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.
Last year I met the most wonderful women. Beautiful, witty, charming etc. We just clicked and have fallen madly in love. She was open from the start, she liked to drink. I enjoy a drink. But over the year i have realised there is drinking and drinking. I won't bore you as I am sure many members have a similar story.
S had a very traumatic upbringing overseas. She says I am the only man she has fallen on love with. I believe her. To cut to the chase. She has detoxed before with success then hit the booze again. There are many triggers. She made the decision to stop drinking and we contacted the NHS. Took 2 months to get an appointment and now they offer 2 week rehab in 2 months! She might be dead by then. She just wont' consider going into rehab, her cats...her home is her sanctuary.
There are many layers, depression, anxiety etc. She will not go to therapy as she does not want to face her past (everyone knows this is the key to her drinking). She has all but given up. I am beside myself seeing the woman i love destruct herself. I am emotionally drained. I know she has to make the decisions.
Any suggestions how I can push her forwards as I just feel I am constantly being heavy handed with her. I am going to the local support group in a few weeks for support
I'm sorry you are going through this and am glad you have found us. There is a lot of support here, and wisdom too.
I hope you will also find a local Al-Anon group - they have them all over the world. Check your phone book or do an online search. You don't have to wait for the support group in several weeks - Al-Anon is here for you all across the world. Nobody should have go to through this alone.
I imagine we have all come to Al-Anon with the pressing question, "How do I get my drinker to stop drinking?" I'm sorry the hard news is that if there were a way, people would have found it by now. In Al-Anon we have the Three C's: You didn't Cause it, you can't Cure it, you can't Control it. The "it" being the drinker's drinking. That is actually a freeing statement. It's not up to us, and it can't be. As another saying goes, we have to "let go and let God." We are freed from the responsibility - because we simply can't do it.
I'm sorry that your A (alcoholic) has to wait for rehab - but from what you say, the real issue is that her motivation is not very strong? Because she can walk in through the doors of AA at any time. She doesn't have to wait for the NHS rehab. There are free AA groups everywhere. But if she doesn't want to, she doesn't want to.
I know what it's like to think "This is a person with whom I have a connection that's almost magical. And if it weren't for this one problem, life would be so good. Just what I've always wanted." But the thing about alcoholics is that there is no person that's separate from the "one problem" - they are all in one package. I came to see that that desire to rescue my A and get the love I'd always wanted was part of a pattern to win over my neglectful parents - like "This time it will work!" It was a very distracting drama for me, but it quickly became quite painful. I thought the pain was really separate from the relationship. But actually the two were entwined. There was no relationship without the pain. That was an awful thing.
I also know that feeling that I am the one who has a special connection with the A that they've never had before. And that therefore I am the one who has the influence to be the rescuer - that I am their last hope. I'm afraid I did not find that one to be true either.
I hope you'll find a local meeting and get the tools to handle this difficult situation. One thing is that when we change just ourselves, the whole dynamic changes - and that is priceless. Please take good care of yourself.
Welcome to MIP Ledclone, this is a great place to learn and find support.
It is a difficult situation, I found it totally counter-intuitive when my husband started to drink so much and then just kept going. Going to AlAnon meetings helped me to support myself, to take my attention off my husband and to concentrate on staying healthy myself whilst accepting my husband as an adult with the freedom to choose his own path. I totally agree with Mattie's last paragraph - when we change, everything changes and that, for us, turned out to be for the better.
I don't know how it is for you and your girlfriend but I know myself well enough to know that when someone else is telling me to change I become very resistant to the idea whereas when I feel accepted I am more inclined to be able to consider alternatives! I accepted that my husband chose to drink to oblivion and protected myself by refusing to pick up the consequences of his drinking and removing myself from any behaviour that I would not tolerate from a stranger, let alone from someone who said they loved me. I think that was the most help I ever extended to my husband, and boy, did I try and help!!!
You mention feeling 'heavy handed' and I remember that feeling made me feel as though I was at fault, plus it must have been a pain for my husband to live with! So it was a release for me to stop telling him what he should do, to think about my own principles and beliefs and honour them without putting blame onto my husband. It isn't easy watching someone we love hurting themselves (and those around them) and it isn't easy being hurt by their alcohol gremlins either! I used to imagine that I had a beautiful wild animal in my life who was scared of everything! Taking good care of myself, staying healthy myself, relieved some of the guilt and shame that my husband was experiencing and kept me relatively sane in a crazy making scenario. We all have choices, really, we do.
