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.
He usually drinks beer and says he has quit. he was drinking some weird orange soda and now I think he was just filling those bottles with Smirnoff cocktails instead. I found the empty bottles that he tried to hide. He'll just deny it if I confront him but it really pisses me off that he thinks I am so stupid. He was grinding his teeth and he usually doesn't do that unless he's been drinking. He has been staying up a lot later than me so that has to be when he's drinking. I just don't know what to do anymore. I'm starting to think that there is no hope.
I found that confronting my ex A only led to a horrible fight and didn't really accomplish much.When I got to the point of feeling hopeless I turned to meetings, and a therapist, and started working on me.I have learned that there is nothing I can do to keep someone from drinking and I can only take care of me.
Their denial is so strong that they can be standing there with a drink in their hand and say, "I'm not drinking."
Accusing them causes them to ratchet up the denial more, which generally makes us mad, and the argument is predictable.
I used to say to my A, "I have no way of knowing whether you've been drinking or not. However, you're acting the way you act when you're drunk. Whether that's because you're drinking or for some other reason I have no way of knowing, but I've promised myself I won't be around it any more. Therefore I [whatever - can't have dinner with you any more, won't be going to the party with you, etc.]" He'd roll his eyes like I was crazy, but he didn't argue. This was safe for me to say because he was never violent. If he'd been a violent person, I would have just kept quiet and protected myself.
I know some people get beyond the need to point out that they know what's going on. Sometimes I have too, increasingly in recent years. I figure: he's not working a program of recovery, therefore he's drinking. I know it, he knows it. No need to say it any more than there is a need to say "The sky is blue."
Thinking that he thinks you are stupid is presuming that he is thinking at all. Does a child with cookie crumbs all over his face telling you he didn't take a cookie think you're stupid? More than likely it's that he thinks he's clever. WRONG!
Living with an A makes you expend all your mental and spiritual energy on evaluating, policing, mothering, parenting, controlling, and trying to cure THEM. IT IS IMPOSSIBLE. If you spend all that mental and spiritual energy on evaluating, policing, mothering, parenting, controlling, and trying to cure YOU, the results will be far more effective and gratifying, and whether or not he thinks you are stupid can become a non-issue.
He may still be drinking, but you will release yourself from responsibility for it and from the effects of it.
Free JukuVee!
Free JukuVee!
Free JukuVee!
Free JukuVee!
Free JukuVee!
Free JukuVee!
Free JukuVee!
Free JukuVee!
Lol. Thank you. You have all given me a lot to think about. I didn't confront him but I did put the 2 empty bottles I found right on top of the trash can and oddly enough they were gone this morning! For some reason I had to let him know that he wasn't exactly getting away with it like he thought he was. Am I being vindictive?
No you aren't being vindictive. I just think you are pissed off/hurt. My AH did the same exact thing and I always confronted him. It always ended in either a fight or him telling me that he wouldn't drink in his car anymore. Thing is, he is an alcholic and just went back on his word. I have learned to try and stop confronting him (though this is still a work in progress as sometimes I am so pissed off that I just want to tell him to know I know what is going on) as he knows what he is doing and feels bad about it. What has worked for me is reciting the serenity prayer, reaching out to fellow Al Anon members and finding f2f meetings.
Due to everything that has been sid above, I finally decided not to confront, and not to look. I could tell if AW had been drinking using my perception anyway, I was right 98%, whereas finding bottles was unreliable.
And then I finally decided to stop doing that. So that I could "say what I mean, mean what I say,and don't say it mean" I would just tell her in a nonconfrontarional manner when I thought she had been drinking, and leave it at that.
I know what you're going through, because I've been through the same thing. I would find empty bottles in my car, and would confront my A. Denial, denial, denial. It was maddening!
It made me obsessive...do I have bottles in my car? Look, bottles under the bed....I wonder if there are bottles here, there, and everywhere. My A used to tell me, "I got something for you, and it's in your car. IT's a surprise....don't look. It's for <Valentine's Day>, <Sweetest Day>, <your birthday>." When we were first together, I wouldn't look. But when I realized later and later when I didn't get a "surprise" when promised (especially years into the addiction when I stopped getting birthday presents, anniversary presents, etc.) I realized that it was all a lie. So when it was said again, I snooped, and sure enough, it was a "surprise"....alcohol!
