The material presented
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I am new to this site. I went into the chat room a few nights ago and was so happy to talk with everyone but I still feel lost. I have been married to my husband for 5 years on May 16th. He is a alcoholic and had been addicted to drugs (he no longer does drugs). He actually traded one drug for another. Through the years the verbal abuse has gotten worse. It is now to the point where the abuse is taken its toll on me. Before I met him I was a happy and healthy person. Now, I look terrible and my health is not too good. I am a type 1 diabetic and I am not taking care of myself because I have to take care of him. When my husband is sober, he is the most loving person but when he is drunk....He is ugly! He does nothing but drink and abuse me! He doesn't do anything in our relationship. I am the one who pays the bills, clean the house, do the laundry, take the trash out, get the mail, take care of our animals, makes sure the yard is taken care of and just about anything else that needs to be done. As far as he is concerned the only thing he has to do is bring home a paycheck. He doesn't take me out or do any fun things because he is always hung over and is too tired. I am a social person. I love people and being with people. I had in the past argued back and defended myself when he would verbally abuse me. I now stay silent and had left for the night when it got to bad. When he gets abusive I tell him he needs to stop talking to me or I will leave. When I try to leave he physically trys to stop me. I have got to do something to change this situation. If I don't and I don't get a handle on my physical and emotional health that I could end up in the hospital or worse. I just need to figure out if I need to get out of this marriage or try to make it work. Do I get him to go to marriage counseling or is that a waste of time/money? Where do I go from here? I have read some posts and saw some people have sponsers. Is that something I need and if so, where do I find one? I'm confused and I am searching for help and support. Any advice would be wonderful
Welcome Sharon
I am happy that you found us and participated in the chat room as well as read through the posts. Alcoholism is a progressive fatal disease that we did not cause, cannot control, and cannot cure. Alanon is a fellowship of people who live with or have lived with the disease ad has meetings in many communities. The hot live number can be found in the white pages. Alanon saved my sanity and my life. Breaking the isolation caused by living in the insanity of alcoholism is extremely important.
When you attend the meetings , you can find members whose program you admire that you can ask to sponsor you There is also a huge literature selection that can help. The pamphlets "This is alanon ",the Merry go round Named Denial and the small bookmark "Just for Today "are invaluable tools to assist you at the beginning off your journey. Talking to members after the meeting and asking questions will also help for you to feel connected.
Please keep coming back
I am new to this too so can't say what is next step. Just wanted you to know I can relate to a lot of what you said. My husband isn't an alcoholic his for father is but has taken on a lot of the traits . The verbal abuse is bad for me too and feel like I have changed alot and I don't know who I am anymore. He says things no one has ever said to me before. I use to argue back too now I don't and physically and mentally it's affecting me. I never get to see my friends anymore because a fight always breaks out when I have plans. Verbal abuse hurts And it just stays in your mind ! Be strong seems to be great support here !
Welcome Kalona. I am so sorry you are in this situation. I was like your husband in many ways with my alcoholism. Until I could admit that alcohol was a problem, all I would do is point the finger, blame, ditch and dodge and come up with reasons why everything was everyone else's fault. I was also one of those to say "I worked all day!! Leave me alone!" so I could drink and it didn't matter if you worked too, that the rest of the world works and takes care of their house, daily responsibilities and life tasks...I felt I worked and was entitled to do whatever the hell I wanted in my "free time." Very warped thinking. I now know adults don't really get "free time" like I thought and "free time" to self-destruct was REALLY a messed up way of thinking. We get time to choose to spend productively or not. I can't tell you what to do aside from keep coming back to alanon and it will become more clear. Alanon provides different answers for different people and the goal is really to find the solution that works to give you the most serenity and peace of mind for your situation.
For me...I was not even the most loving person sober because, if I was really all that loving, I would have seen the damage I was causing. I was not a bad person but I was a sick active alcoholic back when I acted the way you describe your husband. I had very poor emotional coping skills and sick thoughts perpetuating that drinking behavior. For those reasons, I had to spend years in AA working on myself to be a good partner to anyone. Prior to that, all relationships had me acting like a child and not taking responsibility. That's just me. I'm saying this all just so you maybe understand alcoholism a bit better. It is almost impossible to do relationship work or for an active alcoholic to progress in any kind of therapy before acknowledging their addiction. That leaves you with your best option of working on you instead of being obsessed and overwhelmed with what he is or isn't doing and hinging your entire wellbeing on the marriage when, in actuality, you are capable, sufficient, and will be okay not matter what happens with him. Alanon will keep you focused on that and help you build from there.
First things first. I believe one should never stay in a situation in which on feels unsafe, especially physically unsafe. If you feel you are being threatened, and it sounds like you are ("he physically trys to stop me") then it is your right and responsibility to yourself to get away from danger.
