Another night of anxiety & no sleep- my story. - Al-Anon Family Group

Tash2 · Veteran Member

Another night of anxiety & no sleep- my story.

Hullibee · Senior Member

I'm glad you came to MIP it does help to talk. I am really new to this program too but I wanted to comment.

i too am full of anxiety and spend a lot of time in the bathroom. I cannt eat, sleep, or stop worrying either. I have lost 15 pounds in the past few weeks. I needed to lose some weight but I don't recommend this to anyone.

I went to a face 2 face meeting today and it does help. Everyone has been where I am at some time in there life. I asked someone to be my sponsor today and I feel a little better knowing I have someone to call when I get panicky.

Please keep coming back.

Ellen

Tash2 · Veteran Member

Thanks so much for replying. Sorry to hear you're anxious too but relieved that I am not the only one. I know meetings would help but really can't get there. I have anti anxiety medicine from the docs but it doesn't touch me. It's hard to explain to people who don't experience it isn't it? Tonight I am trying camomile tea & a nytol, I just don't want to be awake all night!

By the way, sorry about the spelling, on my phone & can't always correct!

Thanks again for posting

Debilyn · ~*Service Worker*~

Welcome, you came to a loving place!

Digestive disorders is the number one response to living with and or loving an A. I know for me I call it swallowing poop.Sounds awful but it is how i feel. We are always trying to not take on their stuff, filing our insides with pain.

We get so sick we forget that it is very ok and normal to want a husband or wife to want to be at home with us, be part of our family life. Come home on time, not lie, sleep with us, eat a calm meal, go places together, hold hands.

Of course we are sick. We are trying to sleep and they come busting in causing a ruckus. Or we make a meal that he feeds to the dogs. He will go buy beer when we are trying to feed our kids. His disease is controlling him, that is number one, not us.

Some of us can learn skills to live with them. But most cannot. Mine got dangerously abusive due to a brain surgery and he also relapsed from all the drugs.

Anxiety causes adrenaline, adrenaline upsets our gut, thus the horribly not fun symptoms of not being able to leave our home and or not making it to the bathroom.

Al Anon can give you a feeling of home, a place to vent, be with others who already do love you and accept you as is. We encourage each other to look at what we want, what we need. We give examples of things to do, things that have worked for us. Share our own experiences in how we handled the situation.

if you keep coming we get to know you better. I like to take a breath, drop my elbows, breath. Not think of anything for a min or two. Then start again. His disease is his own to deal with. If we choose to stay we can separate ourselves from it. Learn to not give it any of our attention. If we are in love with them still it is much easier to do this.

Some say it is like being single with him around somewhere.

He or she is very sick, not that that is an excuse, but it is a disease with symptoms. Only that person can make changes when they are ready. And they do not get to choose when they are. Its a coming together of the mental, physical, emotional and spiritual of a person for them to be able to get help.

So we learn to get us healthy and our children. keep coming!

Tash2 · Veteran Member

Thanks for your post Debilyn. Really appreciate you taking the time to answer. Swallowing poop is an excellent description. I do still love him, very much tho I wish sometimes I didn't. He has never been violent, aggressive or called me names. He doesn't get into fights, loose his job or drink in the mornings so he thinks that doesn't make him an alcoholic. But he can't choose to not drink at a party, or event & if for any reason he can't he's super grumpy. I've watched him struggle so much trying to control it, watched him in such emotional pain, not communicating, mad at himself all because he needs to have a drink. There are days when I just want him to do it so he'll be ok again for a while. Is that mad? And when I have challenged him the morning after he is super articulate & makes me feel like I'm being so unreasonable & that all his mates do it. To an extent that's true , I even think some of my friends think I'm over reacting!

He doesn't drink everyday, but when he does its always to excess. Has to finish the bottle or 3! But I am so much better than I was, I don't ask about his night, ask where he was, don't let him opt out of family life & I'm amazed how much this works. Just leaves him to his own consequences! But I find I still have all this disappointment inside me & I just can't shake the anxiety.

blessed · Senior Member

Keep going to the meetings as often as you can. For me, even afer years of secular & Christian counseling, I found NO serenity until I found AlAnon.
Keep Coming Back; it works if you work it; and you're worth it.

cloudyskies · ~*Service Worker*~

Hi Tash. This is a great place with a wonderful, bunch of supportive folks. You are definitely among people who care about you and know what you are living with. I'm still with my ah, so I understand the anxiety you are talking about. Keeping going to your Al-Anon face to face meetings. It does get better. Manipulation is a tool the alcoholic uses to control the people around him. Sounds as though he is using that when he tells you you are being unreasonable. Before I found Al-Anon, I was a complete mess. My thinking was so distorted, and my life revolved around my ah. I am changing thanks to my HP and Al-Anon. My ah has noticed a change in me.

