if he drank. He says, "why?" I say, "because I can smell it".
He then said, "I suck" and got up and went to the bathroom.
When he returned, we started the conversation over and he said that he just drank a beer. what's the big deal? I say, "just one beer?" He says when he went to the store for the cigar, he grabbed a large 32 oz beer - which he chugged on the way back to the house and then ditched in some other trash can. As he wanted to feel that freedom - of buying the beer, know it was still there, both at the store and in its effect -- but he didn't want to bring it into the house. He said it could have gotten a lot worse -- he was feeling bad about the experiment. He stopped before it got out of control and did what he was supposed to do.
I had expected this might be what I'd find when I came home but I was still very effected. The world felt turned upside down. On top of this, he initially lied to me and tried to cover it up. We had made an agreement that we would be honest with each other - even when it was hard. He said it wasn't really like a lie because he had shame and he didn't want to worry me. I said that is often why people lie but it is still lying.
The rest of the evening was not a happy one. The emotions experienced are not as important as where we are now. Some good things were said and a degree of understanding was struck. Yet, there is a lot that is still very troubling.
Yesterday - 24 hours later - I told him that I still believed in him. He said he really appreciated this. Yet, I wish that was the whole of the story and I know it isn't. I also told him that I didn't want him to think that I only loved the non-drinking him-- though that *was* part of the picture of him that I bought into. He said he understood -- that if you buy a house with air-conditioning, you want the air conditioning to work.
This has really shaken things up and I am now feeling even more isolated. I don't feel like I can talk to any of my friends or family as I am also feeling shameful -- While I told people things about his background -- I'm shameful about talking about what happened and having those close to me think that I misplaced my trust and made a poor decision. I lived in isolation before -- within an abusive marraige -- and I do not want to start down that road again.
I have talked to him about my feelings of isolation and my wishes around him bringing at least one person in his recovery world into our world so that we can talk to them about what happened on Monday. However, this is not within his realm of comfort. He does not want anyone to know. He is unwilling to even talk to his sponsor. He says that he wishes he could talk to someone from that world and have it remain truly anonymous - but even though they say that it will - it never does. People talk and he doesn't want everyone in his business.
It seems he wants to carry this on his own -- even continuing to talk to me about it is causing him angst and he wishes that I would just let it go.
I quit smoking a few months ago and after the first two weeks, I smoked a cigarette. He is comparing this to that and says that he did not make an issue about the one cigarette. He says that he is not going to start drinking again, that it tore him up to see how it effected me, and that his big mistake is that he let himself get selfish.
(This is yet another thing that I am worried about -- that future not-drinking could become at least partly continient upon pleasing me, i.e. another person. Or -- if he does drink again, he will just make sure to hide it better.)
Yet, I am most worried about the emotions that led up to whole event. His inability to verbalize what he was feeling. His need to *do* something with the feelings. He went through a lot of counseling at the Salvation Army, but apparently -- there is still a lot of buried emotion -- perhaps this is the next round, the next layer just now surfacing.
I do not know what to do with it all. I need some sort of help.
I am also worried about his desire to handle it all on his own. The chance that he may be choosing to enter back into a cycle of "strong man" rather than taking this opportunity to keep to the humility, honesty, and connectedness that was in his life just a few months ago when I met him, much that attracted me to him. I have told him my feelings about all of this. I have also told him that I will trust him and let this be his process.
Still, I'm worried about what this may do to both himself and to us -- but I cannot control how he decides to deal with this next leg of the journey. Unfortunately, if this goes terribly wrong -- then at this point, it goes terribly wrong for me, as well.
I don't want to ignore anything right now for fear that it may all build up and rear its ugly head later on. Unfortunately, I don't know what it is that shouldn't be ignored and I'm being told that there is nothing to worry about or deal with.
If you have any words of advice, wisdom, or experiences of your own that might help me, I would really like to hear it.
How incredibly sad. It never ceases to amaze me how powerful the disease of alcoholism is.
I know I cannot help the alcoholic with his drinking issues. The three C's come to mind... I didn't cause it, I can't control it, and I can't cure it. Any advice he asks of me would not be helpful coming from me because I just don't fully understand the disease like another alcoholic would. My only advice ever to an alcoholic would be to get to a meeting and call his sponsor.
Outside of that, then I need to turn the focus over to myself. When I get really stirred up and scared... start obsessing on the bazillion "what ifs?", I have to start working MY program. What tools has Al-Anon given me? There's the twelve steps, the serenity prayer, the slogans... meetings and my own sponsor... these things can set me back on track to a place where I can meet life's challenges with a calm, loving and rational mind.
