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I went to my first al-anon meeting two days ago and felt very welcomed. I plan on going again, but in between, I just need to share and get this out of my head. I hope I am in the right place and if not, please let me know...
Anyways, for about 16 years, right after high school, I got together with a guy who was a big drinker and partier from the start. We moved out together fairly quickly and my life has been a rollercoaster ever since. I have grown some, (I think), but he has just become sicker and sicker. I move around alot to get away from him, yet I always end up letting him move back in with me. Well, this last time has to be it because I just can't continue to live this way. I am getting into al-anon because i need to change so I don't keep this craziness up. SO now, about a week ago, I kicked him out of my apartment AGAIN because he started his binge drinking again and has been barely helping me anyways with the rent. After kicking him out, he decides to sleep in his car and continue his drinking right outside my apartment building. I tried to ignore it but the guilt just grows and grows inside me. Finally I realize if he drives in his condition, he could hit one of the hundreds of kids that live in my complex. I get into his car and drive him to an emergency room about 45 minutes away. All of his personal items are already in his car. I bring him inside, leave his keys and phone with the hospital staff and I leave his car in the hopsital parking lot.
He just called telling me they are releasing him and he has nowhere to go and is going to be homeless, and how could I do this to him after all these years...he would never do something like this to me...He has no money..... and on and on. All the same lines that made me take him back all the other 100 times before.
If I am doing the right thing, why do I feel so afraid? And embarassed.... I work with the landlord at the apartment complex so pretty much everyone knows my business. I just want to crawl into a hole and never come out...AND I DON'T KNOW WHY.
Will Al-Anon help me? I am a wreck.
Thank you for reading my confessional. I needed to get it out of my head. Not sure if I feel any better but I am trying....
I posted a reply but it didn't show up. In any case, I'll be brief.
Yes, alanon is the right place. Nobody winds up at alanon by accident so that is not something to be concerned with. You definitely have solid reason for being at alanon.
Also, it sounds like this guy is transcended to being a stalker. That sounds dangerous. None of this is your fault. Please work on ceasing the embarrassment over someone else's condition. You cared about him and you tried. Did you enable him...probably but that doesn't make you bad or guilty. For your safety, I would not make yourself the one to be contacted or to have anything to do with his outcome. That stalking is him playing a dangerous game with you and your boundaries probably should be really tight. Let the police deal with him if he comes around. He is banking on wearing you down, doubting yourself, creating and embarrassment outside your home so you will take him in the home. It's sick. Alanon will help give you support while you exercise firm boundaries.
Don't feel embarrassed or guilty if possible. You didn't cause this, can't cure it, can't control it. Do what's in your own best interests.
You are definitely in the right place and I thank you for sharing your story. It is one many of us have lived through so you will find this forum a great place to talk about your experiences and others will respond to you with what we call ESH (their Experience, Strenght & Hope) Personally I totally understand the emotions that are running rampant thru you mind and body. Everyone her loves or has loved someone with an addiction problem. And by the grace of our Higher Power (whom I call God) we have this program to teach us how to deal and cope with the alcoholic/addict in a healthy way and in turn receiving the peace and serenity we are all striving for. We also have meetings here online in our chat room twice daily that you can attend to keep you going until your next face to face meeting. We don't give you advice on what decisions you may make, only our own ESH that we hope will help you For me I have lived with this disease all my life. Father, brother, sister, aunts, uncles, cousins and nieces all scummed to this disease. Many have found recovery so there are great success stories out there. I was raised to be the designated "caretaker" to all my A's (A's= Alcoholic/addict) But I never found my own recovery until my son became an addict. His father & I have done everything humanly possible to "fix" our son and when I came to Alanon I believed this was the place that would tell me how to do so. When I found this program was for "My" recovery I was tempted to leave. I mean i wasn't the sick one right? Then an Old Timer told me this "Work our program for 6 months it is free, costs you nothing After 6 months if you don't feel you are helping yourself and want to quit we will gladly refund you your misery" I was so beyond miserable and our lives so out of control I took him up on his offer. 