Al-Anon Family Group

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Member

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New here ....


Hello.  I am the wife of an alcoholic.  We've been married for 14 years, 12 of which he's been an alcoholic.  We have an 11 year old daughter (read:  she's never known her father to be sober).  We have started over financially four times already due to his drinking, and I am now dealing with round 5.

 

Two weeks ago yesterday, my AH was fired from his job.  They "set him up" and he blew a .17 at 7AM.  By the time I found out what occurred, he had been home for 12 hrs and calmly told me before he went to bed that he was fired.  Said it was the Listerine.  As if I believed that.  I kicked him out by means of having him removed by his father when he refused to go.  Once his family saw what they had to deal with, they contacted me and asked that I find a rehab facility for him.  He went the very next day as his parents brought him.

When I contacted the facility, they asked about usage ... I estimated high at 16-20 beers a day.   Apparently I was wrong.  When he went in, he admitted to 36-40 beers a day. 

I have no love lost for him.  We have been cohabitating for the last 6 years.  That was after I left him for 4 months because of his drinking.   During the first separation, his family was relentless on placing blame on me.  They had no idea he was drinking alot, or that he had issues.  Apparently my requests for help all these years fell on the rose colored glasses wearing deaf ears they have. 

And here I am, once again, in the same position with them.  MIL tried meddling in my finances on day 3 and I asked her politely to stay out of my personal business.  FIL made promises to help with household things that are now empty.  Neither have contacted their granddaughter to see how she is doing.  She realizes it and is starting to resent.

I am at a crossroads of deciding what I am going to do now.  He crossed my boundary of "if this happened, I was done with him for good".  Now that he is in rehab, he is asking to return home after he is released to start fresh.  I refuse, and have told him he needs to go to his parents.  I still hear dependent tendencies on his calls .. the need to hear that I love him and forgive him is evident. 

He crossed my boundary and knew the consequence.  How does it look if I flex the boundary if I let him back in.  It sets precedence.  Do I relent and allow him to have another second chance in hopes that this first rehab stint makes the difference?  How do I deal with the fear of relapse? 

I am now a bitter, angry woman.  Jaded.  I also hate myself for returning 6 years ago, and thereafter STAYING.  I've always seen the better in people, and that is my weakness.

How do I move forward?   I fear I will forever be Collateral Damage.

 



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I am not BROKEN.  I am ANGRY.



Member

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The choice is yours but please be prepared to do this over & over. This has been my experience and may not be yours. I hope your story turns out better than mine. Believe him only after he shows through his actions that he is able to stay sober without you. Think hard. Think of your daughter and your own serenity.

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jm


Member

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Posts: 23
Date:

Hi and welcome. I do not like giving advice as my own life is unmanageable at present but just picking up on what you said in your own post.. "I also hate myself for returning 6 years ago, and thereafter STAYING"....so to let him back would that not make these feelings about yourself worse. I understand your dilemma...although I don't have children so a bit different...but I was always putting what the other person wanted before my own needs. I will never be perfect in recovery but I have made a promise to myself that I will start looking after my own needs first. I hope you make the right decision for YOU. smile 



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~*Service Worker*~

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Welcome to MIP, I'm sorry that you are having to go through this and that your life has been affected by the disease of alcoholism.

It is so sad to see our loved ones struggling and unable to see the impact of their disease but, in my experience, there isn't anything that I can do to change that. On the whole we see what we want to see and often choose not to see things that we can not cope with.

You can see your anger, which is good and useful awareness. What would it take for you to loose that? In my case living my life to the best, regardless of what AH is doing, has been the best tonic for my anger and resentment. I often forget this medicine and slip back into holding negative conversations in my head, but those conversations do not help me. Meditation, yoga and regular treats have helped me. Learning to do what is best for me helps me. Learning to trust my own instincts is important.

I think that you have answered your own question regarding your husband and it would be lovingly empowering for you to give him the space to regain his self esteem if he wants to. You do not need to feel guilty about choosing a peaceful home for yourself and your daughter and you can change your situation in the future if that turns out to be best for you all. But what can you do to be the person that you want to be? I found alanon face to face meetings helped me to change the things about myself that I had started to despise and also put me in a place where I could start to learn from the experience of others. I also found that by asking myself 'what would I like to do today' I tended to finish the day with a better sense of accomplishment. I was in a grizzle recently and the dear kind people here at MIP reminded me to make a list of things in life that I felt grateful for and also a list of the things that I like about myself. These small steps help me to view myself and my world more positively.

It has been a tough learning curve for me to find out that I do not have to be liked by everyone and if fact if I stay true to myself and my boundaries not only do others respect me a bit more, I also respect myself more and the hours and minutes run more smoothly as a result.

I hope that you will join us here, and join us in our on-line meetings as well as attending those in your neighbourhood if you can. I hope that you will join us in finding more positive ways of living and giving. Thank you for your post - in typing this I am also reminding myself of the tools that I can use day to day!

