The material presented
here is not Al-Anon Conference Approved Literature. It is a method
to exchange
information, ideas, feelings, problems and solutions on a personal
level.
Ive been reading a lot of touching stories and I felt the urge to write my own. I come from a really amazing family full of teachers, leaders, social activists, and brave souls. Within this mix of beauty and pride, there are also alcoholics, addicts, and family members that suffer from mental illness. My father is a recovering alcoholic and NOW works at one of the best substance and alcohol abuse recovery centers in the country as a counselor. Every year at his sobriety birthday, he tells his story and it always makes me cry.
He and my mom divorced when I was seven years old. He used pot and binged on the weekends and hit bottom when he came home and sexually abused my older sister. I remember how completely devastated I was by it all. My dad went to treatment and my parents divorced. I couldnt understand why they couldnt make it work. My brother and I spent the weekends visiting my Dad in the nearby town. We spent a lot of quality time together and I respected my Dad so much for getting help and working his program.
The years passed and I made the decision to live with my father and step-mother and go to a higher quality school. It was a great decision for me and I was able to heal much of what happened and my father was very present and dedicated to me in high school. My Dad moved away before I went to college to find a better job and I graduated with honors and went on to teach in the big city.
I am now 27 years old and am living abroad. The alcoholism and addiction is hitting me full on now in my marriage. I thought that since my Dad recovered and our family had overcome so much, that I too would find balance and health in a relationship. A healthy marriage is one of the most important things to me. Well, I am finding myself in the role of the enabler. My husband is addicted to marajuana and uses daily. I love him dearly and appreciate him in every day. However, he can be verbally abusive, distant, and moody. He spends most of his salary on drugs and I have taken on all of the expenses. His friends are users and seem to be going nowhere with their futures.
My mother recently visited us and he wasnt using pot. Well, it was sort of a disaster and he decided that he hated my mother and said all of these terrible hurtful things about her. He almost left and our relationship became a nightmare. I find Alanon during this time when things became completely unmanageable.
I often ask myself how I am repeating the same patterns that I observed in my mother. After all of these years of seeing my father recover and become sober...I ask myself...HOW did I end up with an addict?????? It boggles my mind and frustrates me to no end that I am still carrying the disease. It scares me to think I could pass it on to my children. It worries me that I could bring children into a world of addiction, chaos, and self-destruction. Im not pregnant, but my husband and I both do want to have children together. I read all of the stories about A's leaving and screwing everything up and it kills me to think it could also happen to me.
I want my husband to be a dedicated, clean, and recovering father. I know I cant change him, though and that is what is so frustrating. I dont want my kids to have to see Daddy lighting up and depending on Pot to be happy. I want him to be 100% present in their lives. The way it is going right now, though, is that he would only be present with them when he is high. What are the chances he is going to recover? I feel like Im just sitting around waiting for him to stop smoking pot so we can get on with our lives together. It is sick.
I love the life I have created in so many ways. I feel like my relationship has a number of aspects that are not aligned with my desires, though. Im trying to get my own personal support system, though and get on this site as much as I can. It has really helped. Im also trying to set clear financial bounderies with him and just focus on ME and MY needs when I start getting crazy about what he is doing.
I am on the path to recovery and I know that makes my Father proud. If he knew exactly what I was dealing with and living with, I think it would make him totally sick and feel like a failure. I know he supports me, though, and wants me to be happy and get a support network. He is really worried about me. When I get depressed, I just think about him and his story and that he was painting houses and drinking himself to death and he turned his life around and is now helping families of alcoholics in the recovery process. I have hope, I have faith and I am on this journey one step at a time. It has been healing to write this down. Thanks for all of your wisdom and support.
thank you for sharing your story. your father is in recovery. good for him. one of the things i had to learn was, my recovery was not my childrens recovery. it was not my fathers recovery, nor, my husbands recovery. it is MY RECOVERy. i was absolutely devastated when i realized the disease of alcoholism didn't disappear with my father. the affects of alcohol lives on in my life. how hard it was for me to realize, especially as a mother, i have no control over alcohol. that the changes i made in my life did not mean that the people around me would change, that this horrible disease and its effects would continue to run it's course, and, the only thing i can do is to have........, THE COURAGE TO CHANGE. not for my father, my mother, my children, my husband, FOR ME.
I believe we vegitate to what is familiar to us. so of course you married an A. My A is so much like my father.
My father was not A though but he was sorta cold like sometimes. Not really there.
Makes me feel so sad for you. I relate to what you want, sad what you have. The only answer is to live with it as it is or change you. We cannot change them.
