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.
I am currently engaged to the love of my life, who also is an alcoholic. I love him so much but I doont know what to do. He was sober for 3 years and then got sick and spent a few weeks in the hospital and since he has gone back to drinking. He doesnt come home sometimes and is lying about where he is and what he is doing. He is also taking $$ from our bank account and not telling me. I guess I just dont know what to do anymore. I love him but I cant trust him and I am extremely hurt by the things he says and does when he is drinking... Please help me understand what he is going through and what I can do to help myself and him.... :(
Thank you so much. I feel so alone in all of this! I grew up in an alcoholic environment and now am living it as an adult.. as the cycle continues... its so hard because he is great when he is sober but unbearably mean when he is drinking.. i cant help but think that some of his drinking is my fault nd that he doesnt come home because he doesnt want me and that the things he says when he is drunk he really means.. im so hurt and he doesnt understand y!!!
I can relate to your posting and the confusion and despair that you describe. It's incredibly painful to care about someone so deeply and to feel things spin out of control. I've felt the pain of being on the receiving end of an active drinker's hurtful words. I tried everything to plead with him about how it made me feel, that it was hurting me and him, it wasn't necessary to talk to me that way to get his point across etc. I stayed up numerous nights writing long letters trying to find just the words that I thought would result in an AHA! moment for him etc. All to no avail. I did this for over ten years.
I hit my low when we were traveling over the recent X-mas holidays. He started sayng horrible things to me when people weren't around, and even in front of family members. I felt invisible, wretched and insignficant. I started crying and couldn't stop for hours, even in front of my kids. I felt like I was dying from the pain of it. He wasn't.
As soon as I got back I hit an Alanon meeting and went to 6 in one week. At first it felt really odd to me but I began feeling pieces of myself returning the more I went. I found a seasoned sponsor and started calling her daily. I read Alanon books and literature morning and night. I began working the 12-steps and continued with Alanon meetings.
Alanon will help you understand some of what the Alcoholic "goes through" but the main focus is on yourself. As it should be but somehow we get all enmeshed and entangled and our boundaries get smudged, big-time when we are in a relationship with an alcoholic.
You can help him best by learning to detach and learning how to focus on you. It's the only way we heal and get out of their way so they can deal with their disease. We do them no favors by staying in it, and only delay their recovery.
Thanks for allowing me to share my experience, hope and stength with you! Alanon will work for you, and all your relationships, if you work it!
What can you do to help yourself? You made the fiest step tonight reaching out. You situation is not the exception but the rule. Different from others but the same. You have been effected by someome else's drinking. We can and do become as sick or sicker than the alcoholic in our lives.
No one here will tell you what you should or should not do. In Al-Anon we don't give advice, only share what worked for us, our experience, strenght, and hope (ES&H).
Alcoholism is a powerful disease that takes over the mind, body, and spirit. It's all consuming. It's a taker never a giver. The disease is in control and we have no control over the disease. You didn't get where you are overnight and the problems the disease had caused and is causing you will not go away overnight. But you can get the help you need, the help the Al-Anon program offers by finding an Al-Anon face to face meeting in your area. Attending meetings was a life saver for me. I've been where you are and I felt alone in the disease. I found a new family the first night I walked though the doors of Al-Anon. Members who understood what I was going through. Members with more problems than me who shared how the program had changed their life. I wanted what they had. My life had become unmanageable. I continued going back to meetings and I listened to what they had to say. I learned something at every meeting that when applied made my life better. I was given the tools of the program and slogans that at the time were only words.....Don't React, Let Go and Let God, One Day At A Time, You Don't Have To Go To Every Argument Your Invited To, and many more. The slogans are not just words anymore, they have meaning and have saved my sanity and peace of mind countless times.
It will be suggested by other members here on MIP that you should do what I also suggested. The reason. It's what worked for us. We need recovery whether the alcoholic in our life chooses recovery or not. Without help alcoholism is to much for most of us. You need the help this program offers. You made the first step tonight, take the next step and start your recovery. Your worth it and you deserve it. Do it for yourself.
Read prior post on this site, keep coming back, you have found a new caring family and you are not alone anymore. HUGS, RLC
-- Edited by RLC on Thursday 4th of August 2011 10:55:35 PM
Well you have taken the first step my friend, you are here and you know you are powerless over this horrific disease. Take baby steps go easy on yourself. Keep coming back if you can't find an alanon meeting near you please join one here.
As far as helping him, by helping yourself you will learn these things. Please for now just give yourself a minute to help you.
Welcome, welcome and know you are not alone in this wonderful journey back to life you are about to take.
