The material presented
here is not Al-Anon Conference Approved Literature. It is a method
to exchange
information, ideas, feelings, problems and solutions on a personal
level.
Tonight, was just awful. I've been dealing with depression, and not well. I had a pretty bad fit of it the night before. All I wanted was comfort, and he could give me any. So today, our terrible fight from the previous night triggered his cycle of woe-is-me binge drinking. I just don't know when it's gonna stop being so messed up. I went to hug him from behind , and in his drunken off-kilter stupor, he became off balance, and his clumsy feet came slamming down on my toes. I don't feel abused. It was an accident, but it hurt so bad in the moment, I cried, I freaked out. While it wasn't a punch to the face or a dirty word, his drinking caused half my toe nail to fall off, and I can't deny that. My dang toe hurts and I'm definitely not happy. Yet, he is mortified, and in the moment, he was absolutely unable to communicate.
After it happened, he went into the other room and started punching himself in the face. He used to cut, and while he hasn't done it since we've been together, this was a scary thing for me to experience.
When I look back at my night, I just think, wow, this is really messed up. It seems with every cycle of increased drinking, it just seems to get worse and worse.
I am trying to be there for him. I have spent the last year trying to understand the disease better, and working on myself, but things aren't going so well. I tried to get into school, and while I got accepted, financial aid wasn't enough. I have to figure out financing and scholarships, and my attendance will most likely be delayed. This was my out to get away from a job I have been at for far too long. I feel like I'm suffocating. I am a musician, and my music aspirations are slipping daily. I work in a music store and I see all those around me achieve higher levels of success, and I'm still doing what I've been doing for almost 4 years, which is not much of anything. I don't have the confidence or motivation to be a self-promoter, and I hate the vanity and shallowness of the industry, but I know I need to perform. The idea of my life long dream and the meeting of it's reality has been one of the many contributing factors to my depression. I am really needing to see my therapist, and of course she is out for 3 weeks with a back injury. It just feels like I can't catch a break.
I see the person I love getting lost deeper and deeper into his disease. I keep feeling lonelier every day. He comes home and stays busy drinking and working on incredible projects. He's a builder and he is building instruments, knives and beautiful furniture. I look at my evenings spent depressed as hell, and I look over and see how even in a drunken stupor, he makes the most beautiful things. It is absolutely insane, and I find myself feeling jealous about his productivity. Why and how the hell am I jealous of an alcoholic's level of productivity! Its crazy how they can defy common logic. Keep jobs, get promotions, while maintaining a serious habit. I don't get it sometimes. Yet, while he is being mr. productive, I feel so isolated and so alone. He seems to have no desire to want to spend quality time with me. He talks about all the great things we are going to do together, but it never happens. His libido is in the toilet, and mine is getting there with the depression and all the craziness.
I don't know what to do. The idea of in sickness and health, is something I've strongly believed. My mother stuck by my father when he had cancer, despite huge marital problems, but this feels much worse. Its such a slower form of torture than the grief I experience watching my father pass from cancer. It takes the person you love away in little pieces, and I don't know how to let go of someone who is my best friend, the person I imagined spending my life with, the person who feels like home. How do you let that go? I'm not ready, I know that much, but I know how toxic this is. I just feel so very weak.
-- Edited by astallaslions on Friday 30th of May 2014 12:32:46 AM
You cannot be there for him but you can be there for you. Being there for an alcoholic not working a recovery program, it is like trying to get grounded in quicksand; you will eventually get swallowed up. He is dying, you are dying, hence the weakness you described. Working your program, through al anon, is the way to get on solid ground and feel your life force returning. Letting him live with his choices, behaviors is what you must do, regardless of the outcome for your relationship. Keep coming back!
Thank you were having the courage to share your inner pain, awareness and conflicts. As you are aware, alcoholism is a progressive fatal disease over which we are powerless. The most support, and the best we can do for a family member caught up in this disease is to learn how to take care of ourselves in a healthy constructive fashion
As Paula suggested,attending Al-Anon face-to-face meetings, online meetings here and using the new tools offered by the program will help you,as it has helped me to regain my life, my self-esteem and self-worth.
I urge you to begin to take care of yourself. You are so worth it.
Can't say it better than PP. Nothing changes if nothing changes and you can't change him but you can change you with meetings, sponsorship, fellowship, literature and really working the Al-Anon program.
Going to a active alcoholic for comfort and love is like going to the hardware store for bread. Face to face meetings, getting the focus on self, choosing the right sponsor, beginning to work the steps, reading daily cal recovery material, developing constant contact with my higher power through constant prayer and meditation,exercising, getting my own life and discovering what I enjoyed doing, calls in between meetings, staying honest, getting the focus off of others and their stuff and on myself where it belongs...staying in my own hula hoop these are some of the tools that have helped me in my ongoing recovery. If you develop friendships with your alanon family through fellowship..you will be too busy to pay attention to what he's doing.
-- Edited by karma13 on Friday 30th of May 2014 02:25:07 PM
__________________
I needed these behaviors in my past they helped me survive I'm finding new and better ways to not just survive but thrive
((((K))))...If he isn't there for himself you also won't be there for him. Alcohol and alcoholism is much more powerful than you are and therefore why the 1st step reads "We admitted we were powerless over alcohol and that our lives had become unmanageable". I read that in your post...I've been there also. This disease will hurt anyone on the mind, body, spirit and emotion level and if you read your post as if someone else wrote it you should be able to see it clearly. What can you do? Change the only person you can change...you. The others have given you guideline suggestion from how they were able to change the things they could. I follow those suggestions myself and the journey of my life is very good after having been rescued from the active disease of drug addiction and alcoholism in my spouse. If nothing changes...nothing changes other than the insanity gets worse and life gets more dangerous. I pray you will heal from your toes to your head. Keep coming back (((((hugs)))))
