Am I Over Reacting - Al-Anon Family Group

Bargee · Veteran Member

Am I Over Reacting

pinkchip · ~*Service Worker*~

I think alanon face to face would be a huge help. You have a lot on your plate and your feelings sound reasonable. I would be very conflicted. No - you are not over reacting.

Mattie · ~*Service Worker*~

No, you're not overreacting. Our children rely on us to protect them. How would you feel about a babysitter who arrived with two six-packs and said, "I'm going to drink this tonight! Can't wait!" ? You'd be appalled. But our partners try to make us lose perspective as to whether this is normal.

You are at just the place I was when I separated from my alcoholic husband for good. I came home from a day at work to find him effectively passed out, the baby not changed since the morning, and a floor-level window wide open (we were on the third floor). Our child was a toddler and it was a miracle he hadn't fallen right out that window and killed himself. But husband was supposed to be abstinent and sober, and when I found that scene, I knew that was the end. The stash of beer cans I found just underlined the decision, but the decision was sure anyway. In the aftermath I discovered all kinds of things I hadn't known, like that he had left our child alone (at the age of one) in our house at least once while he went to buy beer. It wouldn't have been acceptable even if our child had been asleep, but our child wasn't even asleep. The alcohol just makes them insane.

Another thing I learned from this whole experience is that expecting them not to drink is just unrealistic. Alcoholics drink, that's what they do. If they had the sensible judgment of sober people they wouldn't be alcoholics. They will drink while driving on long car trips, they will drink while operating chain saws, they will drink while taking care of kids, they will drink while driving kids places. They will promise up and down that they won't drink while doing any of these things, and then they'll drink. It's part of the whole insanity of the condition.

Your little one is very fortunate to have you to protect her. We have to do whatever has to be done to keep them safe.

I hope you have a meeting? And that you will keep coming back. Hugs.

Jerry F · ~*Service Worker*~

Aloha Bargee...It's not a good reaction and it is a normal reaction from those who are affected by someone elses drinking. You risked that he wouldn't drink and that the night would come out different; it came out the same...Alcoholism is a disease; a compulsion of the mind and allergy of the body which can never be cured only arrested by total abstinence. You're acting normal...loving the alcoholic and hating the disease and how it affects his thinking and behaviors and your relationship (life) with him. You expected him to drink while you were wishing he wouldn't...probably went thru alot of fear while you were out with your soccer group. You didn't enable him. You left him to choices and the disease made the choice for him and for you. That is what it did...alcoholism chooses to drink and to have all of the consequences that come with drinking...it makes him crazy and you and everyone it comes into contact with including your infant child...Not a sane picture. You can get a much saner picture of your situation and better alternatives to it from inside the face to face rooms of the Al-Anon Family Groups. You will be meeting with many others who know exactly what you are going thru and who understand and have better solutions to it.

So leave your old thinking and reactions at home and get to the meeting. If your infant is managable take her with you to the meeting. (good atmospher). If not take her to your parents for an hour and a half.

Keep coming back here so we can support each other. ((((Hugs)))) smile

Mattie · ~*Service Worker*~

I should add that many places have Al-Anon meetings with childcare. Call the local Al-Anon number to ask which ones do. Hugs.

Bargee · Veteran Member

Thank you so much.
I woke up this morning thinking that I was just being silly.
I think it's just because for so many times now I have excused his behaviour.
Forgiven him.
Reading your posts made me realise that I can't just let this one go though.
I'm so scared.
I still love him.

maryjane · ~*Service Worker*~

Oh, you are in a tough spot emotionally where your denial is being torn away. I hated that place. When I KNEW that the alcohol was more important than us. Buckets of tears. I'm so sorry that you have to go through this, but it is important to get rid of the denial. You have to know what you are dealing with. Alanon meetings will help you with that.

Breakingfree · ~*Service Worker*~

I have been in the exact situation and would let him tell me I was over reacting and I would bury my feelings and just go along with what he said, uuntil one day I didn't. Now my life is far easier, because I don't rely on my exAH to be anything other than an A, I have dettached with love and my daughters are better for it. Al-anon face to face meeting, my sponsor and coming here helped me to get my life turned around and I am so blessed for this recovery program! I am sending you love and support on your journey!

Pushka · ~*Service Worker*~

Sending lots of love and support, it's not easy to be in the position you are in and continually doubt if what you are feeling is ok or not. I echo that as a mother TOTALLY normal response to that given situation. I also encourage you to find a support group, they do offer babysitting and women also bring their children (babies) into the meeting. There are many hands to hold those little ones. All you need to do if find out if there is a meeting with babysitting available. Don't isolate under the guise that you can't go because you have a baby.

Hugs P :)

pineapple · ~*Service Worker*~

(((Bargee))) NO, you are NOT overreacting! Active A's can't be counted on for ANYTHING! I don't have children, but I don't expect my A to even take care of our animals when I am gone for a day or two. I have been house-sitting for friends in the next village but come home for an hour or two every day to make sure the animals have food and water, because if I don't take care of them nobody will. (Even though my A is here, he is always too drunk to pay attention to the animals or anything else.) Please do whatever is necessary to make sure your little one is safe.

