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 brand new to this board. I have never been to an Al Anon meeting.
I'm not sure where to turn or what to do. I have an alooholic and drug addicted husband. He had been sober for the past two and a half years. Suddenly about a month ago, I noticed changes. I was pretty sure he was getting high or drunk, but I wasn't sure. He finally admit to it on New Year's Eve. I told him to leave the house and I haven't talked to him since.
I am so angry. I can't wrap my head around why he would do this. How does a person throw away two and a half years of hard work? How does a person with a clear, sober mind forget the difference between right and wrong?
Part of me wants to take our kids and leave him for good. I don't want my kids to grow up in an environment that isn't healthy. The other part of me feels like I should be more supportive and understanding. He needs me right now.
I've ordered a few books that I saw recommended on here. I would like to attend a meeting, but I have nobody to help watch my kids except my husband who isn't living here right now.
I know the point of this board isn't for anybody to give me advice, but it feels better just to get this out in the open.
There are babysitters offered at specific meetings, my daughter is one of the babysitters. She enjoys it and watches the kids about 7 rooms down from where our meeting is held.
You can find out by calling the alanon hotline in your area to ask what meetings provide babysitters.
You are not alone, .. while our circumstances may differ the core emotions are the same. I encourage you to keep reading and sharing if you like. Get to know us and let us get to know you. This place has been such a great tool to use with regular face to face meetings. I truly encourage you to go to the face to face meetings so you can see that you really aren't alone in the real world.
Thanks for sharing and I hope you keep coming back, because you are worth it. :) 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
This sounds very frustrating and painful. Some meetings have childcare. I hope you can find some way to get to a meeting. They saved me. My AH (he still drinks sometimes) and we have a 2 and 5 year old, so i understand the challenge to going through this with children. I really believe the best thing I did for my children was going to meetings. I learned how to deal with my AH's drinking and how to make clear, informed decisions that could affect me and my children's lives for a long, long time. Keep coming back! There is hope and help. you are not alone!
HI and welcome. I think you will find sincere support from face to face al-anon meetings and this board alike. Just to know that I was not alone was huge in the beginning. My husband also relapsed and the changes were gradual and he spent alot of time lying to me in the process. Just want you to know there is hope in al-anon and all the answers cant come today but they will in time. IT works if you work it. Keep coming back. I don't know your exact situation, no one does, but I understand and can relate.
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Michelle!
No one can take away your peace of mind unless you let them.
Welcome, glad you found us and great that you ordered some Alanon books. I hope you give our online Alanon meeting room a try too if you haven't already visited. I understand that you feel disappointed by your husband's relapse but the mantra in the AA program is that the alcoholic sobriety is a 24 hour thing - one day at a time. I can't imagine what it's like to try to stay sober when someone has an addiction to alcohol or other drugs. Who knows what happened with your husband, why he picked up a drink after 2.5 years. He may be still sorting that out.
Alanon will show you how to offer loving support (if you want to) and how to keep taking care of yourself and your kids while living in an alcoholic home. It's a great program for people living with sober alcoholics as well. I found when I learned more about alcoholism/addiction as illnesses and that they aren't moral weaknesses. It helped me to not take relapses, refusal to stop drinking etc personally. Attending Alanon meetings and educating myself about alcoholism as a disease (which was very hard to wrap my mind around when I was a newcomer) helped to free me from suffering personal indignation if my loved one was using a substance. The new understanding that "alcoholics don't "drink at us but because they're alcoholics," helped me to embrace the 3 Cs if Alanon - "I didn't cause, can't control and can't cure it. If any of this is making sense, consider coming back to this board to read and keep recovering with us. In person meetings can be a lifesaver (yours) if you are able to get to them and a loving sponsor in the Alanon program can guide you with your higher power's help through the 12 steps of Alanon recovery.
As far as I know, ultimatums never got anyone sober or kept them sober - no human power can do that. Your husband has his recovery journey and his own work to do concerning that. Keep taking care of you, you're worth it. hugs TT
-- Edited by tiredtonite on Sunday 8th of January 2012 10:51:02 AM
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Surround yourself with people and elements that support your destiny, not just your history.
"How does he throw away two and half years of hard work?" this thought had me in tears a few weeks ago - been away from my A for over a year (2 Christmases), divorced for a few months, working on rebuilding my life and hoping he gets ahold of his - he was moving to a different city and none of his drinking buddies could help (imagine that). So I did and even though I know we won't ever be together, at the end I found myself crying a bit, he hugged me and said its only 80 miles, because he thinks him moving was what was making me emotional. No, it was seeing the squalor he was living in, a dark basement apartment, beer cans piled, sacks of beer cans also piled; piling his meager belongings into a trailer that used to be pretty nice before he started living in it, seeing the life he chose over the life he had with me, the life he threw away with me - how could he choose to live like that?? But he isn't choosing, not like I go to the store and choose which packet of pork chops to buy - he has no choice because he is addicted and the addiction runs his life.
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I am strong in the broken places. ~ Unknown
All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another! ~ Anatole France
Thank you everybody. It is nice to know I'm not alone. I live in a pretty big city, so I was able to find some meetings with childcare. It's great to have that available. I haven't been there yet, but I plan to go this week.
