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I know what i did was right but having a rough time. Why is it that i feel like i did something wrong? And why do i keep thinking he will get better? Its insane i know. He makes me think i am crazy. i feel like i have lost myself. Do they even realize the part they played in destroying the relationship? So confused and hurt havng trouble processing how it got to this point. Feel alone none of my friends get what i am feeling and why i even stayed with him. Any advice is appreciated
-- Edited by Holding on on Thursday 28th of August 2014 09:40:23 PM
Hello. Welcome to MIP. When I separated from my x - even though I knew it was the right thing to do - I felt guilty. Part of that guilt came from living with a disease I was powerless over and allowing blame, shame and guilt to control my thinking and my choices. I also had no frame of reference to guide me when it came to understanding the disease and how it affected me and how it affected my loved one. Al-Anon was the place I began to understand the disease and how it worked and how I could use the hope I had for my loved one to help myself. What my loved one did or didn't do to get help was up to them. Hard as this might be to hear - we didn't cause the disease, we can't control it and we can't cure it - no matter how much we love the other person. We learn that this disease has also affected us and part of those effects include losing ourselves in many ways. Al-Anon is the solution we've found and that we suggest. We can talk with many people to include therapists, counselors, friends and family members and unless they have an understanding of alcoholism, we just keep spinning our wheels and nothing improves for us because we continue on the same merry-go-round until our friends, family members and others can't listen anymore or they give advice that doesn't help or makes things worse for us if we follow it. I do hope that you will find an Al-Anon meeting near you and attend face to face meetings soon. They will help if you keep an open mind. We also suggest you attend at least 6 meetings before you decide if Al-Anon is for you. Keep coming back here, too.
Hi Holding on. Welcome to MIP. Sounds as though you are taking steps to take care of you. Alcoholism is an insane disease and it affects everyone it touches. I suggest you try attending some Al-Anon meetings. The people there will help you learn how to heal. You can't help your alcoholic boyfriend, but you can help you.
Take care of you, HO, and take one day at a time.
__________________
Look for the rainbow after the storm, and I'm sending you a double dose of HOPE. H-hold O-on P-pain E-ends
Hi Holding On Welcome You are not alone I so undersrand the loss of yourself that you are experiencing and support the suggestion that you reach out and attend alanon face to face meetings
In Al-Anon we believe that alcoholism is a progressive, fatal disease over which we are powerless. Many of us living with the disease become irritable and unreasonable trying to force solutions and we need a program of recovery in order to regain our self-esteem and learn to focus our energy on ourselves and our well-being
AA is the recovery program for people who have difficulty drinking and Al-Anon is the recovery program for the family members. There is hope and help
Thanks. I feels so sad. Not just for the loss of him, but. I cant stop crying at the thought of him dying. He is so far gone now. He drinks when he wakes up to contol the shakes and pain his body feels. He admitted to me several times he needs help. Yet he works in a bar and all his friends are drunks.i just cant stay and yet he will have no one there to help him if he does try to sober up now that i left
AA has a hot line number that he can call 24 hours a day There is help available at any ER or hospital He is not alone at all and when he is ready to reach out there are hands there to grab him and show him the way .
Holding On: You can't help him sober up. The help he can find is with other alcoholics who work a program in recovery. Part of our issue - the friends and family members of alcoholics - is the misguided belief that they can only get well or better with us. You've been with him. You know he hasn't stopped drinking and the disease has progressed. We have to let go and we have to stop helping in ways that don't help. Most all of us can say that we learned that our helping wasn't helping, it was hurting. We didn't know that at the time and we truly were doing our best. Al-Anon teaches us a better way to help and the first way is to take our attention off the alcoholic and put it on ourselves. We learn to get off our As back, get out of his way, give him to his higher power, and learn how to get on with our lives whether or not our loved one continues to drink.
No you did not fail him Holding on. In alanon you will discover that each person in the adult relationship is responsible for their own health and behavior and that we are powerless over the actions ,reactions or behavior of another.
You are doing the right thing for yourself and your relationship You are getting help and support That will guide you to making sane positive choices for your life.
If you like you can give him the 24 hour AA hotline number that he can use. Please take care of yourself .
