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.
Well this is the first time I have visited this website and thank goodness I have found it. It is just comforting to know that I am not the only person going through this. I'm not even sure if I have the right to be here or not. When I read what everyone else has written, it makes my problems seem trivial. I am at the point where I had to something, I am not sure if my husband is an alcoholic or not. I just know that his drinking has been getting more and more out of control over the past couple of months. My father is an alcoholic and the hell that he put my mother through is beginning to happen to me. All the things that my father did to my mother, my husband is now doing them to me. I don't know the last time I have had a really decent night or sleep. All the evenings start out the same for me. I come home from work and immediately start worrying about what's going to happen. Is he going to come home drunk? Is he going to come home at all? Has something happened to him? His drinking buddies are always drinking and driving, I just sit at home and work myself into a frenzy. It's such a relief when he does actually come home and hasn't been drinking at all. It just seems crazy that to me that seems like a wonderful night for me. Like I am so lucky that my husband has come home and isn't drunk. Why is that so wonderful to me? To everyone else, that is just normal life. Anyway I haven't seen him in three days now. He has been out on a drinking binge and staying in a motel and then in a friends house. I just received the usual apology call around 3:00pm today. Not sure if he was calling from work or if he was calling from the pub, I couldn't tell from teh noise in the background. Anyway, he left me a message saying the usual crap saying he's sorry and he loves me and he'll call me later. I know that's not going to happen, he'll just end up at the pub again and I'll be sitting here worried. I feel like such an idiot sometimes cause I really am sitting here thinking maybe tonight will be different. Maybe he feels bad and will come straight home from work. I am just so sick and tired of just hoping for things that aren't going to happen. I usually just sit home by myself but last night I'm proud to say I went out with my friends and had a great time, I said said to heck with him. I am not going to let his drinking ruin my life.
If your life has been affected by anothers drinking, this is the place to be. Whether you realize it or not you were probably affected by your fathers drinking too.
If you feel your problems are trivial compared to those here, look at it this way. Maybe you made a decision to get help for you long before many of us have. For that you should commend yourself.
We don't compare our trials and tribulations. Sometimes we share them. Even more often at meetings (online here or face to face) we learn how to deal with our problems. We look at the root causes of our problems which enables us to change for the better.
Imagine that, instead of something enabling the disease, we have something enabling recovery.
Welcome to the board. I hope you can join is in online meetings in the chatroom and you can also come find some face to face meetings.
Bob
__________________
You are a perfect child of God and God and I love you just the way you are! (added by me...in that special alanon way)
Welcome to this board Scottishgirl! you are in the right place, both as an adult child of an alcoholic and potentially the spouse of one. We all have our tales to tell and this is a wonderful place to learn how to survive and thrive despite our lives being affected by the addiction of others. It sounds like you've had a horrible couple of days. take care and keep coming back here- Jeanne
__________________
In the long run the pessimist may be proved right, but the optimist has a better time on the trip.- Daniel L. Reardon
Hi Scottishgirl & welcome! In my face to face meeting, they say "If someone's drinking or sobriety is bothering you, you are in the right place." If you thought everyone else's problems were more serious than yours, you obviously didn't read my LOOOOOOONG post about my daughter. She's been an alcoholic for 21 years, getting worse so slowly that it's like Chinese water torture -- one drop at a time. I can relate. You are in the right place. Try to get to a face to face meeting if you can. Everything helps. These are really helpful people here.
i can totally relate to your situation. your not alone. my a binges only once every two weeks and he too doesnt come home. i hear the same ole same ole all the time. now im just kind of like whatever. we'll see what happens. i too hope and pray the next time will somehow be different but it never has been. but since i came here ive found the tools to help me cope when he binges. thats wonderful that you got out of the house. it stops the obsessive thoughts over him. you came to the right place. keep posting, come to chat, come to one of the online meetings. anyone who's lives have been affected by another's drinking is supposed to be here. glad you found us. keep coming back
__________________
stay in the now...dont look forward, dont look back....your life is what you make of it
It helps me just to hear so many of us dealing with the same issues in life. My husband is an alcoholic, though he won't admit it. I've been married to him for 16 years--sometimes it seems like a long 60 years instead. We have two boys, ages 13 & 7 and I see them living w/o a father, basically. I can't believe my husband finds peace & contentment out at the bar (on the average 5-6 days/nights a week), but he seems to. I can look at him and not even know who he is.. this thing has such a grip on him. There's no compassion in him, no empathy. He feels absolutely nothing unless it's anger if I confront his bar-time. I'm so used to being alone almost daily/nightly.. and especially on the weekends. I hate it but when I think of having him sit home and do absolutely nothing .. it's like he can be HOME and NOT PLUGGED IN... always. I feel almost like a widow except that my dear one keeps rising from his 'grave' to haunt me. I think about being single again and that doesn't thrill me, though on the other hand, staying married and living like this, isn't at all how I want to spend the rest of my life either. Along with his bar-time, there is much emotional/verbal abuse (to me), the blame-game (everything is my fault) and just plain feeling completely abandoned. This website has saved my sanity many times. Reading the postings, knowing someone out there knows what I go through on a daily basis, knows the hurts, and cares. It's like one GIANT HUG.. Hang in there.. you are NOT alone..
Wow, your story is so much like mine. I sit here wishing that he would somehow have the strength to resist temptation (he is a bartender too). He was dry for 10 months and never went to meetings and was a jerk then too, even more so because hedidn't havehis alcohol to comfort him. But, I kept holding on to the hope that he could get sober again. I often leave my own apartment and stay with my parents when I can't handle it, which is ridiculous, I am leaving this place that I have worked so hard for because of HIS drinking and overall attitude towards me. He got into an accident on his scooter the other night, he was drunk and now has a huge gash in his eye. I got this call at 4:45 in the morning and I went up there to see him and then left him there to go back to sleep and then picked him up 3 hours later. I had a panic attack later that day at work. I just kep think he could of died and of course he said that it was because he slid out on an oil slick on the road. He said I am overreacting and he starts telling me that his drinking should not affect my life, but it does and now I have people who will listen to me and not judge. Thank you so much for sharing...
