Here I am.... - Al-Anon Family Group

unsure2012 · Newbie

Here I am....

Icie · Senior Member

Welcome unsure...you have come to the right place. Have you ever been to a Al Anon face to face meeting? Keep coming here & try & get to some F/F meeting & you will get the courage to do whatever you decide you want to do or need to do. You will learn how to put yourself first, how to take care of you.
Sending you love & support.

Zimmy · Senior Member

Hi unsure

So glad you have found us here. Much of what you have posted i experinced with my alcoholic boyfriend. The money worries, the nastiness when drinking a small child involved, and like you I have a mortgage and house from before my boyfriend moved in.

I was exactly where you are now knowing what i had to do but couldnt. financial fear?...although like yourself we wern't covering most bills it was so worrying as I couldnt share it with boyfriend as I thought he couldnt cope with the stress etc so i held it all in.

Unfortunatly for me his drinking got worse i tried to control it more. He became nastier and I become more bitter and wrapped in a hopeless miserable world, just existing getting through each day. Finally it got to the point where he assulted me while he was so drunk that I called the police.

I was so scared and hurt emiotianly, but the relief!!! I didnt have to live the way i did anymore, I can honestly say though that by reading as much al-anon litreature, pushing myself to going to meetings and reading and posting on here my life has improved beyond recoginsition, and i have seen my higher power doing wonderful things for me.

We are still seeing each other and trying to find a new way to have a healthy loving and no alcohol relationship, which is kind of nice as we were always drunk at the beginning and then the resentment was already building right up to the time he left with the police.

I just wanted you to know so many of us will relate to what your going through and are trying to find solutions to a better way to live and love.

Remember to look after yourself and be your own best friend.

Hugs and love.

unsure2012 · Newbie

Zimmy wrote:
Hi unsure

So glad you have found us here. Much of what you have posted i experinced with my alcoholic boyfriend. The money worries, the nastiness when drinking a small child involved, and like you I have a mortgage and house from before my boyfriend moved in.

I was exactly where you are now knowing what i had to do but couldnt. financial fear?...although like yourself we wern't covering most bills it was so worrying as I couldnt share it with boyfriend as I thought he couldnt cope with the stress etc so i held it all in.

I just wanted you to know so many of us will relate to what your going through and are trying to find solutions to a better way to live and love.

Remember to look after yourself and be your own best friend.

Hugs and love.

Most of the bills are being covered, I am behind on my mortgage but I have created a repayment plan with my mortgage company. It is my fault that we are in this position, my enabling of my husband's drinking & purchases has put me in this position. When I was single I could pay my mortgage all by myself without any issues.

I am way too ashamed to reach out to my family for help. I am sure my dad could help me out with a plan, but the shame paralyzes me.

I can envision the life I can live without my husband. Less burdens, less money going out, less stress, less resentment, less anger. But I must admit the financial ramifications & shame keep me paralyzed. I may have to break down & speak to my father & my mother.

I am not happy with my life, I am not happy with myself. My daughter deserves a mom that is happy & emotionally healthy. I need to make some changes.

hotrod · ~*Service Worker*~

Hello Unsure Welcome to Miracles in Progress

You are not alone. I can surely identify with your experince and have lived with the disease of alcoholism which manifested as yu have found. Alanon Face to Face meetings in my community help to save my marriage and my life. I had lost myself in the process of attempting to deal with the problens caused by the disease and had no idea how to move forward. .

In alanon I learned to place the Focus on Myself, my life, my feelings. Live One day at a Time, connect with others who understood as few others could. I learned I could not control, cure or cause the disease and the best I could do was to live my life and let the alcoholic live his.

You deserve to feel safe, and serene in your home. Please check out the alanon meetings in your community and attend. Help in finding the telephone number of alanon in your location can be foucnd at thei s web site:

By going to the following link:

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

Keep coming back

TrudyS85 · Senior Member

Dear Unsure, I too lived under the secrecy of my AH for ten years. I told no one, my husband would behave like a jerk to our family and I would always have an excuse for them why he behaved that way, of course never telling them the real reason - his binge drinking. Well my charade blew up the day he tried to kill himself (very publicly) and then EVERYONE knew things weren't so sunny. The funny thing was, once I started telling his family and mine, I was amazed by the support they gave me. They all said how sorry they were I did not come to them sooner for help and they marveled that I held it together as well as I did for as long as I did. People at my work found out too, and same thing - support support support. It is a huge relief off of my shoulders to not have to pretend anymore. In other words, sometimes the worst of our fears are inside our head. You need support, start with your friends in Alanon, no one will understand better than them and then if you need to, want to, share it with other people in your life. Do what you need to for your own piece of mind, keeping someone else's secrets can be deadly. Sending you much love and support, ts

Breakingfree · ~*Service Worker*~

I am glad you found us here! I encourage you to make it to lots of face to face Al-anon meetings, they saved me from a similar situation. I can relate to your post and want to send you much love and support on your journey!

orchidlover · ~*Service Worker*~

I can relate to the arguing, dread and the fear. I think in al anon I learned to be in the one day at a time mode. I also learned to be able to stop beating myself to a pulp.

I can also very much relate to seeing the red flags but not knowing what to do about that. These days I do see red flags, I do take note of them and I do know how to not have an all out argument around them. I think its really easy to judge, condem and say all this is your responsibility. I know the trauma I had with the ex a was just 50% of my responsibility and so much of it was my over reacting to his drinking. I know I went from under reacting to over reacting. The ex A was very very skilled at hiding things. He hid his driving status (he had a suspended license when I met him!). He also hid his drugging and drinking habits. There were small red flags for me sure. I also think I never took into account where I was. I certainly had my plate full when I met the now Ex A. I was not in a space where I could review, think about and make decisions about the red flags. I had no one to talk to about them. I didn't want to make a rash choice and I was very very lonely. All those issues have cleared up tremendously for me since I got into al anon. I certainly meet people all the time who broach my boundaries, are rude, alcoholic and use drugs. My response to them has changed but it didn't happen overnight. I don't know that I knew that was what I had to do when I first got here. All I knew then was that I was in incredible pain. I know how to deal with frustration, anger and misery these days for most of my life I didn't. I can't condem myself that I didn't know.

Maresie.

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.