Serenity Prayer

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

my favorite slogan---Let go and let God

Keep coming back!

((Hugs))

Tash2 · Veteran Member

Thanks all! Think I'm just too hard on myself sometimes. Need to remember its a marathon not a sprint, and tho I'm still struggling with MY illness, I am still much better than I was.

My camomile tea seemed to help & I took a sleeping tablet. It's amazing how powerful anxiety is tho because it did not make me sleep! It's like I'm programmed not to sleep until he's in. It did stop the funny tummy tho which I am sooo grateful for. I turned off my phone, didn't check clock etc so was not obsessing about where he was what time he came in etc. He did come home & he's rough this morning. We have a packed day of jobs to do so I'll be expecting him to get on with things.

I find it hard to ask about his night because I know I'm better off not knowing but he reads this as me being funny & I don't want to do that either. Anyone got any tips on this?

Hullibee · Senior Member

I hear you loud and clear. I too am sitting here waiting still for my AH to come home from a binge.. Very scared he is not here yet. It's later and later now every week. The sun is up and still not here.

i don't know how to help with your question, I don't ask it's better that way. I don't want to know it's too depressing. Wish you luck. No sleep hurts us more than them.

Ellen

yanksfan51 · ~*Service Worker*~

Welcome Tash-

Yes I remember sleepless nights and anxiety. I remember not being able to sleep or eat. I remember feeling completely out of my mind wondering where he was and what he was doing. Things started to change for me after I came here for the first time, finding others who knew my story because they lived it. I started going to meetings, doing daily readings, working the steps with a sponsor and my life began to change completely, for the better.

Keep coming back-you are not alone.

((((tash))))

Mary

pinkchip · ~*Service Worker*~

There are a lot of immature alcohol abusing, if not alcoholic men out there. I think that at 20some years old when couples usually first get married, it's difficult to forsee what alcoholism looks like and what the red flags are when you are so young. I do know, as a recovering alcoholic (sober almost 6 years now), that before getting sober, I used to only hang out with folks that drank like me and that reinforced that it was "normal." I hung out in bars a lot and other people in the bars and the bartenders obviously reinforce that, so I thought that was normal also.

Well...sobering up for a long time now...I know what is more normal now. Coming home and reading, watching TV with my partner. Traveling, going out to dinner, movies...Getting together with groups of friends, going over to each others' houses for parties and get togethers... And as you know, this is a much more meaningful life that allows for REAL friends and intimacy rather than fake alcohol induced experiences. It's sad how slow and insidious alcoholism is. Most of those men drinking their nights away have no clue how to be happy and just enjoy life for what it is. Often they progress too much to get out to the bar and will then just drink at home and bother you and that is the stage where the relationships REALLY take a big hit...Like you want him home, but if he was home and progressed to being a horrible sloppy drunk in front of you and your kids, that would almost be worse.

So...just wanted to add input. No, it's not normal to drink like that with your "mates" though it is common since alcohol abuse and alcoholism are common. After having kids and being over 30 (let alone 40 or 50), it is more normal to give that stuff up in favor of the things I described. The majority of men (and women) probably do make this transition....but a lot of them don't and those are the alcoholics that just stay in the bars and binge drink and can never really fully grow up because the drinking/binging is holding them back.

Tash2 · Veteran Member

Thanks everyone.

He used to drink a lot in the house, at least 4 cans plus a night, but I've made it clear I don't want my kids seeing that so he doesn't do it so much now, but we have the odd slip up where he'll usually try to hide the evidence. To be fair things have got better since he only does it when he goes out, but of course that means when he does go out its always to excess & it rights off our whole weekend. I know he knows how it affects us, a also know he's too sick to stop at the moment. I've thought about giving the ultimatum but I know that he wouldn't choose me. Or at least he would initially but he'd end up giving in & I'd have to follow through. He's a good dad, he provides for us- but so do I! I know I could cope alone with the kids but I don't want to!

Ellen - are you ok? Did he make it home ok?

You know what, I'd really like not to be so obsessed with all this. Going to really work my program & put the emphasis back on me. Thanks everyone who's responded!

