Aloha Carly...you are an addictions worker.  You don't bring the patient home with you.  Taking care of yourself is about that some or more and part of that is the "time out" you put on the disease.  Addiction workers, therapists, counselors etc are "helpers" and part of the helping is detaching so that the patient or sick person has the dignity and freedom to behave on their own choices or not.  For me I had to learn detaching with love in to parts....detaching and love.  Detaching in part meant me learning how to respect my alcoholic/addict and her choices and allow here the dignity of those choices without interference at all.  Where she ended up as a consequence of her choice and compulsion to drink was where she ended up...hospitals, jails, lost she earned it and all it amounted to.   Love I learned in Al-Anon from another member who taught me how it looked, sounded and felt is "The complete and total     acceptance    of every other human being for exactly who they are"   the definition doesn't even include the word alcoholic and yet it includes me as part of every other human being.   So I arrived at respecting and giving dignity to my alcoholic/addict wife, who knew she was alcoholic and addicted to drugs and chose not to continue in her recovery while I stepped out of the way of interfering with directions, control, teaching, bitching, beating, demanding and all those other power and control tools and accepting that she was who she was and what she was...the good the bad and the under the influence.  When I detached from her I had tons and tons of time for my own life which I found tossed over in a corner disregarded.    Hope this helps some...others will be dropping by with their ESH (Experience, Strengths and Hopes)     Keep coming back (((((hugs)))))

Thanks for write backs. I appreciate it. Its been a long night shift at the detox tonight but i am grateful it was a night shift and i didnt have to deal with any clients because i was in no condition to! My alcoholic spent all night drinking and is possibly in jail right now. I have no idea. And if shes in there it will be for four months because she is on probation :( I called her earlier to make sure she was okay and all she did was beg me to give her a ride because the cops were coming (which could possibly be a lie), and well I didnt because If i would of left work I woulda been fired. And somehow still feel very guilty for not running out to save her once again.

I learned something tonight after hours of searching the internet on this long exhausting night shift. I have learned two areas where I have been in the wrong - arguing with her over her drinking because I can't make her stop and arguing with an alcoholic - whether shes sober and craving, drunk or hung over is like arguing with a brick wall. It will get me nowhere. I DO NOT have to defend my character when she cuts me down in her predrunken, drunken or postdrunken rage. And another thing i learned is that when I speak with her when she is using, i shouldnt say anything unless its necessary and?or kind. I think thats more of what detaching with love is all about...

I have to let my anger go with her and put it in my journal or vent it out with a friend or a meeting. My anger can not be vented towards her anymore.

I love the alcoholic - hate the disease...and I am aloud to do that

I am impressed...your learning curve is steep and fast. I was going to comment that you saying 'I am okay with you drinking sometimes" is pointless because it will never be "sometimes" and it won't be in moderation. To be in acceptance of a situation or even a person does not mean you have to be "okay" with everything they do. It just means you stop fighting things you cannot control. You answered your own questions though by your second post. Keep up the alanon participation. I am a counselor and was working with addicts while being in a relationship with an alcoholic and also being an active alcoholic myself (sober going on 6 years now). If only the degrees and education helped me to avoid traversing the path I did....Nope. Many of us here are counselors, nurses, social workers....

Welcome Carly M,

I'm sorry that you are experiencing the effects of alcoholism in your home life. It does sound as if you're handling things really well - i.e. not leaving work to give a ride to your partner. To my mind that is good prioritising, no guilt required. It is up to the alcoholics to experience the consequences of their actions and up to us to step out of the way so that they can learn by their experiences, if they can. Well that's my humble opinion anyway.

For me detaching with love was initially a romantic, self sacrificing kind of thing - 'oh, if only I could love you enough to step aside.' kind of thinking. But then I managed to get a bit of distance in my thinking, something that I imagine that you are used to through your work, and I started to appreciate how irritated I would feel if someone kept telling me how to do things, what to watch out for, what I was doing wrong etc. So I started to leave AH to it, if he wanted to do something silly I let him get on with it. After a few episodes he started to become aware of what he was doing and one day, after insulting his clients horribly, he stopped drinking. Nothing to do with me.

The second thing that I became aware of was that I was putting up with behaviour that I would not tolerate from a sober person - and I thought that was pretty stupid of me. So I took alcohol out of the equation. If my partner did something that I found rude I said so and walked away. If the rudeness continued I went on holiday for a long weekend. As others have said, it is second nature for us to be helpers/rescuers and it has been an interesting learning curve for me as I try to put some discernment into that equation.

I believe we sometimes put too much pressure on ourselves to let go of our anger prematurely.  I sit with it because it is a messenger for me and it gives me the fuel I need to take action I need to take on my behalf.  Anger is a feeling and there is nothing wrong with any feeling we have.  I say you have a right to be angry...when it swallows you up and stays around too long, then there is something more to be done. 

Carly: Although I am glad that she is going to a meeting, the most important person in your story is you. I hope you go to meetings, too, if you haven't already done that? I worked among alcoholics, drug abusers, untreated codependents and children affected by the disease of their parents. I would have gone stark raving mad without Al-Anon either through burnout or being flattened by the disease and thought it was the other people causing my dis-ease.