What's the point? - Al-Anon Family Group

PAH123 · Veteran Member

What's the point?

hotrod · ~*Service Worker*~

Hi PAH

Welcome to MIP and Alanon. I understand your concern and the pain that you find yourself in. Alcoholism is a disease.. You did not cause it, cannot control it and cannot cure it.

You ask what is the point ?? My answer is that you are worth it.
Even if your marriage does not last, you will still need to find the tools to help you recover from this disease

Having lived with this illness we become affected as well. In order to recover our true selves, we need help from others who have walked the same road.

Lost trust, isolation, sadness, resentment, fear, self pity are all symptoms of a person having lived with this disease. Alanon has tools that can help to replace these symptoms with healthy responses that include compassion, understanding, courage , serenity and wisdom.

You have been married for over 23 years so why not give alanon a try. Help in finding meetings can be found byBy going to the following link:

http://www.al-anon.alateen.org/meetings/meeting.html

We also have meetings here 2xs day and a chat room open 24/7

Please join us on the road to recovery.

-- Edited by hotrod on Sunday 5th of September 2010 07:16:42 PM

-- Edited by hotrod on Sunday 5th of September 2010 08:07:04 PM

abbyal · ~*Service Worker*~

When in doubt do nothing . just be for awhile and enjoy sobriety. Please find Al-Anon meetings for yourself he is not the only one who has to change we do too. We had a part in the mess and we can help in recovery this program will show u how .
The best way to support thier efforts at sobriety is to have our own program and mind our own business ,his recovery is up to him leave him to AA and let Al-Anon take care of you.
trust takes time but there comes a time when u just have to take a chance , if he drinks again there is nothing u can do about that , we are not responsible for keeping them sober but a changed attitude on our part will certainly help thier recovery.
Find meetings get the focus back on yourself and get your life back on track..
THAT is the point of Al-Anon for me . letting go of the obsession takes time when were so busy living someone elses life we loose our own .

Jerry F · ~*Service Worker*~

Welcome PAH...I also suggest Al-Anon meetings in your area (we're all over the world
so you are not alone) and go while he is in Europe so you can sit, listen and learn
with just a bit less interference. (((((hugs))))) smile

White Rabbit · ~*Service Worker*~

By the time my AH got to rehab, the trust had been broken for a while. Just like it didn't get broken overnight, it doesn't get repaired overnight. It takes time. I agree with Louise that there is a time when you just have to take a chance, though. Would knowing whether he drank change anything? My belief is no. Knowing that someone else drank would not change the fact that they drank. It would also not change the fact that I need to get on with my life.

In Alanon, we learn to shift the focus from what someone else is doing back to ourselves. As the family members of alcoholics, we mostly overlook our own needs and what is good for our health because we spend all our time worrying about what the alcoholic is doing, trying to set limits, trying to figure out if our limits have been broken, and seeking assurance from the alcoholic that all is well so that we can feel good. After a while here, I realized that for me, that is no way to live. It is exhausting, it is frustrating, and it is lonely - and after all the attempts to change someone else's behavior, at the end of the day nothing changed.

After a while here, we realized that the only thing we could change was ourselves. We did not cause alcoholism, we cannot control alcoholism, and we cannot cure alcoholism. Letting go of trying to control someone else frees us up to focus on our own recovery.

Welcome - you're in the right place. Hope to "see" you often!

Summer

maresie · ~*Service Worker*~

I'm so glad you are here. If you have a chance look at the offer for the book Getting them Sober at the top of the page. I think that's a valuable adjunct to your own recovery.

I don't know that I ever trusted anyone. I pretended to certainly. I had blind faith in people who didn't warrant that kind of responsibility.

Many of us are hyper vigilant around an alcoholic in early recovery. We've been hurt, disappointed and devastated. How we manage that is so so key. Al anon can help you with the tools to manage those states of despair, obsession, fear and guilt. We're here to help you irregardless of your husband's recovery. You can recover with or without him choosing sobriety.

I hope you will choose to stick with the program for a while. One way to do that is to get familiar with this board and get to know people by posting and answering various posts. You can also attend on line meetings here. What's more there is a chat room where you can go pretty much anytime and find people who can relate to what you are going through.

