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I know how to make it stop, but I dont like how to make it stop... Its not realy what I want, but I know it is what I should want.... talking in circles to myself my head is spinning..
20 years with an A, from one substance to another, I long for the days it was alcohol, is that bizarre or what? I love him more then anything in the world and he is killing me slowly. Today I am the enemy because I want it to stop, 90% of the time he wants it to stop too, but living in a world that money talks and Insuranceless and income less(not totally less but enough just to get by) gets you no where, he needs a good 6 month in rehab... is it also bizarre that I pray everyday for him to get arrested? I hope maybe the judge will force him into something or lock him up long enough to detox and get his mind right and back into his meetings that never seems however to last longer then 2 months.
I can say competely that I have never seen him this bad, when I think it cant get any worse ... it does. I am truly afraid that bottom is death, Im certian of it.I havent seen him for 5 days, I have spoke to him, but he is passed out somewhere sleeping it off.
His newest mantra is that "I have a disease, dont pick on me" thing, and "You are sicker then me" *living with an addict for 20 years*.. well no "S" I am sick, I am depressed and withdrawn , I grasp to hope and get let down daily! 2 weeks ago he wrote me a note to please not give up on him ..... I dont want to , but today he wants me to give up on him. He says "Leave me, you'll be better off" .... I dont want that I want the marriage I deserve, the person I love is in there, I know it is. I just cant get him to come back.
See the insanity I am dealing with? "DOnt give up on me, give up on me" ...ugh
Ive been so alone with this for 20 years , but family and friends think i have a normal life, and that kills me. If they only knew.
HI HC, welcome. I'm glad you found your way here. It is the first step to your knew life if you choose to work the steps and use the tools provided. You are not alone in this anymore. You can come here any time and find a friend. Something you said struck me: I love him more then anything in the world and he is killing me slowly. What we learn here is to love ourselves first and foremost. When we are able to do that we take care of ourselves and make some boundaries for our own protection so as not to get sucked in to the alcoholic's insanity anymore. Alanon can help you get to that place if you work the program. Please find a meeting in your vicinity. You will be welcomed with open arms and be given some very helpful literature. MIP (Miracles In Progress) also has a chatroom, the link is on the left. There are meetings there 2x a day and in between is open chat. I do hope you seek a meeting nearby that you can become a part of. There is much healing in face to face meetings.
Keep coming back, Christy
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If we think that miracles are normal, we will expect them. And expecting a miracle is the surest way to get one.
Your struggle with your alcoholic is a well known one to us. And I can certainly relate with "knowing how to stop it, but not liking HOW". I put it off for a long time, and my A continued to get more and more out of control. It got to the point I didn't CARE if I didn't like the 'how' anymore, I had had enough.
Alcoholism and addiction are a progressive and fatal disease. They ONLY get worse if the person continues to drink or use. Count on it, it's one of the truths about the condition.
Alanon taught me I can't CONTROL the alcoholic, I can't CURE his alcoholism and addictions, and I certainly did nothing to CAUSE them. That left me standing there with nothing I could do for him. I still tried :D I nagged, threatened, moved out of the bedroom, stopped cooking and cleaning up his messes, and ignored him, wouldn't sleep with him, and did my best to continue my life without him. You'd think THAT would wake a person up . . . but nope, my A has a low bottom, too.
The sooner one can accept there is NOTHING you can say or do to make him stop, the sooner your life will stabilize and the better about everything you will feel. You never could do a thing, none of us could, and in this situation, there are no exceptions to this rule. We can waste our energy until we are limp with exhaustion -- I did. I lost myself for a long time trying to wake him up. The only thing I could do in my own situation was to get him out of here however I could before he brought the whole thing down.
On this board and in face to face Alanon meetings I found a group of people who know EXACTLY what I'm going through. They don't give advice as a rule but they have not steered me wrong. I encourage you to get involved in meetings, you need friends that care about you now, and we both know how isolated we get living 24/7 with an active alcoholic.