I hope you keep coming back and can invest in finding a support group for you - it isn't easy loving an alcoholic but I have to admit that I do!!
Not sure of what part of the world you are in.... Where I sit rehab does not guarantee a recovery. Alcoholism, as an illness is cunning and baffling, even to the person themself. So no silver bullet. Some people do get right through going to numerous meetings of AA... unless they need detox, of course. Some stages of the illness do need professional support!
Recovery is much more a process than a product... it requires active involvement and initiative.
If a person is actually going to meetings- this makes rehab just a bit more likely to help. The passive approach much less. The AA Big Book says that 'half measures availed us nothing'.
Alanon is a great support for us. We do group work here... and recommend face to face groups...
I am glad and grateful to be a part of this group. We share our hopes here. The Path to recovery is difficult and uncertain. As an alanon family we can pray to our higher power for our Alchy. Recovery happens in Gods own time. We can only detach with love for the alchy to understand his/her own misery. We can take the person to the rooms of AA and miracles do happen. Hold on to faith and pass on your strength by not enabling. Let Gods will work. May god give you the courage to handle this.
Hello John, Welcome. Many of us have experienced the pain of watching a loved one self destruct with alcohol and so understand your concerns. Alcoholism is a dreadful, progressive, chronic disease over which we are powerless. Alanon is a recovery program established for family members as we too have been infected by the disease and need a program of recovery of our own. Because of trying to change another we have lost the focus of our lives, stop taking care of our own needs, and abandoned ourselves emotionally.
Alanon offers new tools to live by and a supportive network of like minded others to connect with .Please do search out alanon meetings and keep coming back here as there is hope.
I too send welcomes out to you John....so glad you found us and glad that you joined right in. I can relate to that helpless feeling of watching one we love self-destruct before our eyes. I too suggest Al-Anon Family Groups as that's where I found 'my people'. There were others there who truly understood how I felt and how I thought. They helped me realize that this disease reaches well beyond the drinker to affect others who live with or love them. It was so refreshing to be with others who listened without judgement and shared their own ESH (Experience, Strength & Hope) without telling me what I should/should not do.
Al-Anon is a gentle program with recovery for all. We each move through the program at our own pace with loving support from each other. I heard at one of my first meetings the three C(s) - I did not cause it, I can't control it and I can't cure it. This gave me a bit of immediate peace as I really felt that I was the cause and therefore should be able to fix it...
Please keep coming back and know that you are not alone! There is hope and help in recovery!
miracle24 - I send a welcome out to you too! Glad you joined right in - keep coming back!
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Practice the PAUSE...Pause before judging. Pause before assuming. Pause before accusing. Pause whenever you are about to react harshly and you will avoid doing and saying things you will later regret. ~~~~ Lori Deschene
welcome, John. i so relate to all you say. went through a long period of relapse and failed attempts at recovery with my partner. he was sober and active in recovery when we met. i was his first and only real love, even though we met later in life. we were engaged. i felt part of a true and lasting partnership for the first time in my life. and now i'm processing a long period of his self-sabotage that ultimately brought us down.
i recognized his depression, anxiety, and extreme (low) self-esteem issues. but somehow i had this strong belief that my love, our love, would withstand it all. that i could be there for him and be an ally as he fought his illness. but over time i had to learn to recognize that i was fighting (or supporting, and learning... w/12 step, couples counseling, etc.) and he was not. not really. he was keeping up appearances, keeping criticism at bay by going through some motions.
i've learned that recovery is way more complicated than i thought it was.
watching someone you love on a path of self-destruction is incredibly painful and draining and stressful. the difficult truth that none of us want to hear is that we are powerless. over them and over their addictions, and their issues. i could love him, but i couldn't do the work for him. i couldn't instill my esteem of him in his brain and soul. i watched him sabotage himself and us, over and over, and i recognized it and even he did sometimes, and we talked about it and named it... and yet it persisted... kept happening. over and over and over. and i don't just mean drinking. i mean various instances of either not addressing things appropriately in his life or overstepping into mine out of fear and misplaced control. again, that lesson... we can (and should) only control ourselves.
al-anon is tremendously helpful. they say "civilians don't understand". people in al-anon do... even with a huge variety of experiences, there is a common ground of loving people who are battling this disease. it may take some getting used to, but i hope you find your way to a meeting, try a few, give it a chance. there is a lot of experience and wisdom and help available in those rooms. take one day at at time, and do take care of yourself.
