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'm a wife of a addict/alcoholic. We've been together for 29 years, 25 of them married.
He was a drug user back in 1987, when I was pregnant with our first child. He entered rehab in 1988 and was clean for 18 years.
He started using prescription drugs and when the debt piled high he turned to drinking to forget about it. He drank off and on till the end of last year he started drinking heavily. I noticed changes but thought it was his medications since the side effects were the same as being in a drunken state.
In early February he was taken from the house by ambulance and was diagnosed with alcohol poisoning. He called me from the er and told me he needed and wanted help, which I vowed to do. We got him into a detox and the kids and I took him. He was released a week later and put into an intensive out patient program where he still goes. He makes his meetings and has been doing well for the past sixty some days.
Two weeks ago he slipped. He was honest when I confronted him and reached out to the counselor and his sponsor.
We had a long talk and he has vowed to get back on the road to recovery. This is a "slip". He hated the taste of alcohol, the way it made him feel and realizes this was more harm than help. He wants to continue outpatient treatment~group one night a week and one/one another night of the week~ His family has a history of abuse and his father was abusive as an alcoholic. He wants to beat this for a better life for himself which will inturn provide a better life for us. He has the tools, knows them but this time chose to ignore them.
I'm hoping this was a slip and not the return to hell. He says he dedicated to getting back on the right path and will do whatever it takes. He chose to reach out for support on his own, which is a positive. He realizes this wasn't the answer, another positive. He wants to be clean and sober and has once again made it his goal.
I came here for support. I know none of us has the answers but know I can learn from others. I know I have to detach with love, put myself first, but it's hard. I've been attending al-anon meetings and am trying to learn and apply what I hear. It's hard. My suspicion is always there. I want our life back but the anger, hurt, resentment and fear and suspicion is there and that can't be a healthy way to recover what we had.
This path with an A, is a rocky road. I dont know how long you have been going to Alanon, but keep going. I myself was married to the xah for 26 years. Ask me if I would have chosen this path if I knew about addiction. I can't answer. It certainly has given me experience and a expansion of my capacity for real love and understanding of ones suffering. Have I suffered, immensely. But I don't today.
I know what if feels like to yearn for the sobriety of your spouse. What we do have to do is live in the reality of this disease and know that they drink and they could drink again at any moment. I always tell other members we really have to understand the first step in Alanon. "We are Powerless over their drinking and our lives had become unmanageable. If I were to read you back your post, its sounds like you have taken on his recovery. It must be his. When I finally released my Xah, I asked him to move and I literally got out of his way. It was the last important step of my recovery. It took 26 years. Im not saying this will be your experience. But you need to be in your own recovery, so does your family. Keep coming back, and keep discovering the changes in your life that need to occur for yourself. Start caring about yourself, thats the most important step you can do. Luv, Bettina
-- Edited by Bettina on Sunday 25th of April 2010 03:50:38 PM
-- Edited by Bettina on Sunday 25th of April 2010 03:51:49 PM
Aloha Hope...I am glad you found the door to MIP and are in the rooms of Al-Anon. Your post is so awake and aware and Bettina's response is so right on. You are doing what needs to be done from the start...do it slow. You didn't get here overnight and it won't have an overnight solution so follow the age old suggestions which have worked for most of us from the beginning also. Get to the meetings...as many as you can in the next 90 days. Get and read as much literature as you can. Listen with an open mind and learn and practice. Learn the steps and traditions and of very course a power greater than yourself. Your husband called out for you when he relapsed and that is natural and usual and in program they learn that the real call must be to a power greater than anything else...their spouse, their alcohol, themselves. Alcoholism is cunning, poweful and baffling...It doesn't care what he knows, what you know, what his sponsor and counselor knows or who loves who for what reason. Alcoholism is about an ongoing compulsion whether the alcoholic/addict is drinking or not. It does not sleep soundly and has a metaphor of a "pacing tiger". I know it from that angle and my own experience. I have no adequate negative discription for the disease and I pray that your alcoholic doesn't consider the treks back into hell as affordable or inevitable in order to life. They are not and sobriety for him and sanity and serenity for you have to be full time or else.
I wish you success and a serene and peaceful day. I wish him sobriety. I wish you that which I have been blessed to have from Al-Anon and MIP...miracles.
(((Hope))) Congrats to your AH for making that first step toward recovery. And congrats to you for finding alanon and this board and taking the first step toward YOUR recovery. . My AH finally decided to take that first step too, also about two months ago. He also had a slight ¨slip¨ but quickly got back on track and is doing well since then. But the anger, resentment, suspicion, etc. didn't happen overnight and it takes time to deal with and get over it. But I'm working on it, and on myself, and I do believe that in time we will be able to have a healthy,happy, trusting relationship again. Please keep coming back, there is so much wisdom, support and comfort to be found here.
