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.
this is is very new for me. I have never been to an Al Anon meeting, either in person or on the web. I feel disloyal doing so but am feeling that I must do something. Here is my story and I am sure it resonate for some of you.
i believe my husband is an alcoholic. When we met in the 1990's I knew he liked a drink. All our circle of friends did. However over the years his drinking has become problematic for me. He is a secret drinker - I think he has several drinking stashes around the house although I rarely see him drink. I often get home from work later than him and he is frequently intoxicated. If I challenge him he denies it. I think the illness is progressing. He has different personalities depending on his drinking state. He can be unpleasant when drinking and there is an underlying anger. Once or twice I have felt frightened. From what I read this will only get worse if his illness progresses.
Over the past few years I have come to realize he lies a lot of the time about many things, the drink in particular. I have found sports bags full of empty vodka and bourbon bottles and evidence of infidelity with a co-worker (once). At that time I gave him an ultimatum and the infidelity stopped. He says he now feels trapped by me and uses me as an excuse to stay at home all the time outside of work. I don't buy this and tell him so.
My life is miserable. I realize that I am responsible for my happiness. I see some co-dependency, but it is hard not to have a degree of co-dependency in marriage. We do not have kids and moved to North America from Europe about 10 years ago. I feel isolated - I have made some friends but he only has his work friends who are not shared with me. I feel very isolated and sinking deeper into a depression. If I leave I will be alone in a foreign country. I could not afford to return home. I know the drinking is his problem, I also know it is a family illness. Any advice offered will be greatly appreciated.
Going to Al-anon is not about anyone but YOU. It's for you. Al-anon has helped me cope with my children (none are A) my employers, my friends. and my AH. It does not fix the alcoholic.
Al-anon is all about you and how to help YOU.
what happens is once you find YOU and you start taking care of yourself the rest either falls into place or you make changes.
Being married does NOT mean being co-dependent. Co-dependency is unhealthy and it's about one unhealthy person keeping another unhealthy so that they have something that ties them together. IF one partner gets healthy and the other does not the marriage may not survive.
Al-anon is a fellowship of friends and family of those AFFECTED by alcohol and you certainly qualify.
I would strongly urge you to find local face to face meetings (yes plural) shop around till you find one two three or more that work for you. Also there are some good books and literature available at the meetings or on the web. I suggest you start with How Al-anon works.
give it time. I was attending 3-5 meetings a week for over 8 weeks before it started making sense to me.
best of luck to you.
__________________
-- ladybug
We come to love not by finding a perfect person, but by learning to see an imperfect person perfectly.
Hi Billie, and welcome.
I recall feeling disloyal in the beginning too. It was upsetting; I had grown so used to keeping it all a secret. After a while I started to realise I had been disloyal to myself for years; instead of looking after my own well being al of my efforts were focused on protecting someone else from the consequences of their own dreadful behaviour! Like you I was miserable and isolated.
Delving into the al-anon program helped free me from these patterns and misguided feelings of guilt and I am now learning to take care of myself, make choices that benefit myself and my child, and to leave the alcoholic in my life to face his own consequences and destructive behaviours. It has been a real life-changer for me.
Are there face to face al-anon meetings near you? Attending meetings was my first step towards breaking the isolation and feeling free to be honest with myself and others about how very wrong things were for me.
__________________
If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn't. And contrary wise, what is, it wouldn't be. And what it wouldn't be, it would. You see? (Lewis Caroll)
Alcoholism is a terrible disease its too much for
most of us to handle alone. Breaking the isolation
The disease causes is important.
Alanon is about us getting better in spite of
The disease. We need our own program of
Recovery. AA for them alanon for us.
I too felt disloyal but i kept going to my
Meetings with an open mind. I just sat and
Listened, learned and absorbed till i was
Ready to start sharing. It took me two
Years.
I call myself "the doormat come alive" You get
Beat down with this disease. People say she
Has a voice, those that have not been to a meeting in
awhile. I have a very loud voice now, i lost myself
In my dry ah disease.
Welcome Billie. I'm pretty new to Al-Anon myself (about nine months). As others of said, Al-Anon is for you so you can get better. What happens to other people is entirely up to them. This is something I've been learning little by little as I've been to meetings.
