Question to those who are close to or in a relationship with an addict. - Al-Anon Family Group

AsphyxiateOnMisery · Member

Question to those who are close to or in a relationship with an addict.

hotrod · ~*Service Worker*~

Hello and Welcome to Miracles in Progress

It is difficult to diagnose a problem without more information. Alcoholism is a progressive disease over which we are powerless. Isolation, not eating, sleeping, loss of interest in life are all part of the addiction picture.

We who live with this disease also become ill and need recovery,A lanon has face to face meetings in your community and by going to this site you will be able to find meetings near you.

By going to the following link:

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

It is important for us to break the isolation of living with addiction, connect with others who understand as few others can and learn new ways to respond to the illness

Keep coming here and sharing You are worth it.

Dolly Llama · Senior Member

I learned to not expect my alcoholic husband to be awake or not hungover, etc. when I was up and ready for the day. To do otherwise was to set myself up to be disappointed. In time I learned to enjoy the peace and quiet and went about my day regardless. It was important for me to have plans in any case so that my day was not dependent on his state of consciousness. This was hard at first but in time I was able to master this.

When I realized he had become such a small part of my life, and that the time we did spend together was so soul-sucking, I had to face the truth about my relationship.

Substance abuse of any kind is hard on the body. I don't know if that is the case with your fiancee's sleep needs or not. Doesn't really matter. What matters is what you do. Can't control him or his schedule, so why make yourself crazy trying.

Michelle814 · ~*Service Worker*~

my husband stayed up reeaaaal late and then had difficulty waking up when he was using.. who wants to wake up to another day, slave to the pills or bottle or powder.. so sad.

what I have come to discover.. is that this is his problem. I know that sounds harsh, and I am not in any way saying I don't care or that I don't want what is best for him. What I have come to realize, through al-anon meetings, my sponsor, and al-anon literature, and friends.. is that.. I can't control him, I also did not cause his addiction and I can't cure it either. Once I had that peace and then it sunk in.. I could Let go and Let God. I have bad days. I slide backwards.. but mainly I keep the focus on me.

Hope you keep coming on here and sharing your journey with us. There is much ESH on this site. It has helped me out so much.. but nothing has been more helpful than f2f al-anon meetings.

-- Edited by Michelle814 on Saturday 14th of April 2012 07:09:03 AM

sewanee · Newbie

My Ah was addicted to prescription meds.He took Opiates like vicodin and lortabs and a assortment of other drugs.Basically whatever he was able to get his hands on.Depending upon what he took he would either sleep most of the day or be hyped up unable to go to sleep.I hated him abusing drugs and the affect it had on me.I learning to detach with love.Taking care of myself and accepting that it unrealistic for me to expect him to be emotionally available to be while in addtive addiction.Do you know about the Naranon family forum?You might want to visit that site .It helped me beacuse although Alcohol is a drug there are some differences though we may be of a different cut .We have in commom loving someone with a disease that affects the whole family .Keep coming back !

AsphyxiateOnMisery · Member

Dolly Llama wrote:
I learned to not expect my alcoholic husband to be awake or not hungover, etc. when I was up and ready for the day. To do otherwise was to set myself up to be disappointed. In time I learned to enjoy the peace and quiet and went about my day regardless. It was important for me to have plans in any case so that my day was not dependent on his state of consciousness. This was hard at first but in time I was able to master this.

When I realized he had become such a small part of my life, and that the time we did spend together was so soul-sucking, I had to face the truth about my relationship.

Substance abuse of any kind is hard on the body. I don't know if that is the case with your fiancee's sleep needs or not. Doesn't really matter. What matters is what you do. Can't control him or his schedule, so why make yourself crazy trying.

Thank you for your advice...I'll try to find ways to enjoy my time if he's asleep. I wouldn't per se say that he is a small part of my life...there are some days he wakes up at a decent time (mostly when he goes to work though), but we do spend some time together going places, even if it's later in the day. There have been times that we planned to spend the entire day together though, and he didn't want to wake up and do it when the time came to wake up, and that pissed me off really badly. But I know I need to try to change my reactions to those types of things if they happen.

-- Edited by AsphyxiateOnMisery on Saturday 14th of April 2012 09:04:13 AM

pinkchip · ~*Service Worker*~

Heya - I will just comment on this from my own experience. I used to sleep like that when drinking and I am pretty sure drugging is not too different (alcohol is a drug after all). Anyhow, the deal is that when a person goes to bed high or drunk - they may be totally passed out, but those chemicals/intoxicants greatly interfere with REM sleep. Hence, the person will not feel rested after a normal nights sleep for the rest of us. I used to do the same thing you are mentioning about your addict fiance. I always felt tired and didn't know why. Duh. It all makes sense now.

The other thing is that because drugs and alcohol are addictive, a person will get so they can't eat, sleep, and all sorts of other things without the drug or alcohol. Hence, I got into a pattern that the only way I could sleep was to either be so exhausted and hung over that I shut down or to be passed out drunk. It took me several months to a year to start getting normal sleep again. It was rough going from sleeping all day, to not sleeping much at all in early sobriety, to finally getting into some normal patterns. Sleep is such an important part of our functioning. When you add this to other things going on with a recovering addict, you can see how the moodiness and irritability amps up (not to make excuses for those behaviors).

Hope this helps.

Mark

-- Edited by canadianguy on Saturday 14th of April 2012 10:45:37 AM

AsphyxiateOnMisery · Member

pinkchip wrote:
Heya - I will just comment on this from my own experience. I used to sleep like that when drinking and I am pretty sure drugging is not too different (alcohol is a drug after all). Anyhow, the deal is that when a person goes to bed high or drunk - they may be totally passed out, but those chemicals/intoxicants greatly interfere with REM sleep. Hence, the person will not feel rested after a normal nights sleep for the rest of us. I used to do the same thing you are mentioning about your addict fiance. I always felt tired and didn't know why. Duh. It all makes sense now.

The other thing is that because drugs and alcohol are addictive, a person will get so they can't eat, sleep, and all sorts of other things without the drug or alcohol. Hence, I got into a pattern that the only way I could sleep was to either be so exhausted and hung over that I shut down or to be passed out drunk. It took me several months to a year to start getting normal sleep again. It was rough going from sleeping all day, to not sleeping much at all in early sobriety, to finally getting into some normal patterns. Sleep is such an important part of our functioning. When you add this to other things going on with a recovering addict, you can see how the moodiness and irritability amps up (not to make excuses for those behaviors).

Hope this helps.

Mark

Thank you for the clarification on how it interferes with REM sleep. It makes sense.

-- Edited by glad lee on Saturday 14th of April 2012 12:45:23 PM

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