All new to me -- would love guidance from those who have been there, done that - Al-Anon Family Group

Sara Tamar · Member

All new to me -- would love guidance from those who have been there, done that

hotrod · ~*Service Worker*~

Welcome to MIP and Alanon Sara

Thank you for sharing and reaching out. I am so sorry that you are being touched by this terrible illness.. Alcoholism is a disease and the alcoholic and those who love them need help and support in order to deal with this illness.

I hear you about being an action person -"A "Personality people can find great satisfaction in working the alanon program We are powerless over alcoholism. We cannot control it, did not cause and cannot cure it.

We can work to help ourselves recover from the effects of thise illness. Alanon has many tools that will / has given me courage, serenity and wisdom to deal in a constructive, compassionate manner with the alcoholics in my life..

Attending local face to face meetings in our community by going on line http://www.al-anon.alateen.org/meetings/meeting.html, coming here, posting, attending on line meetings here, working the steps focusing on yourself.are some of the tools that enabled me to regain my peace of mind.

All this keeps us very focused and busy placing our energy where we can succeed on ourselves.

Please keep coming back

Mattie · ~*Service Worker*~

I'm sure there are a number of people here who have been in similar shoes -- I know I have.

About trust, you may have heard the saying (harsh, but with a lot of realism), "How do you know an alcoholic's lying? His lips are moving." A lot of the time I was trying to trust my alcoholic, it's because I so badly wanted to trust him -- not because he was truthful. Deceit comes with the territory. Part of it is that they're deceiving themselves, not just us. They hardly know up from down, so they can't portray reality accurately. And when it comes to preserving their addiction, the addiction does everything it can to stay hidden. By the time I realized my alcoholic was in the grip of his addictions again, it was because it had gotten so bad he couldn't hide it any more. What I saw was just the tip of the iceberg.

I am sensing from your post how badly you want things to be okay and how much you want him to recover. I think the problem is that often we want them to recover much more than they want to recover. If your man is trying hard, I assume that means that he's going to AA every day (or more than once per day), he has a sponsor, he's been working the steps, and he has other support on his side -- maybe an addiction counselor, other AA friends, etc. etc. Because seven slips in eight months is very worrying in terms of longterm sobriety. As you recognize by your anxiety.

You may know the Al-Anon "three C's": We didn't cause it, we can't control it, we can't cure it. That acceptance is the only cure for the terrible anxiety -- that and taking back our focus to our own lives and our own recovery. Living with alcoholism or other additions means our lives have been distorted too. So we need to focus on ourselves and our own well-being -- the only well-being we can contol.

I hope you can get to some meetings. Read all you can on these boards. And you might look at the very helpful book "Getting Them Sober." Things can get much, much better than this, whatever your alcoholic does. Hugs to you.

Bettina · ~*Service Worker*~

Welcome to MIP & Alanon Sara...

I can identify so much with you. Alcoholics are from all walks of life. They are good looking, charming, intelligent, funny, Drs. Lawyers, homeless, cons. They can be anyone.

I met my XAH at a club, I love to Salsa dance and my X is great looking , latin man who is a great dancer. From the moment I met him, I was obsessed. I too never drank and nobody in my family did either. I was completely ignorant of alcoholism and the disease. I too would go into panic mode when even though we lived together, he would not come home till the morning, as a matter of fact , he didnt come home many nites for the first 10 years of our marriage. Don't think living together would change that. Alcoholics cannot live with straight people unless they are recovered. Which is difficult at best.

I know you want everything to be ok and for him to stop, but he has to want to stop. I was married 26 years waiting for sobriety that never came, we have been apart two years. I still love and care for him, but I am so happy that I am no longer obsessed with him and his disease. After 40 years of drinking, At deaths door many times, he has been sober 2 months, because he almost bled to death from an ulcer and a ruptured esophagus. Dr. told him, he will die if he has another drink. Its up to him if he lives or dies. I am with peace with what ever the outcome is, Thanks to my HP and Alanon.

Best thing you can do is stay with this board and attend a face to face Alanon meeting. Get educated on the disease. Get the focus on you so your not so emotionally attached to him and the disease. Read some, listen some. You will start to understand.

Wishing you strength and wisdom. Luv, Bettina

-- Edited by Bettina on Saturday 7th of August 2010 01:00:00 AM

stopandchat · Senior Member

Welcome Sara,

I'm glad you found this site. And, as some others have already mentioned, a face to face Alanon meeting would be beneficial.

I've been where you are. My husband is a recovering alcoholic - eight months sober. Believe me, if you lived with him, it still would not stop that "heart-in-your-mouth" feeling. When my husband was actively drinking, I was with him every day and I still worried, obsessed, and all of the things that go along with living with this sickness.

Alanon will help you stop obsessing over him and his disease, and put the focus on you - where it should be. Trying to "fix" him is an effort in futility - it will NEVER happen. You'll just drive yourself insane - which is where I was when I attended my first Alanon meeting almost a year ago.

