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.
Let me start by saying I have been a silent reader and then member here for quite a while now and we all live or have lived with the same chaos that surrounds an addict. My husband is an alcoholic and he was sober for 10 years before his first relapse that started 4 years ago. We have been through hell to say the least, and there is no need to share details because it is the exact same crap you all know so well. My point here is to tell you what has worked for us in getting him sober in hopes that it can help any of you. He is not a fan of AA... not much pisses him off more than talking about drinking over and over and over again. Although to prove to me he wanted to stop drinking he went to 30 meetings in 30 days which helped him quit the first time.
It was hard as hell for him to do but he tells me he was simply sick and tired of being sick and tired. He stayed sober for 10 glorious drunk free years! Fast forward to 4 years ago he said he was driving home from work on a hot July day and thought he was at a point in his life that he could handle having a cold beer like most other people.
He said he knew instantly he screwed up. It didnt take long for the stinking thinking to return which is how I knew he was in trouble. By then it was too late and he had already become "the other guy" and let him take over his life.
After 3 years of daily vodka he was truly at the bottom when I gave the ultimatum... I was dead inside from the pain and missery he brought to our life ( my biggest fear in life was that he'd ever drink again and here it was)
He went to a Psychiatrist who ended up being a pill mill just wanting to give him meds for his anger and meds for anxiety and vivitrol shots that were supposed to make him unable to drink without vomiting. That lasted about 2 months and he drank daily.
Then he went to a Psychologist who was the voice of reason and helped him tremendously with understanding how his drinking was affecting his family and focused on building his self esteem, setting goals, and ways to change his lifestyle so that it no longer supported drinking. This went on for a year or so with him drinking weekly but no longer daily.
The chaos continued... until he agreed to see another psychiatrist, this time the head of addiction at a psychiatric hospital. On his first visit his Lexapro was raised from 20mg a day to 40mg a day and he prescribed naltrexone which is an opiate blocker that makes the brain no longer crave the high that comes from opiates/alcohol. The first few weeks he still drank.
Soon after he said that the thought of drinking made him feel sick and he no longer wanted it. He has now been sober for 6 months and life is back to normal. When we talk about what he thinks worked for him he says it was a combination of the psychologist helping him sort through his thoughts and showing him how his thinking was messed up, helping him get rid of the selfishness alcohol brings, my not throwing him out, our adult children wanting me to throw him out, and the naltrexone.
I know that logically it would have been better for me emotionally to cut and run and avoid the mess he had created in our life, but something in me kept telling me that he needed me and if I didn't help him he would die. Coming here and reading during the chaos was helpful in knowing that there were people who understood what I was going trough but the vibe was always "there is no hope for the alcoholic, save yourself"
I'd like to say that there is hope with the right help!
Thanks, Livi. I know that there is drug therapy available now for alcoholics that is showing some success. I am glad that it has helped your husband and that you did what you believed was right for you to do. I also see that your husband wanted help and was willing to go to any lengths to get it. To me, that is the number one motivator for anybody with this disease. As a recovering codependent, "he needs me" kept me stuck in my own disease with a focus on the person outside of me and not on myself. Like the A, I was willing to go to any lengths to learn how to keep the focus on myself and my own issues - not on my As. I know from experience that had I not entered Al-Anon in earnest and stopped giving in to my need to rescue full grown adults, even if my As abstained and got into a program, I would have found yet another person to rescue or reform. Alcoholism for me was not and is not just about the person with the disease. It is about the person who also has a dis-ease when others are not to their liking or have a serious disease and won't get help for themselves. Recognizing my own dis-ease and doing something about it because I needed to do it if I wanted to live life without angst about other people and their business was something my current As disease taught me. I had to recognize that my dis-ease had contributed to the chaos and drama in my own life -not just my As - and I had to get help for me, too.
-- Edited by grateful2be on Monday 5th of January 2015 09:16:41 AM
Hi Livi and an official welcome to MIP! Thank you for sharing your journey and I'm thrilled for you and your family, as I love a happy ending. I have been told that there is always hope, but to be sure to practice self-care as alcoholism is a very powerful, baffling, and cunning disease. I have also been told that alcoholism is a family disease because it affects everyone in contact. Most need the kind of support that a 12 step program provides. My take on Alanon and MIP is that everyone deserves their own dignity of making choices and the opportunity to learn if the choice had potential consequences. Recovery is an inside job and a daily choice- one that your husband was able to make and that is a very beautiful and wonderful thing! Prayers to you and your family for continued blessings.
I dont buy it livi, sorry, im glad your happy but what ive learned about the family disease there is no quick fix. There might be a good bandaid but how are his insides and yours being fixed? Alanon goes deep, cuts through the layers of denial and works on symptoms that have existed for years and years. Aa offers the same. Medicine covers it up, thats all.
