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In a way it is "hope" but in another way it is denial. I feel it's like what the A must feel like when they're over a bender. First they drink themselves sick, then they're full of good intentions to quit. "I can't hack this any more, I feel terrible, I'm going to die of this if I don't watch out, my partner's going to leave me, the whole thing is terrible, I'm going to start shaping up, I'm going to change all this." Then the hangover ends and the cravings start again and it's "Well, maybe it wasn't that bad ... I bet I can control it this time around ... a little bit won't hurt me ... it'll be different this time around ... I was too hasty before, I can just go into a bar and have one, it won't be a problem..." You could call that "hope" or "love of alcohol." Or when you look at it from the outside, you could call it denial. I'm sure that what the A says to himself about alcohol and what I say to myself about staying with the A are pretty much the same thing.
-- Edited by Mattie on Tuesday 5th of February 2013 03:36:26 PM
What I mean by this is that...when my AH is drunk and being an ass, and angry at the kids and everything is chaos and I want to leave him forever...and then the next day comes and he is sober for a day and somewhat nice and things go much better overall, then I feel guilty that I had feelings of leaving him...thoughts start to creep in...."well come on, maybe it is you, maybe you are too hard on him and some other woman would handle this better, maybe he is not a drunk, maybe he is just going through a phase, maybe you really don't discipline the kids well, maybe he would get better if you could just deal with this better, maybe he is not really an alcoholic that you need to leave. So....on days that he is having a good, sober day and we can actually have decent conversations....it doesn't happen more than 1-2 a week, but it happens, it makes me "put off" thoughts of leaving and divorcing him and thinking, "gee, maybe it's not as bad as I thought."
I think there is also another element "failure" at making this marriage work, even though it has been much more than any of my regular friends have had to handle in their marriages.
I do exactly this as well and it is interesting to read Mattie's comment likening it to the process that the A is going through. I do know it is part of my crazy thinking though. Thank you for flagging it up Minaret
even though it has been much more than any of my regular friends have had to handle in their marriages. -------------------------------------------- None of your normal people friends has a marriage with an alcoholic. You are not comparing apples to apples. And I agree that you are making molehills out of mountains. We are not saying that you may never forget, but for your own sanity you have to protect yourself. Even God can't change history and you don't have to live there. You do have to recognize patterns and remember what was bad. And then watch out for your future.
Give it time. Alcoholism is progressive. Unless he quits for good it won't get better.
I remember this well. It's a little bit like we get just enough good to keep hooked. I found when I was in this cycle I couldn't see or think clearly, too caught up. I thought this was normal and now I realise it was typical alcoholic family.
I don't feel guilty as much as I feel that maybe I imagined it all and it really wasn't as bad as I thought. That is strictly my lack of perception as to what is going on. A guy doesn't go from chopping firewood in the house to being man of the year all because he moved out. If anything I can see it clear faster in terms of when his behavior goes over the top. Again that comes with distance and it gets easier to see when I can detach better from the situation.
Hugs P :)
__________________
Stepping onto a brand-new path is difficult, but not more difficult than remaining in a situation, which is not nurturing to the whole woman.- Maya Angelo
I am with Pushka on what she had to say. My perceptions were lacking, my intuition had been denied by me so many times and I minimized EVERYTHING. I remember finding AH binge drinking at 6 AM and I half believed his excuses and his own denial. Now, I know what I saw, so why did I believe his words. For me, it was that I wanted so badly for things to be normal that I myself minimized all of it. The verbal abuse, the drinking, the controlling behaviors, etc.
And, yes, I felt guilty for those feelings, too. He would be insanely ranting and raving one day, calling me an enabler and making fun of me or whatever and I'd be ready to leave. Then he'd be sweet as pie the next day and I'd chastise myself for wanting to leave this wonderful man. I truly had to take off the rose colored glasses and I researched the 'cycle of abuse'(you can find it online by doing a quick search). I honestly just had to do a TON of reading stuff on emotional abuse, alcoholism, I read all of Toby Rice Drews books, and I had to journal a lot, too. I needed to find where I was going wrong. Why did I feel guilty? Was it a real or imagined guilt? Was it's roots from my codependency or was it valid?
You'll find your answers, keep coming back here. Read "Getting them Sober" and other books about healing. If you'd like a list of the books I've read just PM me and I'll put it together for you.
That one is not an unusual dynamic. I just watched the movie "Flight" last night. You can count the times in that movie that he honestly says he is going to stop drinking and then doesn't...It's like 10 times. So living with an actual alcoholic and hearing there sincere promises and seeing their moments when they are not in the throws of addiction....It's a gazillion times more intense.
