Hi and welcome,

While I am sure there are Naranon sites, this board can most definately be used to help you.

Alanon is not about the addict or the Alcoholic, it is about us, our recovery. Helping us to learn to live and be happy with or without our qualifiers sobriety. Addiction does not just impact the addict, but the whole family, and often we become as sick or maybe even sicker than the addict.

Here you can learn that you did not cause their disease, you cannot cure it and you can't control it. You can learn to detach and give them up to theri HP, while you learn to trust and love yourself. By doing this you will have love and understanding to give your A.

Here you can find the understanding and compaassion of people who are and have been in the same situation, will not judge you, will listen to you and help you to grow as a person and heal.

Many here are spouses, children, parents of addicts as well as alcoholics. We all seek the same thing, serenity, happiness and love of ourslves.

The people here are wonderful and I owe my sanity to many of them. I hope you will be very happy here. Read what others have to say, there are online meetings if you want and a chat room. Read the literature and learn wll that you can. It is also reccomended that you try adn get to f2f (in person) meetings locally and get a sponsor to help you with the steps.

The program does really work if you work it. You will find yourself happier adn stronger than you ever imagined.

Best wishes to both you and your husband in each of your recovery.

                                       Love Jeannie

Hello, birdgal,
I'm so glad you found this site and posted here. You will find lots of valuable information for yourself here. The disease of codependency, which all of us who have lived/loved an addict/acoholic have, can be helped through working the 12 steps of alanon. They have changed my life.

While you can find help online, the very best way to help yourself through this time of adjustment is to go to meetings, find a sponsor, and work the 12 steps with the sponsor. Something very important - something healing - happens in those meetings. I have been going to Alanon for almost 20 years now, and it has really changed my life. But it hasn't happened without my doing the hard work of the program.

Please take care of yourself during this time. You will learn how to do that in Alanon.
Blessings and prayers for you,
mebjk

Welcome to MIP. You are not alone. There a lot of people who understand.

 

World Service Organization Website –

WWW.al-anon.alateen.org

Phone number is 1-888-425-2666

Alanon meetings 800-351-9996

Alanon literature Worldwide 888-425-2666

Alanon meeting info. 800-433-7266 AA info.

Chat room is open 24/7 there here the link to www.mipchat.net or http://www.12stepforums.net/chatroom2.html 

Here are some things that have helped me since in the program.

• Go face to face meeting & online meeting.


• post on the board here on the site. I have gotten a lot of good feed back.

·        Set support system.  people do not judge. You need someone who can go for coffee on a bad day, or pick up a phone and call when in trouble. The support is what is important when you first this program.

• Have a sponsor. Someone work one on one with you.

You don’t have to do this the minute u come to the program but I suggest that u do it when u can. It help.

 

Meeting schedule: meetings are in here and run approximately 90 minutes from: Monday-Friday, 9 am and 9 pm EST, Saturday: 10 am and 9 pm EST, Sunday: 10 am and 7 pm EST. Topics are selected by participants at meeting time. UK +5 hours, central -1 hour, mountain -2 hours, pacific -3 hours. Open chat all other times.

Wow everyone - thank you so much for the warm welcome. OK, so here's the "nutshell" version of my story:

My DH and I have been together for over 20 years. Two kids, girl 13 and boy 8. We are professional people, in process of building our "dream" home, life was basically GOOD with seemingly no pre-existing substance abuse issues. He is a PhD educated college professor whose intellect I was always a bit intimidated by...until this. I know addiction is the great equalizer, but geeeez.

He was dx'd w/ clinical depression and anxiety a couple of years ago, but it's been really bad for the past 8-9 months...just kept spiralling down, down and finally I realized he had become addicted to cocaine/crack for that period of time. Also his prescribed Xanax. So...here I was trying to be the supportive, sympathetic wife to a person with severe depression, and explain it to my kids, etc. Then I find out all of the lies, abandonment, etc. were the result of his drug addiction. He has also smoked pot on occasion for years which has been a thorn in my side...but never seemed to cause any huge level of dysfunction (or so I thought?).

And we have both been social drinkers for years, which honestly was not a problem. A couple of drinks w/ friends, definitely knew when to stop. Anyway...last month when I realized about the crack addiction, magnitude of the lies he's told etc., I was shattered.

But after I confronted him he admitted everything, thanked me for throwing him a "lifeline." He just came out of a 2-week stretch at an inpatient treatment facility, and he seems totally committed to healing, going to meetings, abstaining from everything (except cigarettes which he started again after 10 years as a non-smoker). He has recognized that addiction is addiction, and that he is prone to it - whether pot or xanax or crack...even alcohol will now become a substitute if he allows it.

My brother is a recovering alcoholic (20 years) and we are very close, so I'm somewhat familiar with the 12-step philosophy. And I'm sure I will get to know it alot better now.

While I'm glad he's in recovery, and actually proud of him for realizing the depth of his addiction,...I'm still reeling from all of this. I'm still so angry over all of the lies he told and what he put me and our kids through.

But I will say - I am NOT co-dependent. I don't want to ruffle any feathers...but again, My "living with an addict" has only been for the past month, as far as I knew - and as SOON as I knew, it was - get treatment or get out. No gray area there for me. I spent months trying to maintain sympathy for my depressed husband when all the time he was lieing to support his addiction. I've read about this and talked w/ my brother and he agrees I don't have an addictive personality and don't have co-dependency issues like he sees in many relationships. But all the books geared to family/spouses seem to be about co-dependency.

Anyway, I will definitely seek out a local Alanon. And my DH and I are getting ready to talk w/ our wonderful 13-year-old daughter and tell her the truth about everything (per advice from her counselor). She thinks he was just in a MI treatment facility, although she has noticed he's not drinking anymore. That will be rough, because she became so depressed back in Feb (d/t his estrangement, etc.) that she began cutting on herself. I got her to counseling and saw her through it...But she is going to have some pretty riteous anger, as I did, when she learns about the crack.

So glad I found this forum, ya'll (as we say down here in the south:)