Hi, and welcome to MIP.... "Can" it happen??  I suppose...... Is it likely to happen???  I think it is VERY rare for people to be able to get sober on their own - a very small percentage may be able to stop drinking on their own, but they tend to still keep the behavioral issues associated with alcoholism - commonly referred to as "dry drunk"..... 

Step One clearly states that the alcoholic accepts that he is "powerless" over drinking - sounds to me like your hubby is still at a point in his own path, where he thinks he does, indeed, have power over his drinking - but his track record appears to prove that he really does not....

Enough about him - I'm really encouraged that you found us.... now... what are YOU going to do, regarding YOUR recovery??  Alcoholism is too tough for most of us to handle on our own, which is why we rely on each other, Al-Anon, and our own program of recovery.  You've taken a great first step in posting here, but now is a great time to begin your own path of recovery - for the good of you and your children.  Al-Anon meetings are an awesome start, and there are dozens of great books out there to help.

There is an old saying I love to quote:  "he will either drink, or he won't.... what are YOU gonna do?" 

Take care
Tom

hon to answer this question; Never,no, won't happen, impossible. "Recover?" NO

They can go into "recovery" a life long effort to follow a path of wellness to stay sober.

Addicts never are cured or recover. It is not something that goes away. That is what makes it so awful. Relapse is a part of the addicts life, even if it is doing their best not to do so, it is always there and can happen.

We hope for the best!!!

It is rare if ever that someone can go into recovery alone. When you are an addict you do not have the tools to stay sober and live a good life.

Just not using is not the answer. Being an addict is a list of symptoms that include using or doing something to their detriment and to others. We use it is like fruit cake with out the nuts, still fruitcake.

So without AA or rehab, 12 step programs, they do not know how to be a non addict.

YOU are who will help you and the kids. Your A is very, very sick. He does want to stop, believe him. But sadly he will and has found he cannot do it on his own. Drugs from the doctor? What in the world does that mean? NO drug will get them into recovery.

Al Anon is how we learn all we can how to stay sane and be in recovery ourselves. We learn all the truths about the disease. We learn from each other and support each other.

I got Getting Them Sober early on, it is a great book. Easy to read and understand.

Al Anon taught me to be a better person, has made my life totally different.

I hope you will come back, read literature, find a face to face meeting and go!

Glad you found us, debilyn

I wouldn't go so far as to say "never" can they do it on their own.  I would agree with "rarely".
My husband is sober, has been for almost 6 yrs. and did not go to AA.  BUT, (and it's a big BUT), he became so ill he almost died.  I believe there was a good dose of divine intervention in his case.

He has had his own personal journey and continues to be grateful he survived.  He doesn't have the dry drunk tendencies.  He's doing great.

Some would argue (and have) that he can't possibly be OK without going to AA.  All I can say is, HP evidently took his hand and showed him the way...and he followed.

Christy

Aloha Michele and welcome to the board.  That you are willing to investigate further
and to do that from inside of the face to face Al-Anon meetings means you are
willing to talk and listen to the friends and family of alcoholics who could not of their
own power get an alcoholic sober against their own wills.  

Can an alcoholic get and stay sober without AA.  I've heard of it happening and also
have heard that the long term success rate is very low.  Getting sober and staying
sober are two different things in this disease of compulsion and allergy.  There is
the dynamic of relapse where they return to drinking which your alcoholic has already
been involved with and because it is a progressive disease they do not return to the
first time they drank but to the last time they drank.  The disease is cunning, powerful
and baffling and results, if not arrested by total abstinence, in insanity and/or death.
Yes this is a fatal disease.

Can he do it...chances are not with the same brain that he drank with.  There has to
be a dynamic change in thinking, feeling and acting and like Christy mentioned a
divine intervention from some direction.  If he is substituting meds for alcohol that
presents another set of problems and medical supervision.    Alcoholics need prayers
and after we have said them we don't sit on our own hands...we go for help for
ourselves because we have been affected in much the same way without the
anesthesia of alcohol to block out recovery...we go crazier.

Keep coming back and joining us in our own recovery.   (((((hugs)))))

Can someone with any disease recover on their own?  To understand the concept of Powerlessness as an alcoholic it must come from personal experience.  Alcoholism is defined as a disease by the American Medical Association because it falls under the same three tenents of any other disease.

Alcoholism - Defined as a disease by the American Medical Association (why?)

1. It is chronic, you have it whether you want it or not, ignoring it, wishing it away, using will power or pretending it doesn't exist doesn't treat it.  With the best of treatments using whatever venue someone chooses, it still has the potiential to rare its ugly head from time to time, both with or without a drink, which is defined as a symtom of the disease, not the source cause.  For an alcoholic to simply stop drinking and that be the treatment for it, would be the same as someone with the flu merely wiping their nose to keep it from running.  It doesn't treat the flu.  Therefore the nose keeps running and the alcoholic keeps drinking, even when they sincerely try not to.

2. It is Progressive.  In the absince of treatment it only gets worse, never better.  The same with any other medically recognized disease.  Cancer, diabetes, MS, MDA, etc.  While these may retreat and go into remission, without ongoing, diligent preventative treatment, the prognoisis of it returning with more force, and ill effects then was present at the time it went into remission is likely. 

