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First time poster here. Bare with me.
My partner, my best friend and the love of my life is an alcoholic. I'll preffice this by saying - I have had no personal experience with alcoholism before. And I'm finding it difficult to understand this disease.
A bit of back ground. High achiever. Smart and self aware. Gainfully employeed. Realiable employee. Comes from a wealthy family.Had a pretty difficult childhood, which he still bears the scars. Mother is an alcoholic ( though she doesnt admit it). Been like this since his late teens. Had a period of 3 years ( about 4 years ago), where he went into a private rehab facility and got sober. About 18 months ago, he relapsed and he is now drinking again. He can drink a bottle of scotch in one sitting and be so revoltingly unkind and say the most horrendous things and not recall it the next day. None of this will be new to any of you readign this I am sure... but " I " need help.
I don't understand the disease. I want him to stop. I spend long periods of time NOT asking him to stop, because I want this to be " his" decision. I dont want him to do this becasue I have begged him to.Then, after a particularly bad period, I do ask him to stop. He tells me its not that simple and that I don't understand this disease. I refuted this for a long time. I still refute this most of the time. Surely he can just stop? I drink, I am what you would call a former binge drinker ( we are both 40). In my late twenties and thirties, I binge drank most weekends. And in the last 2 years, my drinking has slowed to the occasional drink, and the volumes of what I drink are much less. I understand that I need to stop ( that we need to have an alcohol free house) if he is going to have half a chance. I was, am and will be MORE THAN WILLING to do this. I can stop. Just like that. Even have for periods in an effort to encourage him to stop. no dice.. He would have all the support in the world from he, but my frustration stems from him ( from my perception) of him not trying.
He;s recently agreed to stop drinking scotch ( as this is a drink that makes him particularly mean and aggressive, verbally.). But in the last week, I have discovered that he is buying small bottles of alcohol, hiding them and swigging out of the bottle at an opportune time.
I am at a loss. I LOVE this man. But I can see him slipping into this battle and losing the fight completely. I can't help. It's not my fight. This also makes me angry, angry that he does not love me enough to want to try to stop. But he says this is not about love. Its about the disease. And I know this is true.... I have no trouble beleiving that in my head now.. I just wish someone would tell it to my heart.
Would love anyones input here, to explain away my ignorance. to give me some new indsight and/or ideas on how best to deal with our life as it is.
Cheers, BT, Australia
You will receive a lot of encouragement and compassion here.
You can also read various profiles of readers, and their home countries if you wish.
The few 'Stickys' at the top of the board are helpful.
You will find Al-Anon contact phone numbers in the front of telephone books in Australia.
In a meeting, when you are ready, is where you find the face to face contact with members that are on a journey, like you, with very similar experiences and how they deal with their day to day struggle..... and survive, and make a much happier life for themselves.
Aloha Aussie and welcome to the board. Too Hard sent you toward the phone numbers for Al-Anon which is how I was sent also and I was told to get to as many meetings as I could in a 3 months period of time and even better to do 90X90 (90 meetings in 90 days) if I could. The disease raged and is raging still in the area of CA. where I got to program. There were over 439 meetings a month combined AA and Al-Anon in the 3 county area. How big a problem is alcoholism...AA and Al-Anon both are in almost every country on the planet...Alcoholism is huge!!
I'd suggest that you get to an open meeting of AA yourself and ask them if they have an assessment package that includes the 24 questions about drinking where if you get 3 right you're qualified for that program. Just by reading your share here I'd say that you are qualified for Al-Anon. Don't be afraid of what you find out...I'm a double...a member of both programs myself. Al-Anon gives me the tools to have my own life and to live and manage that while I feel compulsive about fixing the alcoholics and addicts which abound around me. I was born and raised in the disease on both sides of my family. I was raised the "fixer" and tried to fix the people I drank with who very often wanted to be able to drink the way I did. They were confused and so was I mostly about why they couldn't drink like I did. There was too much to understand all at one time then so I started in Al-Anon. When I started they use to read the AMA definition of alcoholism and that is when I got off of my alcoholic/addicts back about being a bad person cause I found out and accepted she was fatally sick. I had to learn compassion because the only emotion I could identify with then was rage.
