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I am new to Al-Anon. I spent 21 days with my ABF while he was in a rehab facility. I went to the facility every single day and sat in all the lectures with him and the meetings, and I also went to my own meetings to try to learn all I possibly could about this disease that has followed me around my entire life. I am reading all the books, and trying to catch online meetings here and attending live meetings. I see where my own problems lie, and am working hard to fix me. After the ABF left the rehab facility, he immediately relapsed and if I thought life was a living hell before rehab, it seems to have progressed tremendously since. Because I am from another state, and have lived off and on in both places, I had an escape route already set before me. I left and came back home to Tennessee after the drama began to escalate. His disease has allies where he lives in coworkers and family, and I was isolated there. Since I left, I have also implemented other boundaries, such as I simply hung up the phone and turned it off when he has been drunk and biligerant rather than giving attention to insanity. Today, I took it a step further and changed my phone number. I called him with my number blocked and told him I would still be calling to check on him, but I couldn't allow him to harass me with 72 phone calls in a matter of 12 hours. So, now I can call him and see if he is halfway coherrant, but he can't call and harass me. My attitude about this disease has done a complete turnaround. However, I am still facing decisions that I really don't have a clue how to handle effectively. My anger has changed to compassion, and my need to fix him has also changed. I know I can't, and I don't like to play games I can't win. However, he has thrown a monkey wrench my way that I don't know if I am handling the right way or not. He is begging me to come be with him and help him to get sober. He says he can't do it without me. Of course, I tell him I can't do it for him, he has to do it himself, but he keeps saying he needs me by his side in order to survive. He is really pathetic in his disease right now. It has progressed to the point that death is all he has to look forward to if he doesn't stop. His liver enzymes were 12 times the normal limits. We have a business together, there are leeches surrounding him that are trying to take advantage of his diminished mental capacity. Things really began to escalate when we hired a subcontractor who is a drug dealer and who began feeding him pills on top of the whiskey. It is just a really bad situation, because now we have this thug who sees me as a threat to him getting a free ride, and he seeks to eliminate that threat (me). Yesterday, I told the ABF that I wanted him to stop calling me until he sought sobriety. He didn't stop so I changed my number. I know those were the right decisions to make and am confident that I have done the right thing there. However, he really wants me to help him, and it is really hard to say no to someone who is saying please help me get sober. Part of me wants to go get him and bring him down to Tennessee with me and either take him to detox or meetings or whatever I can to help him stay sober, but then the other part of me says this is something he has to do on his own. He keeps telling me over and over he needs me in order to get sober. I want to stop doing the wrong things and start doing the right things. I love him a whole lot, and we have been through hell together, and the love is still strong. The forgiveness has come and the anger has subsided, but the insanity is still wreaking havoc. If I go get him, I am afraid that I will be tempted to control what he is doing and who he is talking to and all that, because he is simply very very sick in his disease. If I treated him the same as I would someone with cancer, then maybe I could help him, maybe, I don't know. Any of ya'll walked down similar paths? I don't want to abandon him in his time of need, but I don't want to let the insanity devour me either.
Welcome to Miracles in Progress. It certainly sounds as if you understand the power of this disease.
I am sure all the meetings that you attended at the rehab and the readings that you have completed have all stressed the important facts that we, the non alcoholic are powerless over alcoholism. We did not cause it, cannot control it and cannot cure it. The best we can do is exactly what you are doing. Have compassion on the alcoholic and take care of ourselves,
You were wise to take care of yourself and go home and let him stay in his own location. I know that you care and he can feel that too. It is important to stress to him that you really cannot help him but that he could call the AA Inter-Group office in his community or the rehab that he just attended. for help. Both are equipped to offer help and suggestions that could help save his life. If you are concerned over is health I have called 911 in the past to have the ER take charge
This is not an easy path I do hope you check out alanon face to face meetings in your community and continue to post here
You know he is deluded in thinking that you can help him get sober. If you went, it might even stop him from going to seek help from the places that could help him (the rooms of AA), because he'd think that you were there and were sufficient. And when you weren't -- because no single person can be -- he'd blame you.
it's sort of like if someone had diabetes, you'd need to be strong and say, "You need to consult your doctor, you need to keep on taking your insulin." If he kept saying, "No, come and cure my diabetes with mind power, you know you can do it, why are you refusing me?" -- you'd feel sorry for his delusion, but it would be dangerous to buy into it. Because that might slow him down in taking that insulin.
