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.
Dear Looking4hope I certainly am glad that you are looking and found Miracles in Progress.
Thank you for sharing your experiences and your heart. So glad that you took action to protect yourself and are safe. You are correct, you do not deserve to live like this.
Please search out alanon face to face meetings in your community It is there that I learned that alcoholism is a disease over which I am completely powerless. Just because I am powerless I still have hope because alanon gave me back power over myself and my life.
Breaking the isolation by attending meetings, learning how to focus on my self and my needs, one day at a time truly saved my life and marriage.
Meetings can be found at the alanon intergroup web site of by calling . Keep coming back here and sharing the journey
-- Edited by hotrod on Friday 31st of August 2012 09:41:15 AM
So this is my first time on here and I have been reading your posts. My husband and I have only been married for 2 years. A week and a half ago I had to leave the apartment becuase he told me that he didn't want to have kids with me, he doesnt love me, he doesnt get anything from me anymore. And the reason why I left is becuase this is not the first time this has happened. It was on the fourth of july and we had just finished watching fireworks. Someone had blown off a firework and hit the transformer in our neighborhood and the lights flickered. He flipped, he was so wasted that he thought that it was chemical warfare and he made me get in the house. when I got in the house he was convinced that I had evil inside of me and he was going to cut it out of me with a butcher knife. He didnt but the whole situation scared me so I left. His parents do not live far from us so I called his mom and explained to her what happened and she decided for his and my safety she was gonna have his father (huge alcoholic) come and pick him up. Ever since that day my husband will not let it go. He said I disrespected everyone when I called them about him. I truly was just scared. I dont think I can handle it any longer because I was just hugely promoted in my job and i cant let him bring me down. I had gone back this tuesday to talk to him about these problems and asked him if we can go get some marriage help and he said that he doesnt have a problem and he refused. So I told him that I cannnot be with him till he decides that he will come with me to get help. He has been drinking everynight since I left him and he texts me saying hes overdosing and that he wants me stuff out of the apartment. He admitted that he had an "evil" inside of him and i dont deserve the way that he treats me. I am honestly not sure what to do becuase right now we do not have any children and I do not feel that i should live this way just becuase this is what he is choosing to do.
Aloha Looking4hope...Welcome to MIP also and hotrod has the most supportive suggestion about getting to face to face Al-Anon Family Groups meetings. Most of us here are members of that fellowship and not all. The disease of alcoholism/addiction is progressive. It gets progressively worse not better as long as the alcoholic continues to drink. It cannot be cured, only arrested by total abstinence. If it is not arrested by total abstinence the alcoholic/addict will go insane and even die as a result of progressive drinking and using. Your alcoholic has displayed the behaviors associated with chemical insanity. He is not your husband...he is your addict/alcoholic. Your husband has lost the ability to choose whether he drinks or uses or not. The disease owns and controls him. What you have done to help yourself is proper. This is not about maritial problems this is about chemical altering and he is altered...mind, body, spirit and emotions.
I use to work in the recovery industry as a behavioral health therapist...under these conditions I would recommend and follow up on having him intaken in a long inpatient program one which included psych support and chemical addiction reprogramming. That is my experience and not my advise. As he has reached the stage of delusion he has also reached the stage of insanity. You may want to consider a TRO filed against him. In support. Keep coming back (((((hugs)))))
Marriage counseling is not going to solve his addiction. Also, people who get that paranoid and talk about having "evil" inside them or others are often suffering from a mental disorder (usually bipolarism). Often times addicts and alcoholics are mislabeled as bipolar - but there is an abnormally high correlation also.
So...I cannot tell you what it will take to get him 2 things that he desperately seems to need 1. Psychiatric Help and 2. Substance abuse counseling. I can tell you that BOTH of those things rank above in priority to marriage counseling because a person that disturbed can't really benefit from the marriage counseling while those other things are running rampant.
Knowing this could be helpful to you just so you know that putting your energies into healing a bond with an alcoholic/addict that is possibly also mentally ill is not gonna be fruitful. If you can detach some - When a person tells me they are gonna overdose...That is grounds enough to call police and for them to be committed on the basis of that they are a danger to themself. He is also a danger to others in that he is making threats (cutting the evil out of you). This is not something that can even begin to be healed by family or you. Sounds like he desperately needs an inpatient hospitalization. Other than by calling police when he threatens violence or overdose...nothing you can do to precipitate that.
Alanon will be the place you can recognize which actions help you and which ones do not help you. It will be a place for you to find support and guidance when surrounded by craziness at home. It can be a place to build up your faith so that you know how strong you are if and when the time comes to head out in a different direction. It can be a place to focus on you when you have had him and his craziness take precedent for so long. Alanon can help with all that.