I am in the same place as you right now - although we have one more month to fulfill our lease, my boyfriend and I are splitting up because I can't deal with the drinking anymore and he thinks he has to drink. It is extremely sad, because he is a good man and I wish I could just make him see that life can be better (and we can be together) if he could find the courage to leave the bottle behind. Unfortunately, it's not up to me to make him see that. I don't know if he's ever going to see that - I think his disease is going to consume him and bring him an early death, and I hate it for that. Last night I came across some articles that tried to explain what is going on in an addict's mind and why they are so illogical. It really helped to have a little understanding into why he can't seem to separate himself from the alcohol, even when faced with a situation that causes him emotional pain. I don't imagine I can ever know what it's like to be in his position, but I do feel like trying to educate myself and understand what is going on helps me from blaming myself, or him (apart from his disease).
This situation is not your fault, and there is nothing wrong in having a little hope. I too hope that one day my boyfriend finds sobriety, but I know I can't lead him there and I also know that staying with him while he is actively drinking will never end well for either of us. This is one of the hardest things I've ever done but I know I will be better for it in the long run. You are the most important person in your life, try not to forget that. I don't want to leave him because I am afraid of what will happen to him but his choices and actions are not my responsibility. My responsibility is to take care of myself the best I can and sharing my life with an active addict will not allow me to do so. You did not drive him to drink, and you can't make him stop. All you can do is take care of yourself and live your life the way you wish. If it weren't for Alanon I think I'd be losing my mind - if you have not gone to a face to face meeting yet, I highly recommend it.
I can relate to these thoughts that creep in like I shoukd have gotten a healthier attitude when he was here or recovery may have helped me live with him. I left my ex and my son shows signs of the disease too. I have accepted I cant live with active drinking, I react to it, I become obsessed, withdrawn, unreasonable and its too much for me. I dont like the me when im around drinkers. Alanon will help you accept the facts and forgive yourself and him eventually.
It isn't a matter of you failing him. The disease of alcoholism is the problem. Not you. It hurts us. It hurts our loved ones. Learning how to counterbalance the damage of the disease with the help and hope of Al-Anon for you and AA for him if he chooses it is the antidote to the damage that alcoholism does to him, to you and to us. You didn't cause his disease. You can't cure his disease. You can't control his disease. You are powerless over it all. You can get help for you and how that miserable disease has hurt you and one of those ways it has hurt you is to convince you that it is your fault that your bf is sick. That isn't true. Your bf is sick because of what alcoholism is and does. You did what you could and when you saw it wasn't working, you reached out for help for you. That's a good thing. Keep coming back.
-- Edited by grateful2be on Friday 29th of August 2014 08:07:10 AM
El-cee, wow!!! That is what i told him. I donot like the person i am becoming with him. I always recieved the sad, sick, tired him. And his freinds received the get up jovial him. kept feeling like there was something wrong with me. Like im not fun enough, even started thinking im not pretty enough, smart....ect. everytime he did something that hurt my feelings (ex flaking on me to go out with his friends and not include me) he would say i was too insecure and sensitive. Im glad i found this board, it is helping me at least see it is the alcohol not me. It still hurts tho
kiaora. I thnk that is the hardest part for me to deal with. The "if they stopped" it would be a wnderful relationship. do you think he really believes that it was my fault we couldnt make it? Or do they deep down know the truth of what their drinking did?
do you think he really believes that it was my fault we couldnt make it? Or do they deep down know the truth of what their drinking did?
Hi Holding on,
It's really hard knowing what anybody thinks, especially an alcoholic. And he may believe it was your fault. But the question is - is he right in his belief? As you read around in this forum, and go to an Al Anon meeting, and start hearing the experiences of others in similar situations, you will find that the most important answer is what do YOU believe? You are the only person who can answer that for yourself. You can't depend on him, or anybody else, to be able to answer it.
as far as do they know the truth deep down? My AW mostly knew shame. Shame that she couldn't stop, shame that she couldn't admit it, shame that she was tearing her family apart. That shame masked over any other emotion she had, and expressed itself as anger, frustration, sadness, despair.
I agree with you Holding On!! If it wasn't for this board I would still be believing that I was causing my AH's horrible outbursts of angry and resentment towards me, I had no idea that it was the alcohol. AH had me believing it was me for several years! I now can remove myself from his drinking world and am taking better care of myself with the help of Al-Anon and my HP.
__________________
"Forgiveness doesn't excuse bad behavior, but it
does prevent bad behavior from destroying your heart". ~ unknown
i hope i can reach that point. My heart is so hurt. Its such a confusing feeling. Its not like he did anything for me ever, yet he has such a hold on my heart. And crushed my self esteem. Baffled as to how it happened.
