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I have reached my limit, but chickened out. This past week has really sucked. I went on a girl's trip with some friends. When I returned I found out my AH had gotten drunk at my son's game. So much that, luckily, the coach recognized it and drove my family home. My first mistake was arguing with my AH. The next day I yelled, screamed, cried and more. I told him this was the last chance, the next time he screwed up, the boys and I would leave him. Am I enabling?
I am so scared because we just moved. I can't afford anything on my own. I am in full on panic mode. I don't know what is right anymore. I have so much anger and hurt towards my AH right now I can't even let him touch me.
It is natural to have a strong reaction when things go badly wrong like this. In fact taking it as "normal" is a sign that we've been gaslighted. So your instincts are intact.
That said, as you've guessed and as all of us have experienced, giving way to our immediate reactions can leave us in a place where we haven't planned ahead for what we're going to do when the going gets tough.
Do you have a face-to-face meeting? A lot of meetings, and being online here, and reading the literature and using the tools, helps prepare to make longterm choices. Leaving him is not a bad choice (there are no doubt many ways to handle this in a healthy way, and that is one option). But you'd want to consider it carefully and have everything in place so that when you did it, you could thrive on your own, not have to come back, not be stuck for a place to go, etc.
So you told him you'd have to leave and indeed you may have to. It may not be right away. But I'm sure that what you said - if his drinking continues, something is going to have to seriously change for you and the kids to stay healthy - I'm sure that's true. He will no doubt try to minimize and deny it, and keep you from taking any serious action. But thankfully you don't need his okay to make changes.
I'm sure we've all done some enabling along the way, but I don't see this particularly as enabling, except that you're not in a position to follow through on your statement right now. That lack of consequences may help him minimize things to himself - "Oh, she blows a lot of hot air, but my drinking isn't really a problem. She's still here, isn't she?" But the truth is that we can never rely on consequences to bring the truth home to them. You do what you need to do, on the timescale you need to do it, not because it's enabling or not enabling, but because it's taking care of you.
Welcome Your reaction is certainly one I have done often in the past. Please search out ALANON FACE TO FACE MEETINGS IN YOUR COMMUNITY . The hot line number is listed in the white pages. Here I learned that: Alcoholism is a progressive, chronic, fatal disease over which I was powerless. My " go to "tools of Screaming, yelling, reacting did not work, In fact, they made matters worse.
In Al-Anon meetings. I was given new constructive tools to live by and the support of like-minded members as I practiced using them. Keeping the focus on myself, living one day at a time, acting in my own best interest and not reacting, all helped to open new paths for me to walk.
You are definitely not alone l so please keep coming back
This sounds like a page from my history--coming off from doing something for myself to find out all hell broke loose thanks to alcoholism. I also would rage/yell and spit venom but it didn't get me anywhere except red-faced and exhausted. At some point, enough was enough and I crawled into an Al-Anon meeting. At that lowest point, I went to 4 meetings/week and just absorbed everything I could to try to understand how to make myself better.
I had given up on making him better...but it still took me many years before I found the courage to ask him to move out.
Keep taking care of yourself. You will know what to do when the time is right and it is excruciating not knowing how to proceed (especially when kids are involved) but somehow, it will happen.
