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1st time here. lost and confused. my boyfriend died 6 days ago while dui. beer marijuana and klonopin . 50-70 mph, car slid on grass shoulder and catapulted into brick wall then tree. we have one year old son. i am still in shock. he quit drinking on his own(no AA,no rehab). when we moved away from old crowd-18 mos. sober-just recently started suggesting he craved beer, but he thought he could handle. i knew he could not, advised against it. he seemed to make light of it, came home drunk a few nights, made light of it when i expressed concern and asked him directly to stop drinking. so he started hiding from me how much he was actually drinking-found beer cans hidden in various spots, car he was in smelled of alcohol. i am wrought with guilt that i could have prevented this-that my son is now without a father because of me, what i did or didn't do. whatever stressors our relationship may have placed upon him that led him back to alcohol.
My dear thing, I am so sorry for your loss. You have come to the right place for support. We who love those with addiction problems spend a great deal of time trying to figure out how to help them. Unfortunately, it is not in our hands, it is in theirs. This is not a concept that comes to us easily or willfully. Your boyfriend made his own decisions, you did not make them for him nor did you have any control him, even if you tried. You are not in any way at fault. I hope you will seek out some face to face meetings, read all you can about the disease of addiction. It can also be beneficial to find a grief counselor to help you through this loss.
I don't have the words to express my sorrow for you and your child, just do the best you can to take care of yourself. God Bless
I'm so sorry! They always say that there are 3 endings for addicts/alcoholics - jail, mental institution and death. I too lost the father of 2 of my children to alcohol and then ended up with another alcoholic to make a third. Alcoholics drink because of something inside themselves, not because of you or anything you did or could have done. You didn't cause this and there was no way you could have cured it. I know you must be in terrible grief. I was lucky that when mine died we were not together anymore, it still hurt but wasn't completely devastating. You have my heartfelt sympathy, just know this is not your fault!
Also, in support of your child, he is entitled to survivor benefits from social security and the sooner you sign up the sooner you will have a little more income and hopefully that will ease some of the financial burden of losing his monetary support. Just a thought and one less thing to have to worry about in this awful time.
So sorry - I lost my own husband last month, I know what you are going through.
One thing though - you could NOT have prevented this; you did not make him pick up that bottle or that joint. You were not powerful enough to make him stop, and not powerful enough to make him start. He may have told you it was your fault, but that is common with alcoholics - just a way of avoiding making that hard slow long trek to sobriety.
If you are anything like me, your feelings right now are a mess - grief at losing him, relief that the whole "problem" that he posed is now over, guilt at feeling any relief, and on and on. People are probably offering help and support - TAKE IT. Let yourself feel what you feel, and give yourself time to feel it. Face to face alanon meetings can be useful just now, because they are a safe place to say whatever you need to, where you can't hurt or shock anybody. Come here, too, anytime you need to.
Oh, KLM, I am so sorry for your loss. Please keep coming to the board and try to find some face-to-face meetings when you are able. I can't say much more than what everyone else has said. Just know that truly, there was nothing you could have done. Most of us on this board have tried for years to do something to stop the drinking or the drugging, and have painfully learned that it is not ours to stop. You are not responsible for the choices someone else makes, even though you think that there was some way you could have intervened. There's nothing on earth that most of us haven't tried, and, if any of them worked, none of us would be on this board. We can offer you understanding and support, but no answers as to why. That's something that we've learned to let God handle - it's not, and never was in our power to change another human being. I will keep you and your son in my prayers. Know that you are accepted here, and that the hope that is shared on this board will touch your life in such a positive way. Take care, Marion
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Vocatus atque non vocatus, Deus aderit ("Bidden or not bidden, God is present") - Erasmus
My heart goes out to you sweetie. I'm so sorry for your loss. When reading your post it brought me back to my AH 3 months ago as he was using the exact same substances. I don't think there is anything that you could have done to prevent this tragic event from happening. Please try not to beat yourself up with guilt over it. Your A chose to use that combination of substances, his disease allowed him to take that gamble and it turned out badly for him. As much as I know how badly you and your child will miss him, his fight with this disease is over now. May he rest in peace. Please keep coming back to us, we are here for you.