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~*Service Worker*~

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Welcome. Sending you lots of encouragement to up your meetings and stay close to the fellowship as you do what you need to do each day to take care of you and let others do and say whatever they will unless their doing and saying creates a direct impact on you. Setting boundaries with your MIL and her trying to handle your finances - good work. Refusing to make decisions today for an unknown future when he leaves rehab, good work, too. I would see that request to come home following rehab a maneuver to go right back to the way things are in a short amount of time. You: Yes, you can stay here when you leave rehab if you continue to work your program. Him: Great! Then, an hour, two hours, three days later, he's left rehab and is at your front door. You: No. Him: But you promised I could come here after rehab. You: Hair pulling.

Step 1, Step 3, Step 11 and making an assets and gratitude list daily or every hour on the hour if you feel yourself slipping may all help you today and in the future? Keep coming back, too.  You are dealing with a disease and not him.  You don't have to pay that disease any mind at all if you choose to focus on you and on what you need and want to do for yourself today.  The disease isn't personal.  It just is what it is.  I can remind myself that all the arguments and pleading it does is always to benefit its desire to live and to destroy.  If I engage with it, it wins.  If I detach from it, it loses its power to dominate my thoughts and my actions or reactions.  Much like letting a two year old kick and scream on the floor and going to do something else that is useful and productive for me at the time.  The child wears himself out without interference and I have maintained my dignity and composure.



 

 



-- Edited by grateful2be on Friday 19th of September 2014 09:48:56 AM



-- Edited by grateful2be on Friday 19th of September 2014 09:58:46 AM

__________________

"Darkness is full of possibility." Leunig



~*Service Worker*~

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Posts: 3653
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I believe in sticking to what I say, boundaries and consequences big time. You are right the A will take your caving in as his manipulation worked. He won't respect you. Then there you are stuck again.

You radiate wanting to move on. It seems you have already made your opinion. I am also glad you are courageous enough to tell the in laws to back off.

I am sure your kids know you made this boundary of you do this again I am done. We need to stick to what we say so they also learn to be strong.

You have learned from the past. Plus going to rehab is nothing. It can take years for him to be on program to grow. Rehab is like a drop in the bucket. They are to go to 90 AA meetings in 90 days after rehab. It takes intense personal work to really get onto and stay in a program of recovery.

Plus he did not go in on his own. A person who is serious makes the call and finds transport there.

And what is this counselor sharing his personal info about? Also what difference does it make how much he used for petes sake. Alcohol is poison to him no matter if he drank one beer!

You sound like you just need support in what you are going to do. We are here no matter what! please do keep coming we do care about each other very much here. hugs!



__________________

Putting HP first, always  <(*@*)>

"It's not so much being loved for ourselves, but more for being loved in spite of ourselves."

       http://www.al-anon.alateen.org/meetings/meeting.html            Or call: 1-888-4alanon



~*Service Worker*~

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Posts: 3613
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If he is going to stay sober and give your marriage a chance to heal, he will need to do a lot of work on himself and often being with the spouse makes that work harder.  He needs to concentrate intensely on his recovery and that is not very compatible with living a normal family life.  What I am saying is that it may not just me more peaceful and healthier for you not to live together now, but also for him.  Even though he doesn't realize it.  if it stays sober and you want to give it another shot down the line not saying whether you should or shouldn't there will be chances when he has a year or two of sobriety under his belt.  So it's not now or never, it's not forever yes or forever no.  It might be "Not now, not for a good long while, then we'll reassess."

It sounds like you have some good instincts about the state he's in now and how much has happened between you.  Taking care of yourself is the most important thing.  I hope you have a face-to-face meeting?  Alcoholism wraps everyone in the insanity and we need our own recovery to live healthily again.  Hugs.



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~*Service Worker*~

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CD - It sounds like he would be best off going to a halfway house for at least 6 months while you guys get some healthy separation. If his recovery is that dependent and contingent on you, he will relapse. I say this as a person in recovery myself. Going to his parents (who sound like enablers) would be just as bad. I would try to talk to his counselors and tell them that this pattern of taking him back is keeping him locked into a relapse pattern even though you clearly want the opposite. Then they can take the remainder of his rehab time to process where he will discharge to.

Of course your decisions are yours and nothing you do is wrong in my book - even if you take him back home. I don't live in your shoes and am not in your relationship. I know that if he's really going to get sober this time, he has to be willing to do ANYTHING just to stay sober and getting back with you should not be his first priority. Despite saying he "needs" you to stay sober (if he says that) - it's BS. He needs to do some hefty recovery work and focus on himself without distractions. Meanwhile, you have your own recovery and Alanon to attend to.

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~*Service Worker*~

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On the subject of somebody "needing" me - that simply isn't true. I am not somebody's HP. I am just one person struggling to keep my head above water in life just like everybody else. If I try to save a drowning person in a cesspool or rushing rapids, we're both going to drown. If I see that somebody is swirling around in the rapids, it is best if I stay on firm ground and call for a rescue team that may or may not be able to help my loved one if they can't call for that rescue team themselves. It was a rush for me to act as a rescuer in folks' lives. I put myself into some pretty crummy situations by acting on that need to rescue. I learned that when I stood down or out of the rapids somebody else had ended up in because of their choices, help did come that they truly did need and that help was often not me.



-- Edited by grateful2be on Saturday 20th of September 2014 08:27:23 AM

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"Darkness is full of possibility." Leunig

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