So I totally understand the anger, and wanting to control the situation, especially when it comes to the car. And I would find the bottles, empty them, and put them in a place to show "I know what you're doing/ hiding." And the bottles would be gone the next morning every time. Though, I never put them under a pillow!! ;)
I have found detaching myself from the situation helped me not be so obsessive. At that time I was going to a face to face meeting, and it really helped me with dealing with the bottle scavenger hunt, and helped me to work on my program, and not be so obsessed with hers. It was hard at first. And I would still do it from time to time to "prepare" myself for a drunk spouse or a sober spouse. I've found with this disease that no matter what, there are always 50 shades of drunk, so whether she's been drinking since she's woken up, or before coming home, or in the house, I have found I have no control over it no matter what. She's so deep in her denial that there's no convincing her of a problem. I have confronted her before in the past. Depending on her state of drunkenness, it was either a huge fight or a "thank you, I didn't realize I've been drinking so much" and then hiding more bottles. She now likes to fill her "water bottle" with gin, and when I back away from the smell, saying, "That's not water", she will deny it....I can smell the traces after rinsing it out, but she can't. She also did the orange soda mixed with gin as well...I mistakenly took a sip, thinking it was orange soda, and realized it was "essence of orange soda" it was so strong.
She eventually will hit her rock bottom....and realize her problem for what it is. I don't know when that will be, but I can't control it. I can only control my reaction to it, and work on myself and my program. Otherwise I will go insane!
__________________
Butterflies can't see their wings. They can't see how truly beautiful they are, but everyone else can. People are like that as well. Anonymous
Its So Sad to Me at times what these Addictions can Turn us into... I Too was a Confronter and if I Seen it, I Called you on It, and If I THOUGHT you did it, I Called you on it... I Pretty Much Badgered my Little Brother to the Point I Think he Drank More just to get away from me and Drowned me Out...
Since My Recovery Started in 2008, I have got a lot better, I don't listen to the Lies of an Alcoholic anymore, don't even Entertain them as having truth of Any kind, if they tell me the Sky is Blue, I'm still going to look for myself, because I Have a Very Hard time with TRUST Issues, and I know that Comes from My Alcoholic Up bringing, and My Afather telling me ALL the time (Empty Promises)...
I Will Say I'm a Bit Vindictive at times, and I Agree Throwing them away once they are Empty isn't Vindictive at all... and If I Did Find Bottles, I Just Moved them to the Front, So they at least SEEN that I'm Aware, and I Would never say a word... was it Vindictive? Maybe in their Eyes, but in Mine I Was Only Being Honest... I Seen it, brought it Forward thee end... Did it Solve anything? Not Really, they just got better at Hiding them... :/
This Program can Turn us into the Good Hearted People We always want to be, and I Know for Me, when I'm Not Working My Program, and instead keeping my focus on them and theirs then I'm Not working hard Enough On ME... This is where the Slogans come in to play with me? "How Important is It? Live & Let Live! And What THEY Do is Really NONE of My Business" These Helped Me Keep My Side of the Street Clean, and Helped Me Realize just how much time I Spent Focusing on them and Not Me!
Thanks everyone for your wisdom. Just to be clear, I wasn't looking for bottles, I just happened to notice them when I was cleaning up some stuff in our driveway.
One of the things that is still bothering me about the alanon thing is: why am I sick and need to 'recover' because HE is an alcoholic?! Am I sick by default just because he is my partner? I still have not been to a face to face meeting. I feel very apprehensive about it and I'm still resentful that I have to do anything at all. After all he's the one that has the issue. Not me. I'm not perfect but I don't feel like I am ill in any way except for being sick of my situation!
Julie
-- Edited by JukuVee on Tuesday 9th of June 2015 12:43:18 PM
-- Edited by JukuVee on Tuesday 9th of June 2015 12:43:42 PM
For me, I used to feel some weird vindication when I found evidence of drinking...like: aha! I KNEW you were drinking! After some time I realized...so what? And someone told me: 'An A is going to drink. What are you going to do?'. That gave me a different perspective. Another way for me was--during my marriage there was a marked difference when my now exH was NOT drinking. So did I really need to prove when I knew that he was? In my case, it never helped in any way and much like a previous post-er, usually caused more drama.
Aloha Jukuvee The language in our meetings tell us why we need recovery as does the definitions of alcoholism and addiction. Next meeting your go to volunteer to open the meeting and listen as you read the opening statements. You might think default which is what I did for a while also and then with time I came to focus on the word compulsion; my compulsion to fix someone else into who and what I thought they should be...my value systems. One of my responses to your opening post ..."Should I tell him....." would be "what is your motive"? I left it alone until now because you received a lot of great feedback from the family and as you stick around and learn you will get so much more. Keep coming back. ((((hugs))))
-- Edited by Jerry F on Tuesday 9th of June 2015 01:01:04 PM
"One of the things that is still bothering me about the alanon thing is: why am I sick and need to 'recover' because HE is an alcoholic?! Am I sick by default just because he is my partner? I still have not been to a face to face meeting. I feel very apprehensive about it and I'm still resentful that I have to do anything at all. After all he's the one that has the issue. Not me. I'm not perfect but I don't feel like I am ill in any way except for being sick of my situation!"
