help me please....am at my wits end - Al-Anon Family Group

miss lucy · Senior Member

help me please....am at my wits end

kmarty · Member

I suggest you stay away and if he is waving a knife under your nose thats totally unacceptable....he needs to hit a bottom and if you stay away he might hurt enough to get some help.

pineapple · ~*Service Worker*~

I agree with kmarty that you should stay away for now for your own safety. I would also suggest that you spend some time here and also find an al anon meeting to attend. If there are no meetings in your area you could attend one of the online meetings here. It really does help. You say ¨i feel guilty that i have not put my foot down with him earlier. ¨ Trust me that it wouldn't have done any good. I've heard many times on here the three Cs- you didn't CAUSE it, you can't CURE it, you can't CONTROL it. But you can learn to cope with it. He has to make the decision to get help for himself. Maybe your leaving will give him the incentive to do that. Maybe not. But you need to find some help for you and this is a good place for that. Please keep coming back here. And please remember to take care of yourself.

abbyal · ~*Service Worker*~

Were not supposed to give advice here but , dont drop any charges that may come out of his past behavior it is totally unexceptable , until he is allowed to take responsibilty for his own actions nothing will ever change .
Please find meetings f2f for yourself , u need support , this does not go away , it does not get better it only gets worse this is a progressive disease and until he says that what he is doing is causing him a problem IT ISN"T its causing you a problem and Al-Anon will help . Get the focus back on yourself and your daughter there is nothing u can do about him . This is his problem leave it with him where it belongs . Louise

nmike · ~*Service Worker*~

Welcome to MIP! You can't help anyone else until you help yourself. This disease is cunning, baffling, insidious.

In support,
Nancy

Festfan · Veteran Member

Hi Miss Lucy,

While every experience is different, I am very new here too and it has been amazing to me how much I have learned from this site. I have an ABF, and was trying to negotiate with him constantly how much he drank. But I am learning that leads to a destructive cycle of codependence. I really liked the concept that we need to give our loved ones the "dignity" in their disease. Keep reading, keep posting and try to find a meeting - I've been to 3, and it has been very educational.

Peace.

Mattie · ~*Service Worker*~

This is so painful and difficult -- I hope you can get to meetings soon. There are also meetings online here. I'm afraid it is very unlikely (I'm afraid to say impossible, but that's pretty much what it is) that he will come to see that you are kind and how much you care as long as he is drinking. The drinking makes them insane and his mind is not working right. That is shown by the violence too. He is not in his right mind and he needs much more help than any one person can give him. My guess is that if he were to stop drinking he'd need to detox under medical supervision, and he'd need a program to support his recovery. But you are in danger if you stay with him, not to mention that your daughter is now without her mother to look after her.

I'm guessing that you are in Britain -- can you get some kind of social services to take over here? Or report him to the medical authorities, if he is in severe ill health? I know it is not always simple, but at least it's not a matter of whether he has health insurance, as it is in the U.S.

I understand your concern for him, but you must protect yourself above everything, or you can't help anyone else. And you need to take care of yourself because you are very valuable.

Please get to some local meetings if you can. You deserve a lot of support in this very hard situation. Keep coming back to us too.

Jen · ~*Service Worker*~

As Mattie has said, he is not going to see that you are a kind person and that you care. His mind is in the disease. He also will continue to accuse you of being the opposite. Please don't take this personally. It is not the truth he speaks, it is the disease that twists his thinking. He is not in his right mind and no amount of talking or leaving or staying or anything else is going to get through to him. You cannot get through to him. He has to hurt enough to want to get better and most of what we do to "help", just takes away some of the hurt so that it takes longer for them to say enough is enough.

Please keep coming back and look for a meeting near you. There is hope, but you must protect and heal yourself from the effects of this disease.

In recovery,

Debilyn · ~*Service Worker*~

I felt like you. My ex AH was in strong recovery, then had a brain surgery, woke up and gradually the brain damaged showed plus he had a medical relapse.

He too is very sick in every way. I took care of everything. Until one day I stopped doing his wash, then stopped cooking for him. Gradually did nothing for him. He got violent with me.

I had him go to his mothers. He would come back for awhile then go to mommys again, until finally I just could not stand him around. sick or not.

His mommy lost her house. Was on HUD and meth druggie sister moved in with mom with all her yuck friends.

He moved in with this other addict.

Believe me, they will take care of themselves. May not be how we would do it. I have learned thru many years of going to classes, attending an abuse support group and history, that if someone crosses the line to hit you, any kind of physical abuse, they can kill you.