Holding on You have been affected by the disease of alcoholism That is what happened.4
Just like the alcoholic, those who live with the disease become ill and need a program of recovery Alanon and this Board is that life line. Our symptoms are very much like the alcoholic we do not drink compulsively but we ABANDON OURSELVES, become angry, resentful ,filled with self pity and fear We refuse to take care of ourselves but focus all our attention the alcoholic and want him to get better to take care of us.
Alanon will give you the tools to refocus and reclaim your life
that is on thing i can say about this breakup. Altho i am an emotional wreck the past two days, the anxiety of wondering if he is going to follow thro or make up some lame excuse is gone
do you think he really believes that it was my fault we couldnt make it? Or do they deep down know the truth of what their drinking did?
Honestly I don't really think it matters if he blames you or not, because you know the truth, and that's all that matters. That being said, I doubt that he really believes it's your fault - it seems that while addicts outwardly place blame on everyone but themselves, inside they blame everything on themselves. Maybe this is just my boyfriend, but while he's done his fair share of pointing fingers and blaming, eventually it comes out that he feels most things are his fault. He feels that it's a burden he must carry because he is "stronger than everyone else". He thinks his alcoholism is his fault, and feels he deserves to live life this way.
Its like watching someone self distruct right in front of you. Id like to believe he does. He says one thing to me and than tells everyone else a different version. I know i should not care, but well i do. I just wish i knew he ever really cared. Feel used. And tired of hearing about how he was going to stop. That would last for maybe a week.
what hurts even more is he seems to just go on unscathe... he said he couldnt image life without me, yet he chooses alcohol and his drinking friends over me.
i'm in a similar place right now, too. i have been in a holding pattern with my partner, in a relationship, but living separately, for 8 months, hoping desperately that we could work out our issues and that being apart would finally force him to face up to his many issues. but we broke up a week and a half ago when i found out that, yet again, he was sleeping with someone behind my back. someone within his group of partying/drinking circle. it feels as if my partner of nine years, and father to my two-year old daughter long ago chose his drinking friends, the alcoholism and the cheating over us, his family, and it's been very very hard to wrap my head around.
it got to the same point for me, where i didn't feel fun enough, pretty enough. i was the boring, dependable, responsible girl he came home to from the job he hated, and the same girl he had to leave at home to be able to go out and have "fun" with his friends. especially after our child came, unfortunately. i thought we were in a strong, healthy place when we had her, but everything slid sideways and downhill after that. alcoholism is insidious and can take everything. from your partner, and from you.
we've had to be the strong ones for them all this time. now we have to be strong for ourselves. we need to show ourselves the same kind of care and devotion we gave to them. why shouldn't we deserve that much?
I wanted to chime in. I know Alanon has a purpose to put the focus on you, but I am hearing a lot of "How could he...?" and "Why did he....?" In my own experience being an alcoholic in recovery and in dealing with other alcoholics, I learned that alcoholics are emotionally immature and broken people. PERIOD. What they think, say, and do is all coming through an emotionally immature and broken filter. Basically, your question is not that different than saying "Why would a 10 year old choose his friends over me??!" It's not a direct comparison and in no way does it mean that the alcoholic is "unscathed." Prior to being in recovery, I wanted mature relationships and it hurt desperately to have only broken relationships and to know internally in many ways that I was functioning on a child's level. I wanted to be a grown up but didn't know how. It took a huge surrender and then a great deal of work to even begin to initiate that change of sobering up and then growing up. I never drank because I was choosing it over who I was with...I drank because I didn't know how to deal with the world, with emotions, how to even have relationships....I drank because I was emotionally childlike and then I drank out of fear of growing up.
I am saying all this to introduce the concept of QTIP (Quit Taking It Personally) to you. When you really accept and understand how emotionally crippled and immature an alcoholic is, it no longer makes sense to make negative inferences about yourself based on their behavior. It has nothing to do with not being fun enough or pretty enough or whatever... It has everything to do with that they simply can't have mature relationships because they don't really love themselves, have not grown up to the ability where they can even give and receive love freely, and that they are broken people. In our efforts to be compatible with them, we wind up broken too sometimes....wondering why we were not enticing enough for the alcoholic to choose us over drinking and partying. That is not even a relevant question and it's a hurtful question to yourself to even ask. What you are really asking is "Why can't a broken, emotionally retarded person make mature and rational choices in relationships the way a nonaddicted person would???" The answer to that is obvious....because they're and alcoholic. An emotionally retarded person will make emotionally retarded choices right? It's not about you.