If he really wants to get sober, he already knows what he needs to do. His rehab will have been very clear about it. He knows all the resources available. The fact that he thinks that his girlfriend can get him sober suggests to me that he has not stopped the crazy thinking yet. More meetings, more recovery. And for you too!
You're doing great with very very good awareness and so it is working...stay with what is working.
What he can do is call the rehab and ask for suggestions...they know...that is there business and he was already a part of that.
What he can do is grab the telephone book and look for the phone number for AA Central Office in your area and call them for help.
What he can do is call the hotline number for AA and find the meeting places and times where he can also ask for a ride to the meeting by a recovering alcoholic.
He is attempting to hold you responsible still for his sobriety and until he wants it more than anything you can do he will follow these late stages into terminal stage with or without you.
Alcoholism is a fatal disease...it kills people...drinkers or not.
Stay with what you are doing cause that is working for you and is also giving your HP an opening to reach your alcoholic.
I have accepted the fact that I didn't cause this, that I can't control it, and that I can't cure it. He has been through 5 detox facilities since May with immediate relapse following all of them. His longest time sober was 21 days, and it was the best 21 days we have had in our relationship. He is adament that he doesn't want to go back into a facility, and that he wants to detox at home and attend meetings. He didn't attend meetings when he got back the last time because he had relapsed. Getting him out of the environment that feeds his addiction and coming up with a plan together on how to face all these difficult situations we are both facing is what I am contemplating. He is still begging me to come be with him. I have explained that I could not be with him unless he is seeking sobriety, because things have progressed to the point that my own sanity is at stake. I know in my head that this is still me trying to control the situation, but he is begging for help, and he doesn't have the mental capacity to make sane decisions right now. My struggle is that if a cancer patient was begging me to help them get the treatment they needed would I not take them to get their chemo? I am not looking for permission from anyone here, I just want to hear if anyone else has had this same sort of struggle with knowing what is the right thing to do. If I walk away from him, it will be forever, because I will be seeking new employment, living situations, and many other major life changes. I have a friend here in Tennessee that is the head of a recovery center who I have already had a discussion with lately. I was contemplating getting him to give him the help he needs, while detoxing at home and attending AA/Al-Anon meetings. Also, the town I live in here is a dry county, and he can't walk out his back door and get a bottle of liquor. He will have to drive 30 mins to the liquor store in another county. The city he lives in is drug infested and access to illegal drugs and alcohol is abundant. I know he can find it if he chooses to, but it sure makes it easier when there aren't people trying to feed you pills and liquor at every single store in the city, not to mention the thugs that live in the area who see him as a meal ticket and who know his weakness and intend to prey upon it. What we have discussed is getting him away from that environment and getting the structure again that we both needed badly that we got used to while he was in rehab. We have discussed getting a plan together on how to handle the business situations that are also falling apart, while attending meetings and reading and doing what it takes to stay sober and sane, which means Al-Anon for me and AA for him. I do see the point ya'll have made about him believing that I can somehow help him. I've discussed this with him too, as much as you can with an active alcoholic. I've said to him that I can't make him well, but I can point him towards the path he needs to walk down to find sobriety. I can make it as comfortable and easy on him as possible right? I mean, he is going to be experiencing a whole lot of mental and physical pain just with the detoxification process, what is so wrong with giving him comfort through the process? If he were sick with cancer, i would be at the hospital with him giving him the love that he needs. In the past, I was very hard. I didn't give him an ounce of compassion, I was too pissed off to show compassion. Now that I want to show him that I love him and do feel compassion for him having this horrible disease, I am torn about whether to give it to him or not. I also don't want to continue to waste my own life trying to help someone else, unless he wants to help himself. I've had 5 alcoholics in my life, and none of them have every sought out help, and now the one who is begging for help and has tried over and over and failed is asking me to help him to help himself. Now that I have learned to protect myself from the monstrocities of this disease, I am having this major mental battle in my brain over what the heck to do. I am going to ask God for clarity, and I do believe he will give it to me, maybe through some of ya'll here, maybe through something else entirely. I want to be sitting smack dab in the middle of God's will, and not my own, regardless of how hard it might be. I desire to do what is best for the both of us, because this isn't a relationship that I want to give up on, unless God makes it plain to me that I must.