Peace to you and your son, Twinmom~
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"The people who don't mind matter and the people who mind, don't matter". (Dr. Seuss)
Sorry for your loss as well. Sadly, this is how alot of addicts turn out sometimes sooner then later. I agree with what everyone has said. I am a mother of three ages 7,6,6 and I know how scary it feels on your own even if it's just one child. A child can survive just fine with one parent and you can be everything to your son. A child only needs food, shelter and love...everything else is a bonus.
Since my son's father isn't around much I find boy things for him to do such as cubscouts, karate, things like that. Your son will be just fine. When he is old enough you can explain to your son. My son that's seven knows about alcoholism. Your child is young enough that the death of his father will not affect him as much as an older child.
It's ok to grieve sweetheart. Have friends help you with your child. You can get through this and there will be happy days ahead. It's not your fault that your boyfriend died. You couldn't do anything. Trust me when I say that we all here have done everything to get our A's to stop and we are powerless. It was his choice and very bad luck. Don't take that burden on. There was nothing you could do differently.
Take care of your son, that's what is important and always has been. Please give your little one big hugs from us.
Keep coming back. You and your dear son are in my prayers ^i^
Klm, what just happened to you and your son is just about everyone here's worst nightmare. I'm so glad you came here to tell us, it's terrible news and nothing can ever be the same now. You my dear need all the support and love you can get, and there isn't a bunch of people who know better than Alanon members.
Though he's passed away now, consider Alanon a home away from home, a place to come and be with others who have been where you are. Sadly, what happened to your boyfriend is all too common to some of us, and like stated already, losing them to death is always on our minds.
Use this board when you can't get to a real meeting because of the baby, someone is always around, and there's much support for you here. I'm so sorry you are having to go through this. Please take good care of you, we already love you here :) Kim
Please do not take on the responsibility for this...you did not cause it, you could not control it and you could not cure it. I am so sorry for your loss, I can only imagine how hard this must be for you and I know from my own experience it is the fear of him dying or killing someone else that gets me to behave in the insanity of the disease. Please know there was absolutely nothing you could do. Without a change in coping skills, thinking and the support of fellowship, this disease progresses regardless of what we do. Please be kind to yourself and if possible get to a local Al-anon meeting to help you through (or keep posting here). It would be a shame for your son to lose his mom in the insanity of guilt - you are not responsible. Hang in there....lots of love and hugs to you and this awful time of mourning. You are not alone.
Please accept my sympathy in the loss of your precious loved one.
I always hate to hear of the disease taking another one from this world.
As others have said, please know that: You didn't cause it You couldn't control it You couldn't cure it
The disease of alcoholism and addiction is NOT your fault. For me, to cope with the ways that I have been affected by these diseases I have found help through coming to this site, attending Al-Anon meetings, talking with others in recovery, reading recovery literature and working the 12-Steps in Al-Anon. As you are ready, I believe that these things may help you, too. Also, there may be other grief groups who have lost loved ones that may offer support to you in this painful time.
Please know that others care and would like to be there to help you.
((hugs))
Rita
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No matter what me and my God are going to be ok, even better than OK -
thanks to everyone for their replies. i felt so alone. 9 days since my A died. i am trying to do normal things, but every second my mind is actively thinking, "he is dead". i said he had not drank for 18 months, mostly due to the birth of our son. so it seemed so strange that this could happen after not drinking for so long. i feel a lot of guilt like what could i have done or i should have forced him to do something. i suggested he stop, sugg. he go to an AA meeting, but I didn't take his hand and force him to go. i feel he could still be here and had a chance at recovery one day if only..... I guess he and maybe i as well-didn't think he needed active AA participation and thought he was really "sober" for 18 mosbecause we didn't understand the disease. he was smoking pot the entire time, HEAVILY. which he rationalized to me by saying it KEPT him from drinking, calmed him down. then began adding xanax, then switching to klonopin-he said to deal with daily life and not be obsessive and yelling at me and the kids, blowing up over small things. he was taking 5-6 a day instead of the 3 prescribed by the dr. i have read a lot about cross-addiction and the way I understand is that the pot was a big deal-only switching substances until it leads you back to the alcohol. we fought about the pot, i told him he needed to at the minimum curb it. he was doing it 1st thing in am, late morn, after work, before a movie, again before bed, leaving me and our baby while we were out on outings to go to a bathroom or behind a building and smoke-couldn't wait an hour until we got back to the house,also said he thought about it on way home from work, 1st thing he wanted to do. it didn't seem normal to me, he kept saying it wasn't a big deal, and "would you rather me be drinking"?. i saw someone post here that someone on pot is not sober, still an active addict. i felt it the whole time, but he kept trying to make me believe and sometimes succeeded, that i was overreacting.