I'm very glad you found this board, and hope you continue to read and post here. You aren't alone! And there is a solution. No doubt about it. I'm living it right now, not perfectly, but the promises of Alanon are coming true for me as I work the program. You take care of YOU first, whatever that means for you. Kim :)
Hello hc , boy do u bring back memories , don't leave me - go who cares I don't need u anyway - go your better off with out me . sheeeeeesh All is designed to keep u off balance and it works . I assume u aren't attending meetings for yourself , I hope u consider doing that , I only know one thing for sure that absolutley nothing changes til someone changes and at this point it's not gonna be him . You love him great it's okay to love an alcoholic . but learn to love yourself a little too . set boundaries for your relationship get your life back on track and regardless of what he does , YOu will be okay . and the beauty of this prog for me was I didh't h ave to leave him to do it . Am sorry he is gone for 5 days that must be scarry , sounds like he may be adding a little drugs into the mix . Remember he has a HP too and he will take him where he needs to go. good luck Louise
Thanks so much for all the support, I am slowing seeing a glimmer of hope, but a very small one, sometimes i can feel it in things I read here "Hey I think I will be OK" ...but I am very far from that yet... I dont think I have the strenght to do face to face meetings right now , I will suck the life out of the room, its a very fragile thing for someone to say to me "How are you" , it takes everything I have to not explode in tears.
For now I just read and read and read and somethings really hit on me and break me down and other things here give me that glimmer. Hard to say what it is. I will find myself again, but i got 20 years of this. I was in the meeting last night and it was great , i got sleepy at end and had to cut out around 10:15 , but I will keep doing those for now....
One thing I thought about last night was since it was step eight, right your wrongs or make amends (not totally familiar with all the steps) ... All I could think was , Ive wronged myself.... but somewhat working the program with A, I was thinking gosh is that self centered to think I have only wronged myself? ...BUT by wronging myself ,Ive wronged everyone around me, including our son, I was the rock for him and the stability in his 17 years but I dont think I was 100% the parent I wanted to be. I was stressed and panic'd and still wore that fake smile "Im fine" ..... well D&^% IT Im not fine.... Im tired of not being fine, what almost 40 yr old gets tonsilitis???? Ive been sick for the last year on and off and its wearing me out.....
My A has tried to talk me into going to AL-anon meetings and it was almost like well If I have to go you have to go sorta thing... He actually stopped at a AL-anon meeting after one of his NA meetings and bought me a bunch of books LOL...he tries, not sure what motive is there... but unfortunately I think we are at the end of our chapter as hub and wife, but I will turn that over....Im to tired anymore.
Aren't they great at making YOU think that YOU are sick? That HE is the victim? You can not play into that. The longer you stay the more sick you will get. It's not a joke hun. You will not know how to function in normal life if you keep living this way. It's not too late. If you ever get out you will wonder why someone isn't "needing" you to take care of them. Sounds like with twenty years under your belt you are programed. Do you think he is trying to get you to go to al-anon so you can learn to be with an alcoholic? Maybe he has the wrong impression. He might think it teaches you to live with an alcoholic. Does he have any clue that they help you escape and actually have a life without the alcoholic? Keep rambling....eventually you might be like me and look back at past poststhat you wrote and see you tell the same thing over and over and over and over again and you may realize OMG, it's always the same story. Time to REALLY do something about it. There is true peace once your out. I promise that. ;) (take what you want and leave the rest, this is from my own experience)
Naa he know what al-anon is all about, his thing is , "My friends from NA say Im crazy to send you there because they will tell you to leave me" honestly in some ways he is unselfish, but 90% of the time he is selfcentered due to addiction.
I still have a hard time grasping the concept of runnning away from someone that has a cronic deadly disease, he is not being treated , honestly there is the person in that soul that I love and want back and kicking and screaming "I WANT MY WAY" ... If he had cancer and you told folks that your leaving your spouse because he is sucking the life out of you ,well that would sound kinda cruel.
I cant just get up and leave I work at home and have a farm to tend to for the people I work for and lots of animals depend on me, so picking up and leaving is not an option. He would leave if I told him to, but for all I know that is what he has done now, we are on day 6 of MIA, I have butterflies in my stomach when I watch the morning news and everytime I think I hear a truck coming down the road, I have a headache that could slpit a rock from the adrenline rushes that I keep getting.
I fear he will violate our marriage on these episodes and i know if it happens it will be hard to face, but I will manage and have to decide if I can get past it or if there is no way..i dont know ... Ive never worn that hat. I dont think there is a way to recover form that.