Aloha Lost...Welcome to the board and I'm hoping you get to a face to face meeting of the Al-Anon Family Groups in your area very soon. The love him...hate him syndrome has to do with the Dr. Jekyl, Mr. Hyde personality of the alcoholic and it is usual in the disease. When you get to the meeting there will be tons of information for you to get so that you can at lease find early information about what alcoholism is, does, and how enablers participate in it. My last alcoholic spouse was my wife and she also displayed that personality. I was married to an addict before that and had relationships with alcoholics in between. I was born into the disease generationally so I have the answer to the question "what's wrong with me?". The solution to that question is in the program of Al-Anon and doing everything I can to gain and maintain my serenity and that is one reason why I am here also. Keep coming back cause this works when you work it. (((((hugs)))))
thank you all so much! its good to know that i am NOT alone! I am def. going to look into a meeting locally! I just want to start feeling better about myself and feeling better about my life!!!
lost Hi I am very new here too. I hear what you are saying.. my partner is not a drinker but he smokes cannabis and he gave up for 3 and a half years in our early days together. We were married last September and he went back using constantly around the time of our wedding. I don't understand why the 3 or so years were so good... why change that.... but I am not addicted so????????
Where do we go from here. I know I am sitting here at work and he is home early smoking. He is not a nasty person, he doesn't get angry at me when he is stoned. It is disengaging and it is disrespectful to me and my wishes.
What can I do... nothing... right now.. except do what I have to do and that is finish my work and then go home and probably read a book or watch a movie.
I can't offer any advice because I am new like you, but just realise.. yep.. we are all here for areason
You and I could be writing the same posts. I am brand new here, as well. I am also engaged to my Afiance. Things seemed to be getting better (or maybe I was denial), and I went ahead and mailed out the invitations last Wednesday. I came home from work and he was drunk again and I kicked him out! I went to my first al-anon meeting that night. I eventually did let him come back home that night.
No one here will tell you whether you should marry him or not. No one will tell you what to do. Except get to a meeting! I found support and a peacefulness that I did not know was out there. And these boards are amazing. Just reading other people's encouraging words will help you get through the day.
Just please keep coming back, in my opinion we all learn from each other here.
And no matter what you do, remember to TAKE CARE OF YOU.
Hi Lost, Congratulations for reaching out here. And as everyone else has said, a face to face meeting can work wonders. When I walked in to my first one, I was crying so hard I could barely talk...and I kept going back because it was the only hour in a day when people understood what I was going through and I could talk. Even just recalling a scenario where my AH had done something years ago would break me down into tears so fast I didn't know what hit me!
But I did soon realize that nobody was going to tell me to leave my husband (I wanted to hear that) and that all I could do was look at my own behaviors and practices. I didn't get it at first but I slowly got in to my daily readings and when I finally started applying the slogans/ideas/suggestions I could not believe that I could survive a crisis without rage and hysterical crying. It works if you work it--I truly needed proof and not only did I get it by applying the ideas first hand, but when I am struggling, all I have to do is think about the people (friends!) from meetings to know that it is possible to find peace even during the most horrible of times.
My AH walked out on his family two nights ago. I don't even know where he is right now, but I am somehow OK. I know it is not my fault and he is responsible for himself. Al-Anon has saved my life and all I can do is pray he finds his way to peace himself. Most of his ugly behaviors which seem to be directed at me are just a guise for how awful he feels about himself. Understanding that helps lessen the blow.
Hang in there and keep centered on yourself and it can get easier. You are definitely not alone.
Thank you so much. I feel so alone in all of this! I grew up in an alcoholic environment and now am living it as an adult.. as the cycle continues... its so hard because he is great when he is sober but unbearably mean when he is drinking.. i cant help but think that some of his drinking is my fault nd that he doesnt come home because he doesnt want me and that the things he says when he is drunk he really means.. im so hurt and he doesnt understand y!!!
I can certainly relate! That's how I felt for most of my married life.
Lost, you are not the cause of his drinking! Not one iota!
Begin reading the posts here at MIP. Also, I sure hope you give Al-Anon meetings a good try! Truly, attending meetings has helped me regain hope. I've only been attending for 5 months and WOW! What a significant difference.
You surely are NOT alone! Keep coming back here.
Take good care, Gail
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You have to go through the darkness to truly know the light. Lama Surya Das
Resentment is like taking poison & waiting for the other person to die. Malachy McCourt
Welcome and Hugs Lost you have received some great ESH :) I just wanted to say HI and welcome you to MIP :)
Hugs P :)
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Stepping onto a brand-new path is difficult, but not more difficult than remaining in a situation, which is not nurturing to the whole woman.- Maya Angelo
I found support and a peacefulness that I did not know was out there. And these boards are amazing. Just reading other people's encouraging words will help you get through the day.