I think there is always hope. My wife is now over one year sober, and I see no signs of her relapsing at this point. I trust her enough to have a bottle of wine in the house that my boss gave me for Christmas, she plans on regifting it, and is downstairs doing so right now.
She had what I would call a pretty high want for recovery. The addiction was strong enough that it took her down two DUIs, but she finally was able to overcome it with lots of hard work. Vivitrol really didn't do anything for her, and how did I ever know she really took it? At her first rehab, the nurse told her to tell me that I was responsible to give it to her. Not long after that she kept telling me that she took it, and would get irritated when I insist she do it. So, before I had joined Al Anon, I started taking the stance that whether she takes them was her business, there was nothing I could do anyway.
She ended up taking no drugs to get off the booze, she "just" examined her past life in every detail. She really hated the thought of doing that, she had been to so many therapists and felt like she was just explaining the same old crap to new people. But when she did it in rehab, and in AA, she was able to see things she never had before. Perhaps that is what has happened with your husband in his therapy sessions.
I'm glad he is better now. However, I would worry about relapse. According to him he was just driving home and wanted to see if it still burned when he touched the stove. That could happen again, any time. In my experience, Al Anon was the best thing that I did when my wife got home from rehab, because I became more educated about alcohol. The experiences vary greatly from group to group. I think you take away the vibe you do because we accept that we are powerless over alcohol, but that doesn't mean we don't do anything about it. We each search ourselves for what we think is the best thing to do in any situation. We don't react, as so often happens around alcoholics and all the concomitant crises that they incur, we instead respond to them. There are a number of people on this board who choose to live with their active alcoholic qualifiers. And in my face to face group, most of them attend Al Anon on the same night that their spouses or children are attending the AA meeting next door.
When I look up Naltrexone on drugs.com, two things stand out to me:
The mechanism of action of Naltrexone in alcoholism is not understood; however, involvement of the endogenous opioid system is suggested by preclinical data.
Naltrexone has not been shown to provide any therapeutic benefit except as part of an appropriate plan of management for the addictions.
The second point especially stands out to me. Is your husband still seeing a therapist? Or in some other recovery program? it seems like it would be a good idea long term.
If you are reading a lot here, why not post some more, I would love to have some more dialog on this topic!
I am happy for you...and I really hope it lasts. I have to remind myself that there are no guarantees in life...about anything really. we just have to live life on life's terms, we can't predict the future. but i hope everything works out.
Aloha Livi and welcome to the board and I relate to the post as your husband sounds like two or more male relatives of mine who couldn't stand all the "drinking stories" and the "self flagellation" they thought they were hearing in the groups. They also went back to drinking...one died just over a year ago and the other has been told that he is in "terminal stage". Alcohol addiction is related to so many other physical, mental, emotional and spiritual negative conditions that it isn't only about stopping drinking. The disease is incurable and can only be arrested by total abstinence and the affect it has on the family is just as tragic which is why the Al-Anon Family Groups, world wide is so well attended and successful. Have you attended Al-Anon for the family, friends and associates of alcoholics.
The goal of AA is to get and remain "chemical" free entirely on a daily basis. I am a member in AA and up until today from 1979...totally chemically free un-reliant upon other chemicals to stay that way. I have never lost the compulsion to drink...I just don't. That's for me using the program.
I suggest you get to Al-Anon if you haven't already and suggest too that you attend open AA meetings to hear what actually goes on for yourself. Keep coming back here also to share your ESH with us. ((((hugs))))
Glad for your happy outcome. I've a double hitting family member who arrested alcoholism and there is a piece of research significant only to one group of males but conducted over decades which indicates for that test group, alcoholism or alcohol use declined with age and maturity which was implied to be a slower process for the studied gender. Back to the double hitter, alcoholism is arrested yes insight humility and wisdom abound but the other room stuff persists. No drugs either. Cunning and baffling. If the mere drinking were the only issue.... knowing it never is.counselling and addiction therapy I believe are essential. To be willing to honestly and openly explore ones relationship with alcohol. Both sides. I don't find at MIP the vibe is leave your a. I find its take care of you. That just leads in most cases to leaving your a! I think if we work a strong programme our instincts and intuition become easier. I look forward to that again one day. At this point in time the line between I'm truly needed and I'm codependent are too close to call. When in doubt I've learned to pray/meditate/wait for the answer.
I agree totally that willingness to get help is key! And the other is whatever it takes to stay sober long enough to get what I call the "monster" out of the mind to have clear enough thinking to trust the help offered.
When he quit drinking the first time we had been married for 8 years and my fist indication of his alcoholism was probably 2 weeks after moving in together. I thought he would quit and I realized that I had become codependent and an enabler. For the first 8 years of our 25 year marriage my excuse was "how can I take my kids away from their dad?" and the lie I told myself was that I could help him quit and he would do it because he loved us. I did everything I could think of to make him happy and I engulfed myself in raising our children.