Bargee · Veteran Member

I tried to talk to him today about our marriage and also what happened today.
He just got angry and started yelling.
All just the usual crap.
Might try agin in a few days.
We do need to talk, because I don't even know if he wants our marriage to work.
I am pretty sure the local Alanon meeting for me is Friday.
I'll have to find out if I can take my daugher.
I'm feeling really nervous as I have two meetings this week that I need to go to (after work hours) and I'm nervous about leaving my daughter with my Husband, but I'm terrified of telling him that as he will get angry.
Maybe I can say my Mum wants to spend time with her??

Mattie · ~*Service Worker*~

Their anger is a way of trying to control us. What they want to make us do is to pretend that everything's fine and that they're never drunk and never irresponsible and their drinking is no problem at all. That way they don't have to look at what's happening.

Not that we can force them to look at what's happening. But we don't have to play along with their self-inflicted delusion that everything's dandy.

Of course, if there is any chance that your A would be physically violent, you need to protect yourself above all other considerations.

Leaving a defenseless baby to be looked after by an alcoholic is playing with fire. Tragedies have happened. I know it seems hard to believe because he's so unconcerned about it that it seems as if reality is different. It's like those experiments they do where a fire alarm goes off and smoke starts coming out, and the subjects look around. And if the other people in the room are acting calm and like it's no big deal, the subjects don't run out of the burning building. They let their sense of reality get altered by the strange reactions of the other people. (In the experiment those other people are on the side of the experimenters and the building isn't really burning.) But it's like we look to our alcoholics for a reality check and they're acting like "No, none of this stuff is dangerous" and we start to doubt ourselves. And they get mad if we say it's dangerous, so we backpedal -- "No, you're right, it's fine."

In my experience alcoholics will say anything and agree to anything (but not follow through) so they can keep on drinking. Trying to talk to them is like trying to talk to someone in the insane asylum. I had so many "serious talks" with my AH. I'm sure he doesn't remember one of them. He usually didn't even remember them the next week, or even the next day.

Please do everything you can to take good care of yourself and your little girl.

danni · Senior Member

welcome back! I am so glad that mommy and baby are healthy. I remember your posts from before the baby came, so congrats on your newborn! After almost a year and a half of attending meetings, I realize now that questioning myself regarding overreacting was simply my denial, which is common when we love someone with a drinking problem. I, too, was afraid of angering my husband by attending meetings, but I was desparate for help. I know that sick feeling of coming home to a drunk husband left alone in a home with a helpless baby. It was for me, as a mother, a horribly sick feeling. Looking back, I see now that disrupting our routine and my husband's comfort level by going to meetings was the very thing needed to change what was not working and had become dangerous for my children. I am grateful I had, finally, somehow, the courage to begin the process of change which I absolutely needed and my children deserved. I am so glad to hear you are considering going to a meeting. It is impossible to guess how your husband will react, but I assure you that if you keep coming back, your life will get better. Sending you tremendous support and understanding, and I'm so glad you are here.

Bargee · Veteran Member

Thank you.
I don't think I can leave my daughter with my husband again. Not yet anyway. He has told me he won't do it again, but honestly I can't trust him.
I have two work meetings that I need to go to this week so there is no way I can take my daughter, but I'll figure something out.
My Husband is not physically violent, but is emotionally and mentally abusive when he is drunk. He becomes so nasty.
I can't believe how nasty he can be and then the next day, when the alcohol finally makes it out of his system, he becomes so loving, yet if I continue to be sad/hurt he thinks I'm sulking.
I'm pretty sure he doesn't realise or remember just how nasty he has been.
The last two weeks we have argued constantly wether he has been drunk or not. When he is an active alcoholic he becomes so angry all the time. Is this quite normal?
I told him that I'm so close to leaving. He never really says anything when I say this. I don't think he actually believes me.
I can't understand how he can blame EVERYTHING on me. I asked him to stop calling me names and being nasty. His reply was "well if you stopped making me so angry I probably wouldn't call you names"!!!!
My belief is that sure I am going to make him angry, just like he makes me angry, but why does he have to call me names? I don't call him names when he makes me angry.
Is there hope that he will stop drinking? It was only a week ago that I found him on the phone talking to his old AA sponsor in tears. I truely thought that drinking that much while looking after our daughter might have been the final point for him.
Obviously not.

Bargee · Veteran Member

I'm so confused.
My Husband was so nice to me today.
My heart hurts.
I am almost looking forward to going to my first Alanon meeting.
Except it seems so far away!!

Pushka · ~*Service Worker*~

I have no wish to sound pessimistic, that being said the realistic issue is the fact he's sick. This is part of the manipulation to prove how normal they are and they just aren't, this is crazy making behavior for us. Plus it's our ability to rationalize maybe it wasn't that bad after all. We are overreacting to the situation. Read your first post on this thread and remember this is not normal behavior out of him. How you feel isn't normal either .. you are not overreacting to the situation you are taking care of you.

Take care of you, .. go to the meeting, don't think that now that he's being nice that everything is going to be "normal" it's not. It's just a matter of time before another alcohol related incident will happen. It helps me to think about my kids. Do I want my kids to remember this time in their life with me as gee Dad drinks, .. what the heck is wrong with Mom? I have to do something different for them so that my kids have a shot at not recreating their childhood in adulthood. Not to mention I want something different in my own life, I do not want to continue to attract the same drama in my own life.

Hugs P :)

PS - I know this is hard just keep taking care of you and your baby. It really does get better one day at a time. :)

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