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Hi, I'm a newbie at this. I have never dated anyone who has had a drug or alcohol problem. I'm 38, have my stuff together and was fixed up with someone who was in recovery for 4 mos. I have fallen head over heals for him and is the best man I have ever been with. It has not been very long that we have been together, and he already relapsed twice (not bad ones, but still relapses). I feel disheartened, broken, and not sure I have the will to let this go. Being that I am an older woman, want marriage and a family, I struggle with weather I should go through with this. He is seriously the best, most giving and kind man I have every met in my life though.. and this is what makes things so difficult. Never had someone fit with me so well. Has anyone here been in this situation or have advice? I have heard "run", which is what I would say if I was on the outside but Im in it. Help!! I don't know how to deal with him. He feels awful and so sad about it, and he's afraid that I will leave him.
People new to AA are suggested to not get into new relationships until a year sober. Whoever fixed you up did both of you a disservice. Not telling you what to do, but I will say, newly recovering people have a lot of work to do on themselves prior to being good relationship material. Also, consider this is his "best" behavior now. How would he act when no longer afraid you would leave after being married? It is possible to keep it vert casual...just date and see where he is and how you feel in a year.
Hi LoveNHope, and welcome.
I am glad that you reached out and that you found Al-Anon. I had no real experience with alcoholics before I met my wife, and I spent 8 years trying to figure out her behavior before I discovered Al-Anon. I cannot tell you how helpful it has been for me!
I hope that you keep coming back and that you find a face-to-face meeting to attend. If I knew now what I didn't know at the beginning of our relationship, at least the way I responded to her and the decisions I made about silly things like matching furniture and the number of "hoodies" one really NEEDS would have been very different.
No one can tell you what to do about this relationship, you will know the right decision when the time is right.
Alcoholism is a deadly and progressive disease, and it sounds like your A is still very young in his recovery. Relapses do happen. God willing, he will become stronger in his recovery and they will not happen as often or at all after a while. But, not using alcohol is just one piece of recovery. It is the piece my wife points to most often as evidence that she is now "fine." The emotional and physical pieces of recovery take longer, and, from what I have experienced with my wife, are the hardest parts.
If I were to give you any advice at all, it would be to take things slow and be patient and kind with yourself. Keep coming back to Al-Anon to learn tools for yourself while he continues working on his tools in his program.
__________________
Skorpi
If you are depressed, you are living in the past. If you are anxious, you are living in the future. If you are at peace, you are living in the present. - Lao Tzu
My ah has been dry for 30 years but is still not emotionally
Or spiritually sober. He attends AA now but is still unwilling
to face himself or his demons.
He was dry when we married i thought we had his disease
Beat. I was very wrong and he never relapsed. The problems
Were still under the surface lurking. My ah still has an addictive
Personality and he doesnt behave or think as a normal Person
Anymore. It is the progression of his untreated disease.
Alcoholism can be arrested with abstinence but not cured. It
Is a very scary disease its called a thinking disease.
Do yourself a big favor and start alanon meetings for you.
Learn as much as you can about the disease and the effects
On the family. Alanon is a program of helping you from the
Effects of alcoholism. We become as sick as they are but in
a different Way trying to Cope with the effects of the disease.
Hi, thank you for your kind thoughts. Another problem is that he is not part of AA. He dreads the thought of these meetings because he believes it does not fit his personality. He has done this "recovery" with the help of therapy sessions with a psychologist, but that's about it. I'm trying to research other groups he can go to. For myself, I definitely want to attend an Al Anon meeting. I'm just so frustrated because I don't know what to do, I love this guy.
My wife says the same thing: She has tried AA, and she doesn't buy into it and it won't help her. So, she is right, it will not. Unless she wants AA to work for her, it is not going to work. Her therapists, it turns out, knew "less" about being therapists than she did, so she also stopped going to see them. She tried Moderation Management by purchasing and reading a couple books, and then claiming that she was moderating while not actually doing what the Moderation Management Program required.
