Just trying to understand alcoholism - Al-Anon Family Group

Sad-confused-gf · Member

Just trying to understand alcoholism

Bettina · ~*Service Worker*~

Welcome to the board of MIP,

You just experienced the disease of alcoholism. Dont know how deeply you are into the relationship , but for your own self preservation and for your childs sake , as long as he is drinking, you will get more of the same treatment. So you will need to get yourself to an Alanon meeting and educate yourself on what to expect from an Alcoholic. This disease is too devastating to handle by yourself.

You havent been with him that long so you might want to weigh your options. When you attend a face to face Alanon meeting there are members that can help . We cannot tell you what you should do, but with the help of Alanon you eventually can come to a solution.

One of the first steps of Alanon that is helpful is admitting that we were powerless over alcohol and that our lives had become unmanageable. Alcoholism is not a game, its a serious progressive disease.
Unfortunately dealing with it takes a lot of effort on your part and as long as he is not in a recovery program, the insanity of it will continue.

Please continue to return here and post, hope you will consider going to a meeting.

Hugs, Bettina

Sad-confused-gf · Member

Bettina wrote:

Hi Bettina,

Thank you for responding- even though we have only been togther a short while, I am in love with this person. I will search for a meeting in my area and try to gain some perspective from others. I appreciate your words and thoughts and I realize i have some serious decisions to make.

Thank you.

You just experienced the disease of alcoholism. Dont know how deeply you are into the relationship , but for your own self preservation and for your childs sake , as long as he is drinking, you will get more of the same treatment. So you will need to get yourself to an Alanon meeting and educate yourself on what to expect from an Alcoholic. This disease is too devastating to handle by yourself.

You havent been with him that long so you might want to weigh your options. When you attend a face to face Alanon meeting there are members that can help . We cannot tell you what you should do, but with the help of Alanon you eventually can come to a solution.

One of the first steps of Alanon that is helpful is admitting that we were powerless over alcohol and that our lives had become unmanageable. Alcoholism is not a game, its a serious progressive disease.
Unfortunately dealing with it takes a lot of effort on your part and as long as he is not in a recovery program, the insanity of it will continue.

Please continue to return here and post, hope you will consider going to a meeting.

Hugs, Bettina

Jadie · Veteran Member

Welcome to MIP

Alcoholism has no moral boundaries, no sense of what is right or wrong. Im sure you know yourself that stealing from you 6 months into a relationship is not something a healthy person would do.

We all love our addicts but their love for us is blinkered by a greater love/hate relationship..with the bottle, and yes they will steal if they have to to get their fix.

I hope you will embrace al-anon and find yourself a face to face meeting.

Keep coming back here, read, post, educate yourself about the disease

(((((hugs))))

Jadie x

AStrongerMe · ~*Service Worker*~

Hugs, it's really not something we can fully understand. I just left a man I was (am really) deeply in love with. I left because I love him enough to know I was in the way of his recovery and I left because I love myself enough to not live through that torture and pain of watching someone kill themselves slowly.

It's a sad disease all the way around and hurts many. This is a good place to come and talk and learn and grow. Hugs.

Debilyn · ~*Service Worker*~

Love has nothing to do with it. nothing. Of course we love them, they have a horrible disease that only gets worse and worse and is not curable.

Sadly this disease will work to tear us down too. Its not just drinking, its stealing,lying, selfishness, manipulating and more. It is not him you are living with. It is the disease

that has taken him over. The disease is using you. Steals from you lies to you, abandons you, betrays you.

First think of your child!! Do you want this precious little person to be around someone like that? Someone you can never trust? Do you want to put you with that kind of person?

You can love all you want, that is yours to keep. It is very nice, does not mean that person loves you back. Believe me when he is active in his disease he cannot even love himself. His desire to drink is first. He showed you that. It will not change unless "HE" chooses to get help, and that in itself is a huge process where his own program of sobriety comes first.

"Getting Them Sober" volume one by toby rice drew was a great book for me. It opened my eyes and I saw myself on everk page.

I was like you, then had him leave. Many Many years later he came back, my kids were grown. HE was on a serious AA program, started his own construction co. had money in the bank, had a nice work vehicle. Would not even take an aspirin or drink juice. Then he had a brain tumor removed, medically relapsed. Started drinking, crashed his van, stopped working. Was horrible.

I lived with it as long as I could. MIP helped me. But in the end he had to go. I am old now. I have not much of a desire to remarry. First marriage my lovely husband got drunk at age 27 was killed in a pedestrian accident. then this one i told you about. I am so tired of addiction taking away so many people I love.

So I hope at your young age you will really look at what is BEST for you and your kiddo. Myself I would never live with that with my kids, and did not.

hugs hugs come back! debilyn

Jerry F · ~*Service Worker*~

Aloha "A"...isn't one of the first things that they do when the player is to tired or ill to play the game is pull the player out of the game and off the field? It's okay to quit the game and go get well. Play the game sick and tired and the chances are greater than even you'll get severely injured. I've seen that from so many angles including the personal one up to and including being a alcoholism and drug addiction therapist that it isn't even guess work anymore.

I love Debilyns ESH because love doesn't have anything to do with it. The wanting to be in love might however as I also learned in program "Love cannot exist without some dimension of justice" and I cannot read any justice into what you've been thru. If you're not getting what you expected from experience its probably because you've done the wrong thing.

As it was mentioned Alcoholism isn't a moral issue and often the behaviors are immoral usually. It wasn't what I signed on for so I took myself out of the game with the long help and unconditional love and support of the Al-Anon Family Groups...there is a God and the AFG is one of that God's tools.

Keep coming back...(((((hugs))))) smile

Sad-confused-gf · Member

thank you for your words :)

Sad-confused-gf · Member

Thank you for your words- i appreciate every bit of everyone's thoughts. I grew up with an alcoholic drug addict father- whom i loved with all my heart- you think i'd know better .

Amandakay · Veteran Member

You're in the right place. Keep coming back!

Sad-confused-gf · Member

Thanks Mandy- He has admitted to me he is an alcoholic and that he needs help. But i know it's not my place to push. He has to get himself there. I will definitely be coming back here for support. I know that each and everyone of us has different situation but i'm sure we can all learn from one another - i can't talk to my friends about this- i need to speak with people who truly understand what it's like to live with an alcoholic.

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.