I hope that you are able to get at least a little rest and that you have people around who are supporting you.
Again, I have to say that there was nothing you could have done. Pot, pills, alcohol - addiction is addiction, and unless the A deals with it as an addiction, nothing will change. Yes, you could have taken his hand and dragged him to an AA meeting. Do you think he would have jumped right into the program and thanked you for saving his life? Or do you think that taking away his right to make choices in his life (even destructive choices) would have made him resent you for treating him like a child rather than an adult. Your feeling is probably "if it kept him alive, I wouldn't care if he resented me", but if an A is going to AA to get someone off his back (that's the reason court-ordered programs usually don't have long-term success), it's just a matter of time before he starts using again - understandable, since he didn't want to quit in the first place and didn't think he had a problem to begin with.
We've all been through the rationalizations of the addict - isn't it better if I drink at home instead of going to a bar? okay, I drink too much, but I don't hit you! if I don't smoke pot, I'll start drinking again, and you don't want that, do you? And you're absolutely right - at one time or another, I imagine all of us have accepted that rationalization because sometimes we're so tired of the chaos we just go along to get along. You're not in this alone. Keep coming back to the board, when you can. Things that 'normal' (non-Alanon) people think are absolutely insane, we understand right away, and certainly don't judge anyone for making the decisions they made under totally out-of-control situations. You are among friends.
Take care, Marion
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Vocatus atque non vocatus, Deus aderit ("Bidden or not bidden, God is present") - Erasmus
thank you for your words. Why I am blaming myself a lot because we moved 4500 miles for a family bus. opp for him, I was pregnant when we got here, homesick, left job, dog fam, friends and my own home that i had just bought behind. felt like identity taken away. he was so hurt, rensentful angry at me when he was not drinking but was using pot, then pot/pills because he took it as a rejection that he had done so much, flew me to paradise, stopped drinking-coming home everynight, being the provider that I still wasnt happy. he felt i've done everything for you, why not happy. i explained over and over how much I loved him, but that I was having a hard time here adjusting, felt out of place etc. A lot was because he could be verbally harsh sometimes mean to my 10 year old son. It created some resentment. think i had postpartum depression, we both had abandonment issues and a very colicky baby,trying to adjust to living together for first time, i'm hypersensitive, somewhat needy and he could be v. critical and condescending , stepchildren etc. our arguments got very verbally ugly, twice got physical. when i started feeling a little better i harped on him for things like not helping me enough with the baby and not being attentive enough to me, being mean to my older son etc., smoking too much pot, being disengaged-things i thought at the time were valid and most young couples would struggle with .he said a couple months ago, "you act like I'm such a terrible person and I dont think i am as terrible as you think i am" his dad and stepmom insinuated that it may have helped if Ihad been "stronger", more supportive to him and happy myself so it would have been smoother for him. Things had been getting better, I thought. My son is one and I was finally starting to feel more like myself. I was getting out more, happier etc. So I don't understand why now he started drinking. Only a few weeks into the drinking, and he's dead after no alcohol for 18 mos. just doesn't make sense. He had been working a side job with a guy who was drinking beer everyday after, sometimes during the workday-that seems be when it started. He seemed happy the past few weeks before accident, his buddy from home explained to me that he did not have to be pressured, unhappy or in a relationship to drink. want to believe but fear my own baggage/pressure pushed him over edge. sad for my little son won't remember his daddy, because his dad did love him so.