3. It is potientially fatal.  Regardless of the efforts put forth by the sufferer.  A woman with cancer got the good news that her cancer was in remission after a year and a half of treatments.  It stayed in remission for six years, then she had another bout with it raring its ugly head again, and was dead from it within 4 months.  A man who I personally knew treated his alcoholism diligently for 6 months, he had went from a place of despair to a place of Happy, Joyous and Free.  His nose started to run again, (he drank) because during an alcoholic mental blank spot which takes place before the first drink, he was unable to muster with sufficient force the memory of the pain and suffering of a year ago, six months ago, or even a week ago.  He died of alcoholism within 6 days.  You can read about him on a post I wrote just a few months ago.
**************

Alcoholism has no mercy on the sufferer or those that love them.  It is a medically recognized disease with no adequate medical remedy.  Which they have been trying to find since man started crushing grapes.  The only sure way to get a full recovery from it is through a spiritual experience, a psychic change, (something inside the person gets tweeked by God).  It's an internal condition of mind, body and spirit.  Therefore external solutions are usually short lived, they don't work for any substantial period of time.  Alcoholics have tried moving, changing relationships, getting a different job, going to therapy, taking medications, and the list of efforts go on and on, but these external efforts don't treat the dis-ease.  The alcoholic gets sober and becomes restless, irratiable, and discontent. 

AA doesn't get anyone sober, a sponsor in AA doesn't get anyone sober, working the steps doesn't get anyone sober.  What these elements of treatment/recovery do is hopefully get the sufferer connected to God, who gets and keeps them sober.  Provided they stay connected on a daily basis, they can fully recover and remain sober, live sober, think sober, feel sober, and react to life sober. 

We get a daily reprieve contingent upon the maintenance of our spiritual condition.  Not a weekly or monthly renewable contract. 

In the absince of this "reprieve", a term which is often used in the criminal justice system as the postponment of a death sentence, the alcoholic is surely bond to a life of alcoholism and a death of alcoholism.

If we could choose, simply make a decision and be done with it, we wouldn't qualify as Alcoholics by AMA or most who have experience with this illment.  Against our greatest, most sincere promises, vows and efforts many of us have it come out of remission, and go on to the bitter end.

I hate the disease of Alcoholism, but I try to remember that the person who has it, is a person I love, who has it.  I also hate cancer.

In either case, I am powerless.  No matter how much I help, love, talk to, shut down, cold shoulder, throw money at the sufferer or withhold it, is not going to control it.  I and the sufferer is at the mercy of God, and thats where my powerlessness comes in.

I am a alcoholic that drank for 20 years.  Drank two wifes, 4 kids, (which I loved with all my heart) a business, and a home (which I was very proud of).  None of these externals could provide me with any relief from this disease, even when I gave it my very best efforts.  Today I have over 20 years of sobriety.  Thanks to AA, the 12 Steps and a loving sponsor, which together lead me gracefully to God, where I finally got some relief... and continue it,  One Day At A Time.

Sincerely,
John F.

PS.  I read each reply to this post and am impressed with the love, understanding and compassion that the members of MIP have shown.  Please, don't think we are minimizing your feelings, we have all felt the same way at one time or another.  Angry, fearful, disappointed, disgusted, and hopeless. 
This program and where it leads us, takes all that away, no matter what the alcoholic is or isn't doing.  Our lives are no longer measured by the alcoholics.  They are no longer the barometer of how we will live today.


****************


-- Edited by John on Thursday 30th of September 2010 02:33:14 PM

It sounds as if he's insisting he can do it on his own -- the time to believe that would be when he's doing it, rather than before he's started.  In other words, it's far safer to believe what they do, not what they say.

If the odds are very much against his being able to do it alone (and they are), your response might be the same as mine -- to work even harder to try to get him into a program.  But the Three C's are: You didn't Cause it, you can't Control it, you can't Cure it.  If we could convince them to go into a program, all alcoholics would be in programs and there'd be no more problem drinking in the world.  Sad to say, they have to convince themselves on their own schedule.  So the issue is what you can control, and that's your own life and your own serenity.  I do hope you can stay on the boards and learn all you can, read all the threads, and get to meetings.  Things can turn around even without him making any changes.

welcome michelle, to alanon and MIP. 

This disease is a dynamic and it isnt just the A that feeds into it.  The A needs enablers and most of us have some codependent issues that feed into addiction.  A's pick up substances, we pick up people.  Begin by learning to focus on YOU and take your life back from the disase.  (If u are focusing on someone else's issues, feelings, problems, whims, attitudes, choices - you are feeding the disease.  We get lost in others and lose us).

Focus on what you can change and control.  Ask yourself, what will allow you to feel better and do that thing.  You cannot control an adult, they will do what they choose to do, period.  You can control & change YOU, however.

We can and do trigger each other (both the A and the codpendent enalber), we have to learn to take care of us and not try to rescue or fix each other.  Happiness and peace are inside jobs.  It is between you and your HP. 

The best way to help an A, is to work a solid program of your own and learn how to stop enalbing, take ur life back and detach with love from their choise, issues, feelings.  He will have to face that within and feel-deal-heal within, just like you have the opportunity to do so now. 
   This is a sort of bitter pilll we get hit with, when we come in looking to help someone else.  But the truth of the matter is, if YOU are unhappy, then u need to change that, no one else can do it for you.  Acceptance, willingness and responsibility is what it takes.  When we mother, smother, manipualte, beg, demand of others, we are just a screaming lunatic!  This emotionalism gives the A an excuse to use and we feel worse for them and guilty at our explosion.  Nothing changes until something changes. 

Alanon is all about discovering what is healthy for YOU.  Hope u give it a fair try in your life, it has literally saved mine.  I also sent u a PM with info, welcome home.