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This seems like such a wonderful group. I have very little experience with Al-Anon but I am married to someone who did the 12 steps before I met him. I love him very much. We are going to have our first baby any day now-- a son. However, I think he needs some help. For the past year or more, I keep having the sneaking but strong feeling that I am living with an alcoholic-- an active alcoholic-- though I know he is not drinking. I .will go through a little bio, and I would love any help or advice from people who can be supportive of the recovering alcoholic and see where he is coming from.
He stopped drinking on his 27th birthday and joined an Alcoholics Anonymous group. That was before I knew him. He went through the 12 steps and has always believed in the program. Some things in his life were not going too well before he stopped drinking, but thankfully he didn't have any criminal convictions and he did have jobs (although he would not often keep them for long or make a comfortable living). When I met him and we started dating, he was 32 and doing well. He still didn't have the most secure or desirable job, but he was stable and happy. He always took accountability for his actions and his life circumstances. He was kind and loving and apologized if he did something wrong-- that was important to him. He kept his apartment and car clean, did his grocery shopping, paid his bills, kept social appointments and showed up to work on time. If he didn't have enough money, he took a second job. For years he did little considerate things for me, because that's his character: waking up to cook pancakes, bringing me a latte when I was in law school and studying at the library, et cetera. However, it took me years to be as serious about him as he was about me and I think that must have been hard for him. I was nice to him and didn't cheat or anything, but I was too stupid to see what I good thing I had and too scared to commit, as you will see below. We tried to live together for 5 months, but he started smoking too much pot and it wasn't good for our relationship at all (at the time, I didn't think it was the pot, but now I see how destructive that was and how hooked on it he was). After I moved out he stopped smoking pot and hasn't touched it since, because he says he was too dependent on it and realized he had to just quit altogether.
When he was 34 he went back to school to get a more specialized undergraduate degree in social work. It was a grueling program with some difficult internships; he did well, but found it very taxing. Before he finished his degree, we broke up because he wanted to get married and I wasn't ready. I moved two hours away. He graduated and started a horribly difficult job working with mentally ill and abused teens. He worked long hours, starting in the early mornings, when he's never been at his best. He didn't have very supportive or knowledgeable staff and wasn't paid enough money, so he had to move in with his sister and sleep on her couch. Still, he hadn't relapsed and was doing very good work with these children who needed it.
While he was still working that job and living with his sister, I realized how stupid I had been to fear marriage. I realized I very much still loved him and did not care for any of the perfectly nice men I went on dates with, no matter how exciting or well-matched or successful they were-- I loved him and always would. Thank God he still loved me too and was willing to get back together. At the time, I still lived two hours away and also had a difficult job, my first job as an attorney, with an abusive boss. We dated long-distance for a year and a half before he finally got a job in my city. Then it kind of went downhill.
He moved in with me and started work at his new job. It was a county job, and the economy was taking a fast plummet. They had no one to train him. He was fired after only a couple months, and right before Christmas. He feels strongly that he was unfairly fired, and I agree, but won't go into the details. He was so upset about it that he did not want to see an employment attorney or deal with it at all. At that point he was 37 years old. He was very surly and seemed downright depressed, and would spend most the day on the couch. He was not nearly as intimate with me and we began arguing more. For my birthday we had planned a short and pretty inexpensive trip, and I happily paid for it. He was awful during the trip. He told me later that it was hard for him to have me paying his way on my birthday.
After a few months he got another job working with at-risk youth, which is his passion and what he does best. It took them ages to give him a start date with enough work hours, and in the meantime he took an annoying filler job and we moved twice, for various reasons including a rental that turned out mold-infested, which was stressful. For several months he worked his new job, but it was on-call and he didn't have much money. He got more and more depressed and irritable. In the meantime, we got married and I got pregnant.