I've heard the suggestion to try six different meetings before deciding if Al-Anon is right for you. If you can't get to face to face meetings there are meetings in this chat room every weekday at 9am and 9pm ET; it's a little different on the weekends. There's a link at the top of this page that will direct you to the chat room.
Also there is something known as phone bridge meetings, which are real meetings by conference call. I've found them to be very helpful for me.
Thanks so much for joining us here at the activeboard. Glad to have you.
Thanks to you all for taking the time to read my post and reply. Much of what you have said makes sense to me. Yes there are Al Anon meetings in my city. I will attend several and see how it goes. I love my husband dearly and for the right reasons, and know inside he is vulnerable, as am I right now. I suppose I was taught as a child to stick with family through "thick and thin" and I could not be unsupportive of him. Family means everything to me. However I see the difference between being a supportive partner and enabling an unhealthy relationship.
Hi,
I suppose I was taught as a child to stick with family through "thick and thin" and I could not be unsupportive of him. Family means everything to me. However I see the difference between being a supportive partner and enabling an unhealthy relationship.
--------------------------------
I believe as you do. But alcoholism is different from all other diseases. It causes great mental changes and mental illness. 'Through thick and thin' doesn't mean throwing yourself down the drain after him. In our lives as supportive partners of alcoholics we usually lose ourselves. Our lives become wrapped around their lives.... including the mental illness. Alanon forces us to look at ourselves and see how we have changed because of living in those circumstances. We have been lied to, lied at and lied to ourselves. No wonder we are so confused. We believe!! In lies.
Get to AlAnon and see how you have changed to accommodate his disease. You will get tools and sayings to use to make yourself happy again. You have to do it for yourself. Take care of yourself.
Thank you maryjane. I see a lot of families, including my own, enabling unhealthy relationships. and yes I do know the difference and it is really helpful to be reminded. I guess that is why I am here.
My self esteem is very low and I don't know where to turn....or maybe I do now. It is the lies that are the worse thing for me. Lying triggers something deep in me and it eats away at me. And I do feel lonely ibeing in a different country. People here are culturally different and I find I do not have the mental energy to deal with this and the discord at home. But I guess there is no easy fix. I will find a meeting this week and see how it goes.
Billie no one expects anything from a newcomer.
You can just sit and relax and cry if you need to.
The concepts and ideas take quite awhile to under
Stand.
You are there for you not the alcoholic. It's a me
program that takes time and energy to Understand.
They have the three daily readers You can buy 12-14
each.
We lose ourselves in the disease. We stop taking
Care of us. Alanon will change all that but it takes
Work and effort and willingness to change and grow
In the program with he help of your HP.
Miranda is right... you can walk in to a meeting and sit down and just listen... and cry. Folks will talk to you but you can say "I'm not ready to share yet" and they will leave it at that. Al-anon teaches you unconditional love and acceptance. It's a safe place no matter what. The rules are the same in all countries.
__________________
-- ladybug
We come to love not by finding a perfect person, but by learning to see an imperfect person perfectly.
When I reflect on my situation, I think I do get that I am not going to bail out my husband. I don't even want to - part of me thinks a crisis for him (health, alcohol related incident) could be a life saver. The problem for me is that I have spent so long ignoring my feelings and well being it feels uncomfortable to focus on them now. When I met my husband some 20 years ago I was strong and really took care of myself. I prided myself on having strong principles and boundaries. I have compromised all of that over the years and I find that has been demoralizing. Many things have chipped away at my sense of worth - lies, denial, personality changes, criticisms. My initial response to those things with my husband in the early days was to challenge them, but gradually they wore me down. Moving countries was another stressor. So concentrating on 'me' feels selfish and something to which I am not entitled.
Billie, I too for nine years accepted and resigned myself to a life of crisis, feeling that the demorization was my lot in life. I had no sense of worth either and went through many compromising changes to my personality that quite frankly I am not proud that I let happen. When I finally discovered, about a year ago, that the alcholism was responsible for all this chaos and abuse, I put my foot down and reclaimed me. MIP, Al-anon and my HP are responsible for bringing normalcy back to my life, because I now know, without a doubt, that no one can control alcholism and that I will no longer let it control me. The "A" has to make the decision to reclaim their own lives on their own but they cannot take another person down with them if that person doesn't allow it. I decided to not allow alcoholism to take me down.