People who crave alcohol have driven much farther than 30 miles to get it -- heck, they even get it inside prisons. And recovering alcoholics who want to stay sober have managed to do so even in cities with liquor stores. How many meetings is he going to every day? One? Three? Sometimes people go to three a day for weeks. They let people who are still drinking into AA meetings. They let people who have had too much to drink into AA meetings, as long as the people sincerely want to be there and are not disruptive. I hear that he believes that there are a million external things keeping him away from sobriety, and it's all out of his control. That's alcoholic thinking. There is help right there in the rooms of AA. If he needs to be away from his old haunts, there are sober living facilities where he can go. Surely his rehab had some suggestions for this stage of things? What do his counselors say there?
I also know well that thinking: "For so long I've wanted my loved one to choose recovery, and now he wants to, and after all I've been through, I'm going to miss out on it?" What I found out was that I wanted his recovery much more than he did. I guess if I hadn't stayed, I'd be kicking myself even now, thinking, "I left just when the wonderful things were starting to happen." In my case, kicking myself would have been less painful than what I went through because I stayed with someone who couldn't stay sober for even a week.
I hope you'll find a sponsor for yourself? These are weighty decisions and no one should have to go through this without maximum support.
i do desperately need a sponsor, but haven't found one yet. i mentioned needing one at my last meeting and no one said much except one lady that said she never had a sponsor but knew one lady that did have one. I guess that is why i am here asking questions. There are no meetings in my town on Sunday. I realize that what I am saying sounds like I am just contemplating trying to rescue him. I know that I can't rescue him. I have to work my program and he has to work his, but from what I was told at the rehab center, they believe that when a family works together and comes to understand this disease together that the chances of recovery increase greatly. I almost feel as though that first round of rehab was for me, even though he was the patient. Now he is asking me to help him through the rough part, the detoxification, so that he doesn't have to go through it alone. I believe we will probably have to go to the hospital for the first few days, and my friend at the recovery center here can help direct us to the right meetings. I know that he can get liquor if he chooses to, but the environment he is in right now is very toxic. Both of us were facing a whole lot of turmoil that had erupted just prior to the rehab stay, and I knew it was going to be tough for him to handle properly. Hindsight is 20/20, but if we had had a better plan prior to leaving the rehab facility he might not have relapsed. Both of us are babies to each of our respective programs. I am learning about this cunning disease and how it plays tricks on the mind, and the things to do and not do, but our situation is complicated by not only family, but a business, which is basically being run by other people who have taken advantage of him in his disease. My first instinct is to go in and fire them all and start over, but I know he has to clean up the mess caused by his lapse of judgement due to his drinking. He has already faced a good deal of the stressors, and he drowned out the stress in the bottle, which is causing even more stress. Many of the people surrounding our lives have been lied to and manipulated by him about me, and they all think I am the reason he drinks. He knows he is to blame for his drinking, not me. I've reacted very badly in the past to this disease, and I want to behave better in the future. I don't want to repeat the same mistakes. If he fails in his recovery again, I can't be a part of his life anymore. He knows this, and I think he believes it this time and truly wants to get better. He sees the changes in me that Al-Anon has already produced and he knows he can't get away with keeping me on the merry-go-round any longer. It is put up or shut up time for him. He wants to marry me, and I told him I would marry him IF he had six months sobriety under his belt. To be honest, before finding Al-Anon, I might have been sicker than he is right now. I need healing, and I do believe that if we are working our programs together, yet seperately, that we will both have a better chance at recovery. Maybe I am totally wrong, and I should just save myself. However, it doesn't seem right that the one person in my life who has actually tried recovery and failed, should be abandoned. Detach, yes, but abandon? No. I can detach in many ways, and have and will continue to do so. I can make boundaries and keep them. I just don't know if I should keep my support limited to phone support or actually go get him and bring him here where I can show him love and compassion while he is fighting his disease, and also begin to rebuild our lives together. We have a whole lot of work to do both seperately and together. I just have to turn this over to God. If His will is for me to be a loving and compassionate hand to hold through this, He will light the way. If he wants me to stay away