Boy do I know where you are at!! I was at the exact same place when I first came to the rooms of AlAnon. I refused to accept this underlying premise, and I left ... and I got sicker, as my AW got sicker.
When I came back, I shared this at a beginner's meeting and one of the veterans of the program took me aside and shared his thoughts on it with me, and by the time we were done chatting that night, I could no longer deny that I too was sick, and needed a recovery of my own. Here are some of the things he shared with me ... as with anything you see, hear or read in AlAnon, take what you like, and leave the rest.
The very first thing he asked me was if I had ever tried to cure or control my wife's drinking. This was basically how the conversation unfolded. I shared with him many of the different methods I had tried. The first, of course, was reasoning with her. I tried that one a lot. Of course, I knew all the guidance and logic I was providing to her was undeniably true, and eventually it would sink in. Funny thing though, she just never seemed to recognize the brilliance of my advice. I really grew to resent her lack of respect for my pearls of wisdom! The next course of action was to change MY behavior, because of course, it was my behavior that I knew was contributing to it. I was a bad influence!! I stopped drinking around her, because if I did I concluded that would give her permission to drink. Then we slowly stopped going to events I enjoyed because she always wanted to drink there ... College Football games was a classic example. I knew that If we didn't go, she wouldn't have a craving or a trigger to drink. I was going to impose sobriety on her. Then one day I woke up and started thinking of all the things I had given up to try and cure her. And lo and behold if I didn't have a whole new set of resentments and anger. Now I wasn't just upset that she was ignoring my great advice, she wasn't even appreciative of the tremendous sacrifices I was making in my own life to cure her! Talk about ungrateful!! When that didn't seem to work, I stepped up my game ... I was getting serious now ... I started dumping out her beer!! BRILLIANT!! Can't drink what isn't there, after all. Interesting thing though ... she somehow managed to figure out that all she had to do was go out and buy more. I didn't see that coming ... or the rising hit our monthly budget was taking now that we were spending 3 to 4 times what we used to on beer because I kept dumping the stuff out. A another great side affect of that was she started going somewhere else to drink ... and managed to pick up her 1st DUI in our marriage driving home from a bar with a BAC of over .2. Now I was really getting p*ssed!! Not only is she ignoring my advice, is ungrateful for all I am giving up to help her, she is running our finances into the ground!! So, I decided to go Nuclear! I set Ultimatums!! These worked great ... I set them ... she ignored them ... I didn't follow through ... and I became a doormat ... oh yeah, and now we were fighting ALL the time. So I retreated ... I have to rethink this, I thought ... my approach is all wrong ... if I can't beat it, negotiate the best deal you can get! I worked out a great compromise ... You can drink as much as you want on nights A, C and G. I won't complain ... I will make sure you get where you need to go safely ... I'll even go buy the beer. I'll even join you sometimes, so we can be together! But in exchange for my gracious concessions, she needed to commit to being sober on B, D, E and F Days. And that was when the important stuff that needed to get done around the house would get done. I had it all figured out until I came home on night B from work to find her drunk and nearly passed out at 6:00 PM. I was out of ideas ... so at this point, I checked out of my families lives. I stopped coming home until I figured my wife was either passed out, or had somehow managed to get herself to bed. I was living at work, or at bars watching ballgames, and seething with resentment and anger, or alternatively, reeling with guilt about what a crappy husband I was that I couldn't fix this ... or that I wasn't at home tending to my daughter, who was now stuck at home with drunk mom and absent dad most nights. The she got arrested for her 3rd OWI with our daughter in the car and our life finally crashed in one flaming fireball (Figuratively ... she didn't crash that night and no one got hurt, thank God!)
After working through this timeline the Veteran AlAnoner asked me 'So ... how many times did you try all these different approaches?' I couldn't begin to count them. 'And did any of them work?'. Well there was that one time that she stayed sober for a week once, and ... 'So in other words, none, right?' Begrudgingly I had to acknowledge my percieved failure. 'Do you know the layman's definition of insanity?' Of course I recited the concept of doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. He asked me 'were these all the product of your best efforts to fix this?'. I thought so. And he said 'Then your best thinking got you here ... maybe you need to re-tool your thinking.' And it was at that moment it hit me that I too was truly sick. What I was doing for the past however many years was insane, and despite my very best, brilliant thinking I had accomplished nothing except to get myself to the verge of a complete nervous breakdown. I was caught up in the disease ... reacting to EVERYTHING the AW did or said, not even realizing I had a choice in all that. I was doing things to try and control it ... trying to cure it ... and believing that somehow I caused it. But what he told me that night resonated so deeply. He told me that 'I didn't cause it ... I can't cure it ... and I can't control it' That it was not possible for me to. I thought back on all that had tried and done, and realized that while I was running around trying to cure her, I was hurting myself, I was hurting my daughter, I was hurting my wife, and I was going to have a role in the disintergration of my family if I didn't get myself the help I needed.
