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.
im new to this but i know full well that alanon and a.a support groups can help with people in desperate times when no one understands and no one knows what it like living with an alcoholic.
my situation is that my wife of 11 years has been on and off alcohol for most this time wheras we breakup and then i get text messages and phone calls saying how bad life is without me and that she will change. i as usual go soft and then end up going back and things are good for a while then the drinking starts all over again, ruining our finances, our relationship and then the lies and manipulation telling one person one thing and another another to make her look like the victim.
when my alcoholic wife drinks she will drink heavily for anywhere up to 5 weeks solid and put me through hell thinking that she is going to die then i think i can go back and save her ... she will get sober for a while then do it again ..
my current situation is that my wife started to drink again and i said before we got back together that if she did it again i would leave for good ... she stopped for a year, then it came back, she was drinking for a week solid going to the shop buying alcohol and then lie in her room or come down stairs and argue .. i told her to stay away from the livingroom as it was my space .. sometimes it was an argument but i stayed till she sobered up, then the drinking started to creep in again and now its full steam ahead for my alcoholic wife, she has stole from me, lied to me, manipulated me and told others that i am the bad one and she is the victim, and now she doesnt work. i love her so much but couldnt cope with it !! i told her that if im at home or away im still lonley and that theres no difference between me being with her or without her. basically i had to leave.
im now staying at my sisters and my wife has to look for another place to live, but now after two weeks im getting the phone calls and text messages saying please please call me please text ... im sleeping on the sofa with the dogs but its not so bad we need to talk please !! she also said she would take antiabuse and go to her meetings which she stopped going to and i found out she was going to mcdonalds car park and passing time.....
i told her to stop contacting me and my friends and family as i need to move on and hearing of all this is killing me .....
When I have been in crisis...I go back to keeping it simple.
what are the things I can control? I try to eat well, and stay hydrated. I try to rest. I try to spend time with people who are good for me, and good to me (who don't judge). I come here to vent. I take a bath or a long shower.
It makes me more stressed to think about the big picture when things are in chaos...so I just concentrate on the the next right thing I need to do.
ODAT ..or even one hour at a time...
You will get through this to the other side. One step at a time...
Going to more face to face Alanon meetings, keeping in touch with my sponsor as well as the god of my understanding helps me feel more balance during times of crisis. TT
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Surround yourself with people and elements that support your destiny, not just your history.
Davie, what an awful situation, I too am in the early stages of seperation from my AH of almost 10 years and boy is it hard. The advice you have gotten is good. I know how hard it is but try to focus on keeping yourself healthy, for me doing forward motion things like going to talk to an attorney, making lists of what needed to be done, etc. keeps me going most days. It also helps (because I can get easily overwhelmed with everything in front of me) that if I just focus on the next step I can keep moving forward. If I try to think 10 steps down the line I just want to crawl under a rock. One day at a time indeed.
The insanity got so bad with my AH and ended in a failed suicide attempt (his); the moment I was driving towards our house and saw multiple police cars, an ambulance, fire trucks, a broken down front door and all the neighbors watching, this was when the reality of the insanity I had been living finally hit home. After 10 years of sheer craziness it took this to finally bring me to my bottom. I believe our HP keeps sending us messages, mine was sending me messages to move on and I kept ignoring them, so he kept sending louder messages until I was ready to pay attention to them. Take it one day at a time, focus on the next step for you, do something kind for yourself every day and keep the faith. We are all here and we all get it like no other people in the world. Hugs and prayers, ts
Yes one day at a time. While I am new to all this and my wife is not as bad as your situation, I have learned that there is dealing with 2 people, the wife and the alcoholic. They are 2 very different people. Don't do for her, do for you. Do things for YOU, not her. Hang in there and come back!
She's telling you "I'll do this" and "I'll do that..." if you come back. Ummm. If she really wanted recovery, she'd already be doing them. Building up a true recovery program is a huge endeavor. You can still detach from her in a loving way by letting her know you are only setting her free now to find her recovery. If in a year or two she has built up a strong recovery program, you can reassess the situation then. Keeping the focus on that her drinking is a life and death problem that she needs to focus on without you involved is a good way to detach with love.....because it's true. You love her, but she needs a good year or two on her own, going to meetings, and building up a solid recovery foundation before she's any good in a relationship with anyone else.
The only advice I'd give is to get yourself to some face-to-face Al-Anon meetings. Find yourself a sponsor, start working the steps. This will help you shift your focus to where it needs to be - you.
I'm glad you are here. The truth is that you don't need her permission to move on. I think we often yearn to move on without any feelings of fear or regret. That's a tough order. But meetings can help us put those feelings in perspective. Please take good care of yourself.
thanks everyone for sharing your thoughts and advice with me.... i really appreciate it so much.... ill try and keep focused on myself and move on as best i can and whenever im struggling ill defo be on here to talk to u all :)
As Mattie said above, permission is needed only from yourself.
I'll ask you this: have you been to an Al-Anon meeting (face-to-face)? Getting to a meeting and getting a sponsor to bounce things off, has been the BEST way for me to handle anything that comes along. They are the only way I keep any serenity, or gain perspective. I'm a prayerful person, I pray and pray, but only with help of a friend in Al-Anon (namely my sponsor) am I able to decipher what I'm thinking /feeling/ going through.
hi everyone, trying to cope with guilt and feeling sorry for my AW now that the initial anger from the whole event has calmed down, cant really focus on what im doing and find that im miles away when talking to people, she still sends texts messages and tells me stuff like i never really knew how good a husband u were and that she misses me with every breath she takes... i need to get a better perspective of what the heck im doing and feel like im getting sucked in again ... i was wondering if you can work a programme and get a sponser from this forum.... ive got my work and college at night so i was wondering if i could work a programme on here to help me get my thoughts straight and not fall into a trap again... if so what would i need to do and would i have to buy a book etc ???? can anyone help ?
i know meetings are ideal but i really dont have any spare time to go to them and the ladt meeting i went to there were only 4 people in the room who all looked like they had given up on themselves.... all u guys seem really positive
