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I have been with my boyfriend for over 2 years which I love and adore even though we have had a lot of rough roads and I have always been a caregiver and catered to him. He has been in and out of AA for 20 plus years and knows the program well. Before him I was married to an alcoholic for 18 years and eventually I turned to drinking to deal with him. After our divorce my drinking got very out of hand and my boyfriend gave me a choice either get help or he was gone. I quit drinking...joined AA and stayed sober for 9 months. Within that time he drank...not all the time but when he decided to do it he did it right...i took care of him and stood by him even while I was trying to remain sober. Eventually i started drinking again but not bad just constant. I found out also that he had started doing cocaine (which I have never done...scared of it) supposely just a few times but after this past weekend obviously he has been doing it a lot and probably for much longer than i thought. After a binge this past weekend and him staying up all night the next day he had an anxiety attack and called his contacts and checked himself into the emergency room to detox is what he said but I think he just wanted something to get thru the anxiety of the situtation at the moment (which he texts me and said they werent doing anything for him and to come get him...which i did) I took him home and since then he has shut me out...he says his team (former AA and church) are helping him and he is going in the direction they are telling him to which Im happy he is going to try to get clean again...the only thing he has told me is that I needed to call my sponsor and ask her what I need to do to help him and that i need help. That me calling my sponsor would help him tremendsly...So, I did call my sponsor i went back to meetings and I took that white chip because i truly want what i give up (my sobriety) months ago. He has told me he loves but now he want return any of my text or answer any of my calls. I feel like I have lost my best friend. I know they are probably advising him that right now we are not good for each other until we both get grounded in the program again but I would never do anything to sabotage or hurt his recovery efforts. I know anybody reading this is going this is a dysfunctional relationship and you are probably right. I am a loving person. I love him with all my heart. Im determined this time to stick with the AA program and stay healthy but the loss of contact with him is almost like I am mourning a death. I just want and desire a loving relationship. How do I deal with this separation and remain strong to continue my recovery. I just need answers from him and I don't even know how to get through the day sometimes. I feel like I am a part of both programs...Ive been hurt by the addiction of my ex husband and my present boyfriend and i have become the addiction also. I just feel so alone and lost right now. My sponsor just keeps telling me to focus on me and i know thats what i have to do but the pain of his blocking me out and loss of his presence is overwhelming. Any thoughts?
I am so sorry for your pain right now, and you both have an awful lot your trying to deal with, wanting and desiring something though, needs to be clearly defined with what we have to work with, I know that my wanting something has clouded my view of reality and my need to try and force and control the uncontrolable and my inability to understand I cannot love someone better or will things right, I have had internal battles with this most of my life, your boyfriend seems to be saying and doing some very encouraging things,
To sustain a healthy relationship we need to be at a place within ourselves where we can function just as well alone as together, we do not get the answers we want from our a's, they don't have them.
I think you have a lot of insight from all sides, and that with help you can use this very much to your advantage, if something we keep on doing is not giving us what we want, we need to recognise and accept this, and try something different, Alanon is a great place where we can safely share our vulnerabilities share our experience of hope, and despair and know that as a group we all have each others best interests at heart, put yourself first taking care of you, demonstrating a confident happy well balanced person is far more attractive, to keep strong I stick with the right people, I look for people who have what I want and try to practice doing what they do, Hugs Nina, keep coming back xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
I can fully relate to this as you described my drinking history and I also had relationships with other alcoholics. I absolutely had to be single for a period even though it hurt like hell and went against my nature. I cried and felt like my soul was being torn from me.
Truthfully, I was just extraordinarily codependent as it sounds like both you and your boyfriend are. People told me this early on in AA also, but I didn't want to hear it because I was so lonely and just wanted to be in a relationship so badly.
You say you would "never do anything to hurt his recovery." My biggest stumbling block in this regard was my own neediness and failure to see that by not LEAVING A PERSON ALONE to form their own program, suffer their own consequences, and learn to be whole...I WAS hurting them. My inability to be single and on my own and sober as well was a HUGE problem that kept me drunk and kept me in relationships with other broken people (usually other alcoholics). I simply could not stop thrusting my neediness upon others and it hurt them and myself. I thought my neediness was love, but it wasn't. It was dependency/codependency.
There is a saying in AA which is "We attract what we are" and from what I hear, you are describing you and both your exes as chronic relapsers "in and out" of AA for years. Work on THAT and then you will attract someone with solid recovery or someone without addiction issues completely. Until you put recovery first, you will have relationship drama with broken people and give up your sobriety for guys like it sounds as if you have done already.
This is YOUR SHOT to stop having needy, clingy relationships where you wind up drunk and sad. It did not take me that long to learn to stand on my own two feet and develop boundaries and a basic foundation of sobriety in AA where I put God, sobriety, and myself before relationships. I had it all backwards before that and it was the root of most my problems. It hurt to go through this, but growing hurts... Everything happens for a reason and while I felt lonely and sad in my early recovery without a relationship, I didn't realize God was making me stronger and I was building MORE IMPORTANT relationships which included my relationship with God, my fellows in AA, a sponsor, and myself. From there, I hit the pause button on being so needy because I finally had faith and better coping skills. I hope you delve fully into AA and hit up some alanon too because this was my solution.