It's in our reaction to the disease being active in our life that we are affected. We didn't choose it, but we are afflicted and affected just the same. Just like the alcoholic, we have to hit our bottom. We come to AlAnon (or any other recovery program) and stay when we are ready for it. Just like the Alcoholic only finds recovery when they are ready for it. For me, accepting that I too was sick was the critical component to me being ready ...
Best of luck ... Keep coming back! It Works if you work it!
We need the recovery too because alcoholism pulls everyone around it into the insanity. Our perspectives start to get distorted just as theirs do. We start having trouble figuring out what is normal, or how to react to things we know are abnormal. There's a lot of pain, distrust (justifiably) and trauma that go along with trying to love an alcoholic. Our recovery gives us the tools to handle the insane situations and to take care of ourselves no matter how insane the alcoholic is being.
When something upsetting happens I usually find an Alanon meeting or call my sponsor or someone else in the program. I'm just one of those people who needs that person to person understanding concerning my feelings. Also, I find that upsetting situations cause me to want to react rather than respond. I often have to step back and take a breath and ask myself to use the slogan THINK thoughtful, honest, intelligent, necessary and kind when confronting someone about something. In some situations where I least want to use those qualities toward the other person, turning the THINK slogan inward toward myself can be great self care. How will I be affected by that other person's response? How will I feel if their words are not honest, intelligent, necessary or kind? What's my expectation and am I ready to accept the response I get? Do I have a plan for safeguarding my serenity if I'm disappointed? Just my thoughts... Please take what you like and leave the rest.
I am very sorry and understand your disgust with the situation. Many of us have experienced the old substance switcheroo trick. He isn't fooling anyone but himself. He'll be ready when he is and not a moment before. The river of denial can run deep. Keep coming back for unconditional love and support here. (((hugs))) TT
__________________
Surround yourself with people and elements that support your destiny, not just your history.
DAVE that was a Great share. Thank you for taking the time to do that. I can pinpoint the moment I realized how sick I had become. The icing on the cake was when I developed severe tinnitus from the stress of both her actions and my retaliatory actions and my ears rang constantly and so loudly that I couldn't sleep. I was rendered an insomniatic insaniac, just sitting and seething, knowing I was going to have a stroke any second. Forget HER problem! What good is being a justifiably righteously indignant stroke victim? And I couldn't just turn it off! Certainly not by myself!! I tried!! SICK.
jukuvee, you may not feel as sick as I was, but contentment, serenity and joy are not humming at the frequency they should for you. You are getting tossed around in the wake of his alcoholism and you will eventually fall ill to the worst of it. Objectivism is absent, normal is unrecognizable and the methods necessary to restore them are NOT available in the standard tools of common sense that we are imbued with. Starting with step #1! Common sense would tell me that I DO have power over alcohol because I BARELY EVER DRINK IT! But it nearly killed me. Or it might be better said that I nearly killed myself because of it.
Not a "12 step" person? Me neither. I'm the world's biggest skeptic and cynic. So let's call them the "12 semi-tones". It's a chromatic scale. Except it doesn't start with "Doe, a deer, a female deer", It starts with
DUH! A BEER! A FREAKIN' BEER! HEY! I BETTER GET SOME HELP! ME! THE ONE WHO'S SUFFERING! FOG! I CAN'T SEE PAST MYSELF! SO, I BETTER LEARN SOME SKILLS! LOVE MYSELF SO I CAN GROW! TEAM WITH FOLKS THAT HAVE STRONG WILLS AND I'LL NEVER GO BACK TO DUH, DUH, DUH, DUH...
GO!
TEAM!
LOVE!
SO?
FOG!
ME!
HEY!
DUH!
(Yes, I know that that's only an 8 note scale but I'm not advanced enough to play the whole al-anon octave yet!)
AND a lot of people here and in meetings compose al-anon Symphonies and they're beautiful. The more you listen, the better they sound.
-- Edited by almostThere on Wednesday 10th of June 2015 09:23:28 AM
I'm so glad you're here and that you are ready to look into the mirror to find yourself again and invest in your own wellness. The empties are meaningless. You are valuable and deserve a new way of living. :) Keep coming back!
almost there- LOL! I LOVE it!!! That al anon scale is brilliant! So appreciate it being a musician!
Duh! A beer...a stinking beer....
That has lightened me up! Thanks for that!
__________________
Butterflies can't see their wings. They can't see how truly beautiful they are, but everyone else can. People are like that as well. Anonymous
