It's 4:40am and I have just woken up to a life that feels like a nightmare that I can't escape from. Have you ever been so exhausted that you can't stay awake any longer but you don't want to go to sleep because you dread that sickening feeling of the reality of what is happening making you feel like you're being punched in the gut when you open your eyes and the nothingness of sleep is replaced with what is?

My AH (separated since August, married 27 years) is back in the hospital for the 3rd time in 2 years because of seizures from withdrawls only this time he has no insurance and I don't know how he will pay for it or if I will be responsible for it since we are still married. This time I do feel so much stronger in many ways from al anon and I am so thankful to have found it and this site but I have also lost a lot of my optimism that this disease will ever be beaten and even though we have tried to do everything right we are losing the battle and we are being taken down along with the alcoholic. I look around at the devastation that has been wrought on all of us and I need so much more than "this too shall pass" and "let go and let God". I realized tonight that for one of the few times in my life I went through a traumatic day and never once did I pray. Not even a concious decision-I just don't find it a source of comfort anymore and even though the expressions from friends that they are praying for us make me feel as if people care about us, I don't really think it matters in the whole big picture. Almost feel like I've come to the conclusion that it is what it is and it is what it's going to be and my prayers may make me feel better for a while but they don't really change anything. Another thing that this disease has destroyed-my faith. 

I haven't been in the house in months and was shocked to see a house that was not too long ago a beautiful "home" filled with people, pets, life and love is now a shell that housed a shell of a man. I just walked around after the rescue squad left and cried.

He has ruined our lives in so many ways and even though I keep trying to escape and save myself, because he is the father of our sons and because of the law, I keep being sucked back in. I can't file for divorce until August so I am still tied to him financially and today I would have loved to have just stayed away, but my sons were upset and needed me to be there with them.

I am trying hard to stay in the moment and not get ahead of myself but there are so many things that need to be done asap yet all I want to do is stay in bed and be left alone. I'm mad at the people who have disappeared and weren't there for us but yet the ones that call to check on me are tiring because I am sick to death of talking about him and the whole situation.

I am so tired of having to keep on with life and all the normalcy when my world is falling apart. I feel like 2 different people. The one who's family and finances are falling apart over here and the woman with the new job that has to show up for a very important training meeting today and put all this aside and concentrate enough to actually learn something.

I am just exhaused physically, emotionally and spiritually but I have to keep going. 

Thanks for letting me vent and for understanding that I'm in a pretty dark place right now.

WOMFI, I understand your feelings. You are not just watching a destructive, jerky drunk - you are literally watching someone kill themselves with alcohol. Add to that, it's the father of your children and it's someone you've been with 27 years. Wow.

Everything that has given you the strength to move out - to get that job... That is your HP working for you. Big challenges like you are facing are not proof of the absense of God. I try to think of it along the lines of that the way you are consistently handling the situation is evidence of God's grace. I try to believe that...I really do and I hope when things get hard for me (as life does) I continue to think that, though I know it will be difficult.

Wow wow wow...in one of my dark times, a friend of me offered to sit on the phone with me and just listen to me breathe.  Sometimes that is the best we can do..take our life to its simplest and just breathe.  hugs

Thanks!! It helps.

There have been countless nites that I've laid awake with my mind spinning when my A son was binging - afraid to go to sleep for fear of what I could wake up to. This takes me back to my childhood days when my A father was drinking & being woken up during the middle of the nite. I don't fear my son the way I feared my Dad but the instinct is pretty much the same - the anticipation of what comes next.

With my husband (not an A), I've gone thru 3 open heart surgeries, 2 strokes & multiple other medical emergencies and each time I was alone in the waiting room - no one to sit with me but waited (one time, up to 12hrs) all alone. And once, I was rushed into emergency surgery to repair a hole in my intestines. Hubby was out of town and so my Addict sister came to be with me = yeah, she was so friggin high & spaced out that I knew she was not up the the task of representing my best interest in making any medical decisions on my behalf. I remember being wheeled out of the room toward the OP room and knowing the state of mind that my sister was in, all I could think was "God, I am in your hands". I went home after 9 days in ICU and my SIS stayed with me for several days and yep, she helped herself to my pain med......geeze!!

Being a control freak, medical emergencies are difficult because EVERYTHING is out of my control. When you talk about Letting go and Letting God, medical emergencies are a perfect example of when we have to do just that because we have no other choice.  When it comes to the cost that befalls us, that's the least of my worries. Hubby has medicare but his 3 hospitals stays last summer left me with thousands in co-pays and I send each provider a little something each month. Some have turned me over to collection but they still get only what I have to give each month...nothing more.  One provider got really pushy and I told him that if he continued to harrass me, I'd have no problem leaving his name out of the hat this month - he backed off.

Don't know if you can glean any comfort from my ramblings but I'll keep you in my prayers and send good vibes your way.

I look around at the devastation that has been wrought on all of us and I need so much more than "this too shall pass" and "let go and let God". I realized tonight that for one of the few times in my life I went through a traumatic day and never once did I pray. Not even a concious decision-I just don't find it a source of comfort anymore and even though the expressions from friends that they are praying for us make me feel as if people care about us, I don't really think it matters in the whole big picture. Almost feel like I've come to the conclusion that it is what it is and it is what it's going to be and my prayers may make me feel better for a while but they don't really change anything. Another thing that this disease has destroyed-my faith.
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WOMFI,
This is what stuck out to me about what you wrote. Your description of what is happening to your hubby sounds terrible and it must be terrifying for your sons and for you to see it and for you to know how it is going to affect you down the road in many ways...... Your relationship with and description of your HP will change. It is growing into what you need it to be.

I know whenever I pray I always start with "I don't know what you look like, and I don't know much about you except what I have been told, and I don't know what you sound like or if you are male, female, gender neutral ..... but I know you exist somehow because I can look in the mirror and see behind me and see that you have been there all along........" and then I can talk to my HP. I could never describe him/her/it/they to anyone because I really don't know. But in the same way that I believe in electricity (which I can't see but I can see evidence of) I can talk to my HP. And I can also call it karma or life force or spirit force or recognize it through many of the religions around the world. I have decided that I want my HP to be my best friend, so that is how I talk to "it".

I also have lost a lot of my optimism about the disease and the relationship with the hubby (43 years), but I gained a ton more optimism about my relationship with ME. I feel good about me even when I feel bad about him. I thank AlAnon for that.

Keep taking care of yourself.