The material presented
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information, ideas, feelings, problems and solutions on a personal
level.
Hi! My AH was drinking yesterday. I'm feeling sooo bad. I have headache and I'm crying. I realize that I powerless before my illness.
AH doesn't understand why I'm crying. He invites me to go somewhere and have fun. I'm ACOA and I realize that I need love and support. But because low self esteem I keep AH at a distance. I'm confused. What can I do?
You can give communication a try. You can try to express how you feel about the drinking, but just from how it affects you....Don't expect that he will stop just because of what you say.
You can go to more meetings (Alanon and/or ACOA) get a sponsor if you don't have one already and work the steps. You don't have to be that scared little girl with a drunk dad any more replaying the same scenario with your husband again and again. You can change, but it won't be easy.
Bless you and keep coming back here to share please. Sounds like you already have some good insights into why this is all so difficult for you.
Find a meeting asap, there is an online meeting on this site at 10am. You can give yourself the love and support you need, of course we need it from others as well; healthy others, though. You will find healthy love and support in meetings and you will learn to love yourself. Keep coming back!
Hello Salvie I do agree. You can speak your truth without blaming and search out the nearest alanon meeting and attend.
Alcoholism is a progressive disease that not only infects the person who drinks but those who share their lives with them, The saying that the alcoholic drinks, and the person who lives with them "gets the hang over "is often so very true, We are not anesthetizing our feeling as they are.
AA is the recovery program for alcoholics and Alanon was founded to help families of alcoholics. Here I learned to keep the focus on myself, my wants, needs and dreams, and connect with others so as to break the terrible isolation caused by this disease,.
Meetings with those who understood as few others can , provided me with new constructive tools to live by and restored my feeling of self esteem and self worth
You are worth it so please keep coming back here as well There is hope
Salvie: I can relate to crying because your AH is drinking. I've done the same myself. Yes, we are powerless over this disease and our loved one and the effects of this disease on us and on them. My self esteem was so low after living with alcoholism for so long that I apologized to waste paper baskets if I accidently kicked one on my way around a desk at my workplace. Learning to focus on me and what I wanted and needed for myself led me to make changes that improved my self esteem issues and Al-Anon helped me continue the learnings about alcoholism, how it affects and affected me, and what I could do to counterbalance the harm this disease does to me. Keep coming back. There is help and hope for you in Al-Anon and on this board.
PS: I keep distance between myself and active As. It is part of taking good care of me. The disease is what it is and does what it does. I won't change it but I can see it for what it is and as one of our readers' writers says: "If I don't want to be harmed, I can stay away from the hornet's nest." (paraphrase) We can't be intimate with a disease that is operative. We can only be intimate with our HP, ourselves and the person beneath the disease. In my experience, the disease sometimes make that impossible - to be intimate with the person underneath the disease.
-- Edited by grateful2be on Sunday 29th of June 2014 08:10:49 AM
That's just kind of how it goes Salvie .. and it will get better .. so not to fret .. this too shall pass .. being good to you can be as simple as going for a walk to clear your head and saying a gratitude list from A - Z .. those help me a lot when I'm in a pickle.
The other thing I try and focus on is that whatever the behavior .. it's just really not about me .. I remember when I took the addiction very personal that he was doing it TO me .. and he really wasn't .. although .. I did have to suffer through the collateral damage his choices brought to the family .. DUI, obsessive behavior, and the list goes on .. I didn't realize I had the right to say NO. Anyway, .. another thought for another day ..
Serenity Prayer my friend .. and there are going to be good days and no so good days .. that's ok .. either way .. this too shall pass.
Big hugs :)
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Faith minus vulnerability and mystery equals extremism. If you've got all the answers, then don't call what you do "faith". - Brene Brown
"Whatever truth you own doesn't own you" - Gary John Bishop
Hello Salvie. I can so relate to your situation. My AH would leave to get a pack of cigarettes (a quick trip-said he would see me soon) and I wouldn't see him for hours and he would come home drunk. I would be in tears and very angry. And then he would ask what he did wrong - he said he did nothing wrong just ran into some friends. I have learned not to trust what he says and to make my own plans and to do what is healthy for me. At times I would go along and babysit him and just be miserable and I would turn into a b****. Now I make my own plans and do my own thing and let him do his. And I work the program and take care of myself. It can be very hard. You are powerless over alcohol and powerless over him. Work the program and find some peace for yourself. (((Hugs)))
Just coming in to agree with everyone else here. Go back to the three Cs: You didn't Cause it, You can't Cure it, and you can't Control it. Taking care of you starts with working a program and getting a sponsor and finding friends and a support system. Also, I find that taking care of myself also means going for walks, reading books, coming here to SR, sometimes splurging on a pedicure, etc. It means that I just do what I need to make the day more tolerable. HUGS!
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Never grow a wishbone where your backbone ought to be!
My wife and I have our literature and a literature library ready and on hand for us and others as needed. Pick a subject any subject that associates and is in the index and read...read...read and then spend time thinking about how it pertains to your problem. Oh and keep coming back. ((((hugs))))
