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I was so excited when he went to his second meeting last night. Not too excited when he came home asking to have a beer. I told him I didn't think it was a good idea and he went ahead and had a beer with dinner. It was so hard for me to not be super pissed at him. I told him that I was really proud of him for going to a meeting but beer was only going to lead down a dark road and back to where we were last weekend. I know it is a disease, he seems to think he can handle just beer which I know will lead to others. I actually told him that next time he is drunk or I think he is drinking hard alcohol he is out of the house. I am fortunately because I work and I don't need his financia assistance so I really think this has been an eye opening experience and he will be out of the house next time. My question is, does it actually work with this hard love stuff and have any of you kicked out your A's from the house and they have finally hit rock bottom and sought help?
Hello Jazzie, I am sorry to read of this new development and no that is certainly disappointing but not unusual. You are correct, alcoholism is a disease and this disease has been termed chronic, progressive and fatal. It can be arrested but never cured.
It is important to know that we didn't cause the disease cannot control it and cannot cure it. With that thought in mind , asking the alcoholic to move out and thinking that this will cause him to hit rock-bottom is again trying to control the disease.
Please note that If you have if you have hit rock-bottom, and can no longer live with this disease suggesting that the next time he is drunk, he must move out is a boundary which you feel is important for your mental health. If the motive for asking him to move out is to stop his drinking, then your motives are not realistic. No one actually knows what causes another hit rock-bottom.
Attending Al-Anon face-to-face meetings would be very helpful for you. It is suggested that we make no major life changes until we are in program for at least six months. This is an important suggestion because recovery from living with the insanity of alcoholism is a process, and developing new coping tools takes time. Attending meetings and breaking the isolation, is important to developing new coping tools so that different options might open up to you.
Well all I can do is share what happened in my life.
I married my AH knowing there was an alcohol issue. He changed his whole life gave up his long term apartment moved from his state, lost his job.
the drinking got worse and he tried to kill me one night during a blackout. ( lucky HIM he doesn't remember it)
he was arrested.
two days later he called and asked if I would help with bail.
I KNEW I was NOT going to risk being killed again and I knew that if I tried to reason with him I would get nowhere. IT would just happen again.
I drew a line in the sand and set a boundary "yes will help with your bail IF you go directly to detox and from DETOX you go DIRECTLY to REHAB. YOU MUST COMPLETE REHAB AND BE WORKING A PROGRAM (did not mandate what program he needed just that he be working on it) AND ONLY THEN MAY YOU COME HOME.
Well he agreed to anything to get out of the detention center where he had no shoes, no glasses, no coat, no underwear...etc. I had his bail bondsman transport him to the hospital.
He was in detox for 36 hours and then transferred to a rehab he agreed to. I packed all his stuff with love and hope and picked him up at the hospital in "his" car to take him to the rehab. On the way up I wanted to make sure he was doing this because he wanted to or at least understood he was not being forced.
He said "I have no choice"
and I said "yes you do have a choice, you can choose to keep drinking and I will get out of the car and call someone to come get me and you can go on your way and we can end the marriage."
he realized I was DEADLY serious about this and said "then I have no choice as I want my marriage"
so he went to rehab.
I have told him.. if you drink there will be no marriage. Since I don't care if i ever drink or not he said "get all the alcohol out of the house" and I did.
he's been home about a month. It's rough now.. but he's not drinking (he's a dry drunk still) and he got his 60 day chip last week.
we are very early on but he knows my bottom line... alcohol touches his lips by choice and I am done.
his rock bottom was losing me.
__________________
-- ladybug
We come to love not by finding a perfect person, but by learning to see an imperfect person perfectly.
Thank you Ladybug and Hotrod for your stories and advice. He definitely knows that I will kick him out next time. Last weekend was tough but it was really was also good because he finally admitted that he was an alcoholic and needed to stop and I was able to confide in a friend and tell him enough was enough. He has come clean to me on how much he was drinking so all of the dirty laundry is out in the air now between us. This has been a tough week but I do know that I need to go to meetings at least once a week. My telling him to leave would be for my own mental health and that of my children who I do not want to be subject to erratic behavior.
It is your husband's journey to find out what is hammered home in AA repeatedly: It is the great obsession of the alcoholic to think that one day he will be able to drink like a normal drinker. The disease can only be arrested through total abstinence. He will learn that though if he just keeps going to meetings. You can take your own journey and let him process all of his own denial and continued obsession to somehow keep drinking with silly and lame excuses. Trying to "moderate" when, if that was possible, he wouldnt be an alcoholic, wouldn't need AA, and would never have reached this point...That is insanity. Alcoholics cant drink in moderation. They may do it once, twice, or for a bit of time, but as long as they are flirting with the disease, it will rise up and kick their ass again. Keep your expectations in check. He is still feeding you BS. Detach from the insanity and gravitate towards alanon.
Yes, I packed a bag for my AH, sold my wedding ring and gave him the cash - then walked him out the door and changed the locks. This was after I realized this disease was harming me and my children and I was at a point where I couldn't go on any longer. I didn't know exactly what to do, but I knew that having him in my home was not conducive to my healing.
He was out 40 days. He went to meetings, he sobered up and found a counselor. He also kept begging me to let him back. Or he'd do weird things like show up at the front door and say "can you cut my hair? No one else can cut my hair like you do!" ( in a whiney voice ). He would bait the hook, I'd bite and he'd reel me in.
I was NOT in alanon yet - and continued to enable him by cutting hair, giving cash, maintaining phone contact etc.
I thought HE was the only one with a problem, so after these 40 days and a written behavior contract I let him move back in.
After less than a year he got lazy, "forgot" about counseling appts, stopped going to meetings, cracked open a beer occasionally, was sneaky with money and where he'd been etc etc.
It was slow and insidious.
And of course, he relapsed and the chaos returned along with the lies and dysfunction.
It was easier when he was out - but it was only a bandaid on a big hemorrhaging wound.
Now that we're both working our program, life has some serenity and peace again.
Aloha jazzie...the response you have received here are absolute gold. They have differences and it is the similarities that I glom on to. The similarities saved my life and that is where I learned my Higher Power wanted me in program. This disease is powerful...it is mind and mood altering and no one of us has ever had any power over it. Your power comes from inside of the Al-Anon Family Groups and over yourself when you learn how it works and how to work it. There is so much positive help over the disease that comes from those who have gone before us and we have to go meet those who came before us and listen to their ESH (experience strength and hope) and hang with them. Alcohol is a mind and mood altering chemical...add to that what Hotrod and the others share in their experiences and you come up with what we are up against...Add still what Pink Chip offers as he knows the disease from "the other" side of the picture and you can easily come to understand that this disease, our disease isn"t a "just stop drinking" proposition. My alcoholic/addict had "the disease" way more than the love of her family and others and the promise of being sober and clean. Alcohol and drugs owned her and while she would make promises so that she would keep us the promises were never as strong as the promise she had going with alcohol and drug and the life which came from it. When she drank and used she was not near the woman and wife and person we desired in our lives which was very sad because we loved the mother and wife and person which was only a wish. Our disease is fatal...it kills everything.
Glad you are hear and "if you keep an open mind...you will find help" ((((hugs))))
Remember that if you set that boundary (which sounds like a good boundary to me) it is to protect you rather than to change him. He might go into recovery, he might not. Two of the three C's: We Can't Cure It, We Can't Control It. If you have him leave and he keeps on drinking, you have not failed. You have protected yourself from the insanity.
