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Okay, how can we help an addict to stop with being so negative?
AH is in treatment right now and in some days, he seems fine but in some days, he's so negative about everything. He keeps thinking he's really ruined and there's no cure and there's no hope.
He goes to his outpatient addictions treatment classes, does all his homework, we started going to Celebrate Recovery, started going to church but today, all I get are negative texts from him saying he doesn't know if he can make me happy again. He's only been going on this treatment for a month (but on three of those weeks, he wasn't really clean). All I'm doing is encouraging him to keep going to treatment (which is fine by him) and he seems to be willing to give treatment a chance. He can easily refuse to go if he doesn't want to but he still goes.
I am on my wit's end on what to do sometimes though! I know it's up to him to get rid of these negative feelings but there has to be something his family and I can do. Please give me some advice.
You are right in realizing you can't control or change his thinking, only he can do that. However, you can react positively to any changes in his behavior you observe. As he seems to be worried that "he can't ever make you happy", a simple start is to comment on anything he is doing that IS making you happy, "It makes me feel really happy when __________________ (fill in with what he did). Remember, your "comment" doesn't necessarily have to be verbal: If he pulls a chair out for you to sit down, you can smile at him. If you show appreciation for him as a person, he may start to see these positive things himself. If he points out a negative thing, perhaps instead of you noticing his negativity (giving attention to a behavior rewards it), you can turn it around and see the bright side of what he has commented on. If he DOES ever make an even somewhat positive remark, like, "My morning wasn't too bad, at least I was able to go about 1/2 hr without getting pissed off" you might say something like, "sounds like you are starting to notice longer periods of time when you are feeling calm"
Glad that you found us and shared. Alcoholism is a 3 fold disease, Spiritual, Physical and Emotional. Recovery takes time and effort. We who have lived with this disease also require a program of recovery of our own We need to learn to focus on ourselves, to act in our own best interest and to not react. When we accept that we are responsible for our own happiness, and break the isolation caused by this disease we are on our way to recovery.
The alcoholic, in the meantime is also attempting to re-learn tools of living. For both parties in the relationship , fear, anxiety ,confusion all surface and are part of the relearning Your hubby will learn how to live at his rehab and at AA meetings. He will learn to trust himself and his Higher power and move on with his life We can do likewise.
Checking out alanon face to face meetings in your community would be a great start for your recovery The number is listed in the white pages. Here we learn that we are powerless over people places and things. That if e focus on ourselves and live one day at a time, life will unfolds and we develop the courage, serenity and wisdom to live.
I have earned that we are all as happy as we make up our minds to be Since we cannot fix another the best we can do is learn to be happy ourselves.
I have mixed feelings on this one. I know what a sponsor or another alcoholic in AA would say to him if he came whining like that. They would gently embrace him (a hug), empathize and say "I know early sobriety is very hard." I would tell him "I distinctly remember having those feelings like I was so broken I could not be fixed." I would remind him that "everyone feels that way cuz every person I know and have seen get sober along with me in AA has also had those moments." Then I would tell him to buck up and stop feeling sorry for himself cuz that will lead to relapse. As they say "Poor me, Poor me, POUR ME a drink"
As his wife, I don't know if you are the one to be giving this feedback cuz you don't have the disease and he won't identify and he has you buying into him being so unique and such a lost cause... He is just a garden variety drunk that is scared to man up and get better. I say that with all the empathy in the world cuz this is what I had to realize about myself and it was so difficult. Turning myself into a victim was at the very core of my alcoholism and that had to change.
So my inclination is to say "give him a hug and then tell him to buck up and stop feeling sorry for himself cuz self-pity is the enemy of recovering alcoholics." I might also tell him that those thoughts are his disease talking to him and not his real thoughts.
All this is getting way more involved than a spouse maybe should though because you are not in AA and I am....so my thoughts on it may not be right. Perhaps your best bet is "I know those thoughts are pretty common and it's something you need to tell on yourself about in meetings and to your sponsor or you will wind up drunk" That's the truth of the matter.....
Or you could just detach because I figured this stuff out on my own somehow and he can too. Perhapse "Just call your sponsor" "Keep going to AA" is the best you can offer. You are so powerless over this process.
One thing to remember is that this part needs to be hard for him. Early sobriety was grueling and painful and part of what keeps me sober is not just that I don't want to be that drunk trainwreck again, but I also don't think I hav another recovery in me. If he makes it through this turbulent time, his odds of staying sober increase a lot. If it was easy in the first month/year - people would just relapse and say..."No biggie...I'll just get sober again." No. It's painful and I never want to be at that 1 week/1 month or even 1 year period again.
Thank you all for the support and for the great advice.
I try my best to be positive. His addictions counselor encourages him to go to AA meetings but he keeps talking about how much he hates going to them.
I believe having a sponsor can be helpful because he can have someone to talk to who's been there, done that. We went to a couple of AA meetings and I encourage him to get one but I don't want to be forceful. He seems to be okay with Celebrate Recovery. Hopefully, he can find a sponsor there.
He really needs to have patience too. He seems to think he'll never get fixed and he's going to spend the rest of his life trying to get better.
I would love to hear from more people who went through this so hopefully, more people will post their experiences.
Not only did my alcoholic become negative so did I and the kids we had all been through so much. You do not say if you are attending al anon meetings if not the best thing you could do for your whole family including your partner is get to as many as possible. Mt partner has been sober 8 months this time this is his third go at sobriety and as stated negative thinking is a manin aspect of early sobriety infact sometimes I find early sobreity harder to deal with than drinking days. I have to watch that I do not try to do recover for him, just like I tried to get him to recovery, the best way to do this is to go to al anon.
Today I lead by example my partner sees how happy my meetings, reading and chatting on the phone make me although he slowed in recovery he is going more now all I can do is role model. All I know is my negative thinking is disapearing and my kids seem a lot happier.
Lots of good replies to this one already - I would have a tendency to just offer him the encouragement of "make yourself happy, and I will be fine"...
I think it is one of those situations where it is hard to love someone else, when you don't love yourself.... Until he loves himself again, he's unlikely to feel capable of loving you, or others....
T
__________________
"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?"
Aloha Clueless and welcome also from the SWP...I always love how the MIP family leaps to support a need...Great responses. If you get an opportunity...(don't make one) when he is down and acting depressed...just in conversation ask him "Why do you choose to feel so negative"...keep the emotional part out of it just make it a question. Then leave him with the opportunity to ask himself that question and mull it over. Alcoholics' can think...sometimes not so good and still they can. Let him ask himself "Why am I choosing to feel so negative" because it is a choice not a default. We all have the choice over what we feel and when. That for me is the simplest help and support. As it has been already mentioned sooo often don't try to counsel or sponsor your alcoholic...expressing inquisitiveness honestly is enough.
For you...Alcohol is a chemical depressant...it helps the alcoholic practice being depressed over a long period of drinking until with it or without it depressent often becomes the default emotion along with all the other negative emotions which are attached...anger, rage, resistance, egotism and self centeredness (self protection) being argumentative and such. Depression is natural to alcoholism.
After about 6 months of AA, my hubby started talking with the dirty mouth... all swear words and f this and that. I finally got mad and told him he couldn't talk like that around me and, by the way, please go get a sponser so he could talk to him and not to me. And then I walked away whenever it would start. He has been suffering from depression too, but he has to find his way out of it... just the same as I would and I did when he was at his worst and I was so depressed. What I did for me was to UP my meetings and find online forums like this one. He can do the same thing and you don't have to be at the receiving end of bad behavior.