During his 10 years of sobriety we were able to overcome all of the issues drinking created for us and put it all behind us and move on. I truly did move on although my biggest fear in life became him ever drinking again. I always knew it was possible. I have had the knowledge of this disease for as long as I can remember.
During my childhood my grandmother often took me and my siblings and cousins to alateen meetings while she attended AA mettings... she and my grandfather were lifelong friends of Bill W himself and both very involved with AA in the community. They were both sober before I was born.
When my husband relapsed I was furious! How could he be so stupid I thought? How could I be so stupid to not notice before it got out of control? How could he bring back the very thing that had caused us so much pain and missery all those years ago? How could I let my kids witness their dad going crazy? What the hell is wrong with him? What the hell is wrong with me? I was devistated and soon became a total mess. I did not take care of myself at all, I became consumed with him and trying to control his drinking... I even got to the point that I was having panic attacks. I was totally affected both mentally and physically. I thought I was going to die of heartbreak because I couldn't stop asking why about every messed up thing he did or he said.
It was because he wanted to quit and he was in therapy that I could start to heal myself. He spoke to a therapist for 30 minutes every week for a year and even though he was still drinking and trying to hide it from me I started to see a change in him that showed me the therapist was getting through. He was becoming more understanding of my mental meltdowns and yelling at me less. He started listening.
The combination of the psychologist, the psychiatrist, the lexapro, and the naltrexone are what it took for him to find himself and pull himself out of the madness and that in itself gave me what I needed to let it all go and start focusing on myself and I am happy to say that I am back and better than ever... and I finally know the answer to the question why... it's because he is an alcoholic and he was feeding his alcoholic brain alcohol on such a regular basis that he was no longer himself, he was an imposter so to speak. It had nothing to do with how much he loved his family or his life or his job or whatever, it was all the disease running the show and he was the host. After 3 years of his being in therapy and the changes I can see in him I can finally let it all go and by "it all" I mean all the details of all the misery I let myself endure.
Bud...
Thank you and I like and agree with what you said, "everyone deserves their own dignity of making choices and the opportunity to learn if the choice had potential consequences"
El-ecee...
What? Why such an angry response? Who said anything about a quick fix? How are our insides being fixed?? It has been a long hard drag through hell to get where we are! He has been in therapy for 3 years now! Weekly for the first year, twice a month for the next year, and now once a month. The meds he is on are Lexapro which is for anxiety and depression, and the Naltrexone is for the opiate/alcohol cravings and is an addition to the cognitive behavioral health approach his addiction therapist has been using to help heal his alcohol sick brain.
And as for your question, no I dont work for anyone... I was a full time mom for the last 24 years and I am also an artist and I work from home.
KennyFenderjazz...
Like your wife my husband had a hard time with the whole talking to a therapist thing in the beginning. He says back then he only did it for me which is why he continued to drink during that time. It wasn't until he got his head clear from the booze that he realized the things he and his psychologist talked about were making sense.
I hear ya about being leery of relapse... that will be possible until the day he dies. He has been in therapy for a total of 3 years now and he will continue for as long as it takes.
Newlife girl...
Thank you and true that!
Jerry F...
Thank you and I agree that AA is a wonderful resource for anyone willing to participate.
Aquamom23...
Thank you. His addiction counseling is the most important part of this whole process, the naltrexone was just the missing link that he needed to clear his head enough to be able to embrace the help he was and is receiving.
Livi Welcome, I am sorry I may have missed it, but I do not believe that I read in either posting that you were attending alanon meetings for yourself.. If so I am pleased ,as learning how to live with this cunning, baffling chronic, progressive disease is crucial to our well being. Alanon tools and members will provide that.
It is wonderful that your husband has sought out help and is healing. It is also very important for family members to obtain the same type of support , understanding, and new tools to live by . Alanon face to face meetings are held in most communities an the hot line number in the white pages.
Yo are right there is hope and help. Keep coming back
Glad to hear from you again livi. Sorry, i thought you were one of those people we get from time to time trying to sell something, these troll type posts, i am sorry. I hope we can start again properly.
Welcome. My response wasnt angry just cynical. I dont believe drugs are the answer, the real answer in my opinion is solutions that deal with disease as a whole. Maybe aa and alanon is not for everyone and maybe there are other ways for families to get help. I am biased.
Im glad your a real person lol and im glad you have found help here. I urge you to try alanon, its about us and our recovery from this horrid disease. Also, dont judge these really good people on my crazy reply. Please keep coming back.
-- Edited by el-cee on Tuesday 6th of January 2015 06:54:47 PM
El-cee... Explanation and apology accepted :) I can understand cynical... but I'd like to point out that the medication is part of the solution that deals with the disease as a whole along with cognitive behavior therapy.
