struggling on where my place is in helping him... - Al-Anon Family Group

NaomiMarie · Newbie

struggling on where my place is in helping him...

rrib · Senior Member

Welcome!

His making an appointment to see a therapist is a good place for him to start. If he's willing to get help another good place is aa.org where he can get help finding A.A. meetings near him.

This is a good place for you to begin finding what you need. Glad you're here!

Bettina · ~*Service Worker*~

Naomi,

The best thing you can do for your husband is take care of yourself. You have taken a great step by
joining us on this board with the many experiences of so many that have gone before us.

You didnt cause his disease, you cant cure it and you cant control it. Its ok to set boundaries for
what you will and wont accept. My X husband use to dissapear for days also. At the time I didnt
set boundaries for myself. I should have . Would you accept your husband staying away for 10 days if he wasnt alcoholic. I think we stay in our denial because we dont want to rock the boat.

Being married to an alcoholic I know is not an easy path to choose . I hope you will attend some
face to face meetings, read some Alanon material and stick around for awhile, because this
program works and will help you regain your sanity.

all my best, Bettina

rosielee · Senior Member

what can you do? help yourself, thats what you can do. xxxxxx i hope you stick around and we can gradually get round to helping over time. i just feel there is no need to gush and rush on your first post.

i too cant get to meetings- nearest one is 40 miles away. too expensive and too much of a big commitment really considering i dnt live with an active drunk any more so i am the same- reliant on line

rosielee · Senior Member

yep- and heres the surprise....you arent the cure- the fixer- the healer- you arent responsible for him to this much of an extent. its not fair on you. its good to support with love and kind ness but yu are also entitled to some mental stability and some kind of a life.

Pushka · ~*Service Worker*~

Welcome and hugs Naomi,

If you can get a copy of the book Getting Them Sober by Toby Drew Rice, that's a good one on what you can do for you and how not to engage when these situations happen.

It does get better (for you), it's not always easy (on you), you are so not alone. Please keep coming back.

Hugs P :)

tommyecat · ~*Service Worker*~

Naomi,

Welcome to MIP. Reaching out here is one way in which you are taking care of yourself. Please stay awhile and continue to post. There is plenty of diversity in perspectives regarding the disease of alcoholism. You can gleen useful information from members sharing on topics if nothing else. We here are encouraged to speak from our experience, strength and hope rather than advice. The reason for that is no one really knows what is right for your situation.

I saw that meetings are far away from you at this time. Should you decided to go, it is recommended that you try six or more meeting before making a decision as to whether or not Alanon is right for you. I think you have found the right place. Please stick around and get to know us awhile. I think you will find tremendous love, support, and understanding here.

Respectfully Yours,

Tommye

nyc018 · Senior Member

This is a very difficult situation and naturally the first instinct is to try to rescue the alcoholic. The irony is that achieves the opposite - it gives them no incentive to try to get better, and only drags you in the illness further. Whether he does or doesn't drink is out of your hands, and as much as that hurts, you will feel better when you release yourself from responsibility over it. Being good to yourself is the best thing you can do. You didn't cause, control, or can't cure his drinking, but you are in charge of your own well being. I agree with reading "Getting Them Sober." It has some really wonderful tools on how to manage this.
All the best and you're not alone,
nyc

maresie · ~*Service Worker*~

I think you are in the right place. Al anon can help. I spent 7 years living with an alcoholic who regularly blew it. He'd have a great job, be doing well, paying the bills, and he'd go off on some bender. Next minue they'd be liens in his bank account and he'd be on a slippery slide. He crashed the truck I bought so many times! I'd be at home next minute he'd pull up and the truck would be all dented up. He literally tore the thing apart in years, doors, windows, front end. You name it he destroyed every bit of it. Eventually he crashed it so badly that it was a "write off'.

I know full well that sickening feeling when they come home and say they are 'sorry".

