Dear Flower thank you for your clarity and honesty regarding a very difficult family situation. Al-Anon is a fellowship of men and women who have lived with the disease of alcoholism and understand as few others can. The opening to our meetings states that living with this disease is too much for most of us-our thinking becomes distorted by trying to force solutions and we become irritable and unreasonable without knowing it. I know I can well identify with what you experienced and how you reacted. I had lived with the anger resentment self pity and fear for so long that my response system was over the top.

As you know alcoholism is a dreadful, fatal, progressive disease over which we are powerless. It affects  the person, who has this disease in their physical emotional and spiritual being.  Living with the disease also affects us in the same manner. We need a program of recovery and  new tools to live by. Al-Anon offered me those tools and a safe place to practice them. I urge you to search out face-to-face meetings in your community and attend.

It is at these face-to-face meetings I learned to break the isolation caused by the disease, rebuilt my self-esteem and self-worth and learned how to again respond and not react. This is a process and we urge progress not perfection so please keep coming back you're not alone

Hello Flower!  I can only share with you from a place of personal experience, related to alcoholism, halfway houses, and trying to find my own dignity as a Al-Anon member.

First, let me qualify myself for a moment.  I am what is often called a Double Winner.  I am both an AA and an Al-Anon member.  I have been in AA and sober for over 24 years, and I have been in Al-Anon for over 15 years.  And I have personally opened, ran, developed the policies and procedures, house guidelines for 3 half way houses.  Two for men and one for woman.  This is what I did from 2005, to 2013. When I closed the last one down due to the economic stress involved.

Now, I can fully understand where you are coming from and how you feel about what has transpired, regarding both the disrespectful treatment you were inflicted with by the alcoholic, as well as your marriage being minimized by some half way house rules.  I never tried to interfere with a marriage that was already in place when a new person came into the homes, but I did have a standing policy that no new relationships could be indulged in prior to their first six months of residency.  This is a time frame that the alcoholic needs to build a strong foundation of recovery in the rooms, with a sponsor, a good support network, etc.  When the opposite sex comes into the picture in early recovery, the recovery pretty much immediately takes a back seat regarding its level of priority in the alcoholics life.  Now, I have had to step in and block family, including wife's or husbands from contact a few times.  Why?  Because their ongoing involvement in the alcoholics life at that stage of their recovery was literally jeopardizing any progress being made.  I have had to stop parents from paying their alcoholics rent, because they would say, "I wish he or she would just grow up", and yet they were treating them like a baby, and interfering with the alcoholic taking responsibility for themselves as adults, and in some case I could see a parent literally loving their alcoholic/addict to death by enabling and always rescuing them.  Like, why would someone, especially an alcoholic go look for a job, (which was a house guideline), when mom and/or dad are paying the rent, providing grocery money, putting gas in their car, paying the car note, and/or insurance... and there is no end in sight?  Instead of trying to becoming self supporting the alcoholic is at the beach, laying in the sun.  Wive's and husbands, can also put so much pressure on the alcoholic to take their role as such and return home, and its the home environment that has been their drinking territory for a long time, and sometimes it was the wife or husband that was the alcoholics drinking or using buddy.  How long do you believe an alcoholic or addict in early recovery would stay clean and sober under those conditions?  Then there is the drama stuff. Some wives and husbands are full of drama, they are always in crisis, they never put down their own weapons and are always geared towards conflict with the alcoholic or addict.  With this triggered mind set and the emotionalization that comes with it, the newcomer cannot focus, concentrate, give undivided attention to what they are suppose to be learning and doing.  Their brain is all over the place.  Now they are in a lose lose situation.  They cannot do anything right regarding the spouse, nor can they do anything right regarding the half way house, and thus that feeling of hopelessness set's in and they just want to throw in the towel and give up altogether.  I have had men and woman stay in my homes from any where from a few days to over a year.  And I have to put a stat out here regarding their relapses if they experienced one in the first year.  After 30 days I would allow weekend overnight visits with family.  Sometimes it was the wife and kids they spent it with, other times it was parents. But the result became very obvious.  The majority of relapses took place while on a over night visit with family or within 2 weeks of returning from it.  In short, family dynamics can and does play a big role in what can trigger an alcoholic or addict back into the active disease.    

Now, I must admit that your own conduct probably didn't help the house admin or even hubby to re think their position regarding contact with you.  LOL  But, let's move away from the alcoholic and the half way house for a moment.  What about you getting well.  What about you healing?  I'm not hearing that he was forced by the courts, or other entity to go into the halfway house, and that not being the case, he is really stepping out on faith that you will be there when he has a good foundation of recovery under his belt, if only 60 days worth, and it is probably more than he has put together in a while.  He is trying to put his alcoholism in check.  Do you think this is a good time for him to have to battle with wife and try to put her in check too?  He is addicted to alcohol and/or drugs.  It is taking him down, and you right along with him.  It appears that you might be addicted to him, and all the drama, crisis, chaos, confusion and conflict that results from it.  "Heck if he isn't here to get my fix from, I'll go to him and get it damnit!"  LMAO!  Maybe it is time to take the 60 days in front of you and focus on yourself and your own wellness, so when the day comes that you are reunited, there isn't one trying to get well, and the other as sick as they ever were. This is a absolutely perfect time for you to step into the rooms of Al-Anon and start working this program so you can better respond to things as they unfold, instead of react to them as you have been.

I love what my sponsor says... "an untreated Alcoholic, with an untreated Al-Anon is like two tics without a dog.  They will without a doubt try to suck the blood out of each other."  What he doesn't say and probably should.. if one is staying sick and trying to suck the life out of the other.. the one trying to get healthier, and recover will surely end up running for their lives.  And what better commonality to have in a martial relationship, then two people who share the world of 12 Step recovery together, each on their own journey, following their own path, but able to talk and share about something so important to the both of them?

Right now, I am sensing that your recovery from the I.S.M's and all that it entails is every bit as important and valuable to you and your marriage as what he is trying to do.  Step over the threshold into a Al-Anon room and let us help you find your way through this stuff without losing your mind trying to figure it all out alone.

John

You sound like a strong woman Linda...dealing with difficult circumstances. Yeah, alcoholic/addicts get some coddling and "permission" to not function fully in halfway. That is why it is called halfway. It's not fair or right and I can totally see how as the spouse it all seems like a giant cop out. Their goal (the house) is more to keep him sober than make him mind responsibities. I used to always tell my rehab clients to utilize halfway to get whole way. Dunno if that will happen here but sounds like you are really working the alanon tools now with detachment and focus on healthy self-care. Good work!

Thank you for your kinds words. I am pretty strong and resilient actually. My first husband, the true love of my life passed away and I managed to keep it together for my kids sake. I didn't at that time really know how it important it was to let myself grieve and heal. But once again angels were placed before me and guided me. I will get through this as well if I rely on faith and my groups.

Update: Still no contact with my AH, still holding me to restrictions by the peer evaluation group. I think this is quite a sick game that is being played. They must find it quite amusing to continue to hurt me physically, emotionally, and mentally. I don't find anywhere in any readings from the Big Book to Ala-Non to CODA that this is a good recovery behavior for my AH. I guess it's their way of forcing us to separate and eventually I will file for divorce. The house leader continues to basically outright lie to me saying the restrictions will be lifted in 30 days which of course was an outright lie. What this proves to me is that even though A's say they are working a program blah blah blah they really aren't. I am waking up and smelling the roses that being in AA is really about working parts of the program to the best of what suits you in your life. I think they can all just quit pretending to be integral, honest, non judgmental etc. It's a big joke.