and let the ABF do it himself without my hand, He will make the path dark. I am confident He will show me the right thing to do, in His way. It would be much easier for me to get on here and rant and rave about the stupidity he has put me through, and say I am never going to have anything else to do with him and just go back to my old hard ways and walk away. I've done that before. I've also stayed way too long in an emotionally abusive relationship in the past as well, and I eventually got enough and walked away, but not without a tremendous toll on my sanity. I believe I might be able to both have compassion and detachment at the same time. The changes in me brought about by Al-Anon have started healing scars that are very deeply ingrained in me, and I feel the healing. I think a big part of the healing process for me is to find that compassion that I have for so many people, but have never been able to give an ounce of to the A's in my life. I will never be the classic enabler who coddles and covers for the A's of the world, but I also don't have to be the one that posts their drunken rants on youtube. (I did that before Al-Anon) I guess i just needed to vent here and needed some ears. I do need your words of caution, but I want ya'll to know that am that girl that will walk away from someone and never look back. I definitely have it in me to be hard and unforgiving. Those are the things I am working on in myself, and I guess that is why it is hard to understand and also hard to make decisions. I am trying to not let my defects of character get in the way, while also trying not to go to far the other way in helping too much. Going to bed, God can have this one, He will show me what He wants. His will, not mine.
Wow MJSS - tough stuff, to be sure.... You sound like you have a great big heart full of compassion and desire to help HIM get better, but all the stuff you're saying about what "we" need or might do, sort of implying that there is a "we" or "our" in this addiction of HIS.... Those are huge red flags for me, from the perspective of what I have learned in the program.....
1. No matter how much you love him, this is HIS sobriety, HIS addiction, and HIS path...
You are dying to show him the compassion he needs - I would strongly encourage you to pick up the book "Getting Them Sober", volume one, written by Toby Rice Drews.... it will teach so much about detachment with love, and allowing the A the dignity of making his/her own choices, etc....
Bottom line - what he needs is sobriety, and unfortunately you cannot "get" that for him....He doesn't need someone to do his program with him, he needs to choose a program for himself...
Take care of you.
Tom
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"He is either gonna drink, or he won't.... what are YOU gonna do?"
"What you think of me is none of my business"
"If you knew the answer to what you are worrying about, would it REALLY change anything?"
Hello and welcome , for me the best way to support my husb sobriety was to learn to mind my own business and have my own program for my support .. if you take on the role of keeping him sober you will also be the one who gets the blame if and when he relapses . encourage him to reach out to AA members they are the only ones who truly understand his struggle they will support him , leave him to AA and let Al-Anon take care of you . just my opinion Louise
Oftentimes the way we can help the A the most is to concentrate on our own recovery. Because when we change, the whole dynamic has to change. So what they call :loving detachment" is not abandonment, but most times it provides the best shot the A has at finding his own recovery, as well as the best shot we have at our own recovery. If you read a lot of the threads here you will see more instances of it, including some amazing stories.
In my experience most people find a sponsor by asking someone rather than by having someone offer. They say to look for someone who "has what you want" -- serenity, healing, a certain way of living. Sometimes people are busy and you have to ask two or three people before you find someone with an "opening," but everyone is used to that and it's pretty low-key.
I will pass on what I wish I had known when I started this journey. I underestimated how powerful addiction is. I thought my A would get into AA and boom, the recovery would start. We went through years of him going and then denying that he needed to go, going again and then relapsing and lying, going again and then denying he needed to, and so on and so on. I didn't realize that in the first year (or more than a year, sometimes much more), the recovery alcoholic is fragile and hanging to recovery with all his might, and half-crazy or maybe even three-quarters crazy. Some people are selfish and critical and disagreeable when they drink, and they get sober and they're still selfish, critical, and disagreeable, and they never stop. Some people are mild and wonderful people, and they drink too much and make everyone around them miserable anyway, and they never stop. The statistics are that somewhere around 25% of people who go into recovery make it into longterm sobriety. That's how powerful alcohol is. Many people relapse for years, and tear apart their own lives and the lives of everyone around them, before they get sober. Even more, tragically, never get sober.