They are so out of control. It is very very dangerous to be around this type of addicted person. They can easily do things and not feel bad at all and may even forget they did it.

If you can get to meetings, even the ones on here, I hope you do. Plus I am glad you are here!

Getting Them Sober is the book I learned so much about the A and about my place in the disease.

It is a disease that "helping" them is like giving candy to a diabetic. It makes them even sicker. It makes things ever so much easier for them to use when we coddle them in any way.

Their disease is there own, the consequences of their behavior is their own. When they use and get into all kinds of trouble, sometimes the light bulb goes on and they realize,"HEY it is ME who is doing this, I have got to get myself to rehab and or AA, detox, etc.

If we give them all their needs and comforts, it does the opposite of what they need.

Its hard to accept when a person is a nurturer. I don't like the word enabler. That is just me.

Many of us are nurturing people who if were in a relationship that no A was involved, the way we love, would be totally acceptable.

My A is so sick he cannot even put up a fence anymore and he could build a house from the ground up, plumbing, everything. And done super well.

He cannot take care of him at all. So now he has another addict woman who takes him in.

She herself is terminal. He takes her pills.

NOT my problem. NONE of it is my problem.

Taking care of me is all I do as far as how I am with the ex A. Took me a long time, but I am so not into him or his disease or his brain damage.

I can do NOTHING for him that will help him but stay out of his life.

Am so adament I am changing my name back to my first husbands. I want NOTHING to do with his name, family, vehicles, thoughts, health etc.

I would help him with his dieing when and if that time comes. thats it.

I hope you find some comfort here, and strentths. Al Anon is for you. I can promise you your life will get so much better. Plus your kids lives will too.

If anyone came at my daughter like that, I would cut him out immediately. Well in fact I did.

Anyway glad you are here. keep coming. Miracles in Progress is not just a title. There are miracles happening here allll the time.

love,debilyn

maresie · ~*Service Worker*~

I certainly left an active alcoholic and stayed involved on many levels. Like you there was a car involved. Like you I was actively trying to convince him that I was not the person he said I was. That kind of "projecting" isn't based in reality at all.

I have definitely been there with the transition issue. Leaving someone isn't always the nice box we would like to think it is. Some of us do not leave and cut ties immediately. In some ways having contact with the ex A while not living with him helped me to get a better perspective on the situation. In other ways it was absolutely overwhelming.

I do know al anon can help you a great deal. Al anon can help you to detach, focus on yourself and learn what you can and can't do for your now ex AH. A great book that you might find helpful is Getting them Sober. Toby Rice Drew also has a web site. The more you can immerse yourself in al anon the better the tools you can use.

Denial and over responsibilty were how I coped with an alcoholic. I have left the ex A now for 3 years. My life is far from simple. I no longer feel responsible for him. Like your husband, my boyfriend was very ill physically. His "using, drinking and carrying on did a great deal of damage to his health. I felt absolutely guilt ridden, helpless and furious all at the same time. I also felt that I had no choice if I were to stay physically well. For me leaving helped. I did not leave for a long long time, when I did leave I had contact for quite a while. The ex A did not change at all.

You can have support, kindness and encourage in al anon. I really urge you to take as much opportunity as you can to be here in these rooms as well as to avail yourself of all the help you can get for yourself.

Maresie.

miss lucy · Senior Member

thanks for all your responses.....i have found reading them informative and a great help as i thought i was alone....guess not! smile

i have had a good day today busying myself setting up my new home. its only a caravan but i love it. my own space, just me and my beloved lucy labrador. i have seen him a couple of times today and he spoke quite civil, lent me the car to go shopping in (as long as i put some petrol in). when i brought the car back he was drunk as a skunk (all within 2 hours and quite abusive. i just handed him the keys said thanks and left. It feels great not having to listen to the ranting.....i have the option now of walking away and its really liberating. i am looking into al anon meetings but it is going to be hard cos i live 6 miles out of town and i am totally reliable on other people for transport. however he is on about moving away and having nothing more to do with me,,,,which would hurt but if he did would also be a relief if that makes sense. at least it would be him making the decision not me so he couldnt throw it back at me later on!

Mattie · ~*Service Worker*~

I am glad things went so well. If you find an Al-Anon meeting you like, there may be someone coming from your area who can give you a lift. Or you can come to meetings here online. Keep coming back -- this site is full of people who have been in the same boat, and we're here for you.

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.