Dealing with a relapse after 10 years of sobriety - Al-Anon Family Group

dawntodusk · Member

Dealing with a relapse after 10 years of sobriety

Bettina · ~*Service Worker*~

Welcome Dawn,

sorry to hear about your AH 's relapse. 10 years is a long time of sobriety. Does he have a sponsor he can contact. You didnt say if he was sober thru a program like AA.

To be quite honest its not your situation to tackle, its up to your husband to get back on track.

Your response is important and thats to concentrate on you and try to emotionally detach from the situation. So, dont know if you were attending Alanon before, or if you met your Husband when he was sober.

Alanon can teach you the tools of program that will help you to deal with what your feeling and how being with an Alcoholic and the disease, can effect us.

You could look for a alanon meeting near your home as I feel it would be very helpful.
Please keep coming back and share your experiences with us.

wishing you courage, luv, Bettina

hotrod · ~*Service Worker*~

(((Hi Dawn)))

I am so sorry that this relapse had happened. It is very painful to experience a relapse for both the alcoholic and the family

You know that alcoholism is a disease and is cunning and powerful .

In order for this not to infect your entire family I suggest that you find alanon face to face meetings in your community.

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

You need support and new tools to deal with your life. Living one day at a time, with a focus on yourself and sharing with others and prayer and mediation a new life can open for you and new solutions will develop

Please keep coming back and sharing the journey

-- Edited by hotrod on Sunday 17th of October 2010 07:53:41 PM

Jerry F · ~*Service Worker*~

Aloha Dawn...you don't have much choice on how the disease affects your family or
not...We don't have the power to cause, control or cure that event. Your partner
relapsed. You didn't say if your partner was in a recovery program however your
partner does have experience on how to live alcohol free for a long period of time
and knows it better than any suggestion you might thing up. What ever suggestion
you make will be untimately so that you don't feel the pain and confusion and anger
and rage of it. What works powerfully is to attend to your own peace of mind and
serenity and let your partner have all of the consequences (mind, body, spirit and
emotions) of their slip or relapse. Although it has affected the family it is not the
family's responsibility. Every recoverying alcoholic I know understands that sober
is the normal condition and drunk is not.

Call your sponsor and keep coming back (((((hugs))))) smile

dawntodusk · Member

Dear All,

Thank you all so much for having responded to me. I only just woke up to find your responses after only 3 hours sleep and it feels good not to find myself alone in this situation and talk with people who understand, have experience in the disease and give me direction.

My husband is AA and has been on a 3 months AA treatment 10 years ago. I contacted his counsellor last night to express my fears and he will make contact with him. He also advised me to focus on myself and the children. My husband asked me not to tell anyone in this country as he does not want his reputation to be ruined. He feels confidentiality within AA here is not kept in this country. So he also not planning to get any help locally.

What to do?

abbyal · ~*Service Worker*~

Find yourself an Al-Anon meeting quick this is not yours to fix ..

-- Edited by abbyal on Monday 18th of October 2010 01:17:03 AM

Sweet Stanley · ~*Service Worker*~

I'm so sorry to hear of his relapse. Whenever I hear of a relapse, I feel such sadness for all involved. Unfortunately, there is nothing that you can do, except to take care of you and your family. Alanon is a life saver in times like this. I'm saying an extra prayer for your partner that he can find sobriety again. Peace to you....

hotrod · ~*Service Worker*~

Hello Dawn

I have heard many people (Policemen) in this country say the same thing about attending AA meetings. It is his fear and we are powerless over that.

He does need help so maybe he can try on line meetings and chat . MIP has an AA section that you could introduce him to.

In the meantime keep looking for meetings for yourself and keep coming back here You are not alone and there is HOPE.

kimmy1975 · Veteran Member

Dawn ~ I can so relate to your story. When I met my AH, he was a year into sobriety. He had 9 years of sobriety under his belt until last month. He had a month long slip. It was a very scary thing for me to deal with because I didn't know him when he drank, so him drinking was very new to me. It was suggested by my therapist that I get myself into an alanon group. When I announced to AH I was going to alanon, at first he was very angry because he felt he had his drinking under control, and that I was over reacting. It wasn't until I went to my second meeting last week that he admitted to me that he realized that the disease was telling him he had his drinking under control, and that the fact I was going to alanon was telling him that he indeed didn't have his drinking under control. He decided that he was going to stop drinking because he didn't want to lose all that he had accomplished over the last 9 years of being sober. I did let him know that even though he is no longer drinking, I am still going to attend alanon. He has accepted that, and is happy I am doing whatever I need to do to take care of myself. I am happy that AH has decided to go back to his sober lifestyle, but at the same time, I am now very aware that a slip can happen at anytime, even when someone has been sober for many years. I hope your AH will choose to go back to his sober lifestyle too. In the mean time, get yourself into a meeting, so you can recover from the effects that alcoholism has on your life, and so you can learn to detach and let him fight his battle of alcoholism, because it is his battle to fight, not yours. Keep coming back here for support. We are here for you.

Take care,

Kimmy

Hoot Nanny · ~*Service Worker*~

DAWN:
Remember this program is for you, for starters. 2nd you know that you can't really do anything to get your partner back on track too. You take care of you & hang in there!
We love you!
Kathleen

xeno59 · ~*Service Worker*~

Dawn

So sorry this has happened to your family after so many yrs of sobreity
But it does happen all the time
Your husband is well aware of how and where to get help if he chooses. If his excuse of his anominty being revealed where you live I would suggest the online meetings we have here online. Then drop it
And get you and your family into Alanon and Alateen as quickly as possible. We also have online meetings for that.
I live in a small community and personally my anominity it not something I dwell on. But I do protect the anominity of others fiercely.
Please think about joining us for some online meetings to kind of get your feet wet right now.
You need all the support you can get as we all do.
Glad you found us

Blessings

dawntodusk · Member

Thanks to all of you for the input. I am going to join the online meetings as soon as possible and start working through the program. I have already gone through 2 years living with my partner when he was actively drinking and lived a very unstable / distressing 2 years. I finally ended up going back to my home country with our newborn child as it had become unmanageable. Since there was no home, money left for him to rely on after my departure, this left him with no choice but to go on a 3 months therapy that we organize together with his family. This lead him to 10 years of sobriety. All I know very clearly right now is I do not want my children to experience their father going through this so will have to gage how the days, weeks evolve before taking action.

His counsellor has already proposed a treatment centre and provided him with the contact details and I have made the funds available for him to proceed should he decide to. I have already told him that I joined Alanon and his reaction was 'so you are going to leave me then'. He also added that he was planning on taking action to be back on the program quickly anyways. We shall see if this transforms into action. Let us hope and pray that he manages to reconnect with his higher power very soon. What a horrible beast we are dealing with! Thanks to all. This is an amazing tool. I have just spent 3 hours going through the forum and have already learnt so much from all of you. Dawn

dawntodusk · Member

I am now looking for the following books, went on Amazon but did not find them:

'What's drunk mum'
'The elephant in the living room'
Many versions of 'Getting them sober', which do I need to go for? I also saw there are several volumes?

Thanks.

dawntodusk · Member

I am so relieved and grateful. My partner has just left for his therapy.

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