There are so many alcoholics that even a 25% recovery rate means that there are thousands, maybe millions, of alcoholics who stay in recovery. But I wish I had known exactly how hard it is before I cast my lot in with my A. I had thought that his decision to go to AA was the beginning of the end. But I had underestimaged the disease. I wish someone had said to me, "What decision would you make if you knew nothing would change?" Then if things had changed, I would have been happily surprised -- but I would have taken better care of myself either way.
When I was with my ex-A, all our business and social dealings seemed to revolve around other addict/alcoholics. That turned my world into such a dramatic and chaos filled place. All I did was whine and cry about everything in life. I saw no opportunities and only damage done or people crapping on me/us. It wasn't until I left and also sought my own sobriety that I was able to get some clarity. Life is NOT supposed to be like that. You have not been away from it long enough to get that clarity. You are familiar with the disease and you can predict it more than you can predict what your life will be without it (and your ABF). Hence, you are tempted to go back to him and his disease.
Fact of the matter is, you are the LAST person that needs to be "helping" him right now. You are too close. You have been his chief enabler whether you meant to or not. Your analogy about a cancer patient doesn't make much sense because he's not asking you to take him to meetings or rehab. He's asking you to cure his alcoholism. That's impossible. You are not AA. You are not a doctor. Compassion would be to have the attitude that it's such a shame what he is going through and to thoroughly detach and let him find his path. It would also be to accept that right now, you are not part of the solution.
If a friend of mine had cancer, I wouldn't drive them places if they could walk or get themselves there. That would be robbing them of their dignity. If you insist on continuing to call him and buying back into the insanity, tell him to get to a meeting and get a sponsor. His pleas are not for help, they are for enabling. The boundary about going back if he is "seeking" sobriety is a tricky one too. He needs to do so much work (and so do you really) to get to a spot of being a good romantic partner. It could be a year or two even IF he gets sober until that happens. Also, where there is much liquour and drugs available, there are also usually more meetings and treatment available because there are more recovering addicts and alcoholics. I live in Fort Lauderdale and it's often referred to as a party town/Fort Liqourdale...etc. Alcohol and drugs are everywhere. Fortunately there are also 700 meetings a week in my county. When I decided to find my own sobriety, it didn't matter where I was. It just mattered that recovery was there. Moving to avoid availability of alcohol when it will always be available is called "a geographical" and those usually don't work.
I'm telling you this because alcohol wrecked my life and I got to a dark and helpless place like you are describing. I kept wanting to find ways around the problem. I kept wanting to think of ways that the toxic relationship could continue and to not admit alcoholism had destroyed it (and that it almost completely destroyed me) beyond repair. In the end, I loved my partner, but if I kept calling him and "checking" on him, it would have sabotaged all the progress I was trying to make on myself. I had determined he was insane, that I was trying to find sanity myself...To have him part of my life while I was recovering was like saying "Okay God...I asked you to remove the insanity of the disease, but I think I can handle just a little bit so I will call him every other day from a blocked number. Screw you Higher Power!" I know that's not your intent here. You just have strong feelings for your ABF and this is so much easier said than done.
Focus on you! You deserve so much more than fighting someone else's battles when you have your own.
Your post title is "What do you do when ABF begs you to help him stop drinking." My answer is say "no" (regardless of staying in the relationship or not). If a person wants to recover, the recovery is there for them to take. He is not recovering right now so what exactly would you be helping him with? Staying sick.
I would be a lot richer than I'm now, if I had a dime each time I fell for one of my a/a's con. Wasn't he/you aware of your presences the last (5) x's he was in detox? I know, at least he would have to drive 30 mins to get it, probably in your car, without a lisense after he's lost his to dui's. I'm not trying to make you feel bad, but just wondering how can he run a business if he's as sick as he sounds?
For me, life got better when I learned how to take care of myself, it will for you also. I tell my a/a's I'm not God, only He can help them get sober, my recovery/program is for me, to keep me from going down with them.
Gettingitright!!
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Just go a step at a time, one day at a time. And you'll find a rich, thankful life you never thought you could afford.--A Rogers