Welcome.

Maresie.

PAH123 · Veteran Member

Thanks everyone for the warm welcome and the kind, bounty of advice. It helps to know one is not alone and that what I am experiencing is fairly typical in this situation.

I think the main thing for me is that I feel i have already given so much to this relationship (willingly or unwillingly) that I am just not sure that a living the rest of my life with a recovering addict is something I am able to do. Sure, I can get help to be stronger and learn to deal with it, but in the end, I will still be compromising the life I want to live to stay in this relationship.

I am hoping that what I will gain from Alanon is the strength to make that decision.

Thanks again and I hope you don't mind an onslaught of questions from me in the near future!
:)

Bettina · ~*Service Worker*~

Pah,
Welcome to Alanon.

Im sure if you give the Alanon program a chance, you will be able to make the best decision and solutions for your life.

Yes , living with an alcoholic is not easy and a tough road to go. Some choose to stay, as the alcoholic seeks recovery. Trust issues are a whole different set of boundaries when dealing with the A.
The best course is for you to focus on you, because this disease has affected us in many ways. You will definitely gain the courage and strength you will need. Just keep coming back and give it some time.

Luv, Bettina

mjhyankees · Senior Member

Welcome...as others have said...you've been affected by his disease...whatever choice you make about staying or not, you are going to need to heal yourself...so get to it! In time you'll find the right answer to whether you want to go or stay but as someone told me.....you dont' type a problem into a broken calculator...you need to fix the calculator first in order to insure getting the right answer when you do plug in a problem.

xeno59 · ~*Service Worker*~

PAH

Hello and welcome to MIP...I hope you stick around
My son is an addict so I've no experience with an addictive spouse
It seems the lies are just as bad to me as the addiction...and trust? well that went out the window a long time ago. As a mother I so wanted to believe what my son was telling me that I pushed what I was actullay seeing with my own eyes out of my head. And that made me crazy, my son had me believing i was the crazy one.
By the time I hit the doors of alanon I truly believe I was just as if not more sick than my son. But working the program, hearing others stories, working the steps etc I got more knowledgable about this disease and how it works
Lies are one of the biggest things that go along with this disease.
Finally I realized that if my son was speaking i could just expect it to be a lie. At first I would yell and badger him until he came clean with the truth. I thought that would make me feel better but it didn't. Cause I already knew the truth so all the energy I put into getting the truth just gave me an empty feeling.
Finally i surrender to the fact that this disease lies and lies to protect itself and most of the time they believe thier own lies because they have too. If they don't believe thier own lies than they have to accept thier is a problem.
I finally had to accept that I couldn't expect my son to act any differently than the person he had become and thats an addict. I no longer challenge his lies I know now to believe what I am seeing with my own eyes. With that much of my own craziness was lifted. I finally trusted in myself because i could admit my son was untrustworthy. A very hard lesson.
Please get yourself to some meetings in your area or join us for meetings here online.
When i first came to alanon I thought it was a program to help me "fix" my son. Almost left when I found it was a program for "ME". An old timer challenged me to give it 6 months, the program is free and after 6 months if I didn't like it they would glady refund my misery.
I took that challenge and it has changed my life dramically and I can say I will always be in the program wehter my son is recovering or not because it affects ALL aspects in my life and has changed my life in all areas.
Blessings

Loupiness · ~*Service Worker*~

I know it was disheartening to discover that sobriety (or at least work on recovery) was not all that I had hoped. To discover it is a daily battle and a process for us both... Ouch!

My marriage did not make it, but honestly there was much more going on than just the alcohol... We have good friends, he is 20 yrs sober. When my exAH first came out of rehab, I still remember clearly what they told us. They said, if both people are working their programs, it gets better, can't say how long it takes, but it will. My experience is that that period of time is really calculated in years, but look how fast time goes by...

Stick with al-anon and you will see that slowly you will see things differently. Doesn't change the situation, but the power it gives over us can make all the difference. In time, you will figure out what you need to do.

Glad you are here.

Blessings,
Lou

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.