His new job, though they loved him, ran out of funds and quit calling him in for work right around Christmas that next year. He became an irritable couch potato-- not at all the man I knew him to be. He couldn't bring himself to do a single chore and he absolutely could not stand for me to ask him for anything, because he took any request-- however kindly made-- as a criticism of him. He remains that way now. He especially won't do anything in the evening except watch hours of TV, and he stays up very late and sleeps poorly for 10-12 hours a night, then takes naps. In the morning he needs at least two hours to have his several cups of coffee and wake up before he can talk to anyone. It somehow doesn't seem like laziness-- it seems more like he's miserable. He becomes very quickly irritated with me, and I feel like I'm walking on eggshells. He can't stand me being around even though I know he loves me. Well, sometimes he likes having me around, but only on his time and his terms when he comes to me-- and I never know when that will be. He has agreed to see a psychiatrist but won't schedule an appointment. He smokes cigars, thought he was going to smoke 1 a week but can't seem to keep them below 1 or 2 per day (the cigar smoking started about 10 months ago). He is so often irritated by unpredictable things, and he doesn't want to be very supportive though I'm 9 months pregnant. To his credit, he realized very recently that I needed more support I was getting when he saw I really couldn't bend down to unload the dishwasher without pain, so he has been making an effort to do more. But I just don't think it would have been so hard for him years ago, and I think there are underlying problems he's having now.
I am not sure how else to explain it, but I feel exactly like I'm living with someone who drinks-- though I know he hasn't relapsed. Above all, he won't take a look at what is not working out in his life, ]he won't accept any help, he sees everything as criticism, he has little control over his emotions, he won't take control over his life circumstances, and he is not at all what he was like during the first 5 years or so that we were together. He stopped going to AA meetings around the time he graduated with his second degree-- two years ago, when he was 37. Is there such a thing as a dry relapse?
I love him and I hate to see him suffer. I could blame him and just say he isn't supporting me, but I feel that is not the whole story. I read some threads on this board and just began crying uncontrollably, because I could recognize him so well here. I am very afraid of suggesting to him that he go back to AA-- mostly because, well, what do I know about it? He will become irritable and feel attacked and tell me I don't know anything about it-- and that statement wouldn't be wrong. I wish I knew his old sponsor and could call him up but I don't.
Does anyone have some perspective on this and some advice? It would be much cherished and appreciated.
Of course I don't know what's going on, and I can't know. It sounds as if he is stressed out and he doesn't know how to handle it. Whether we're with a drinking alcoholic or a troubled sober person, the dynamics are the same: all we can do is express our concern and our truth, and then figure out the best way to take care of ourselves.
I want to suggest one possibility. I would imagine that many, many people on these boards have the experience of thinking, "It almost seems as if he's drinking, but I know he can't be drinking. But it's funny, it's almost as if it is." And then, at some point down the line, we find -- he is. Their secrecy is absolutely phenomenal. After years (too many years) of being with my alcoholic husband, I still have never actually seen him taking a drink. The hidden stashes of bottles, the DUIs, the weird behavior -- all that I've seen. But he'll still try to deny it -- "When have you ever seen me take a drink?" And I haven't. I know so much about alcoholism by now that I don't need to. But my point is that they are incredibly, unbelievably secretive. We can go years just thinking they're acting funny and never catching on to what's really up. Al-Anon suggests that we not snoop, because we can drive ourselves crazy tabulating the bottles etc. But I did snoop in the beginning, because I wanted to figure out if I was going crazy or if he was up to something and hiding it. When I found the hidden stashes of empty bottles, I knew I genuinely wasn't crazy and imagining things.
The other thing about your description that worries me is that he hasn't been to AA in two years. Alcoholism is an insidious disease and constant vigilance is necessary to stay sober. Not going to AA and starting to drink again very very often go hand in hand.
But the truth is, whether he's drinking or whether he's just overstressed and handling it badly, you need support. I would suggest finding an Al-Anon meeting (they say to try six because they're all different). His patterns will be similar whether he's an alcoholic in recovery or an alcoholic not in recovery. Al-Anon gives you tools to move forward. Read the threads on these boards, go to meetings and get the literature, learn all you can. There are online meetings here too. I hope you'll keep coming back.