Then work on yourself. Glad you found the chat room, there are some wonderful people in there, and you can get a lot of good experience strength and hope there. Until your husband actually starts working a recovery program, the only choice you have is to work your own. You may be amazed how much better you feel after just one or two meetings. This happened with a woman that came into one of my F2F meetings. Two weeks ago she was telling her whole story. Last week she was back, telling us how much better she felt already just knowing that there were other people she could commiserate with that had had similar experiences.
It seems like you are starting to understand the first step of our 12 step program. We must admit that we are powerless over alcohol. It is the exact same first step in AA. We are all power less over it. But by extension for us, it means we are powerless over the alcoholic. You can't make him not drink. You didn't cause the alcoholism, you won't control the alcoholic, and you can't cure him either. But you can change your life, once you understand that you are powerless. It is amazing what admitting powerlessness does. It has made me see things in a whole new light. I can't keep my alcoholic wife from drinking, so now I don't have to argue with her about finding vodka bottles in the house. I can't control her. I can only control me, so when I find the bottle, I throw it away and go back about my business. If I see she has drunk from the bottle, I leave, either go to another room or take my son somewhere for the evening. These are behaviors I can control. But not my wife's drinking.
Please keep coming back, it gets better, one way or another!
The first suggestion I would make is go to the official alanon website and look around, then find out the meeting time and place for your area. Then go. There you will get a brilliant starter pack, some love and true understanding that you wont get anywhere else in my experience. You dont need to make those big scary decisions right now, take some time to learn this philosophy and then you will know what to do and will make the right decision for you.
Always keep yourself safe though, he sounds like a bully, call the police for help if he traps you like that again, he needs to know you wont put up with it.x
All great responses. I want to add, you have choices. We are not supposed to give advice as to what to do, but I will say if you choose to stay without the strength the 12 steps can offer you, it is an accurate prediction you will get sicker. When you project your current situation into the future, it looks bleak, doesn't it? And thinking he will see how sick and tormented you are (or even care) and get help is like living in a fairy tale. For me to get well and stay well, I had to take charge and look out for my well being. Part of that process was really seeing my sickness and the sickness of my hubbie and OWNING the fact that I had to get the h_ _ _ out of my sickness with lots of help from al anon friends and a sponsor. I was Alice in Wonderland who kept falling into that darn rabbit hole. It is wonderful that you are here(I just discovered another world of emoticons, so I am practicing my new skills)
And make a vow to NEVER let anyone be abusive to you (including you).
-- Edited by PP on Tuesday 22nd of April 2014 11:53:28 AM
I'm sorry that you are in this situation, it is confusing and I remember when things were similar in my own marriage I wondered where folks kept the manual because I was experiencing behaviour that I did not understand at all.
I'm glad that you are aware of the importance of looking after your own health - type 1 diabetes is difficult to deal with at the best of times so hold on to that thought - what is best for you is, you will find out in time, best for both of you.
I tried to get my AH to marriage counselling and while he was drinking it did not work. In fact, even 7 months into not drinking he still has not engaged in any way other than the way that Pinkchip has described so well. Things started to get better for me when I realised that I needed to survive his alcoholism. And that it was ok for me to do whatever that took. I lost my spirit by trying to keep the peace and of course we all know that it is pointless trying to reason things out . Going to a face to face alanon meeting helped me enormously, for lots of different reasons. So did yoga and meditation btw.
I'd like to endorse what el-fee has said as well - it is, I think, very important for your self esteem (and for your husband's - although that is just a bonus and not really your responsibility) that you do not put up with bullying or abuse. My own trick in this regard is to look after myself and to think about AH as little as possible. If AH does try it on, I find something really lovely to do for myself that carries the same perceived weight as his abuse. Once, when he went way over the limit I booked myself a fabulous holiday! Usually though it is simply a question of going to see friends that I love or baking a cake, just because I can! These days AH does not abuse me - because now he can see that it just leads to too much fun!
It is a learning curve Kalona and not easy but you will find the path that is right for you. I hope you can stick around, it is worth it!
Please find local Al-Anon meetings for yourself , it's the best decision I made for myself and family. An alcoholic will say anything to get the focus off themselves and putting u down works for him .. it's booze talk disease is talking not the man . Learning to walk away from verbal abuse takes time , I never had to worry about physical abuse in my home so it was easy for me to walk away .. a couple of argument stoppers I learned here are You could be right ! and walk away . or sorry you feel that way !and walk away . my all time fav is * thanks for pointing that out I will take a look at it .* and walk away . trying to justify yourself or explain only adds fuel to the fire , the alcoholic has already made up his mind he's right , when we argue those stupid arguments the disease wins , with the support of your al anon friends you will find the courage to walk away it's all part of taking care of yourself .
(I just discovered another world of emoticons, so I am practicing my new skills
)
. Going to a face to face alanon meeting helped me enormously, for lots of different reasons. So did yoga and meditation btw.