Mostly, I know from my own experience that I would cry, make promises, say I was going to change. More often, I would blame the problems on something else which would be my job, family, having "depression."...The list goes on. I never knew or believed how much alcohol was destroying me and the lives of those around me. I didn't know until it really burned me and became so apparent as I was about to lose everything.
From that point, I started going to meetings daily and working the AA program as hard as I could.
Until you see that kind of psychic shift and effort from your A - Don't waste time fooling yourself that things are going to change or that those promises are worth much. Even WITH going to AA theres risk involved of relapse. With no program at all and not even admitting a problem...well...it's highly doubtful you'll see the changes.
So, where does that leave you? This alanon is about you after all. Someone stated that we don't go to alanon to understand the alcoholic. I agree with that, but I disagree when folks say it's not helpful to understand ALCOHOLISM. Once you are realistic about what it is and how the disease works, you can make some rational choices. The serenity prayer has more meaning. You can accept what he is and then work on you instead of watching the ridiculous ups and downs and trying to predict and change them. You can decide if this is what you want for your life. I was not a bad person when drinking. Nor was my ex-A. We were both sick people and I venture to say, I wasn't relationship material for anyone at that time.
I might have been capable of giving scraps of a normal functioning person - (I mean I did have a job and acted nice most of the time but I still got wasted and falling down drunk every other night at least and that's a HUGE problem). Be careful of rationalization and lowering your own bottom. Like feeling you are bless to not have a monster living in your house for 1 to 2 x a week instead of a husband that acts like a grown man and is mature and sensitive every day.
I suspect "guilt" feelings come from your own issues of feeling like you are to blame for marrying this trainwreck, overgrown baby alcoholic and that you are to blame for chosing him to be the father of your kids also. I suspect there is shame involved in extricating yourself because you are concerned what others will think. That is all stuff to work through in alanon. Mostly, I have but 1 answer for that which is simple:
"Forgive yourself because you didn't know at the time things would turn out this way."
You didn't do anything wrong but you can now start doing the next right thing to help the situation improve.
Hi, Thanks all for your comments...I needed a reminder. I know this, but I do choose to "minimize" all that is happening, like ilovedogs said, because I want normalcy. Also, other people...neighbors, friends looking in, don't usually see this side of him like I do. Mattie, your comments really hit home. I am most likely in denial, and I realize this is still the stage I'm stuck in half the time, the rest of the time I am still stuck in whether to "weather" the storm or to leave, because I am having a hard time changing myself...oh how hard it must be for the alcoholic! That is why separating seems like such a good answer...to get away from each other for a while and see if we can heal; maybe we don't bounce off each other well and separating would either change one of us, or would put us further apart, and I'm ok with losing him at this point. I'm tired of managing this. And part of my problem is that I do still focus on him...not really on the drinking anymore or how much beer he is buying or asking if he is going to go back to AA, but more about the times he "takes off" on a weeknight and doesn't come back until 3 or 4 hours later. He has cheated on me, so I won't be that much of a door mat.
Pushka, your comments that you "imagined it all and it is not as bad as you thought" is also one of my wrong perceptions. And Pinkchip, you are right that some of the guilt is my own for "marrying a trainwreck," which I did think I was smarter than that. We did, in the beginning, have a lot of fun together pre-kids. So the blame for him tends to go on the kids and how we discipline them. He doesn't want to admit that it has anything to do with his drinking. The DUI that he got in 2008 and the AA meetings that followed have all worn off, because he hasn't been in active recovery in a long time. And I guess the same is true for me, some of the things I learned...and I did read "Getting them sober" (obviously I need to read it again), and even though everything there resonated with me on each page, I have not consistently kept my own plan of recovery. It's not easy, when I come home and an arguement is started after he's had several beers. And the other day I realized he is back up to the amount that he was at in 2008...he finished an 18 pack in just a day and maybe part of the next day not long ago. Wow. And the promises of going back to AA are not there anymore. He doesn't feel remorse anymore after a night of drinking or going out, etc...the other day he told me he felt justified for leaving us to go drink with his buddies (or see his girlfriend for all I know) when he asked me for $50 to fill up his truck with gas. I made him get his own bank account in January and he gets a decent amount from unemployment that allows him to now pay his own credit card bill, his truck payment, insurance and gas, part of the groceries for the household, and still leaves enough for almost $400 in alcohol a month. I think that's a pretty good deal. So he asked for $50 bucks and he didn't like that I said no and treated him like a child and told him he needed to learn to budget his own money, so he did what he does best, he took off for the evening instead of owning up to his own responsibilities.
Thanks for all your comments, they were very helpful.