4 1/2 yrs later my son is still an addict but I have grown by leaps and bounds. Living with this disease affects everyone and you live with it long enough you develop unhealthy coping skills and use them until they no longer work. Mostly we try to control the A. In many different ways. Pouring liquor down the drain, making threats we aren't ready to really put into action, trying to control the outcome of A's behavior. We make excuses for their behavior, we care take for them, do things for them they are capable of doing for themselves. I could go on. But in all those actions where we display those behaviors we are silently telling our loved one they are incapable of doing for themselves and we take away their dignity of making thier own choices and then feeling the consequences of those choices. (Hoping this is making sense). At the same time we are so involved and emeashed in the A's doings we lose our own sense of who we are. We become trapped in the vicious cycle. Now my son started using at age 15. We actually moved away from our families in order to break the cycle of addiction in both mine an my husbands family. We were very involved parents. Son turned to drugs anyway. And we have been living this with him almost 10 yrs now. He's overdosed countless times, been and is now in jail several times. And everytime we tried to give him a fresh start as he vowed to us over an over he was done with drugs. He has been to rehab 3 times. In the beginning we took him to therapy, drug classes etc really thinking we were doing the right thing. But there is a saying " the defintion of insanity is doing the same thing over an over and expecting different results" and thats what we were doing. Alanon has saved my life and sanity many times over and I know I can never leave or I will fall back into my insanity. Seriously by the time I got to the program I was sicker than my son. But I followed the steps, listened to others and their experience and what they did and tried some of those things for myself. Because here you can take what you like and leave the rest. When we were strong enough we put our son out of the house. No job, no money, certainly no car. It was the most painful decision we have ever had to make. We did make sure he had a cell phone for emergency's and that was it. He couched surfed with friends for a while until he wore out his welcome with all of them. He was then on the streets. And we had to live knowing he was living on the streets. It was beyond painful but if my husband and I wanted some as semblance of peace in our lives we had to detach with love from our son. And yes oh boy we got phone call after phone call, him begging to come home, he was hungry, cold, sleeping in the park. They know all the buttons to push believe me. They may be sick but they aren't stupid. At least your bf has a car to sleep in and hopefully you can take comfort in that. Is there a possibility he will hit and hurt or kill someone with the car. Of course there is. But that would not be your fault, he must take responsibility for his own decisions. We also go by what we call the 3 C's and I had to carry this with me as a reminder for yrs. "I didn't Cause it, I Can't control it, & I Can't fix it" I also came here and read the steps and thought " These sound quite reasonable I should be able to fly thru these steps in 12 weeks" Well why they sound reasonable you actually have to work them not just agree with them & it took me 10 months just to get past step 1 because to me that meant giving up control and I still believed I could some how control or force the outcome I wanted. This is a living, breathing program and for me I still have to work steps 1 thru 3 every single day. I am sorry if i am rambling a bit. I tend to do that lol But what ever decision you make, take your bf back or not no judgements will be made. I would just urge you to continue with Alanon to help YOU! This program works in all aspects of your life you will find. It teaches healthy coping skills for any situation Job, family, friends etc. Once you start applying the steps and principles to your life trust me you will find the person inside you were meant to be not the person you have been expected to be. And while a little scary for me as I didn't hit here until middle age. I am proud of how my behavior has changed for the better. It was here I was taught compassion, tolerance, patience and found I could still love my son as he is not as I wish him to be. Again welcome and we would love to see you in one of our online meetings held in the chat room. Blessings & keep posting
I'm brand-new to al-anon so maybe my advice/opinion/whatever doesn't mean much, but I wanted to share something that I heard yesterday. I went to a big AA conference with my partner to hear an al-anon speaker. She was really great, but I thought this was an awesome comment: she said (about her alcoholic son) that her home is a privilege. Basically, she told him that living in her home is a privilege and if he wanted to be there, he had to stop drinking. If he stopped drinking he was more than welcome there, but if he kept drinking he had to find somewhere else to stay. If you WANT to let him come back (NOT out of guilt), then maybe give him that "ultimatum". Enabling him won't do either of you any good.
That said, another part of me wants to say that you've been putting up with his disrespect for you (which is what this is) for over 15 years and you should just tell him that he made his own bed and now he needs to sleep in it! So again, maybe I'm not the best person to be offering advice. ;) My partner is sober and he knows he'd be out if he took another sip, but I don't/won't put up with that and am very strong in that stance.
I just wanted to say THANK YOU to all of you for taking the time to read and reply to my first post. He attempted to call me one more time, but hasn't come back to where I live. I am praying he won't either. But if he does, I have decided that I will get a restraining order against him to protect myself because like someone mentioned, this is like stalking. ANd it is this stalking, guilt trips and mind games that have kept me trapped in this game with him since I was 18 or 19 years old. It was never about love, not really. It was about guilt, shame and fear. What shakes me up the most is this guy isn't the only one I am so codependent with. My entire family, coworkers, even my drug addicted boss.... I sometimes I feel like I am drowning and for the life of me I don't know why I take everyone else's stuff on. I have so much more growing to do, but I really feel like Al-Anon is where God wants me to be.
