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.
I have been reading and benefitting from everyone's post's since I found this site a few weeks ago but this is the first time I've posted.
I attended f2f meetings a few years ago as I have several A's in my life. The one I have the biggest frustration with is my husband. He has been doing AA and counseling and it seems to have been helping. I have started revisiting Alanon through this site to help me work on letting go and not being so obsessed with whether he is drinking.
He has relapsed and though he was trying to hide it from me I suspected for a while and discovered him drinking tonight. He started his typical pattern of getting angry and defensive and I didn't react. Then, he got remorseful and started talking about the stress of his job and how it was causing him to drink. Then he asked me what he should do.
This is where I made my mistake. I suggested stuff to him. I know it says we're not supposed to help them figure it out to let them do it on their own. I suggested 90 meetings in 90 days of AA, starting to see his counselor again (he took a week off), and using his employee assisstance program. I also made suggestions about some of the work stuff since I was in the same field.
The hard part is going to be to step back and not help him get all this help. He always wants me to help him with phone calls, numbers and paperwork stuff. He has already asked me to help him find a meeting for tomorrow and I agreed to print off the list for him since I am on the computer but I expect him to find it himself. I am sure he is going to want help if he decides ot do the rest of the stuff.
I was pleased that I didn't blow up at him. I listened a lot and talked calmly but I did mess up and asked a few questions about how much and how often but part of that comes from cencern about what he is doing when he has our kids.
The thing I am wondering is how much am I enabling him and what do you say when an A asks for advice. I get accused of not caring if I don't offer some.
Welcome marcie. My first thought was for you to turn it around. When he asks what should I do? Ask him well what do you want to do? What options do you have?
Put it right back into his lap. Gets you off the enabler seat and makes him responsible.
Good for you for looking at your behavior and having the courage to want to change.
For way to many yrs i did what u did have the fireside chat I like to call them , over and over again thinking this time he might be ready and he wasn't half the time didn't remember us even talking. that was my insanity. When I understood that this was his trip and regardless of what he said "you don't love me anymore "was his favorite. I simply said you don't have to live this way there is a place where people will help u get thru this I put a AA contact number on the fridge and left it with him.
It sounds to me like you handle the situation very well. You didn't react, you remained calm. I commend you on that because I really know how hard it can be to bite MY tongue when it comes to my A. My husband is just one year sober and if he relapsed today I am not 100% certain how I would respond to it. That is one reason I am working my own program. I think your response was loving and kind. I understand enabling as helping someone continue their destructive behavior. We help in various ways.....ignoring, making excuses for, attempting to control, their behavior (jsut to name a few).
Just from what you wrote it sounds like your husband wants help. By talking the situation through with him it did not enable him to hurt himself. He is asking for help. My husband and I have a "relapse prevention plan". This helps to define our individual responsibilities in the case he would relapse. This does not make me responsible for his sobriety nor has it been tested, but it outlines what I am able/willing to do to help him get back on track (making a few phone calls if necessary, etc..) and also defines what he is going to do if this happens.
I appreciate you writing. It inspired me to reeavaluate with my husband our relapse plan (we wrote it a year ago) and that opened up some conversation about our expectations of one another in a relapse situtation. I wanted to make sure we were still on the same page!
I can definitely relate to needing to have a boundary around the phone calls, the paper work and more. The A can involve me in that chaos in an instant and then make it my issue. The other issue that my A on many many levels takes better care of himself then he discloses. Generally he makes his hospital appointments. I have often often neglected me to take care of him. A's make a habit of creating crisis that may not be what it seems. They seem to need chaos not being in it feels unfamiliar to them.
I try to work really hard on not having my life be chaotic. I allow him to have his chaos but do not choose to be involved with it on the same level. At the same time since I live with him there is understandably some chaos out there and I find it difficult to manage and can get resentful. So i need detachment boundaries and focus on my self a great deal.
