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Hi everyone. I have spent a great deal of time on this site in the past few days and have learned a great deal. I am planning on trying my first f2f meeting next week. Everything Al-Anon teaches makes perfect sense for the most part, and I am trying to take it all in. My AH is on his 4th day of a 28-day rehab stint. I finally put my foot down and told him that he either enter rehab (and stay there) or I would file for divorce. I know now from reading things that that was probably not the wisest course of action in that forcing someone to quit is not the best thing; however, I truly do believe he wants to quit. He has tried several times on his own and he knows he has a problem and wants to be happier.
Now for my question... I know I will be sooo tempted to do the usual snooping around, checking up on him etc., when he gets out to make sure he is not drinking. I am determined NOT to do that this time. I am really trying to change my perspective on his disease while he is away. But, how do you go about detaching yourself from him in the sense that we own a business and certain things MUST be done. If not by him then I must step in and take care of things or risk the business going down the drain. How do I let him make his own mistakes without it adversely affecting the family or business? That is the concept I am having a hard time getting my mind around. I cannot just let some things slide and let him face the consequences because it would negatively impact the entire family.
I am hoping to be hanging around here for awhile. Y'all seem to be so supportive and comforting. I have lived with this disease in the house for probably 10 years or more and this is the most hopeful I have felt in a long while.
Aloha JG...Welcome to MIP and get to that Al-Anon Meeting and program as soon as your can. If you can invision this...make it a part of your life and the steps and traditions intregal principals of your business also. They are to live by. Detachment is an art form for me. I didn't learn it overnight and I didn't understand it the first time I heard it. After I learned what it looked like, sounded like, felt like, tasted like etc, I remembered the reaction from my alcoholic wife the night I told her that the liquor store found our check book and had it at the counter waiting to be picked up. (She said that she must have dropped it on the way out of the market buying "Chips" for their "Chip and Dip AA meeting". Detaching mean't not rolling off the sofa busting a gut on that and it mean't not reacting to it at all. I replied, "Ok well the check book is waiting at the counter. Talk to the guy with the East Indian accent." She stood in the doorway and replied "Okay well come in the car with me" and my response was "I'm going to continue to watch this program on tv you can go get it." We lived about 6 blocks from the store. She told me "YOU ALWAYS go with me." That had been the truth up until that detachment night. I answered. "I understand and you're right, I have always gone with you and not tonight. It needs to be recovered and they have it waiting at the counter." Slam!! says the door and in 10 minutes the checkbook was back home and it didn't take two people, one responsible and the other not to go get it.
There is my business. There is our business and there is the alcoholics business (substitute responsibilities for business if you like." I'm always in mine, a part of ours and never in the alcoholics for any reason other than an extreem emergency.
Most times when I poked into her business it was me who got hurt. Don't like that any more.
(((((hugs))))) Keep coming back...get to the meeting and get as much literature on alcoholism you can get your hands on and read it all. Do as many meetings as you possibly can in the next 90 days and after that period of time see if the program fits for you. If it does sit! Stay! work it! If it doesn't look for something that does. The door is always open.
If it were me, knowing my AH is very sick, I would throw myself into the business. My esh has shown me when our mate is sick or becomes disabled, we all need a back up plan.
A woman with children may choose to have her own bank account or debit card to her account, her name only on her car.
Protect her family from this very difficult disease. It is not personal. A's do not choose to be an addict. We can choose to face we can do nothing for them but take care of us.
That is big though. They feel horrible guilt.
For me dear lady, I detached from the disease that controls him and love my AH. Though I no longer can live with him.
As far as snooping, what good does it do? You will know when you know if he is using. Also he went to rehab so no divorce. But what are the boundaries and consequenses when he comes home?
So glad you found us. If you keep coming, I hope you do, a whole new world will open for you, I promise. Al Anon is not just alanon talk, we share births, deaths, loved ones going to rehab, moving, vacations....please join the family at MIP.
And GREAT you are going to F2F! They will be glad you are there. Just as you will be when you keep going and new ones come in. love,debilyn
Welcome JourneyGirl, I'm glad you found the board here..
Your post brings up a great topic, it was very hard to find a balance between taking care of myself and detaching from other people's responsibilities and business. From my experience I decided anything that had my name involved in any way, finances, business, legal etc was my business. And acceptable for me to know and be an active party to all things concerning them. It was not snooping, it was taking care of myself. There were some financial things that did not have my name involved and I stayed away, thankfullly later they never became a problem for me, as they did for my ExAH.
Way to go on thinking about how you want to handle practical matters of life! Leave room for evolution and different options for various situations.
Just an idea ... I manage a business for another person. Do all the financial, tax, payroll, inventory stuff. It would seem to me that a daily, weekly, monthly or quarterly even business meeting to be familiar with the workings and where everything stands in the business would be beneficial to both your husband and you: in case of an emergency, illness, anything really. With the added benefit of you not having to worry about the have-to-be-done stuff not being done. This does not seem like snooping to me as much as good business sense to have multiple people who understand and can do the basics of running it. Just my two cents *laugh*
Thank you all for the warm welcome! I know Al Anon does not advocate giving advice per se, but can I do a hypothetical? For instance, let's say AH should be at the business (small family business) to relieve a manager at 2:00. Well, let's say the AH is firmly planted on the couch snoozing, since he has been drinking already for most of the day. Then let's say patient wife (PW) cannot go do it because she is busy with child. So I understand the concept of letting him be responsible for his actions and the consequences, but if I did not wake him up and/or cover for him for the time it takes him to get his butt to work, we could lose a very good manager. Oops, there goes my hypothetical. But, you get the idea. How can I let him fall on his face and accept the consequences if it would be detrimental to the business?
Aloha JG...I also remember the hypothetical days...LOL God I was a mess. I heard in the meetings that I needed to stop being the pillow that always got in the way between my alcoholic wife and the sidewalk or her hitting her bottom. Nother words they were telling me about how they let their alcoholics feel all of the pain of the consequence of their drinking without me trying to protect her from it.
That's a very different way of thinking than what you're thinking huh? It was for me and I wanted to control how I was doing things without trying to do something very new that I had not done before. The membership was doing fine and growing in serenity and I had to realize I was the new person in the room. Coming to see and understand as they had took lots of time and working the principles of this program. I had the support, just like you have now and after a while I dropped the hypotheticals and went with the reality that I had to change inspite of not having guarantees or the option of using my old beliefs. It was scarey.
I remember talking to my former sponsor, "What iffing" like mad and he stopped me with a reality, "If you're gonna what if you have to balance it with What if not." I got it live in the moment and in the reality. It is easier for me today to live in that smaller boundary than wandering around clueless like I use to.
If he isn't given the dignity to accept the consequences of his choices why would he find the need to change? Allowing my alcoholic wife the dignity meant stepping out of the way between her and the pavement and her and her higher power.
One of the best resources for this kind of question is Getting them Sober by Toby Rice Drew. I think there are some great guides there. I know for me I made a safety net for the A for a long long time. I had a hard time separating out the stuff.
You will intuitively know this over time. I don't think there is a hypothetical, each one is different. I stood in for the A for a long long time. When I eventually managed to accept my losses (which were extreme) I stopped. None of it was easy and none of it was what I wanted. What I craved was for him to get sober. He didn't and I had to accept that.