I hope this doesn't come off too harsh, but you described my pattern of relationships, drinking, and codependency to a tee and I REALLY feel for you because I was there completely and things are much better now. Focus on AA and building a rich and full life for yourself. Go to lots and lots of meetings. Get active in AA and it will unfold from there. Throwing in some alanon and coda meetings wouldn't hurt either but sobriety is your main focus. I went from having my life be all about relationships to being all about AA, then finally to being able to function in the world more normally without alcohol/relationship crutches (but still going to AA and now also alanon at times).
Nina Welcome to Miracles in Progress. Alcoholism is progressive fatal disease over which we are powerless. .I am pleased that you have found AA , attend alanon and have a sponsor. I found that the most constructive actions I can take for my life is to work the programs.
Using the Steps, the slogans, and meetings helped me to incorporate these philosophies, and attitudes into my everyday life and grow into being a compassionate, empathic person with self esteem and self confidence.
Please keep taking care of yourself and keep coming back You are worth it.
I thought that I was helping my husband by standing by him, regardless of how dysfunctional our relationship was becoming. In reality he needed is own space to sort himself out and, who would have thought it, I needed my space as well so that I could learn my own lessons about taking care of myself and living my own life instead of trying to run the lives of others.
Staying in those old patterns wore down both of our self esteems. It has been tough and sometimes I wanted to wail with the emptiness that I felt inside - but it is also tremendously empowering starting to re-learn how I can be myself. It takes time I think, but I think that the lessons are well worth it!
You asked how you deal with the separation...if I may, I would reword this question to "how do I deal with this addiction (him)? Since you have been in both programs, you know the answer. Take the right next step, one hour at a time if need be....don't "pick up". You can do this.
Your story resonates so much with me. I'm a acoa dad was a alcoholic, mom was codependent. When I first came in the program I knew there was something very wrong with me..but I wasn't aware of what it was.I thought I was helping him and others and I thought if I kept going back I could fix our relationship. What I didn't know because I had been that way for 39 years, that I was extremely other and outer focused. My entire focus in life was on how the other was feeling and what they thought of me. I couldn't say no. I bought gifts and people pleased. I kept showing up to my meetings and I slowly changed. I told myself one day I'm going to take my focus off him a hour at a time....then a few....then I worked up to a day...I could not have made any changes without the program. I have made so many. I do them one at a time with god. I'm not perfect, I never will be. Our relationship isn't perfect either, but we get along so much better than we used to. What I love is I have a voice. I can share how I feel in a kind way with him and most of all...I love that he's a part of my life but he is not my whole life. I work a strong program..four meetings a week, phone calls to members( sitting in isolation is the enemy), text my sponsor every day, read cal and other recovery material, pray and meditate, do a gratitude list every day, and I spend time with myself or my alanon friends. I no longer put all my eggs in one basket with him anymore. I have other interests in life. I know I have many days of peace and serenity now and I'm not so other and outer focused anymore. I would suggest alanon, coda or acoa face to face meetings. In my opinion, AA will not be enough to recovery from codependency. It will take willingness to change :) Blessings on your choice
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I needed these behaviors in my past they helped me survive I'm finding new and better ways to not just survive but thrive
Wow all of your advice is exactly what I needed to hear. Very hard to hear because I am so mourning the loss of him in my life right now. Makes me physically sick and very depressed but I know the only way to get through this is to work on me and give him space to work on him. I can just pray that if God sees fit for us to come together again he will and if its not meant to be it want happen. Hopefully regardless we will become healthy and stronger people. Love to you all for all your kind words and good advice.
AA put a giant dent in the codependency for me. My sponsor did have me go to CoDA, but I only went a few times. Theoretically, any 12 step program can be "enough" for all sorts of semi-related issues and defects of character because it's the steps that are the curative factor and the steps are the same in each program basically. I got in arguments with folks about this last time this came up but I still feel strongly that if a person is an identified alcoholic, they need AA to have that program foundation really strong before adding other things beyond a meeting here and there. Codependency is less likely to actually kill you than drinking and/or drugging, and you won't stop being codependent if you don't learn basic skills to stop drinking. In order to learn to stay sober truly, I had to do AA full force (like it is suggested in the big book). There was little time for outside groups that might take away from my singleness of purpose at that time...which was to stay sober.
Also, an alcoholic's "reasons" and triggers for codependency may be specific and really stem from alcoholism...to find out how much, focus on the alcoholism first. Alcoholics mostly have codependency issues and that is why they seek out enablers and such. AA is designed to deal with this and it has been for years before these other programs even existed. In my opinion, it is enough. That is exactly why this poster's partner is getting advised to focus on sobriety and not the relationship....They don't discharge you from rehab to a Coda or alanon meetings. I would not suggest a chronic relapser to spend as much time in other programs avoiding the biggest issue of all...First things first, singleness of purpose, stay sober and move on from there.