Robean · Member

WOW. I feel like we are living the same life! My AH is also "very functional" and just likes to "have a few beers" from time to time. He can go a few days without drinking, and he hangs out with buddies with similar habits, AND he has a good job, so he is very good at rationalizing that he doesn't have a problem. He is also very good at making me feel like the problem isn't with his drinking, but with me being "uptight" or whatever. Well, he's wrong, and here's why: if you don't have a problem, you don't have to lie about it. First, he is truly incapable of keeping an accurate count of his consumption, so he always has had "three beers". Second, he has a pattern of saying he is going to "run errands" - go to the grocery store, the car parts store, post office, whatever - but fails to mention that he is ALSO stopping by the bar. Therefore, when he "runs errands", I know that is code for going out drinking and that I have no idea when he will be home.

Having said all that, I certainly can't tell you that I am the perfect picture of recovery! But, I have made SOME progress. I have gotten into a routine of going to bed when _I_ am ready and not waiting for him, even on nights when he is not "running errands" (aka, drinking) and it at home, so I have established a pattern of getting myself to bed and to sleep regardless of what he is doing and whether he is home or not. That helps. I also take a few minutes to do some reading of Al-Anon stuff and some praying - I ask my HP to take care of my husband, and ask my HP to help me let go so I can take care of myself. It's sort of a pre-bedtime meditation. Again, I do this every night whether he is "running errands" or sober and at home. It's MY bedtime routine, and it does NOT change based on his behavior. Again, this helps.

Also, Al-Anon has a pamphlet on "Detachment" that I have found very helpful - in the first paragraph, it says that detachment does not necessarily require physical separation.

I pray that God grants you (and me!) the serenity to accept the things you cannot change, the courage to change the things you can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

Hullibee · Senior Member

Tasha2 thanks yes he made it home at 10:00 am. I was shaking so badly I cried to him. I haven't done that it a long time. His friend took his truck keys and wouldn't let him leave. So good for friend but wish someone would have called me. I really thought he was injured or dead.

grateful2be · ~*Service Worker*~

Hi. Welcome to MIP. Yes, I did go through what you have experienced. Al-Anon was the way I learned to let go of the scary scenarios that played out in my head. Meetings, a sponsor, our readings and my willingness to make changes in the way I thought led to changes in the way I felt and acted. Scary scenarios still come unbidden and I've learned not to believe them because they aren't real. They are just stories of what could happen that I have absolutely no control over, didn't cause and can't cure. I can use the program tools we learn by attending the meetings and doing what others are doing that helped them and still help them. Keep coming back.

Jerry F · ~*Service Worker*~

In time without any change it gets worse because alcoholism is a progressive disease. I didn't know anything about alcoholism or addiction and was without any clues. By the time I made it to my first Al-Anon and AA meetings I was so jaded and rageful I learned nothing and didn't believe the so obvious problem existed. I was in denial and blocked. My alcoholic/addict wife use to leave in the middle of the night when we were all sleeping to go drinking and then I would get up, leave the kids in their beds and go bar chasing hoping to find her...thank God I didn't for her and for me. The rage was all encompassing and I was crazy certifiably. I finally made the program with a different attitude and was told to sit down and listen with an open mind...I did and then I found help. No sleep anxiety filled nights yes, of course, that is normal for the conditions of alcoholism and addiction. Calling police, emergency intake and the like makes anxiety grow beyond acceptable limits. I learned in the program that my expectations of her (or others) and my addiction to her were part of the glue that kept me solidly attached to the "problem" alcoholism...a compulsion of the mind and allergy of the body. I had to learn how to change my compulsion to her that when she wasn't behaving within my expectations I wouldn't be so ate up about it and that is where learning how to accept unconditionally and detach helped until I could make other better plans for me and follow thru on them. The problems were huge and then I found out they were temporary...for me. She would continue to drink and use until she was done and by that time I had my life back mostly without needing her. I learned that I loved her and I liked having her there and I didn't need her. I can do a good job with and of my life under my own steam and with my own support system. Mahalo Al-Anon and AA and my HP for sure with MIP. Keep coming back cause this works when you work it. (((hugs))) smile

Marie212 · Member

Hi Tasha

I also have experienced anxiety and sleeplessness due to my situation. Like you, my husband is my qualifier. He was a social drinker when we met 12 years ago. He had a great job. He was good at his job, had friends, etc. I didn't see any red flags to indicate he would be progress to the drinker he is now. It was about 4 years ago when he left his job he started drinking more. Now he drinks pretty much every day. Often starts in the afternoon and ends up drunk. He doesn't work (I work full time). Our finances are still good due to savings.

But he has pretty much checked out of our marriage. He has a whole new set of friends (all drinkers). We do very little together. He also is completely unreliable. I don't make plans with him. It's like not having a partner.

We don't have kids together (which is one positive).

Though I attend alanon meetings regularly for the past 2 yrs. , I find detachment isn't enough. I am considering leaving since as much I follow all the group principles, I still want functioning partnership.

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.