Much luck to you, and please, keep coming back.
Tara

kitty · ~*Service Worker*~

The way I quit worrying was to take an action. When I get to worrying about someone - and I realize I'm doing it - I stop and pray for them and turn them over to HP. There is nothing I can do for them and worrying only wastes my time, energy and puts me on a negative track emotionally. So, when I pray and turn them over to HP and exercise my faith that the best possible outcome with be and that I am not God, therefore I cannot control any outcomes for anyone.
I can only work hard to be sure that I am doing something that is both positive and constructive in my program.

If you focus on other people, u are feeding the disease and giving your power away to someone/something else. Best way to help an A, is to work a soilid program of my own and live my best life. That helps e me, it please the HP of my understanding and it helps the A bc I am not enalbing them.

Hope u still alanon out and give YOU a fair chance here. The program works, so work it! Take care of YOU, whatver that looks like.

Diva · ~*Service Worker*~

I have sent you a private message.

Diva

Jennifer · ~*Service Worker*~

Hello Sara, welcome to MIP.

Like Kitty, the only way I was able to Let Go and Let HP in order to stop myself from the worrying and give my xah over to his HP. I had accepted that I was powerless against his alcholism and did not cause it, could not control it and could not cure it. The only thing left to do was hand him over ... I had tried EVERYTHING else ... silly me

Loving an alcoholic active or not can be difficult, and have many rewards if you are working a program of your own to keep your serenity no matter what is happening around you. I hope you keep coming back and continuing to learn about Alanon and all it's practices.

Jen

Jerry F · ~*Service Worker*~

Aloha Sara and welcome. We understand and one of the things we have come to
understand is that Alcoholism dosen't care about advance degrees or success
however it is described or any of that. In the end all of the people I have met
in program including myself were reduced to the common denominator of being
overly caring and enabling and in need of serious help. Alcoholism will take away
all of your successes including your kids if you continue to try to struggle with it
using your tools alone and your methods. "Our" stuff didn't work and that is why
and how Al-Anon came into existence. There is a movie, "When Love is not
Enough" which is the Lois story, the wife of the co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous
which shows how much is given away to the alcoholic and how all of it is used up
by the disease which continues to run it's course. Alcoholism is a fatal disease.
"Get sober or die" is one of the short philosophies mentioned in that program.

You are in a battle with this disease and you are fighting yourself...awesome!!
realization huh? A large part of you wants to go rescue him so that you can
feel accomplished and esteemed even while he doesn't want you to do anything
at all. This is out addiction. We end up hating what it is that we are doing and
at the same time compulsed to do it even more and even harder. Exactly what
the alcoholic is going thru; the living definition of addiction...him to the booze
and drugs and you to the fix. I hated being that addicted and couldn't stop it
until I found "these" people in Al-Anon. They had the solutions and I had none.

I welcome you here and have hope for you if you do what I was told to do....
Get to as many face to face meetings as you can in the next 90days and keep
coming back. Get as much literature as you can and read all of it (meetings
have it all). Sit down, listen, listen, listen and then practice, practice, practice
what I am taught. Keep coming back.

I haven't mentioned this little early program philosophy for a long time but since
it just came up again after reading your post (not your causing) I'll repeat it here.
This is a "save your own butt" program. In support (((((hugs))))) smile

Sara Tamar · Member

Thank you all so very much for responding -- clearly, I'm going to have to find an al anon meeting and get some help (another thing that is not in my nature -- I'm not real good with the therapy thing, though I have JUST started seeing a therapist for the first time in over twenty years, because I was feeling dangerously close to a breakdown).

What many of you are saying about being addicted to being the solution is resonating with me -- that is EXACTLY how I feel. Like some one else's disease is starting to take over my life, and control my heart and mind to a scary degree.

I hope I am not fooling myself that "Jack" is (1) one-in-a-million and (2) REALLY, TRULY on the mend (I am embarassed to think that I am becoming the steretypical starry-eyed chickadee who is convinced that her man is going to change). I've never been averse to taking risks, and have come out on top more than once by taking the road less traveled, but this is scary new territory for me...

Will continue to post, and keep you posted -- it's good to know I'm not alone, and I very much appreciate the support.

THANK YOU AGAIN.

S

Jerry F · ~*Service Worker*~

"I hope I am not fooling myself that "Jack" is (1) one-in-a-million and (2) REALLY, TRULY on the mend (I am embarassed to think that I am becoming the steretypical starry-eyed chickadee who is convinced that her man is going to change). I've never been averse to taking risks, and have come out on top more than once by taking the road less traveled, but this is scary new territory for me..."

I can tell you that even the embarassment didn't stop me from making the
attempt and fixing the alcoholic I picked and she wasn't the first one. So I
was use to loosing...just needed to loose it all; and I did.

What kept me going wasn't the alcoholic's fault. I found out thru inventories
in our program that "Oppositional Defiant" person within myself that truely
attributed to my attitude that the problem might catch up with others but "NOT
ME!!". Of course the fact that I am on MIP talking to you and a long time
member of the Al-Anon Family Groups reveals that I was "finally" wrong. Today
I am teachable (humble) and compassionate. I will give away to any member
what I was given freely that saved my life.

Keep coming back there's more to learn. ((((hugs)))) smile

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.