The material presented
here is not Al-Anon Conference Approved Literature. It is a method
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I just found this website and have not been to a meeting YET. My husband is halfway through a month-long rehab program. He drank heavily for 7 years before I met him, but hasn't touched alcohol for 20 years. But he has had an issue with prescription painkillers for about 15 years and displays what I'm told are "classic alcoholic behaviors." I'm scrambling to learn what I can about this, but apparently I've been in denial about his addiction almost as long as he has. He consented to go to the treatment center, not because he admitted there is a problem, but because *I* thought he had a problem and he would go because he wants to save our marriage.
I'm sure I've enabled him to continue his addiction, but I don't understand how to relate to him any other way. He does have legitimate pain issues because of numerous surgeries, etc. He is also the type of guy that everyone loves! He's funny and kind and loving (and very subtly manipulative)...and part of that is why it's been hard for me to admit that he does have a very real problem. I understand the principle of boundaries, but don't fully understand what they should be or look like. And I've been told I need to detach, but I don't understand what that means or what it looks like. I love him very much and don't understand how to be supportive and detached at the same time.
I want to be able to understand this better so I know what to do or how to respond when he comes home in two weeks. Any suggestions?
Welcome to the board. It seems that you still have half a brain left so that's good. When I got to this program after years in the disease and a very intense marriage/relationship with my alcoholic wife, the only thing holding my ears apart was silly putty!!
There is loads of supportive, loving and caring and sage experience coming your way. You will not learn this program over night as it didn't take over night to get concerned and come here.
Addiction is a disease. Denial is just one small powerful piece of it. Without denial the disease would not run its full course into insanity, death or sobriety.
He is in rehab...don't take responsibility for that. If he is there because "you" thought he had a problem, suggest to him that he listen to the therapist so that he can learn to own "his" problem. Can he admit he is alcoholic or is that to him "was" an alcoholic. Is he now not an alcoholic ("classic symptoms" you've been told) because he over does pain medication? Lots of addicted people have done and still do that and use the same justifications/denial. Let it go over your head without getting tangled in your hair. Don't get caught up in it.
One of the first detachments I learned was to detach from participating in the debate or the drama of our alcoholism. When I participated I usually helped to keep the momentum of the disease merry-go-round going. I detached...got off the merry-go-round. I stopped debating it with her and stopped reacting to the drama of it. When I stopped participating the whole thing changed...alot!!
Try learning the difference between enabling and helping. For me enabling means that regardless of my own good intentions whatever I do makes the problem continue and get worse along with my alcoholics decisions and wants. (She wanted to drink...I wanted to help her. I helped her and she drank more!! She got more alcohol...I got more crazy). Enabling took the form of me just stepping in and taking over where I thought I knew the right thing or best or most convenient thing to do for her. I found out I knew nothing about alcoholism, what it was, how it worked and how it affected the alcoholic and those enmeshed with the alcoholic. I learned all that stuff here and mostly in face to face meetings....years of them...28 and counting thank God.
When my alcoholic had the time, facility and ability to seek her own solutions to her own problems and I stepped in and took over for her? I was enabling the problem of her addictive drinking to continue.
When my alcoholic lacked any of the three; time, facility and ability to seek her own solutions AND I asked her if she needed help AND was asked to participate...that was helping. That's how I try to do it today. Helping is a different process than enabling and has a different (invalid and assumptive) mindset. I am better at helping today than before. I have lots of time to fill my own needs rather than running around trying to fulfill others needs before my own. (enabling and fixing). I suffer less from anger and resentment against myself and others also.
There is so much to learn and you are so in the right place to learn it.
Keep coming back...often. Listen to and take suggestions. Take what you like and leave the rest for later on but take some of this and start your healing. There are many others here willing and ready to help you, so stick around. Hope some of this has helped.
((no I don't usually stay up this late but I've got a mama goat about to pop and don't want to miss it))
Hi Morning Glory, welcome to MIP!! Your questions about boundaries and detatchment are right on! And Jerry explained it really well.