I had to learn that my wife was two different people...the totally acceptable child of God she was before she was a drunk and then she was the drunk. I never knew which one I was with until I came to understand. My drinking use to confuse her and she wanted to be able to drink like me without all of the problems she earned. If she attempted to drink like me it would have killed her...(it almost killed me) so that is just one aspect of the disease you know now...it is a fatal disease if not arrested by total abstinence. Your husband will not stop drinking because he has a compulsion with an addiction wrapped up in one package...he will drink even when he doesn't want to no matter what you want. Part of his anger is about this...the failure to stop when he thinks he should and the pain that comes (mind, body, spirit and emotions) if he tries. Alcoholism is a self actuating disease...it runs itself and affects everything it comes into contact with...that is one reason you are here with us. Manufacturing, distribution and sale of alcohol will only tell a person to drink responsibly and it doesn't tell the person why that doesn't happen...it doesn't mention that alcohol is a mind and mood altering chemical...nother words it changes the drinker; the person and responsible becomes someting else.
Your husband is in a battle for his own sanity and life..."He says it's not about love"...right on!! it isn't at all about love...it's about addiction. He is going to drink. He is going to drink until there is no more to drink (my style) and then he is going to get more; little ones, big ones. this one or that he is going to drink until his bottom comes up and hurts him more than the chemical does and then he will go see help...not from you cause you don't know about the disease and from someone who does; who can tell him what he is going thru in such a way that he will know he is talking to a recovering alcoholic. He has knowledge and experience on what it is like to be dry for a while. Pray that it is strong enough that he will want that again long enough to be sober...sober is what he gets by sitting at the knees of many sober alcoholics and listens with an open mind to what it was like for them, what they found out and how it is for them now. By the way you get the same thing by sitting at the knees of the family members of alcoholics who have been where you are at now and with an open mind found out for us what it was like then, what we learned and how we are doing today. Our meetings are mostly open meetings, free of charge, you don't have to talk (choice) listening is most helpful. We have tons of literature and some of it is free also and I promise you...from my own personal experiences...that if you keep and open mind you will find help. There is much much more inside the rooms. Call the hot line number for where and when we will get together next in your area. Again...welcome to the board. ((((hugs))))
Coming here is a great start. I am by no means an expert as there are many others here who have been through and seen a lot more than I have. Just remember, you didn't cause it, you can't control it, you can't cure it. If you say this to yourself enough, you will start to believe it as I have recently. I have said it to myself probably hundreds of times. It is a disease like no other. Yes, they are sick like having cancer. However you do not give them compassion as you would to someone with cancer. This is very hard and I am still struggling with this. It is hard to see someone you love suffering and not try to comfort or help them. Keep coming back.
I just feel so low and helpless right now. I am an invisible person in this. My needs don't matter. The entire world revolves around him. And when it doesn't.. He'll find some way of bringing it back to him. I'm really hurting here, but he only sees his own pain... Only ever has. There is no one to look after me. My self pity is sickening!
I was told many years ago in counseling the following: You can never truly be happy with someone else until you are happy with yourself. This was not about an alcoholic but just in general. I still come back to this many years later. Take care and concentrate on YOU. Do something every day even if for 15 minutes strictly for you.
And alanon is where you begin the journey of taking care of you and slowly detaching for expecting him to meet all your needs. I know on the AA board all the recovering alcoholics told you to basically leave him, but in alanon the focus is on starting to care care of you regardless of what he is doing. I don't view what you are doing so much as self-pity. I view what he is doing as self-pity. You are in a legitimately difficult situation that you didn't cause, cannot control, and can't cure. It's sad and it often has to get to the point of totally not having your needs met in the relatonship to start changing and taking care of yourself rather than expecting an alcoholic/addict to miraculously be giving and nurturing when all they have shown is selfishness for the longest time.
So yeah...people need validation, to be heard, to be understood. That is why I highly suggest to hit face to face alanon meetings. Your partner is not the one to be doing that right now. Your peers in alanon can help give that to you until you learn to do it for yourself.
You cannot make your needs be met by him, but you can make your needs be met by you.