I fear the day he does come home , since we are on day 6 I fear him, not like he would do something but i dont know how to react or what to say or not to say. Im going to just try to keep my mouth shut, but that is really really hard for me, i tend to bombbard him with "What the HELL is going on!!!!" and I know that is not good. But he almost expects that from me and will bait me to yell at him and then play victim, all the usual stuff LOL Im sure there are lots of knodding heads out there, oh yea , been there, done that. Well so have I LOL for 20 years....
There is the concern also that his health will give out on him, he once was found by passers by in his truck with no heart beat and pulse, this was 2 years ago, they did CPR on him and the paramedics had to shock his heart 3 times and shoot his heart with narcon to revive him, i was called initially that he was dead, what a joy that was...but he was in hospital sleeping it off and finally when they felt he was stable enough to go I had to walk him to my truck and it was so embarrassing, he walked worse then a crippled person ,so I played that angle walking down all these public streets to get to my truck. it was awful.
Even though I know alcoholism is a disease, I have a hard time comparing your leaving an alcoholic to leaving someone who has cancer. I think if someone you love has a chronic, deadly disease, they usually try to find a way to make it better. That's not to say that going to the doctor and getting the treatment will make the disease go away, but it's the attempt they are making. Even if they don't want treatment to prolong their life, they will often work with you to make sure their affairs are in order and that conflicts are resolved. With an alcoholic, if they are not working with you, they are working against you, or at least it seems that way. Mostly, they are working only for themselves and what they want. We become either secondary to them, or we are the obstacles to them getting what they want - meaning that they rebel at cooperating with us over just about anything, most of all, the treatment for the disease.
As for staying with him or leaving - no one in Alanon will give you that advice, but we will support you on whatever decision you make. You are among friends here, all of us have our own stories, so believe me, we DO understand your feelings. Keep posting, and take care of yourself!
Sending you hugs! Marion
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Vocatus atque non vocatus, Deus aderit ("Bidden or not bidden, God is present") - Erasmus
OK Im gonna be honest withmyself here ...if I leave him I will have to give up my 4 horses that I love incredibly, Ive had one since she was born and is now 20, one I have brought back from deaths door 2 times by my 24hr supportive care and love, vets on all accounts said he will be dead in a day or 2 and he is fine now....and my 2 young fillys from my older horse that i spent months researching and deciding when I made that breeding to create these 2 wonderful foals that are my pride and joy, i will HAVE to give them all up...yes it is headed that way at the moment anyhow, but i hold onto hope that this train wreck will get back on track.... I love my babies and they would be the one thing to help me through all this but I wont have them, and IF for some way the A gets on track after all this happens my resentment would be soooo deep there would be no going back. I could never forgive him if I lose them because I have to completely change my life.
I know your not suppose to hang onto resentment, but Im only human, I know I will. I dont hold resentment for the relapses and the lies, but this would be to much for me.
HC, I don't know if you've read many of my previous posts, and if you have you know why I relate deeply to your animal situation. I've had three relationships with addicts/alkies and my "current" A is the only one I did not leave myself.
I chose to stay and weather out whatever came my way so I would not have to let any of my goats, chickens, geese, turkeys, dogs, bugs, toads (OK, OK!) go.
I weathered it alright. My A was in a nose dive toward death or prison. When he went to jail I got an R.O. to keep him from finagling his way back in here. I'd asked him to leave multiple times but he refused.
It is entirely possible, if what you are working for is worth it. It is MUCH easier to stay peaceful and serene without my A here. That is a profound understatement. But I am so glad I did not leave, this little farm is worth it. You'll do whatever it takes when it is important enough.
Another little saying from some seminar I went to years ago . . . "What are you willing to put up with to get what you want?"
Stay awake and put your peace and serenity FIRST. That's all :) Kim
Thanks KIm, I know I have to figure out "WHat I will put up with" and that will unfold gradually Im sure... I want to be proactive, but really at this moment Im jsut sorta going along for the ride to see what heppens.
I have a feeling his substance of choice this week is one that makes him think 3 days is actually 3 hours and I am willing to bet he has no concept as to what day it is or how long he has been gone. Something with break sooner or later. I actually got some work done today and felt maybe 2% better ..... baby steps LOL less and less break down episodes, I almost feel like Ive had a death in the family.