When I first heard the term 'detatchment' I had a host of assumptions about what it must mean I should do. It had a semi negative connotation to me, anyway.
For me detatchment began when I understood my alcoholics behavior as being diseased. I couldn't reconcile the man I married with this fool wrecking our retirement. It made no sense at all, how could a person change like that? Well, if they have that special what it takes to be an alcoholic, that's how they can!
Then, these typical alcoholic/addict behaviors that hurt so much were not personal to me. Yes, he did to me, and he is responsible for his actions, but he is one messed up, half crazy a$$hole. It's like getting your feelings hurt when a mosquito bites you. Yes, it burns and stings, but that's what mosquitos do.
Alcoholics and addicts do what they do whether or not we get right in the middle of it or leave the room. These are my 'takes' on this subject, anyway. As I get better at detatchment, I am calmer, able to enjoy the moment (most of the time), able to forget the stinging words or temper tantrum and go about my day. I never thought THIS is how I'd begin to experience some peace . . . by just letting go of him.
It sounds strange to new ears but there is even more love in detatchment than clinging and controlling (and in my case, shouting and screaming and giving cruel lectures to him). It's like when my son was about to be born, I thought how can I love another child as much as I love my three year old daughter? Would I love her less, or him not quite as much? Silly fear!
Thank you so much for taking the time to respond to me. I think I have a little clearer picture now. Thanks, Jerry, for the clear delineation between enabling and helping.
I know I'm just at the very beginning of this...I'm fluctuating between wondering how an intelligent person like myself could have not realized all of this earlier; to being angry that we're in this situation; to being very sad and overwhelmed by it all. I've talked to my husband's counselor a little, and she says he still hasn't admitted that he has a problem and that he had quite a denial system going. She does say that she feels they're making some breakthroughs in that area, and he's going to do Step 1 next week. Sigh.
I will be going to a recovery group meeting tonight--my first. I'm not sure what to expect, but I know I need to go.
Please get to meetings for yourself your going to be needing support , amazing that he is in detox but dosent see that he has a problem -go figure . there is nothing u can do about his problem but alot u can do for yourself . Al-Anon or Narnon will get u on track . Get your life back and leave him to recover his way. I mean let go, this is his problem and he is the only one that can fix it . not leave him as in separate . good luck Louise
Doesn't really matter, if he sees that he has a problem or not. YOU see that there is something wrong. Whether he goes into it kicking and screaming and denying, or whether he embraces recovery wholeheartedly, it is still HIS recovery - nothing you can do about it. However, there is a lot you can do for yourself.
I did everything that I could think of to make my husband sober up. None of it worked. Finally, I just gave up, make a commitment to myself that the next time his crazy behaviour had me taking the kids to a motel for the night, I would leave him. Since nothing I did worked, I would just stop trying. I felt guilty about this, but felt it was necessary, for the sake of the kids. Well, waddaya know.... the crazy behaviour calmed down. Not altogether, and not all at once, but slowly, over the course of maybe 6 - 8 months, we went from a family where there was a screaming fight 5 nights out of the 7, to a family where it had been a months since a harsh word was said - then years. His drinking did not stop. His drugging did not stop. What changed was *I* stopped taking it personally. When I stopped holding up my end of the crazy tent, it just kinda collapsed. When he was home and feeling good, we were a happy family. When he was gone, or sleeping it off, we were still a happy family, just smaller. I stopped asking from him what he could not provide. The next three years were OK - it was sad, seeing him drift farther and farther into addiction, but the kids and I were basically all right. Then, with absolutely NO input from me, he sobered up. That was four years ago.
So many of us confuse support with enabling and suffocating. Support means "I love you and care what happens to you, and I truly hope you get better." It does not mean "I will move heaven and earth to get you better, I will sacrifice myself on the altar of your sickness..." All our sacrifice, all our pain, all our 'doing it for them' does not help even one little bit. The only one who can get him better is himself, with the help of his higher power. There is, however someone whom you can heal - yourself.