The only advice I would give to you is to get to as many Al-Anon meetings as you can in the next week. Find a sponsor and start working the steps. Your answers will come as you work the program for yourself.
I agree with Aloha in being amazed at the power that alcoholism has over people. Those who drink and those who don't.
What struck me about your story is at the beginning where you said:
"He could have moved into a half-way house, but this felt like it would be stalling his ability to get back into working as well as restrict the development of our relationship. So, instead, he moved in with me. "
Less than two months later, you find yourself in this predicament. You said the situation "felt like it would be stalling his ability to..." but you didn't say YOU felt it would be stalling HIM so YOU decided that he could move in with you. I'm wondering what you were thinking when you made that decision. Were you "rescuing" him? That's a classic move for those of us who are co-dependent. OR.. were you happy for the opportunity to "fix" him and mold the developing relationship into what YOU wanted it to be? Or was it that you really do know a lot about the disease and took on the therapist-mother-sponsor role for him that a half-way house could have done instead?
I'm just saying there must have been some motivation there for you to invite someone with such a multi-faceted mental disorder and physical disease into your world, and I'm suggesting that you take a look at that. We usually don't give advice here in Al-Anon, but we do ask hard questions for you to consider for yourself.
I'm thinking that if you get honest with yourself about your motivation for the decision you made two months ago, the answer about "what to do next" will appear.
I have a "half-nephew" who is an alcoholic and pot smoker. He will live off women. He's tall and good looking and charming. And I could just hear him giving his very valid, to him, reasons for the things he does. He also has a wonderful speaking voice, low in pitch and soft-spoken.
I am thinking there must have been something very compelling about the man you met, when he was living at the Salvation Army.
I hope you decide to take care of you.
Hugs, Temple
__________________
It's easy to be graceful until someone steals your cornbread. --Gray Charles
hmm. Thank you for your responses Aloha and Gran. I have located a meeting to go to tonight.
Gran, I appreciate your hard questions and I will attempt to answer them. I have been really nervous about the decision to have him live with me at this time.
This was not my initial plan. The Salvation Army began changing their rules in his last month of residency prohibiting all communication between us except through US post. He decided he was done with their program -- he had graduated the initial six month program. Not having anywhere to go after this, he had stayed for the next three month program with the belief that more would be done to help him with a "re-entry plan". What was promised was not delivered and disillusionment with the Salvation Army as an organization set in. I, myself, am quite disillusioned with their program. They don't seem to want people to leave and find work, outside of continuing to work within the organization for peanuts.
Since he was unable to make his own phone calls, I set up the logistics with the recommended half-way house and then I went and retreived him from the Salvation Army and took him there. Upon touring the house, we learned that there was a curfew. I went against my better judgement and instead of checking him in there that night - we decided to spend the weekend together and then check him in on Monday. However, we did not check him in on Monday either.
Beyond the mutual discomfort around the curfew aspect -- there was the money involved, and even with state general assisance - he really wouldn't have any. It all seems really daunting and depressing -- esp. when I picture that house with its handful of really down and out looking guys just staring at a television. Perhaps mistakenly, I thought I could offer him a less stressful environment and existance. So, in that, I was making some effort to help save him and do what I could to get him over some tough hurdles related to "re-entry".
I know that he is not my responsibility. I know that his problems are not my problems. I know that I did not have to open up my house to him, especially before he had proven his ability to really stand on his own.
And yet, if no one ever helped anyone else, where would we all be?
I do understand why you elected to allow this man to move in with you. You trusted and loved him. Well he has now broken the trust by drinking, He is the one who broke the deal. I was thinking the best thing you can do now would be to get him out of your home. You can still date and see each other, however, he needs his own space and his own job and he needs to be on his own for at least a year before he can be ready to take on another person.
You deserve to be happy and this can not be happy for you. Ask him in a nice way and appeal to his sense of logic. You can still date and spend time, it would be best for him to get out and get a job and take care of his life first. Then he can maybe be in your life.
I feel for you and will pray for you. This is not an easy task, but it will be well worth it to have a happy healthy man in your life.
I think I am more worried about your ability to handle all this on your own. I'm glad you are here. There is no question al anon can provide you with many many tools that can help you to deal with the situation you are in. Dive right in. Put his issues aside for a moment (no one says that wil be easy) get yourself some tools. You don't have to solve all his problems in a day. Personally I have been there and done that with having incredibly difficult relationships.
I know in al anon I found tremendous peace, resources and challenges. I really urge you to dive in here, stop looking to cure him, get help for yourself. Get tools, get a perspective and get help. Every bit of help you can get you should get at this time, therapy, al anon whatever you can lay your hands on in terms of books on codependency and alcoholism. Make that your priority and be less available for his crises.