I think, for me, I had to get to the place of giving up on her treatment and recovery. Me finding something for her, asking her to go to therapy, or counseling, or AA, or something, driving her to and from, going to sessions with her, sitting in the lobby while she was in sessions, did nothing to actually help. It wasn't until I found Al-Anon, started working in my program, started detaching, and focusing on myself that my life started to change for the better.
For myself, I found that the best way to love my wife was to stop trying to make things better for her and start trying to make things better for myself. My attempts at making her life better and more manageable for her resulted in her not needing to take responsibility for anything and finding more and more excuses to drink more and more. When I stopped helping her, that is when I think I helped her the most, because I stopped enabling her drinking and her negative behaviors. It is like we got to the end of a roller-coaster ride, and she said she wanted to take the ride again. I got out of the car and said I didn't, but you are free to ride again if you want. Turns out, riding a roller-coaster alone isn't as fun.
__________________
Skorpi
If you are depressed, you are living in the past. If you are anxious, you are living in the future. If you are at peace, you are living in the present. - Lao Tzu
People new to AA are suggested to not get into new relationships until a year sober. Whoever fixed you up did both of you a disservice. Not telling you what to do, but I will say, newly recovering people have a lot of work to do on themselves prior to being good relationship material. Also, consider this is his "best" behavior now. How would he act when no longer afraid you would leave after being married? It is possible to keep it vert casual...just date and see where he is and how you feel in a year.
I have to agree withPink, whoever set you up did not help you in anyway. People new in recovery need that first year to get themselves together. I am married and my AH was court ordered to live at a 1/2 house and 3/4 way house and he was gone nearly a year. At first I was completely mad, sad, frustrated etc with him being away and not accountable to his family, now in many ways I see why that helped him so much.
If he doesn't go to AA because he says his personality doesn't match, I feel as if he is not serious about his recovery. AA rooms is exactly where he will fit and he will meet people who are like him and can really help. My advice, stop looking for groups for him, he can do that himself and his counselor will also advise him. Next, take care of you and attend meetings, read everything you can on the disease, all the AA, Alanon and Co dependent literature will help you with the frustration and help you see things in a new way. Hugs to you keep coming back.
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Linda
Don't worry about tomorrow, tomorrow will have it's own worries
When we hit our rock bottom back in January I told my AH that he had to be working A program by the time he came home. I did not mandate WHICH program.
Thankfully he went to AA.
I was afraid he would not as he is a total atheist and that whole "higher power" thing got to him. Once he figured out that he didn't need religion or god he got it.
he's still dragging his feet about a sponsor by my letting go and letting him figure it out for himself is working for me. And in Al-anon that's what we have to learn to do is make it work FOR US.
YOU can research other groups (FOR HIM) but the truth is he has to do it. He has to WANT it. He has to buy into it. YOU doing the heavy lifting does not help him. UNLESS he has no access to internet or phone books or therapists let him do the work. Did he ASK you to do it? why can't he do it?
Say it with me:
NOT my circus not my monkeys
the hardest thing for me was to learn that HIS recovery is his.
MY recovery is mine
the only thing I can do is get myself better and then WE can work on OUR marriage. BUT he knows I will ONLY work on the marriage with a partner who is currently IN recovery and doing his part.
IF you find a group... and you give him the info and he goes and he fails.. he may find a way to blame it on you.
__________________
-- ladybug
We come to love not by finding a perfect person, but by learning to see an imperfect person perfectly.
This is helpful. You were saying how you did everything to encourage: went to meetings with her, waited in lobby, etc... seems as though you did everything you could because you wanted to help or change things. The one thing I keep thinking is saying "I won't be able to continue this relationship unless you start going to support group meetings".... but maybe this is pushing? There is a group called SMART Recovery that is a popular alternative to AA. I was thinking about talking to him about that group. It's a non-12 step program and they don't talk about God.
I don't see it as pushing if you say to him "I can't be with you if you are not working on your recovery to the best of your ability." AS LONG as you are willing to actually walk away if he does not.
I can assure you that if my husband came home tonight and he broke his recovery (he's sober since January 5th) HE knows and I KNOW that I would be leaving. And I would stay away as long it it took him to get back to the same point in his recovery that he is now. BUT we are married... it's a much more complicated mess.
