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Okay. So, I joined last week. So glad I did. Also went to my first f2f meeting on Saturday. My A was released from rehab on Friday, June 11. I picked him up from the airport on Saturday, June 12. He was drunk.
We spent Sunday together. I told him people make mistakes, and he said he was going to make his 90 in 90. It was a nice day overall. We had breakfast and then went to our neighbors' house for dinner. He left at 7:10 to "go to an AA meeting." Well, 9:00 rolls around and he's not home and not answering the phone. 9:15 I get ahold of him. He's at "his apartment." He's drunk, but says he's on his way home.
9:55 I get a call from a stranger. A woman. She claimed that she was my husband's girlfriend. I couldn't breathe. Couldn't think. Called my girlfriend who lives in the neighborhood. She came over. Talked to the girlfriend for 45 minutes. I learned he told her that we had been separated for 7 months, that we were not intimate and that I was a cold, uncaring spouse (which is the farthest thing in the world from the truth) because I am an agnostic. I do not debate religion, but suffice it to say, I have friends who are atheists who are better human beings than many so-called Christians I know. Anyway, I was speechless. They had been having an affair for 2 months. She visited him in rehab on family day - 5 days after I was there.
10:40 we hear a bang and screeching tires in the driveway. We could smell burning rubber. I was still on the phone with the girlfriend. It was my husband. In my car. Passed out behind the wheel. Drunk out of his mind. He hit the mailbox, and by some miracle it stopped the car. Otherwise, he would have driven right into the room in which our 9-month-old was sleeping.
We didn't know what he was trying to do. We were scared. I was freaking out. So, I called 9-1-1. He is (or was) a police officer. His collegues responded to the house. 5 of them. He was so drunk, they thought he needed medics. I watched them give him a field sobriety test and just sobbed. It was heartwrenching. They took him to jail and charged him with DUI.
That night I also found out he has had a second cell phone for a year. I started calling numbers, and have since come to discover he gets drunk to the point he blacks out and has had sex with various women. I am disgusted still.
I also talked to his rehab counselor, who knew what was going on apparently. He lied from the beginning and never took it seriously. He refused to ever acknowledge he had a problem. In the past, he's been through 2 outpatient programs and now an inpatient. All along just saying what he had to say to get through it.
He was called in Monday afternoon and forced to resign. I called in a few favors and had divorce papers drawn up on Monday. He signed Monday night, and I filed for divorce on Wednesday. My final hearing is set for July 8. Within 24 hours he literally lost everything because of alcohol.
I am still hurt - very hurt - and angry. But, for the first time in his entire life, he admitted things to himself this week. First, on Wednesday, he admitted that he was powerless over alcohol. Second, yesterday, he admitted his childhood was horrible. Third, he disclosed to me a horrible memory he suppressed from childhood. No one on earth knows.
I must admit that the person that I have talked to over the past 3 days is not the same person I had known for the preceding 3 years. This person is humble, kind, admits that he has a problem and is actively taking steps to fix it. He has scoured the internet for AA meetings. Making 2 per day. Has finally been open and honest with counselors and wants to be well. He actually wants to.
As hurt as I am, I am tempted to postpone the divorce and see how he works through this. The person that I see now is someone trying desparately to get well. He invited me to an AA meeting with him tonight. He says he wants to show me how much he really loves us, and is finally ready to prove it.
I'm not sure I can ever get over what he's done. Knowing what I have learned does not justify his terrible behavior, but it gives me some perspective about the immense pain he has been trying so hard to hide.
All my friends think I'm crazy for even talking to him. But, I do care about him, and I want to see him well. He is not at home, and is staying with a true friend. Someone who stood beside him all this time.
I know this is long, and I am sorry. I just needed to get it out. And sorry for the typos. I'm off to a work lunch and didn't get a chance to proofread.
Hi Tampa girl, sorry to hear all of this is hitting you at once. Its a lot to comprehend.
First of all an alcoholic doesnt need a reason to drink. If every person drank because they had a bad childhood the whole world would be drunk. Dont look for reasons why he drinks, he drinks because he is an alcoholic. The drinking is the cause and the women, the DUI and just pure craziness is the effects of this nasty, baffling , horrific disease.
Its hard but you musten take it personally, its nothing directed at you. I was married to the XAH for 26 years and I too was upset to find out that my husband who claimed to be sexually dysfunctional was carrying on with women and one woman, who was having a relationship with off and on for 10 years, ended up giving birth to twins. I was hoping he would leave and take responsibility for those twins, he did financially, but he never did emotionally. He never recognized them and ended up having a deep resentment toward the woman, which fueled him on for more drinking.
We are apart for two years now, he did eventually curtail his drinking and is in AA, but recently went on a binge and ended up in the hospital just this past week, he almost died, again.
Enough about the alcoholic. I usually dont tell members what they should do, but after seeing the A almost bleed to death and reaching yet another bottom, I must appeal to you that what you must do to save your sanity is to keep attending your face to face Alanon meetings, as many as you can. From me being in this program, I was able to go to the hospital, as the A has nobody else in this country, no friends no family, nobody except me, I was able to feel bad for what he is doing to himself, but I was able to keep strong and detach with compassion for him and his disease. Its not affecting my life in the way it did many years ago. Im calm.
