Hugs and welcome,

I am sorry you are in the situation you are in, however I'm glad you found MIP. The sooner you make it to a f2f meeting the more it helps. It helps unravel the disease of alcoholism. Hearing others stories and sharing (if you choose) your own is a very freeing experience. You are so not alone. I have been applying the 3 C's regularly in my life. You did not cause the addiction, you can not cure it and you will not and cannot control it. Coming to that realization for me was a God thing. Addicts have to come to their own path in choosing to get well or not. The problem is as caretakers we allow the disease to fester and keep the addict from learning their own path, and in doing so, do so much more damage. It is commendable that you recognize that your daughters needs come first because after us the children are the next collateral damage. Any addiction leaves a wake of damage in it's wake. You have to take care of you first.

Freeagain is absolutely correct that once the door of violence is open it's way to easy to step through again. I am glad to hear you acted and called the police. There is never any rationalization for violence. Once someone is in an altered state of mind (via substance or rage) you cannot rationalize with them, it's like nailing jell-o to a tree.

Keep coming back :) You are worth it!!

Welcome and I'm so glad you have found us.  You are in the right place.  There is a lot of wisdom and experience on these boards.

Your determination to take care of your daughter is wonderful.  That's exactly the kind of determination a kid needs, especially in difficult circumstances.  It is so important.

What I wish someone had told me when I started this journey is that the majority of alcoholics do not make it to longterm sobriety.  The statistics are that between 5% and 30% of those who enter recovery programs stay sober longterm.  Of course that means that most of them do not.

If I had known this, I would not have kept waiting around for so long for my alcoholic husband to get sober.  He did make stabs at it -- he embarked on AA several times, he went through court-order rehab, etc. etc.  Each time I thought, "Good, this is it, he's started recovery now."  But after a while it was back to square one, except that they never really get back to where they were -- the disease progresses, so it gets worse and worse. With him it got worse slowly enough so that I didn't see it.  I kept thinking it was okay and I/we could handle it, until I lost all perspective and things were really bad and I still thought that was normal and feasible.  We get sucked into the insanity too and we tend to believe the alcoholic's denial -- it's not so bad, it's under control really, it will get better, he has a handle on it now ... until one day we realize we're living an insane life.

I was determined to stick around for my alcoholic's recovery, but he wasn't determined to recover.  My determination was about a hundred times greater than his.  The question I should have asked myself was, "Is this life tolerable if he never changes?"  Because that was the real situation of things.  That might be something you want to ask yourself.  Another would be, "Would I like my child to grow up thinking this is normal?  Would I like her to stay with a man who behaves as he is behaving?"  Those questions really scared me and helped me get perspective.

The most important thing is to take care of you and your daughter.  I hope you can get to some meetings soon.  Some of them offer free childcare -- you can ask the person at the Al-Anon number in the phone book.

Recovery is wonderful and miracles happen.  Read lots of threads on this board.  Hugs to you.

Thank you all. Looks like I've really found the place I need to be in. To start anyway. :)

I am guilty of many of the things you posted. Enabling, protecting, etc. This is what I'm struggling with the most. I KNOW (as I posted earlier) he CANNOT live in my home anymore. I'm having SUCH a hard time though thinking that I need to cease ALL contact with him. I know what kind of man he is when he is sober and I know that it's selfish of me to expect him to get help for "us". There is that glimmer of hope in my head that he HAS hit rock bottom and wants to start getting sober.

I haven't had ANY contact with him since Thursday night. I've been consumed with thinking of different scenarios. Should I do this or that.... But is it wrong for me to want to be there for him emotionally while he's locked up?? He has seriously lost EVERYTHING in his life. I realize that we will probably never be a couple again. Like I said my daughter and her emotional/physical safety remains priority... but do I turn my back on him as a friend? This is where my pity for him comes in. First and foremost he's a friend.... would I do that to any of my other friends?

I never in my life realized that alcoholism affects people/families this way. I've never been involved in it in this way.

I'm sure you all think I'm absolutely crazy but I honestly feel that the incident between us way very minor and isolated. :/ I KNOW that wasn't him....the real him....

Wow... I'm so overcome with evertything. Thank you all again.

Oh flopadopilus, Codependent No More has been a God send for me at this point. I really want to read Getting them Sober as well. I have 3 months worth of reading and trying to fit in some light reading as well .. lol. Thank goodness for the library!!

The decision to see him or not is totally up to you.

This was my experience and I'm using my ex who was a DA. Similar situation to you as far as the violence and then the police. I was so lucky to walk away, I could and did rationalize it as oh it was only bruising on my arm he didn't do enough damage to send me to the hospital. My parents did not help the situation I heard well, he only hit you once, it really wasn't THAT bad. Who says that to their kid, adult or not? Whatever, I was done at that point. However, I did not pursue the issue through the courts looking back I wish I had, because my divorce would have been free and clear as well as counseling. My belief is so strong that once that door opens to contact violence it is way to easy to go back there over and over again. The violence with him crept up, first it was punching the wall, throwing things, shoving me into a wall, and then the final episode escalated to punching me. I was a tiny thing at the time. I look back and honestly I'm very lucky to be alive. Things could have easily escalated from there because he was a gun owner, and to stop me from screaming he put a pillow over my face. That was what was the door the closed for me, when that happened I thought oh crap he's going to kill me the next time. He wanted of course to do the "friend" thing and I'm telling you that was the worst thing ever for me. The manipulation started with how could you do this to me. Why would you do this to me. There was nothing about the role played there were a ton of empty promises about him getting help. The begging, I abandoned him, I was a terrible person, he was going to kill himself, blah blah blah. Still it was my fault he acted out the way he did as always. The phone calls and then the threats. I was fortunate that I knew he had no gumption to follow through. He was just to lazy. I faked him out to, I did not follow through on the restraining order, at least he didn't know that, I told him he needed to do what he needed to do, however the police would be waiting and he could go back to jail. It was all about controlling me and me being in fear. He also kept wanting to meet me privately, and I was insistent if we were to meet up it HAD to be a public place there was no way I was going to be alone with him. Do I feel compassion for him? Yes. At the time I knew how off things were, I was not in a healthy place myself. I prayed and still pray for him. We were toxic together and I had a def safety thing going on. I am so grateful we never had children together. That was a saving grace as to putting the whole situation behind me.

This is my two cents totally, your ABF (ex, whatever) needs to take care of his issues deal with his own problems. You need to deal with your issues. Right now you sound from your posting very confused and vulnerable. That's ok because of what you have been through, before talking to him and worrying about where he is at, work on yourself. I would encourage you to wait for contact. His colors are going to come out and you will know if you feel ok about being around him. Phone calls, maybe, however I still say get yourself to a better place before. That's just me and how I feel about my own situation, if I had a child I can tell you right now there is no way in hell that would be going on at all. She is old enough to see and is learning about what is or is not appropriate in a relationship. She is seeing her mom accept unacceptable behavior after saying no and that's a big deal.

Sorry, this is so about you, I can just so relate and hope you get some distance and go to an alanon meeting :) It was the best thing I did for myself. :)