__________________
"Forgiveness doesn't excuse bad behavior, but it
does prevent bad behavior from destroying your heart". ~ unknown
Debb thanks for sharing your experience. I have been so encouraged by the replies in the past day from the site. It sounds like Al anon has been a great help For you.
I have found a meeting I am going to attend on Friday. It's a big step for me. I am worried I might see someone there I know from the community but will have to deal with that if it happens. That speaks to feelings of disloyalty towards my husband and keeping up an appearance that everything is great and we are the perfect couple. But I need to do something, the present situation is not manageable. He was fine today but who knows what will happen tomorrow? It's difficult to predict, except that what is sure is that he will get drunk again soon and I will react badly to that, which isn't healthy.
I am happy for you that you are going. It is a big step.
I was at rock bottom when i started, I think most of us
are. The pain gets too great to bear alone anymore.
I very seldom see anyone i know. If you do see someone
they are There too for some reason. You are not alone.
You do not need to share till you are ready. It takes awhile
To get your courage up. I know it did me.
The program is all about taking care of you and whats
Good and healthy for you. It works if you work it and
Your worth it!
Thanks Miranda. I look forward to happier times and wish you well with your journey.
I have been cleaning the house today and have found a sports bag so full of empty liquor bottles I could hardly lift it. I take a look at this bag from time to time and it wasn't too long ago that it was empty. I didnt feel angry, or react - I felt numb. I think, what's the point? I could challenge him but know it would only make him angry and likely to drink more. There must be over $1000 spent in that bag alone. This is not money he has taken from our bank account. I am sad to say it can only be money his mother sends to a bank account towards his senior years. He is an only child and can do absolutely nothing wrong in her eyes. I am also amazed he is still standing. To look at him you would think he was fit and healthy. He does not fit my stereotype of someone suffering from alcoholism. But the empty bottles don't lie.
I think sometimes I am imagining my husband has an illness from alcohol, but then I see those bottles and it is a reminder of how much I hide the truth from myself.
-- Edited by Billie on Thursday 9th of April 2015 02:07:17 PM
-- Edited by Billie on Thursday 9th of April 2015 02:15:17 PM
I took my 17year old dog to the vet this afternoon. Clean bill of health. We were waiting to pay and another dog came up to my dog and nipped at him. Anyway to make the story short my dog has had part of his tongue bitten off. My dog is a small Yorkie and the other dog is a Husky.
The reason I am sharing this is because my response was numb - I could not find it in myself to react to the seriousness of the situation. It was the vet who challenged the owner and had them agree to pay the bill for his care.
Coming home and thinking about it I feel ashamed of my response. This is not like me. My question is: is my lack of response learned from the years of living with an alcoholic? A few years ago I would have not acted in this way.
Your response is partly a powerlessness response that I also learned and at times still practice. I stop fighting and living in the adrenalin of going up against everything that hurt me. The program taught me that it was okay to let go and let God and stop fighting everything that upset me or that I felt was wronging. Making "them pay" I realize was having me pay a huger price. Learning to "Turn it over because much more healthy"...am practicing that today while thinking I have huge justification to kick a bunch of asses. ((((hugs))))
Thats a nasty thing to happen to you and your dog. I feel
For your dog especially being so old and being attacked.
Never mind some place tender and that will take awhile
to heal. Yikes i can not imagine.
Its always tricky at the vets. My dog was always scared
And acted out. Never fun when you add an aggressive
dog into the Mix. I kept my dog away from other dogs if
At all possible. i made my husband do the duty mostly
because My dog behaved better for him than me.
Do not beat yourself up over not overly reacting. Think
about Things and process them then forgive yourself
and move on. Be gentle With yourself and your poor
little doggie.
Beating ourselves up never helps anything just creates
More shame and guilt. We are human and things happen.
We can be our own worst critic and enemy. Forgiveness
Is a gift to ourselves and others,