I am sending hugs to you. So much of what is on this board really resonates with me. Looking forward to hearing what those in the program longer have to say. I'm wondering too. Stay well and look after yourself and your baby. Is there anyone you can reach out to as you get closer to the baby arriving, that is what you need. Someone to come over and make you a cup of tea. Sending a prayer that you will have everything you need and lots of moral (albeit cyber) support.
As a recovering alcoholic, all I can say is that is how I act when I don't go to meetings and when I don't have a program in place. When I don't have a sponsor, regular contact with other recovering alcoholics, I become self-seeking, self-pitying, self-obsessed.... Our literature in AA suggests that our default if untreated is to be "restless, irritable, and discontent." To me, this is exactly what you have described.
Could he be sneaking booze? Dunno. Could it be a clinical depression? Maybe. Is it likely he is having some pretty serious dry drunk behaviors due to no program, coping skills, and/or support network. Yeah, that is most likely.
A really good thing would be for you to get to alanon and just learn some tools for you to keep your own serenity. It will also model the recovery for him and, while you have no control of him going to meetings or not, when he sees the meetings and alanon working for you, he might get back into his own recovery.
Hope this helps. You are not alone and it definitely sounds like behavior I would associate with a serious dry drunk at the least.
Aloha Imyya and welcome to the board...your courage to reach out and ask for feedback and to stick and listen and consider is the first statement of Powerlessness. As the first step states in part...."We admitted we were powerless - and that our lives had become unmanageable" The unmanagability part for me got arrested from within the rooms of both Al-Anon and AA. Yes I am also a recovering alcoholic...I have known this disease all of my life...it has been my life.
I learned many many things..."Sobriety isn't only about not drinking" is only one of them. It's true. Sobriety for me is proper living within the idea of "Trust God...Clean House...and Help Others." How would he be doing in his life and in your life if he was living that way.
He's not drinking as far as you know and he is acting like he is...His actions say he is drinking and the alcohol isn't in sight and one of the many things I learn was that I could still perform as alcoholic even if I were dry. The alcoholic behavior is part of the habit...the alcoholic thinking is part of the habit...the alcoholic emotions are part of the habit and the depressed alcoholic spirit is also. Before I acknowledged being alcoholic myself I was curious about how my then alcoholic/addict wife could be considered alcoholic and I questioned and watched and listened and watched and considered all over again and I didn't "get it" until my sponsor took me aside and told me, "If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck...chances are IT'S A DUCK!!" The next thing I had to do was just accept and go on to the next lesson....what was I going to do with my life?
I know alcoholic ego and pride depression...it's like living at the bottom of a deep well which isn't very wide...trade the w of well for an "h" and it is what it is ...hell. He's had some ego busters and for the alcoholic that is spiritually fatal...told that he doesn't have a job any more one of his first questions might be "what is wrong with me" without responding it's not all about me, this was because of their budget. It doesn't matter I always went to the "I" the "Me" the "Mine" by default. I've done pity parties...good ones without booze. I had more "whine" and not enough cheese and I was commiting spiritual suicide looking for the opportunity when the physical suicide would happen.
Of course he is going to blame you. He doesn't dare blame himself. We alcoholics have an over abundance of fear and the fear of facing myself was huge I thought until I found that the only person I lived with all my life and never really knew was myself and getting over the fear of doing that required love...another name for God and another way to feel about myself. I can almost bet that your husband hates his condition more than anything or anyone else and is paralyzed with the fear of hearing himself as another recovering alcoholic..."Can you help me please"? I was so full of terror of asking that question...especially the "please" part. "I am less than and I am needing help" was another way of suggesting it. I would have rather died and then surprise...I learned the rational way of committing suicide.
Where when I came into Al-Anon I was looking for a place to lay down and stop breathing I held off on it and sat down and listened and learned and practiced, "Could you help me please" and the program told me at every meeting, "If you keep and open mind you will find help"...I needed help and I learned how to keep an open mind...sit - listen - learn - practice, practice, practice. Suicide wasn't what I originally what I believed it to be...ending my life; it was ending how I was living my life. Once I learned that I wouldn't surrender what I got for any mind and mood altering chemical or relationship with those who did.