It's true that whomever fixed you two up did neither of you a good thing.
I swear I think about divorce but I have agreed that we will not make any big decisions for one year... so we keep trying.
LOVE does not conquer all....
YOU can't fix him LoveNHope... you can Only FIX YOURSELF.
__________________
-- ladybug
We come to love not by finding a perfect person, but by learning to see an imperfect person perfectly.
One thing to know is that we can't want it (their sobriety) harder than they do. When we do the research and figure out where they might go and which programs might be right and everything, they're not as active in their recovery as they need to be. They need to take the reins. The most helpful and healthiest thing we can do is to step back. (I know we fear that if we step back, they won't follow through with recovery. That might be true. If that's true, they weren't determined enough to stay in recovery even if we fixed it all up for them.)
A recovering A - and by recovering I mean working a program - needs 1-2 years to start getting stable enough to get their life in order, and to see if they really stick with recovery. (Statistically, the majority of A's who start recovery do not stick with it.) If you're 38 and you want a family, it seems to me as if you wouldn't want to wait until he was healthy enough to be in a relationship. You'd want to find someone who was already healthy enough to be figuring out the normal things about a relationship: how you handle conflict, if you want the same things in life, if you have the same values, etc. An A can't work on those things because he's turned his life upside down deciding to get sober, and is rebuilding from the ground up. He has to have things rebuilt before he can work on that kind of stuff.
And I'm afraid your A hasn't been sober 4 months. He's only been sober since his last relapse. The clock resets with every relapse. So far I'm afraid his track record for sobriety isn't very good. You know the saying, "When a person tells you who is he, believe him"? Right now what his actions are saying he is, is "A person whose maximum length of sobriety is [2 months?]" We Al-Anoners tend to be experts at seeing the "potential" of people. But that's all in the mind. Right now he is an alcoholic with a very short span of sobriety. That's who he is.
I know we often thing that the intensity and depth of our feelings means we're compatible. But that's only one aspect of a relationship. Whether the person is able to be in a healthy relationship is another one. It is absolutely crucial.
I hope you'll find a good meeting, keep coming back, and take good care of yourself.
Hi, i think you have had some great responses here. Coming from a person in her forties who spent 20 years with an alcoholic your post rings alarm bells for me. Your relationship is 4 months old, isnt that the infatuation, honeymoon part where everything they do seems endearing, never annoying or closer to the truth downright crazy. Its all a bit clouded. Im not sure its been 20 odd years since i felt that but the early stages of any relationship, its all shiny and new. does love come into it that early on? Im not sure. At the beginning we all try to present the best side of ourselves dont we? And if your already taking on the role of caretaker, fixer this early on it suggests there is a
rocky road ahead. These 4 months may have been the best they can be. Alcoholism is progressive and so is codependancy. The more you do the more he will need and on and on. Before you know it your addicted to him as much as hes addicted to alcohol. Sorry to sound so doom and gloom. It just seems to be the way it is and has been for many of us. If its a partner to be a father and a husbamd your looking for then i think hes telling you how not ready for that role he is. Theres no quick fix either because you want there to be. Its only him who can want it and the old aa isnt for me patter is a bit of a sign he doesnt want it all that much. If an alcoholic really wants it and really needs it hes gojng to try aa realistically dont you think? It worldwide, in every community, run by and for alcoholics, everything else is the easy option thats kind of part of the problem in the first place. Good luck and keep coming back for yourself.
Lady Bug thank you so much. I attended my first Al-Anon meeting tonight. I almost felt as though I did not deserve to be there. I have a new recovering alcoholic boyfriend who I do not live with, and I have the chance to just get out and avoid more complicated heartache down the line. There were people there who had family members, spouses, etc. I'm just a woman who fell in love with someone. For some reason though, I feel like I have to let this play out. I feel pressured to make a decision about things now. I feel like he has given and has shown me so much good, so I'm not ready to let go. I feel ashamed that I am not letting go knowing what I know this early in the game. Thank you for all of your responses.