Al anon can help you with a whole wealth of tools, support, love encouragement so that no matter what he does you can cope.

I remember well being at wit's end. I also remember being so enraged and fed up and not believing anything he said. I didn't know how to help him either.

I'm glad you are here. I hope you'll consider checking out what al anon has to offer. There are tools like detachment, finding a sponsor (who can really help in giving you direction), sharing, working the steps of the 12 steps as well as working on ways not to "engage" with the destructive behavior of the alcoholic.

All this is a tall order of course.

But its worth it.

Maresie.

Mattie · ~*Service Worker*~

Welcome, Naomi, and I'm so glad you've found us.

In Al-Anon we have the Three C's: you didn't Cause it, you can't Cure it, you can't Control it. This isn't because we think this is a good way for things to be! We'd love to be able to cure it and control it! But the experiences of thousands, probably millions of people has shown that no one but the alcoholic can start him on the road to recovery. He needs to find his own program (not go it alone -- that also doesn't work) and work his own recovery.

I imagine every single of us here has been desperate to figure out how to help and to improve our alcoholic's life. All of us have sadly come to the same conclusion, some quickly, some slowly: we are powerless.

But there is hope. It turns out that we've been affected by being sucked into the insanity that alcoholism causes. If we work on our own recovery, the dynamic between us and the alcoholic gets so much less miserable. We can change the atmosphere and our lives. And if you think of the alcoholic + partner as a combination, changing half the combination changes the whole thing, doesn't it?

My reaction was "But why should I have to change when he's the one with the problem?" I learned there are two answers to this (maybe three). One is that ourselves is the only person we can change. So in this case, as opposed to the trying to change the alcoholic, the effort is not wasted. The second is that we've been affected by alcohol without even noticing it. The insanity really does touch everyone around the alcoholic. We all have to react one way or the other. This change means that we will react in a way that comes from our own inner strength, not from just being blasted by alcoholic insanity. The third way is that this way we can achieve lives of serenity and peace.

It's also worth noting that sometimes, when we get healthier, our alcoholic follows suit. This isn't a way to get him to do that, and there are no guarantees. Statistically, most alcoholics do not recover. But if we follow our own program of recovery, we maximize the chances that the alcoholic will make healthier choices.

Hugs. Keep coming back.

Jerry F · ~*Service Worker*~

Aloha Naomi and my welcome along with the others who have share some very good Experiences, Strengths and Hopes with you already. I was also taught what they offer and have used it in my recovery after being born and raised in the disease and then being a carrier of it into my adult life. Alcoholism is a disease...of the mind, body, spirit and emotions and can never be cured; only arrested by total abstinence. It affects everyone it comes into contact with and if not arrested by total abstinence results in insanity and death. It is fatal and not only to the alcoholic. I learned that insanity was "doing the same things over and over again expecting different results". This matters because it helped me to stop doing things to support and rescue my alcoholic/addict wife which always resulted in her getting drunk and high anyway and often with worse consequence. I was taught to allow her to "hit her bottom" ...crash without trying to prevent it or shouldering the responsibility of it in any way and this finally worked. I had to get out of the way all the way and only then did she get into recovery on her own by herself with a higher power and in a way that was a lesson in humility for me...a stunning lesson in humility at that. When I got out of the way and went on with repairing my life she got to meet here real Higher Power which wasn't me. Everything I did to cause her to stop made it worse and this is part of the definition of enabling which is that part of the disease I carry. I want the best for her and it only gets worse...insanity.

Helping him is about seeking your own recovery and getting out of his way and between Him and a Higher Power. You do that by joining us...people in recovery...and considering the suggestions that are offered like the literature mentioned and from the Al-Anon family Groups which was founded over 65 years ago and closely parallels the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. PM me with your personal address and my spouse and I will send you a "newcomers packet" of information. That's one way to start.

Keep coming back...sit down, listen, learn and practice, practice, practice. This works when you work it. (((((hugs))))) smile

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.