When the alcoholic in our lives is our spouse we all have a choice to make.  Either stay with them or leave.  End the relationship.  Some choose to end it, others choose to stay.

For those that choose to stay there are more choices to make.  If the A's in our lives aren't in recovery then chances are high their lives are unmanageable.  Living with somone who's an active A not in recovery who's life is unmanageable..........can tend to fall over onto us and make our lives unmanageble.  Does that make sense so far?

So here's our choices:  Continue to allow our lives to revolve around them and their alcoholism/addiction.  Continue to pick up the slack for them (enable), continue to be involved in all their drama, continue to find ways to make them want to stop drinking/drugging, do anything we can to manipulate them into recovery.......and basically allow them to consume our every thought and action.  Or.......

We can work this program and learn to detach from the disease without fully detaching from the person. (since we decided to stay and not end the relationship)  If we choose to stay and we expect any peace and hapiness out of this life, then we need to make changes, in ourselves.  Al Anon gives us the tools and knowledge to make those changes.  We can't change them, the only person we have any control over is ourselves.  So that's who we have to work on changing.  Our expectations (for a *normal* marriage), our reactions, our thoughts.  Addiction is a disease and just like every disease it has symptoms.  Unfortunately when addiction is in a marriage things aren't going to be the way we feel they should be.  Eating dinner together every night, going on family vactations, husbands that come home at a certain hour every night after work etc.  Is it fair?  No.  Do we like the way our marriages are?  Probably not.  Can we force our husbands/wives to be the partner we had hoped they'd be? No.  But we choose to stay in our marriages/relationships so we either have to remain unmanageable ourselves, or find a way to change what we can.

Its all about choices, even though when we're so caught up in our loved ones addictions it doesn't feel like we have any choices at all.  Al Anon shows us that we do.

hi i   kinda  cut and pasted some of ur stuff here so i can give MY experience on it...

YOU________So, explain to me why AA and Al-anon teaches us that we are not supposed to expect love in return from a marriage to an addict.  We are only supposed to care for ourself, take care of ourself etc.  Of course we can't force someone to love us, but when your married or in a relationship, isn't that why your there, because you fell in love, (or something). 

ROSIE______**expectations** that are UNrealistic  (love in return from an addict)  set us up for RESENTMENTS....an addict cannot love in return...they are a SLAVE to their drugs...they weill steal from you...lie to U....forsake U  for their poison..whether its booze or drugs...same thing...they will sell their own SOUL to get their "fix"....that is why  those of us  (i quit that marry go round)  in  alanon are taught   "if U stay in this???  take care of U..."     if i **expect** something a person cannot give   (it matters NOT whether i deserve it)  if they cannot give it??? than i need to DROP my **expectations** make the realistic.......when i am married to someone  NOW< its going to be a HEALTHY relationship...NO "A's"   and NO  "NA's"  i am DONE with them...i want a give AND take marrige....."falling in love"  with someone who cannot meet my needs, sets me up for BIG disappointment......  you cannot  go to hardware store and buy  dinner....u  better  desire hardware cuz that is all  there is to  give....

YOU__________What confuses me is that we have to be seperate and find your own things and let the other live their own life and have what they want. To an extent this makes sense, because right, you can't be completely involved with your spouse to where you have nothing in life for yourself. But then on the other hand, what is marriage all about? You sacrifice for each other, you love each other, you would do anything for each other as well as your kids and family

ROSIE______ if i am in a  relatinship with someone who CANNOT be there for me??? whats my choice???  keep hoping and keep getting screwed?? OR, take care of me...get healthy  and THAN  make a CHOICE about the relationship based on a HEALTHY ME......i cannot change another...i gotta accept it AS IS....and keep them or leave them....but it has to be based on the FACTS....NOT what i dream/ hope it to be...... marriage is about  MUTUAL  give adn take.....care GIVING....NOT care taking....marriage is a MUTUAL  friendship, where EACH partner is there for each other...meeting each others needs....NOURISHING each other spiritually and emotionally and mentally.........sacrifice does NOT mean giving till it hurts and getting ZERO in return.....and "do anything"  for each other  WITHIN  healthy boundaries and reason..... .............just my take,  please use what works..dump the rest...rosie

I can only share my own ESH because I am not sure exactly what it is that Al anon teaches but I know some of the background of Al-anon.

Certainly Lois Wilson who started the program managed to live with Bill Wilson who was an active alcoholic for years before he was sober but they took their toll on her.  In so many ways looking at her life and reading Bill Wilson's biography's her life was certainly no picnic in sobriety either. At the same time the two of them managed to inspire a lot of people to look at their issues so it was by no means a failure either.  So I can't really look at Lois Wilson's life in black and white terms (which is a familiar way to look at things in addiciton either all good or all bad).  Lois Wilson's life as a mixture of tremendous challenges. I have no doubt the program of al-anon helped her to manage the enormous expectations people had of her and Bill.  I also  have no doubt that she enjoyed the life she had with Bill but I am sure she had tremendous sadness heart ache and frustration and that is expressed in many of the al-anon literature including the shoe story where she threw a shoe in frustration.

My own issue with relationships is not that I have a realistic sense of what I can do or the shades of grey.  I tend to think in very black and white terms.  If I look back on my relationship I could say early early on I knew there were lots of issue but I preferred to remain in denial. I did not have the strength to confront them. I could also see very very clearly that alcoholism and real dysfunction ran in his family. I chose to deny that too.  That is all very understandable but I also chose to deny that I needed skills of detachment, negotiation skills, boundary skills which I did not have. So while I denied I also blamed and resented to such an extent it made me really ill and toxic and I often descended into tremendous fights and rages.  They were interspersed with times where I had blind faith and hope in the A.  I no longer have that. I hope for him he is able to transcend his problems but I doubt he will as long as he is still "using" and "lying" and "boundaryless" on many many levels.  At the same time I continue to live with him but without the intense investment I had that he needs to change and I am perfect.  I am far far from perfect and I have to look at my own issues before I can insist he changes his issues and behavior. At the same time as I stop rescuing (which I did compulsively) forgiving (which I also did compulsively, making up for stuff to him and am responsible for myself things do change in the relationship. It is not the loving, kind, tender, warm place I want but it can be tolerable and even cooperative at times.   At other times I just go over the steps I need to do to work on separating myself still further from him emotionally and physically because I have to limit my resentments and sense of powerlessness when dealing with the A. 

I think for me taking the focus off him and putting it on myself makes me a better partner because I am less tied up in what he is doing and more focused on what I need to do next and how I need to change not to please him but to make myself happier.  And my future happiness may not include him that will depend on his process and my own and some of those issues are out of my control.  And of course I do not like for anything to be out of my control so that is also an issue I have to work on all the time, letting go of others who do not do as I think they should..day in day out..

Maresie

Maresie.