How does it get this far and how do they develop such a hold on you? Well - alcoholics come in grown up bodies. At first, there is something appealing to someone that functions on such a childish level. They seem "fun" and "carefree" on the outside before you really know what is going on. You may find yourself "cutting loose", laughing, and having lots of fun at first because alcoholics may be good at those things. Heck, children make us laugh too right? Also, alcoholics are very needy and broken as I stated before so they might make these statements like "I can't live without you" and "you are the best thing that ever happened to me!" It's not like they don't mean it when they say it, but, again, it's like a child saying those things. A child will get a new toy and say how much they love it and can't live without it and then it will loose it's appeal because children are not mature and able to be committed like that to people and things...not so different than an alcoholic. Alcoholics lack self-awareness and they don't know that they are as broken as they are. They use relationships to make themselves feel better not to be settled down, committed, or to have a true partnership with someone. Those professions of love and not being able to live without you are not lies per say, but they come from a place of neediness and brokenness. Again, don't take it personal. It's because they are broken alcoholics...not because you are not worthy of love.
To both of you that are moving on from painful break ups with alcoholics...It hurts. I know that. But you have a shot at having healthy and mature love one day. The alcoholics will never have that as long as they are drinking. They are not unscathed while you are hurting. They are dying on the inside. They are broken. You are not in the prison and that is a very good thing. If you focus on healing yourself and developing the tools that alanon has to offer and teach, you will be less susceptible to being drawn to alcoholics and you will find inner peace. I would encourage letting go of the ideas that the alcoholic is making choices about you personally. You both are realizing that the alcoholics in your life were too broken to meet your needs. For that, you deserve to praise yourself and be kind to yourself. Don't beat yourself up when actually you are being brave and taking good care of yourself.
-- Edited by pinkchip on Saturday 30th of August 2014 07:42:48 AM
thank you so much for you perspective. It is hard to understand the mind of an aloholic. Felt like the past year has been him pushing me away just to pull me back in again. Although i am still processing the hurt, it is making more sense. you feel so alone, my friends and family do not understand the emotional ties he has on me. ironically i was starting to feel like a mom to him. its strange if i was with someone healthy i would have never put up with the stuff i did with him. I always had to validate he was a good person. all i was receiving from him was his drepessed self depricating him. The "happy" side was reserved for his friends. I am starting to see that it was a cover that he could not show others. I asked him why he couldnt admit to his friends that he has a problem and is having serious health issues from drinking but all his friends are so young they wouldnt get it.
Anne, id like to believe mine never cheated, as i said above he is alot older than the drunks he hangs out with and honestly i cant believe i went there, but he was always putting himself in compromising positions and doing sketchy things. Next week going to the doctor to get checked out , and finding a group. I am listening to all this advice. Thanks so much. I can not express how much i appreciate all this advice. I am going to get thro this a hopefully be more aware to not do this to myself again
-- Edited by Holding on on Saturday 30th of August 2014 01:19:21 PM
Hi and welcome. I understand what you are going through. I left my AH in March. After I left he had an episode where he wanted me to take him to the hospital because he drank too much over a period of days. With the help of my sponsor, i told him no. I told him to take a taxi. And he did! And he survived! Your boyfrend will find help if he needs it. The AA hotline is another thing I told my husband about. These are grown up adults, even if they dont act like it. Pinkchip gives a great perspective on this disease. I suggest goingto meetings And finding a sponsor. It will help you a lot. Keep coming back.
i was so nieve as to what enabling is! I thought it was providing liquor for them. I lost count of how many dr visits i either took him too or scheduled. not to mention research on ways to gain sobriety. Didnt realize that they have sponsors for the sober side.that is good to know
-- Edited by Holding on on Saturday 30th of August 2014 08:10:35 PM
Aloha Holding and good that you have stuck with the family and shared, listened and are learning. Our program of recovery is often called "simple for complicated persons" and when I was a newbie I was complicated...I didn't know anything and didn't know that I didn't know and Al-Anon gave me grace from the very start when they told me in the meetings "If you keep and open mind you will find help". That was the first Al-Anon promise that came true for me. With open mindedness I heard the three cees which was more grace and mercy and so very different than how I saw the picture of my relationship with my alcoholic/addict wife. "I didn't cause it, I couldn't control it and would not cure it". I felt on an intuitive level after all of the things I tried to have my expectations fulfilled in spite of the consequences we lived with, that the three cees were true and real and I found the permission and strength to stop "going to the hardware store to by bread or eating jello with chop sticks" and all the other crazy metaphors which helped learn how to stop doing what didn't work. My alcoholic/addict drank and used because she could not not drink and use. She was altered by the chemicals and then we both were and I at that time didn't even understand my relationship with the disease which began at birth...I was born into this disease and would have to find that out after long and steady participation in the program. Enable?? I didn't know that what I was doing was called that and then when I came to understand more I then understood that the more I tried to make it right the worse it became. That confused me a lot until I learned that the more I tried to be more responsible to and for my alcoholic/addict wife the less she do for herself which gave her more opportunity to drink and use. She was a drinker and user when we met...years before we met...what was I thinking when I made the decision to get into a relationship with her and then I've already said I was born and raised in the disease and my alcoholic/addict wife wasn't the first addicted relationship I've had. I keep them drinking and using even when I don't want to.
