Sounds like you are describing my life! I have asked my husband to explain what is going on inside his head when he walks into the store, buys the alcohol, and then drinks it...and he just says it is as if he is someone else when that is happening. I feel your frustration and have wasted many hours--years wondering the same things. How can someone do this over and over when it impacts their family and kids. Well, it is because they are alcoholics. That is what they do. It really is not more complicated than that...which is hard to digest.

I use "Live and Let Live" as it reminds of steps 1-3. I am powerless over what the alcoholic does--he will live his life and make his choices no matter what i do or say. And it is his right to live and make those choices. So I also need to *live* my life no matter what he does...and obsessing over what he is doing is not living. I can change my day so that I am living for myself. I have to really pull my focus away and put it back on myself. It is hard, I am not always great at it but practicing it makes it easier. Those first 3 steps remind me that my sanity can be restored no matter what he is doing...it can happen with gentle awareness and as you said, letting him go (again and again and again). After almost two years in this program, I still go back to steps 1-3 a lot because it is a freaking roller coaster living with an alcoholic!

Are you able to to get to a meeting? When I am in that pit it can help pull me out. Best wishes for some peace!! You are in the right place.

They say that alcoholism is a 'cunning and baffling' disease, and your story is further proof of the accuracy of this statement.... We can drive ourselves wacky by trying to figure out the "whys" - my wise old sponsor used to challenge me to focus on the "whats" and leave alone the "whys", as the "whys" will kill us....  A common question to ask ourselves, when we are fretting over anything, is: 

"if I knew the answer to what I am worrying about, would it really change anything?"

 

One thing I do know - from both my experience and education about this crazy disease - if it was as simple as "strong" or "conscience" or "love" - I guarantee that there wouldn't be so many thousands of people in this world afflicted with the disease of alcoholism.

I would encourage you to continue on your path of YOUR recovery

Take care

Tom

All I can say is that when in the throws of addiction, it controls you. The feelings of discomfort and wanting that escape are so intense - The drink is practically chanting to you "Nobody will know! They won't even find out!!! People drink every day! What's the big deal it's just a few drinks!!!?" This builds up until there is so much tension and then bam....relapse. The alcoholic's head is a mess and often stays a mess for a good while. The first step is the only one that they say we alcoholics have to get perfect. That step is the one where we fully surrender that we will NEVER be able to have just 1 drink and we will never be able to drink like a normal person.....ever. That is the step that people screw up the most. They always think they can revert back to being a controlled drinker when they can't. The big book actually states "Some of us chased this delusion to the gates of insanity."

So it's not like the thought is there "Hrm...think I'll go mess up my family and piss on all the trust and help they have given me." It's more like a squirming and uncomfortable feeling and the messed up internal dialog i stated above that is so loud is drowns out good sense. It fails to become clear and stay clear that we can't have alcohol plus our family, jobs, peace of mind, and spirituality. Alcohol robs us of that while promising that it doesn't. It's truly the only disease that tells you that you do not have it.

Not to excuse relapse or say that relapsing is not irresponsible and an awful thing to do but, when I was actively drinking, I really only cared about myself and what I could get away with. It wasn't about hurting others. It was all about me. It was always all about me. I cared about my family but my alcoholism did not and my alcoholism won out all the way up until I acknowledged fully to my very soul that even touching alcohol was going to cause me to lose everything without a doubt. Until it becomes clear that drinking = death, most people continue to tell themself lies (even well meaning folks) and fail at recovery.

Thank you for sharing and reaching out. Reaching out to others is the first step towards restoring yourself to sanity and feeling better. This sounds like a tricky situation and i have compassion for you.

In al anon we learn that we are powerless over the alcoholic, and the alcoholic is powerless over alcohol. Period. Nothing can change that.

What we do have control over is our own actions, and how we take care of ourself. In my experience alcoholics don´t want to drink, just like diabetics don´t want to have blood sugar surges and drops, and cancer patients don´t want to have cancer.

Your husband is responsible for addressing his disease. You are responsible for looking at reality and basing your decisions on that.

If you continue to reach out to the msessage board and al anon meetings in your area (you can look them up online or google (al non world service) I have faith you will find solutions.

keep coming back!

First a hug!!

He has a disease. What he is doing it symptoms of the disease. That is how it is. He does not choose it, they can only fight it so long with out being on a program of recovery.Even then most relapse.

So what do you do? We accept them as is, we give them the dignity to be who and what they are. Just like what we want.

We have no right to tell another what to do or what not to do, snoop on them, look for bottles, smell their breath. Their disease is none of our business, nor are the symptoms.

I hear but I live with him,what he does affects my family.

If we choose to live with someone, we accept them as is, or we stay miserable trying to fight it when we will NEVER get what we want.

We can learn from Al Anon, ways to be able to stay with them, mostly becuz we love them.

Or we can choose to not live with them.

He is living his life, he is not using his disease to hurt you! It is how the disease manifests itself. And NO he does not make a decision like we may, to go get some alcohol. Imagine you are dying of thirst, I mean literally, that is how he feels!

Unfortunantly for an addict it is for a drug. They are born with this in their dna, they would LOVE to not be an addict. For us to harp at them, police them is so humiliating. It only adds to the horrible pains they go thru with this disease!

The most loving thing we can do is go to meetings, read literature, come here, research addiction. Have compassion, but be no part of his solution or disease.

We give it to HP, we hope our loved one will find the strength and or will or desire to go to AA and work out a recovery plan for them. And then we stay out of it also.

I did not even talk to mine or anyone about it. I say hey that is your thing not mine. I love you for you. I don't want to know if you drank or not, I want to know what you are doing? How is so an so at work, or did ya watch a good movie today?

Believe me they feel more guilty than we ever could.

You married this person because he was special to you. I learned to concentrate on that. And I tell ya, I loved mine so so very much. My changing me, allowed me to have more time with him, until the disease and the brain surgery took him one hundred per cent away from me.

I hope this helps you find some peace. Its all up to you.

Its work but worth it. love,debilyn who would like to just look at her ex AH

Thanks everybody. Great insight, as usual. You all help keep me sane in an insane situation. Don't always like the answers but the truth is hard to hear sometimes.