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Hi everyone, I am new here but I have been reading the posts here for the last couple months now. My AH is in recovery for the last month (Third time). He completed a 2 week inpatient program and is currently attending Intensive Outpatient group therapy and goes to AA meetings twice a day. He has a sponsor. I feel a difference in his attitude this time where I believe he really wants sobriety. He is taking Campral to block cravings as well. I guess my expectations of having a "normal" relationship with him right now are too high. I find myself disappointed a lot just like the last 18 years we have been together. We have been married for 15 years but he was an alcoholic when I met him. Although it was not quite as bad in the beginning because we were young and I had more hope for the future, it got progressively worse as the years went on. I was basically a single mother to our two children who are now 13 and almost 16. I was always busy taking care of them and working. I even had to work two jobs to barely make ends meet since my AH was not capable of supporting his family. Friends would wonder why I stayed but I am in love with him. I look back and think maybe I should've left in the beginning. Now I am 45 and feel like my marriage was a fraud because I don't see how he could've loved me the way he was and from some of the things he did and did not do. I did not feel loved and cherished and still don't even now that he has stopped drinking. He says he loves me but actions speak louder than words and I just don't believe him. All my happiness rides on him and I would like to stop letting him control that. I don't feel joy in anything anymore and I desperately want that back. Right now he attends AA meetings and outpatient therapy but in between he watches TV or reads. He does not initiate doing anything with me or the kids. I have to be the one to do that and then I feel like I am forcing him to go places with us. It doesn't feel genuine. I am getting very discouraged because I have lived in dysfunction for so many years I desperately long for a normal marriage. I don't know if I will ever have that with him and that scares me to death. We attend family therapy once a week and I am also in one on one therapy myself. He told the therapist that he doesn't know how to have fun and do things like even go to a movie without drinking. I know he is struggling since he drank for 35 years. People say I'm not giving him enough time and that the first year of recovery is extremely hard. I feel like I waited so long already for some real companionship. My problem is I don't like being alone and never really have been for more than a few months. My AH was never physically abusive just basically non-existent and put us in financial distress. He also lied and stole money from me and the kids. so I guess it was emotional abuse that I suffered and feel like I am still suffering. Any insight on early recovery and how a spouse should handle it is much appreciated. Also how do I learn to create happiness from within? I did not get married to live the single life although it feels like that's what I've been doing all these years.
Welcome Yankeerose. I think a lot of us felt disppointed when we learned our sober loved ones were not up for participating fully in life with us and the family. I don't think your disappointment is unusual or that the way your husband is acting as a newly sober person is. Despite the fact that people rehab from alcohol/drugs for twenty something days that's just the beginning to getting well and feeling well physically and mentally. No doubt your husband is doing the best he can with his new sobriety a day at a time. Likely, he's experiencing a bit of an aftershock from ridding his body of all those toxic chemicals. One thing I've heard alcoholics share in open AA speaker meetings is that they had trouble concentrating at first and also startled very easily to noise and unexpected motion around them, were sensitive to smells and tastes. These things were sometimes triggers for unnerving them. I wish I'd known some of these things in the past but I didn't. I thought once the bottle was capped we all just would go on immediately and make up for lost time and create new healthy and happy memories with one another. The reality was that I was living with someone very ill when he was drinking and was living with someone was going to continue to carry this illness all of his life but in sobriety, his body and mind would have the chance to heal and even rejuvenate with time, abstinence and loving support from a higher power. I remember being told in Alanon that the alcoholic drinks because they're alcoholic and that they are not drinking at you. In my humble opinion, I think the same can be said of early sobriety. I think in early sobriety people are presenting with all they have. They just aren't well enough for full participation in life yet. It's easy for a spouse to resent the patience and understanding that's needed at this time especially considering the events of the past with the alcoholic. I know I definitely felt I was owed something and quick when husband got sober. I was very new to Alanon and didn't know much about alcoholism as an illness. I'd also thought I'd been a perfect, mature and of course stellar spouse until I worked my 4th and 5th steps in Alanon. Thinking that and about "all he had done to me", I was the one and only one "entitled" to have any kind of negative feelings. I was setting some pretty lofty goals for a newly recovering alcoholic and who was I to be setting any goals for him in the first place. With luck, my first Alanon sponsor gently helped me to turn my finger back toward myself to search out healthier ways I could be of loving support to myself, my family and find compassion for the alcoholics in my life. Lots of Alanon meetings helped and calls to people in the program. It sounds like you and your husband have some very good tools in place for his sobriety and your relationship with one another. If you haven't walked through the doors of your first face to face Alanon meeting, maybe think about giving a meeting a try. Hope you keep joining us for recovery here. TT
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Surround yourself with people and elements that support your destiny, not just your history.
Tiredtonite covered most everything in her post. I just wanted to add that the first year or even, 2 from what I've heard, can be very difficult for the whole family. The best thing you can do is take care of you and your kids and just let him work his recovery as he needs to. No expectations. Just working on acceptance for where he is today and that can come from the rooms of Al Anon and finding people in recovery who have been where you are or where you have been.
I know how you've lived, but unfortunately I fell out of love with my spouse and we are now divorced. He never found recovery but I'm not sure that even sobriety would have saved us after all that we'd been through. There are no guarantees in life, not with anybody. I had to learn self care and learn to trust my higher power to take care of me. My answers were in working the steps for ME. I do hope you find a path to peace for yourself. Welcome to the boards!
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Never grow a wishbone where your backbone ought to be!
Hello Yankeerose and welcome to MIP! Glad you are here and that you shared!
My husband is an A and my two sons are also As. So, you can bet that we have had our fair share of dysfunction. Two of the three are still active and one is in recovery.
