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.
My AH abruptly signed himself into detox two days ago. I am angry, frustrated, resentful. No plan, no conversation. I do not have faith that this is it. Rather, I believe it is just a smoke screen. I had asked him to sign some legal papers that he found threatening...what a better escape.
Yet, there is that part of me that wants to believe that he is ready to do something. But he is so far from the person that I fell in love with, that I want to raise our children with. For god's sake, I had to hear from the social worker at the hospital (24 hours later) just to believe that that was actually where he was. How far the trust has gone, that I cannot even believe him when he tells our son that he is at a hospital and safe. I really thought he could be lieing and that he was out on a binge.
I know that i just need to keep the focus on myself, do the next right thing for me and our children. I know this in my head, but seem to be at a crossroad and am just not ready to make a decision. I suppose that I have made a decision of sorts and that is that I just cannot do this anymore. This being living with active addiction. So what that means, I do not know. I can just ask my Higher Power for guidance and courage. For Him to show me His will for me.
I realize that I am rambling a bit and will close now. Just needed to put this out there and get some ESH.
Dear Confused - You are NOT alone in your desparation. I too live there. What to do? That is always the question. And even if I make up my mind one day, the next it has changed.
I was just thinking all week how it was probably time for my AH to go b/c he had been in a pisser of a mood since last Thurs. That was setting off my sensors, making me think he was craving cocaine and he was fighting it....but I figured he would lose the battle and disappear on a binge again. I was telling myself all week, "Let him go get messed up, change the door locks AGAIN and don't let him back this time." BUT THEN.....I got home yesterday from work and he was in a GREAT mood. I told him that I was glad his mood had picked up and he said he had been praying to God that he would help him to change his mood and get passed it. He said he had been doing A LOT of praying over the last week. So all is well again...but for how long?
As far as trust and believing the AH when he calls and says he is somewhere and will be home at a certain time....I am much like you.....I tend to not believe him...I need proof. Too many times he has lied...to many times he has said he would be home in 30 min or an hour or a few hours....but not show up until the next day, the next week, the next month. I know...I have been there.
Keep your chin up and find a few minutes to relax, pray, meditate....whatever helps you to think it through.
The "fallout" of alcoholism . . . for me, what you describe (both Confused and QOD) is so familiar. QOD, I did change all the locks and put up a new one on the gate during one of my A's binges this winter.
When I was feeling desperate because of a recent "incident" with my A, it was easy to say "NO MORE", I can't live like this. Then of course I expected NOT to live 'like this' but did anyway. For months I asked my A to leave the home and leave me alone, but he wouldn't leave, and I found myself settling into a cycle of "Well, here he is, now deal with it" and "whew, whew, he's gone".
Never once did I think I could tolerate this forever. But it was out of my hands. It was a lesson in what I did have control over, and what boundaries I could set both within myself and in the world. And, living with the consequences of my choices. We Alanoners have to learn that just as much as the A.
I got so exhausted emotionally trying to keep up with the A, to stay by his side, to wonder whether or not he was being honest or really meant what he said this time. I learned that words mean less than actions, and there was usually no indecision on my part when I made my conclusions based on the A's actions (not words). He was one where there was such a gulf between words and actions it was cut and dried, and it's not that way for everyone. He is end stage in the disease, and was mostly crazy.
The kind of frustration both of you above describe is probably too close to home for me to really give ESH, well, perhaps I can do the E honestly. All I could do was get out of the way for the rest.
Merry-go-rounds also use to nauseate me and I can't stand the tinney music anymore. I got off the ride and was dizzy for a while until I got to the program. I just needed to sit down and listen, learn and practice. Of the many slogans that were being offered I found "when in doubt don't" worked so well for me in my confusion and that helped me decide to "don't" do anything with my spinning mind. So what was I gonna do with the problem that I wasn't gonna do anything with? "Let go and let God" "Turn it Over" "Live and let live" "This too will pass" and a few others. At first these seemed to trite for me and I was told I was habitually caught up in the problem and had a compulsion for doing the impossible, feeling overly responsible for others and fixing the what I had not broken. "Okay" I thought that pretty well makes me toast in the alcoholic situation...I am doomed. The language of this program said that this might me true if I refused to practice practice practice what the program suggested rather than what my compulsion was demanding...."Give it 90 days of program and much less of your compulsions" was the suggestions.
Oh My Gawd!! was what I realized after 30 days and I still struggled at less times pulling on the leash trying to get my alcoholic down the same path I was now walking. No deal!! she wasn't gonna do it and because she was the elephant and I was the mouse I felt like I was gonna be drug back to the Merry-Go-Round. Had to drop the leash (detatchment) and let her lumber off to where ever for what ever reason at what ever time with whom ever she did it with at what ever place they were gonna do it. I was learning not to participate in my own demise. What a novel concept of loving without leashing; not reacting to anyone elses behaviors, thoughts and beliefs and allowing myself to be led by a power greater than the alcoholic/addict. What a concept!! What a way of life!! The alcoholic and the world doesn't have to please me and I don't have to please anyone else but HP and me.
MLK..."Free at last; Free at last; Thank GOD, I'm free at last"
You know i gave the A a check recently to cover where he was living. The person part of it was blank. Last night I heard from the person that they thought the check had bounced. It hadn't but I immediately went into this huge distrust place with the A. I know it is out of my hands.
Today I am in overload. My job is hard. My homelife is hard. The A is up to his usual tricks. I know I do not want to live like this.
At the same time I'm not yet able to walk right away.
So I have to like others suggest go back to the tools of the program. For today I am taken care of.
Some day I will be at a place where I can simply walk away from him. I'm not there yet.
I am though at a place where I can set limits. One is to let him pay his own parking tickets. He can alos pay his own bills from now on too.
I'm not living with him, he claims he is working. He can deal with it. I have my own issues to deal with. I have plenty of them.