Alanon is about you and the managing of your own life and making those solutions based upon wisdom and serenity. Stay with the program and your HP. Dont look to the Alcoholic for the answers all you will find there is more confusion, more lies, more pain. Live strong.
Wishing you courage, hope and strength for you and your child. Luv, Bettina
-- Edited by Bettina on Friday 18th of June 2010 12:10:45 PM
-- Edited by Bettina on Friday 18th of June 2010 12:12:35 PM
Many of us have been through devastation. There is a book offer at the top of the page, Getting them Sober (which is a irony) get a copy of that book and read it.
I am glad you are here. Al anon can be of great help to you.
Cunning, powerful, baffling, mind altering, insane, sickening, and deadly......just some of the words that describe this disease.
Your husband might have found his bottom, only he knows the answer to that question. He is attending AA meetings and I hope working his program. I don't see how you attending an AA meeting with him can show how much he really loves you and the children. Hopefully through his program he will find the secret to loving himself, until then he is not capable of loving anyone else. My opinion only.
Your focus should be on Alva..... 100%.....that is most important.....get to as many f2f meetings as you possible can.....stay after the meeting and talk to other members, ask for their ES&H.....keep coming back to MIP and posting.....and start taking care of yourself first.....I repeat....Put the focus on Alva and not on the alcoholic in your life...........
Double HUGS, RLC
-- Edited by RLC on Friday 18th of June 2010 02:05:52 PM
-- Edited by RLC on Friday 18th of June 2010 02:08:57 PM
Aloha Alva...Welcome and stick around and watch and count how many new comers who come here reaching out and telling a story very very similar to yours. Your story is very very similar to mine and we are different gender and age but commonly have been or are trying to find peace of mind and serenity while affected by alcoholism. You have reached the right place to find help and if you can keep and open mind you will find it.
"Practicing alcoholics lie, cheat and steal" as a normal part of existence and that was mind boggling for me as I grew up within this disease and married into it. When I learned that alcohol will motivate the drinker into doing that which they would not normally do while not under the influence I came to understand...It's the alcohol and the process is cunning, powerful and baffling. What could I do? the same thing that the alcoholic needed to do in order to get sober. I turned of my system and got into the Al-Anon Family Groups where the people in the rooms had experienced being where I had been and had learned what to do about it. I was there to do what they were doing not what I had been doing. "My" program doesn't work. The Al-Anon program does work if followed as suggested.
Follow thru on your plans and don't let the disease or the alcoholic stop you from choices for yourself. Do it because you need to do it for your happiness and not because of the alcoholic or the disease. Call the Al-Anon hotline number for your area from the white pages of you local phone book and find out where the meeting times and places are and go as quickly as you can. When there get and read as much literature as you can and read it all. Get to as many meetings in the next 90 days as you can and learn the steps and slogans and build recovery relationships with others in the groups. They will be the ones you will learn from.
Your alcoholic husband? When he learns to love himself as much or more than he does alcohol he will really cry out for help and work for it. You are not the reason why he drinks and cannot be the reason why he gets sober.
Wow. When the "stuff" hits the fan it really hits the fan doesn't it? You must be devastated. I know so well the pain of finding out about the cheating. And I do think it is a sick system that didn't inform you of the risk your husband was taking with your health. I mean, they have to tell you if he is contemplating killing you...but giving you a life long possibly deadly STD and they get to keep their mouth shut? Sorry...rant over.
Please take this time to take care of yourself. Sure, NOW he seems contrite and sorry and like he is REALLy changing. But actions speak louder than words...let his actions speak. Let him lose everything and watch his sobrity unfold. My ex "changed" when he hit his bottom and within weeks was telling me that we needed to be under the same roof to work on our marriage. This was a lie. He just wanted things back to the way they were before he blew up his life. I went back and within a month he was relapsing and having sex with a new woman.
The rehab my ex went to did tell me that he was a sex addict, that I should get tested and research what living with a sex addict would mean to me.
Stay strong. If your H is going to change and find a real sober, he will do so without you. If your meant to be together you will be in time when you have both healed.
Hello and welcome , well if it rains it pours huh ? always a crisis when dealing with alcoholism , time to start taking care of you and your baby . I agree with the statement going to AA to prove he loves you is bs . he either does this for himself or it won't stick ... An alcoholic will do and say anything to get what they need , the disease tells him he is a little smarter than we are . NOT I dont pay much attention t what people say i watch what they do . If he is serious he will crawl over broken glass to stay sober .. Only u know the answer to stop the divorce or not , no one can help u with that one .. Please find meetings for yourself your going t need support from people who understand , and al anons understand . with or with out him you too need to recover from the affects of another persons drinking . In the last couple of days u have had to digest alot , take a while to let it all sink in before making your decission. goodluck Louise
