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

Dancer, I am glad you have found comfort and hope in alanon. I have found that's just one benefit of the program -- hope, comfort, serenity, and the ability to learn how to face and cope with this disease, and the impact it has on loved one's. It is a horrible, decimating disease. The success one can find is of course subjective. It is in the eye of the beholder. It can be completely decimating to live with someone who is in complete and total denial -- about everything -- their disease, the impact it is having on others. It happened to me. I went through that. For many years. A few times, I just wished the pain, everything, would just go away. I saw no end in site, and just wanted it all to be over.

That said, success is a relative term. People find all different types and definitions of success. What does success mean to you, and it can certainly be different than one it means to me. There are countless scenarios. Looking at -- how to live with an alcoholic who is still drinking, well, that can be very different than living with an alcoholic who has found recovery. This has long been a topic of discussion at many meetings, many discussions, etc. In all my years in the program, and in all my experience, I've seen many successes, as you refer to it.

I've seen people, where there spouse has found recovery, and they were not happy after they found recover. And, that's for many reasons. Sounds strange. My good friend, wanted nothing more than to just have his wife stop drinking. He's been in the rooms 45 years. His wife hit rock bottom, found recovery 20 years ago, and he was shocked that he was still not happy. His wife's 'ism's had manifested. She became a different person. And he didn't like who she had become. So be it. Alcoholics find recovery -- sometimes for reasons other than themselves -- and their journey is just that, their journey. However, even when the alcoholic finds recovery, the 'ism's can still exist. On the other hand, I've seen people where the spouse finds recovery, and while life might be different, there is happiness. That's success.

What I find more common is when the alcoholic doesn't find recovery. What does a spouse do then? How do they feel then? Well, I've heard spouse's say even though the alcoholic is still drinking, they (the spouse) are still happy. For them, that's happy, that's success. Maybe they've figured out how to make life manageable, bearable, tolerable, or something along those lines? Maybe they've settled and have become happy by lowering their standards. Maybe they have been able to build some sort of life for themselves and have become somewhat immune to the alcoholic and their drinking. And, maybe some of them are truly happy. I think it's to each their own, case by case, and each person and situation is different. We hear in the opening of alanon meetings (face to face) that "you can find contentment, even happiness, whether the alcoholic is still drinking or not."

For me, while all of it was going on, the drinking, the byproduct from it -- I went completely unfulfilled for many years -- emotionally, spiritually, personally, mentally, you name it. I figured out how to get by, day by day. I figured out how to make it work. I figured out how to make life work while this was going on. The need having to do with intimacy, love, affection, and so on -- seeking it from another, an affair, or whatever you want to call it -- that was not possible for me. But those things weren't vital, critical, etc., during that period of time. I did find myself in a mode, in a place, where I stopped loving her as a wife, partner, but I still had compassion for her, and love for her, as a sick human being, who I once loved, who was in trouble and was emotionally bankrupt. Even at that point, I wasn't thinking divorce because that too for many reasons was not an option. Not at that point. My needs were not being met. Period. There was no fooling myself around that. My definition, my standards, for happy -- just kept getting lower and lower. At a certain point, I found recovery. That's when my world changed. That's when my life changed. At that point -- it was about my life. It had nothing to do with whether or not she was still drinking. 

I think when I was in a place where it had to do with her recovery -- then it wasn't about me. If I wanted the "marriage" regardless of what that meant, more than I wanted my happiness, then I was able to let the tail wag the dog. I was able to build a square peg...and have it not fit into the round hole. But I couldn't build the round peg. I would never be happy. That's just me.