He might be deeply afraid of "No"; of the possiblility that someone will tell him he isn't worthy or acceptable as he might be feeling about himself anyway and has lost one of the characteristics of the alcoholic. One of the psychological profiles of the alcoholic is that we are risk takers...for me mostly without thinking which isn't proper choosing. He has college education and degrees and yet is jobless. He left the program after he got the degrees...he may have thought he had arrived, that he was cured, that he was "better than what he had previously admitted to" when he got the degrees and higher education isn't a signal for alcoholism. A compulsion of the mind and allergy of the body is a sign. Depression (self anger...self hatred) often are signs with or without the chemical.
You cannot cure him and you cannot control it...you didn't cause it and that is why most of what you will hear suggested is find the Al-Anon Fellowship again and return to your own recovery. If he has a reaction to that it's okay; mine did also because she thought it was all about her and that was all I talked about and finally she accepted that I was going to continue going and that I was going because of me...she saw the changes.
Is he recovering? No...sadly no. He might be in that "inbetween" state with the awareness that he needs help and is afraid to ask for it. He needs to ask his Higher Power as so many of us have and received what we asked for.
Pray that the pain he is going thru will drive him back toward his program and sponsor. You cannot fix him. He doesn't want you to.
Keep coming back here and let us share what it is that we have learned and how and what it is like now for us. (((((hugs)))))
I will talk to my HP regarding your husband...I relate with where he is at.
This has all been so helpful. There is one takeaway message I see that will be particularly hard for me: that I cannot fix him or control his problem. I will do my best to keep that in mind. I like to solve problems for people. I feel the need to save my loved ones from pain. I also lack patience. Hoever, the wisdom I'm getting here is that he is going to have to seek change and he will need to find support outside of our marriage. I should remember that I do still have a lot of faith in my husband's ability to do so. It sounds like the best I can do is give him a supportive and healthy home environment, model some coping behavior and take care of our child and myself. I don't always know how to do that. I am not confident that I recognize the difference between being supportive and being somehow unhealthy or enabling.
This afternoon I finally, barely tried to broach the topic with him. I said something to the effect of we both have issues we could work on, and that I am excited to have our baby an our future together. He replied that, rather than work on our individual issues (and rather than hear how his issues might be affecting me), he wants to focus only on the baby. He was keeping a kind tone and I gathered that he was not wanting to talk about it at all. I told him that in my eyes he wasn't going to ever "fail" and that I am so happy that we are together. He said that was good to hear.
I should maybe have left it there. Instead I said that, for the health of the baby and our family, I was getting some treatment for PTSD (I was randomly kidnapped at gunpoint by a stranger last year and, though I ended up physically unharmed, I have PTSD from that that I felt the need to deal with before the baby is born). He repeated that he just wanted to focus on the baby. I then told him I felt the need for him to get support for whatever he might be going through-- for the sake of our family. He was polite but avoided really answering. I asked him whether he still goes to AA meetings and when he paused I asked: "I mean, do people keep going, even after they've been sober for a long time?" He said that yes, they do. I told him I had noticed in the past how well he coped with things when he was still going to AA and how much I admired him for it. He nodded and said he had to leave (he was on his way out to run an errand anyway).
See?-- I am a bit impatient. I was gentle and really didn't say anything beyond what I have described here-- it was a very brief conversation. But I do not want to push him to far. I don't want to make the mistake of trying too hard to fix it for him.
I have never been to an Al-anon meeting. I will try to find some so that I can learn how to deal with this. We live in the city and I have a long commute and kind of inconvenient busy life, but in a few months we'll be moving back to our home town where we have all our family and friend support. The old university is there too, in case he might want to go back and get his advanced degree. And of course his old AA group and the friends who saw him through it are there.
Thanks for all your wisdom and prayers. I have never found so much support over a computer screen-- it's good to know this community is here.
You're not alone Imyya...keep that in mind. The experiences that have gone on before you have had your own are here. What it was like....what happened and what it is like now. ((((hugs))))
