Hello Soxfan

Welocome to MIP.    You are so right,  watching someone you love dealing with  this disease is very painful.  You have come to the right place .

Alanon suggests that alcoholism is a disease and that  we did not cause this disease, we cannot control it and we cannot  cure it.  

Alanon and this board are excellent resources that will enable you to find HOPE and TOOLS so you can  live your life even if the alcoholic is still drinking.

The tools: Meetings, Living one Day at a Time, Focusing on Yourself, Sharing  will give you the means to live your life without anger and resentment.  

    Many of us who have lived with Alcoholism in our lives have been affected by it without even realizing it ourselves.  Not just in the sense of having to put up with the alcoholics behavior, but in the sense that we ourselves have become irritable and unreasonable without even knowing it.  Having our own program of recovery allows us to take the focus off of the things in our lives, which we cannot control, such as the actions of others, and onto the things in our lives, which we CAN control, our actions, our thoughts, and our happiness.

  Help with finding local meetings near where you live may be found at the following web site:            http://www.al-anon.alateen.org/meetings/meeting.html            Or call: 1-888-4alanon

Online meetings are held in the Al-Anon chat room associated with this site.

From the board click on Al-Anon Group Meeting/Chat Room in the yellow box in upper left of the page.  After clicking on the link please be patient, sometimes it takes a while for the window to open.

PLease keep coming back  There is Hope

-- Edited by hotrod on Monday 10th of May 2010 09:57:13 PM

-- Edited by hotrod on Monday 10th of May 2010 09:57:57 PM

Hi Again

I love the picture of your beautiful children.  You are not alone and what you are feeling is very normal.  PLease be very gentle with yourself.  Try to rest, Live just focusing on the day you are in, make sure you eat and connect with others.  Do not try to solve all your problems at once.  Join the chat room connect with others and trust it will get better.

Keep coming back.

-- Edited by hotrod on Monday 10th of May 2010 10:15:28 PM

Welcome to alanon and MIP.  You hit the nail on the head when u said, 'no matter what I do it is never enough'.  You cannot do enough for an addcit/alcoholic, they always want something else from you and the more u give, the more they expect to always get from you.  They are master manipulators, professional/compuslive liars.  They need you (codependent enabler) to blame you for their behavior so they can continue what they are doing and not take responsibility for any of it.  Learn what enalbin is all about and figure out how u can stop making it easy for them.  Enabling is doing anything for them, that they can do themselves.  Something as innocuous as bringing in a beer/drink from the kitchen to their spot.  They try to get you involved in it, so u can take responsibility.

Personally I view A's as psychic vampires that will take your energy, time, love, emotions, money - u name it if u offer it or they see you have it and they want it, they will start attempting to get it from you at all costs.  

A's need enablers.  Codies dont realize what their behavior is doing, when we focus on others we feed into the disease for us all.  Focus on YOU and learn to take your life back. Alanon teaches us coping skills for a healthy life.  Make yourself your priority, u are worth it!   Of course u miss him, we tend to be addicted to chaos and other people.  We pick up people and they pick up substances.

Hope u give alanon a fair try, for YOU and for your children.