Alcohol alters mind, body, spirit and emotions and in order to be around them I need to alter also...become someone I am not and don't even want to be and still do it anyway. The last word of our second step is Sanity...Came to believe that
a power Greater than Ourselves
could lead us to
Sanity...a continuous and orderly process of thought that I didn't have trying to get my wishes and will fulfilled by living with the alcoholic/addict. A lot of people questioned my sanity when I was trying to work that magic and that didn't stop me from trying just as when I questioned the alcoholic/addicts behaviors didn't stop her. And it got worse...progressively worse as I would come to understand it would because of its progressive nature. I have seen family, friends and associates of alcoholics and addict die from the disease without even touching the chemical and I came to understand that this disease is also very cunning, powerful and baffling too. I read your post and I hear those words.
Sure we blame ourselves. We don't get what we want so who are we to blame for that at first? Sure we feel less than cause that is what this disease does not only to the drinker and user and to everyone it touches. We think we are trying everything to fix the relationship until we meet an Al-Anon member who can freely smile and not grimace most of the time. They taught me I could stop doing what didn't work. They taught me to turn my Alcoholic/addict wife over to the care of a Power greater than Jerry F and they taught me to inventory my own life and to change the things there which were altered by the disease.
I left my alcoholic/addict wife in pieces. In time my life and my willingness to live it crumbled in little pieces part of that the marriage and dreams until the only thing left for me to do was get off with the one piece left...me and I did. I knew how to live without her I just wasn't doing that. I needed to do that and to understand that not only was she not responsible for my happiness and sadness and that she wasn't qualified either. That was a "me" job and I wasn't doing it...I was spending all of my time and energy and wishes and will on having her to be what she didn't want to be...my image of her.
Heartbreak is temporary and heart healing doesn't come from some one else...it is an inside job and I learned that in Al-Anon and also with this MIP Family. Stick around and keep coming back...with the rest of this family I am in support. (((((hugs)))))
thanks for sharing your story jerry. It is oddly comforting to hear others in the same situation. Is hard to get my mind around alcoholism. It seems the more you love and care for them, the more they resent you and push you away.
I experienced that in relationship to my AS and saw that pushing and resentment to be his healthy self asking me to step back, step away, let him learn or not learn how to live his life the way he wanted and needed to live it. I moved away from my parents so that I could do that fully when I was about 33 years old. They loved me and they wanted me to live according to their lights and not my own. I couldn't stand fully on my own two feet in my own skin without separating from them for a time.
I do believe a man truly doesn't need or want to be babied, mothered, managed no matter how much they might say that they do or even give the appearance that they do. To love someone enough to let them struggle in their own way with their own issues according to their own perceptions and abilities letting them learn to ask for help from others who have been there or are there (no matter how much I love my son, I cannot know what it is like on an experiential level to have this disease) was a difficult challenge for me and one the program helped me practice.
I'm not sure that what I learned in relationship to myself and my adult son is something you can apply to yourself and your loved one and I'm sharing it in the spirit of take what feeds you and leave the rest.
-- Edited by grateful2be on Sunday 31st of August 2014 12:50:04 PM
-- Edited by grateful2be on Sunday 31st of August 2014 12:51:24 PM
-- Edited by grateful2be on Sunday 31st of August 2014 01:21:33 PM
Holding up It is impossible to get our minds around a disease and the negative irrational symptoms that the disease presents.
The manifestation of the symptoms of our disease is to try to figure it all out, understand it, control it, cure it.
In Al-Anon I learned that I'm powerless over the disease in another and the best I can do is to take action to cure the disease that I have contracted as a result of living with it . My thoughts and actions need to be focused completely on taking care of myself , rebuilding my life and my sanity and getting the support that I need in order to rebuild my self-esteem and self-worth.
You are definitely not alone and I found once I was willing to stop trying to force the alcoholic to change and put the focus on myself changing my life was able to change and get better. Please search out Al-Anon face-to-face meetings
