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.
I noticed the post below on Relapse. I have mixed feelings about it. My experience was with my husband's relapse after ten years of sobriety was this. [I felt He could find sobriety again if HE wanted it, but it would require him hitting another bottom. And it did. I just didn't know I would get hurt again exactly in the same way twice! OUCH!]
Also, he was not WORSE again overnight. He had some kind of controlled drinking pattern for several years....ONCE AGAIN...his drinking wasn't causing any problems for the two of us....for about 3 years....I suppose he was building up quite a tolerance.....first glasses of beer, later mixed drinks, then bartender 'friends' that set mixed drinks up in front of him--one right after the other. They wanted to basically be diseased together--as far as I was concerned. THEN he lost his father. Then he drowned in the alcohol for 2 years......and then it appeared he became WORSE overnight...but he had been building up to this for years.
He then spiraled downward, attempts at quitting were harder than the time before in 1986. He quit and relapsed in 2004, did a lot of farting around. I guess he finally had an awareness in Jan 2005, and it seems to be sticking, plus boundary I made. We just won't work out without him in a program. Now, he's 6mos. sober.
So, relapse is not always the end of the world. I just know that every time they pick up and drink, it's tougher to stop, the disease can progress......who knows the damage to be done when they do.
SO for me, my advice to myself....should he pick up and drink again is to leave....OR if I stay I will get hurt again, and probably the same way(s). His disease is hard on him, but so far....our track record shows it's hardest on ME. It is a disease that can kill him, but it could kill me first.
Thanks for the insight. Six months sober is a great start and I am happy for you both.
Hopefully it won't kill either of you. Over the last year, your strength and insight has shined through. Your posts are thoughtful and I learn so much from them, as well as some of them being funny and quircky, and those can make me laugh.
Just thought this was a good time to tell you thanks for all the wonderful things you have shared, and how much I know I apreciate and have benefited from them. You are wonderful!
I'm happy for the recent sobriety. I'm feeling a little sorry for myself and all us in general for having to deal with all of this. Notice I didn't say suffer with all of this. I know we have choices and I know we need to take care of ourselves. But the choices are difficult to make. And, why is it difficult to remove a person from your like who causes so much pain?? God, I don't really know why!
Oh Wallsal, your story is so very familiar to me. I could have written it myself. My A relapsed after 25 years sober. Of course I had no idea he was an alcoholic because he never drank as long as I knew him, so I didn't think anything of it when he brought home a 6 pack of beer on a hot August afternoon. He drank his beer for a while, then graduated to those 40oz things with an abundance of alcohol. After about a year, he had graduated to hard liquor and falling down drunk, but I was so naive I believed him when he told me the "drunkenness" was caused by a solvent he was using in his work. All I could think of was, "I have to get rid of that solvent." Looking back I cannot imagine being so stupid, but I have never been around drinking before, so it was something that truly did not occur to me. He finally hit bottom. It was an awful time. One day he quit, and vowed never to drink again. About six months later, he slipped again; this time I knew, but I spent another couple of months sicker than he was. Then he quit again, which is when I laid down my boundaries. If he ever does it again, he's gone! No discussion. Just gone! My life has been turned upside down by this man who I do love with all my heart. I came close to a mental breakdown over the whole experience. He went happily on. I nearly died. He does not remember all the hurtful things he said or all the embarrassment he caused. He is blissfully unaware that he nearly killed me, and to this day will not discuss the whole sordid mess. And so life continues. Haunting the great love I have for him is the resentment I feel deep in my soul that will not go away. To whomever reads this; thanks for allowing me to vent these feelings of frustration, anger, and hurt. We have all been there. God bless all of us as we struggle to normalize our lives. And God bless the A in our lives who doesn't understand why we are the way we are.
Diva
__________________
"Speak your truth quietly and clearly..." Desiderata
Thanks, everyone for your replies! Yes, Diva, our pattern sounds alike! Glad to realize someone else had the same bad trip twice, and I am not alone. Yes, we focus on what the disease does to others, but we have to realize what it does to us. Then, tough love must come first for our own survival.
