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 am so glad that I found this place. I've been to several meetings and really enjoy the support and friendship.
SO and I have been together for 5yrs. He is an alcoholic and I am the enabler. I think I probably could have written the book on enabling. Two weeks ago, something in me just snapped. He'd been in a state of depression for several months now. All due to good reasons but instead of stopping and trying to focus he chose to drown his sorrow into a bottle of beer. Anyway, I got angry that he was out 4 hours later after indicating that he was going to be home for dinner. I snapped and told him to go stay with a friend of ours for the night for a cooling off period. He didn't. He stayed at the bar, and ended up moving in with a woman who had a spare room (just threw her husband out). Since then they have now gotten involved. If you could take the opposite of me, this would be her. Our friends are shocked that he is bringing her around and here I am as numb as can be. This is not him. He is not a womanizer, he's not even the slightest bit of a flirt. His best friend has turned his back on him. This woman is now the enabler as all she asks from him is to buy the beer and cook. She'll take care of everything else.
When we talk, he says he loves me he just needs his peace of mind. But how can he find it in a bottle of beer and in the arms of a strange woman who's still legally married. This is not him at all. He's telling our friends one thing that he HAS to know that is being passed along to me and then he denies it to me...He's never lied before. It's like he has become someone I don't even know. He's been drinking excessively since he left here. At least here he drank 2 to 3 days a week. He's let his business go for the past two weeks, to the point where once again, me the enabler, I went and changed the phone number and took over running the company until he can figure out where he is in life.
I have spoken to his parents and they are trying to get him to visit them for a couple of days and help them with some things at their new house. In an attempt to get him to stay with them a bit so he can dry out. I pray to G*d that he accepts their offer.
We are going out of town next weekend with our friends and he is bringing HER because SHE wants to go. No respect for me and my feelings at all. Yet, he won't come get his stuff. I had our friends demand my keys back.
I am so lost right now. The usual cannot eat or sleep and chain smoking is not good for me but I can't break this at all. Not only has he moved out but now he has become someone I don't even know. Even when he did drink a couple of days a week, at least he was not a liar or womanizer and he never mistreated me or was ever abusive...but now it's like he's doing anything and everything he can do to hurt me.
I know that this is my time to work on myself and my obvious codependency and enabling issues. But at the same time, this is just killing me inside. How do you pull yourself together? I just can't seem to do it. Not only did I lose the man i loved but now he isn't even the man I thought I had known. Where do I and where do we go from here?
Hello , glad u posted here today, this is not th first time I have heard a story like yours. This is a terrible disease and unfortunatley in thier minds it is all about them. Some how we just don't count when booze is running thier lives. Cunning baffling and powerful is how recovering A's refer to this damn disease.
Your husb has found someone wo will drink with him and for now that is enough. But they are like boomerangs he will be back. Remember this disease is 3 fold , mental , physical and spiritual and it is progressive it gets alot worse before it gets better.
Am so sorry u have to go thru this , but stay focused on your own needs and get to lots of meetings for yourself stay close to those people who understand and support you. Now is the time to pick up the phone and call someone u need support. Good luck and remember that This Too Shall Pass. Louise
Welcome Sadie, Oh the grieving is such hard, hard work. I know the guts feel so awful and the anxiety is overwhelming.
Sometimes all we can do is put one foot in front of the other. I mean that literally. The pain is so awful.
What I learned to do is say stop and put something else in my mind. Like when I I think of my A in his little bed in his moms garage, I stop and put in the river, or my home.
Now it just happens naturally. It does hurt for awhile, but as we learn more and more skills, go to meetings, vent her, help others here, come to meetings here, hang out in the chat room etc. We start feeling better.
For me, I had to go on with my life. I took all his pics down and stuff he gave me and the little stuff I gave him, put them in a box and put them away. I changed bedrooms, I gave his bird away, that he abandoned.
I painted my house, changed my fencing outside. I have a five acre animal sanctuary.
Just moved on. I know, my A is not acting one bit like he was sober when we married. Yes it is the disease, but it also is him. Parts of him.
Well at least that is how I had to look at it now. I used to be where you are. I knew he was not really like that, he just had to get clean for awhile. I would bring him home, help him get straight. He would be good for a month or two, then he would use again, start to get abusive and so I had him leave.
It took me having a cancer scare to realize he does not love me. He was not there for me. I realized it was never about me loving him, it was all about he did not care about me anymore. All he cares about is using.
It is just that his woman is his mommy. He never has been a cheater. Cheating is not becuz they are A. It is not a symptom of alcoholism. But I see the A leaving a healthy life to a sick one becuz they want to feel they can use with out anyone ruining it for them.
NO ONE can help them but themselves. NO parents, not anyone. He has to do it ALL.
If we bring them home, put them in rehab, whatever, we are enabling them. They will only get well enough to feel good again and start using again.
We take away the chance that they might get sick enough to want to stop. They have got to get to where THEY cannot stand it anymore.
So we cannot take that away from them. It is so hard. I HATE knowing my A is in a garage sleeping. His mom is ill and so awful. She is the biggest enabler. The disease loves her for it. It can take her drugs, money and live off her. So there he is.
Anyway just a share for you. I hope you take care of you. love,debilyn