I think anyone who finds themselves with an alcoholic deserve to be in alanon, deserve might not be the right word, need to be in alanon. Of course you have a place. It didnt take me too long in alanon to see that the reasons i stayed with an alcoholic were within me and most likely way before so i had work to do and it was alanon that showed me who i am and why i do what i do. An alcoholic tends to be emotionally unavailable, any addict is really, preoccupied with their drug of choice. For me this meant an alcoholic was perfect because he didnt look too closely at me so he never left me. Unfortunately, my own inner issues grew and progressed right alongside his. Shame was part of it for me too but its useless, it takes away your confidence. You have done nothing wrong, nothing to be ashamed of. Its hard to face the stark truth, it takes the rose coloured glasses off and who wants that early on in a relationship. It took me years to realise i couldnt change or fix him or his disease. I thought i was the special one who would do it. It was never my job, it was always his. Noone will tell you to leave and even if they did the chances are your gojng to do exactly what you want. Women dont always leave. The ones who stay who are happy work a really good program. Alanon will help you whether you stay or leave.
Thank you el-cee and ladybug for those responses. This really helps. The feelings of shame and stupidity for not wanting to do what should be a "no-brainer" (which would be LEAVE FOR GOOD) still linger, but I did not know all the ins and outs of this disease before I started dating him. Ladybug, that is interesting that you said women go to the meetings because of their exes, etc.
Here's the latest. The bf is on day 6 of the relapse. I haven't really seen him much in those 6 days, except to pick up some things from his house, I refused to see him other than that. Today I found out (I asked and he told me) that yesterday and today he added cocaine in the mix... which absolutely devastated me. He said that he was doing it to pick him up out of the dragginess that the alcohol brings you into. I told him that I can have zero contact with him at all. No more talking/texts/emails/etc. In a way I just hope that he gives up on me, and that I won't have to make any decision. He says he can't lose me and that I mean the world to him. A couple days ago I gave him the ultimatum that one of you suggested: I'm walking away from this relationship if you don't partake in active recovery to the best of your ability. After today's cocaine news though, I am trying to emotionally walk away and come to grips with this awful situation that I got into. I'm just worried that something bad will happen to him. I never thought he would start with the coke now, but I thought to ask him about it because I remember him saying he dabbled in it in the past. I feel that is extreme guilt and shame has prolonged his relapse. I have said to him many times that you can only contact me if you want me to point you in some good directions for intense recovery help.
Do any of you have some tips for emotionally letting go, so I can try to move on. My fear is that he's going to say "look at me" I am getting help now, I'm sober, etc... can we see each other. My heart hurts for this guy, and I feel bad for him. The authentic "real" him is such an amazing person.. obviously not this Mr. Hyde side.
Keep taking care of you! Your abf needs to take care of
Himself. The addict needs to want to help themselves
Get better for their own good not yours. His recovery
Is his business to tend to.
Keep attending alanon for your healing. It is a me program
About healing and growing ourselves in spite of the addict.
You will learn usefull tools such as loving detachment and
Good healthy boundaries. Learn about self love, self care
And self acceptance. It is a great program for self reflection
And growth.
Imagine if you just met him and this is what you were seeing. You can call it a "Mr. Hyde" side of him....BUT, I caution that his addiction is not just some fake monster side of him. It is a real side and it's the real him also. So if you just met him and he was getting wasted and doing cocaine pick me ups....would you think he was worth chasing and worrying over? Or would you be afraid for yourself and set some boundaries to get away from someone with that many problems? I'm only saying this because you asked how to emotionally detach some.
P.S. - You are also owning his guilt and shame and feeling it for him. Try not to assume what "feelings" a numbed out intoxicated binging alcoholic/addict is having. Right now he wants to get drunk and high and is just a trainwreck in pretty much every way. You are taking your sober functioning emotions, thoughts, and feelings and applying them to a self-sabotaging, emotionally crippled drunk/addict. Also...when he said he "dabbled" with cocaine. That is addict talk for "I am a coke addict also and this is how I groom and prep you to see if you run away in case I relapse." It all it was was "dabbling', he would have kept it to himself.