One of the first things I realized when I came to Al-Anon is that I could find ways to be happy and at peace in spite of what they choose to do. It's not always easy and at times I do wonder why it is this way, but I have just decided that I need to work on me and do my own recovery and follow my heart/HP to the next right thing.
There are days where I too feel as if I should have bailed a long time ago. But then there are days when I am grateful I am still 'here' in this family/home. I used to make decisions based on emotions, and I try now to make them based on facts with plans.
I am a double-winner, so walked the AA path first. I've been sober almost 28 years. That first year is difficult as we are learning to do everything without alcohol. Dinner, Movie, Lake, Ball Games, Bowling, Poker, Block Parties, etc. - you name it....alcohol was there for me. It was my liquid courage for many years and it was frightening and uncomfortable to do all this each and every day and not drink.
I also had a ton of shame and anxiety over all that I had done and all that I had not done. Changing habits is difficult for daily living; it was unbearable some days without my liquid courage. There were literally days were all I did was what was suggested, Don't Drink, Go to a Meeting, Stay in the Moment. I am grateful I did not have a family living with me when I got sober - I had already destroyed my first marriage, and was all alone.
Coming to Al-Anon when I no longer could deal with so much active As around me taught me to live my life the way I wanted. Stop doing for them what they could do for themselves. Work on my attitudes, actions, reactions and peace of mind and let my HP take care of the rest. I did not cause it, I could not cure it and I could not control it - I just needed to learn how to accept that which I could not change and take action for me when necessary to protect my peace of mind and sanity.
Face to face meetings, online meetings, literature, daily readers and fellowship are all essential tools I need each day to live my life fully. These are all gifts provided by the Al-Anon program, which I cherish and believe saved my life/mind. Please keep coming back and keep an open mind. The answers will come to you when they should as they should.
Glad you are here - (((hugs)))!
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Practice the PAUSE...Pause before judging. Pause before assuming. Pause before accusing. Pause whenever you are about to react harshly and you will avoid doing and saying things you will later regret. ~~~~ Lori Deschene
Thank you all for your very informative replies. Tiredtonight you hit the nail on the head. That is exactly how I feel wanting to make up for lost time. And God knows there is a lot of time to make up for! I always said to my RAH that all you need to is stop drinking and everything will be fine! The truth is I don't know him as a sober man and I guess he really doesn't know me either. I have taken the summer off from work to relax and do some of the things I could never do since I was always working. He said he is glad I am around more to support him fully but he knows his recovery is his own job. I definitely would like to be more patient and learn not to take this so personally. My self-esteem is already shot as it is! I really need to get that back but I know it's going to take time. I went to one F2F meeting a few years ago during my RAH's second attempt at recovery. I don't think I was ready at that time for my own recovery. I still had a ton of resentment and I sat there thinking wait a minute I'm not the one with the problem here why do I have to waste my time going to meetings and therapy?! I had to reach a point in my life where I realized I am just as sick as him. I am at that point now and look forward to going to lots of F2F meetings. We have plenty in our town. This board helps me tremendously just reading others posts and knowing I am not alone. Also picking up some very useful advice. It has helped me get through some really rough days. I will definitely keep coming back!
Tiredtonight nailed it and especially here which I've noticed myself first hand...."trouble concentrating at first and also startled very easily to noise and unexpected motion around them"
Ro, I don't live with an active drinker now but I understand so much of how you feel.
I,too, felt terrific anger at how I'd tried so hard for so long and NOW I had to make myself happy and responsible? WTF? Hadn't I gone through enough? And now it's going to be hard and I have to do the footwork???Yup, that's about sums it up...
I recommend you get to as many F2F meetings as you can because Alanon is for YOU! As I said, it's been a long time since I was in the drinker's home but those lessons learned while there have haunted me and have affected me for many years.
Keep an open mind and you will find hope...as promised in The Promises...
Sending big {{{HUGS}}} your way.
Yankeerose,, he has a challenge in front of him to figure out who he is without alcohol. It's scary.
Your challenge is not that different. How well do you really know yourself? Much of the time, a long term relationship with an alcoholic/addict will leave the significant other also very lacking in self care and healthy self image. You get so used to alcoholism running the show and you having to cover all the bases, that you also lose yourself in the process.
What do you like? What can you do on your own that gives you pleasure? How do you make yourself happy apart from others? I really didn't know how to answer those questions after a long relationship with an alcoholic.
He just hit his one month sober mark and showed me his coin he received last night at a meeting. I told him how proud I was and that I know I did not make the first couple weeks home easy for him as I was having my own selfish issues. You all are so right. Living with alcoholism for so many years takes its toll. We are all living proof. I read someplace that most people cannot live with an active alcoholic for one year let alone 18. I am learning to have more patience, understanding and compassion. I have to accept we cannot have the old relationship back. In fact it really wasn't even a relationship as it was one sided 99% of the time. I am grieving the lost years and regretting mistakes of the past so bad. The biggest obstacle I am facing is not thinking of the future. That is so hard because I think we all want to look forward to happiness in our lives. I thank you all so much for your wisdom and understanding. It helps tremendously. I would still be stuck in my "poor me" rut without it.
Congrats. to your guy for getting that one month chip!!! That's huge and how wonderful that you can be proud of that and share it with him.
You have also showed self awareness in realizing that it's not been easy for either of you.
Be gentle with yourself and you are right that we all want happiness in our lives. I believe HP wants that for us too!
As you consider and grieve for the past and what was not as expected/desired/wanted, try to focus on what may come next. I've truly experience a better present than I could ever have hoped for or projected when I first came to Al-Anon. I believe now that the best is yet to come, and if I want to be a part of 'that', I have to do what I can each day to ready myself for the unexpected.
I have faith (through this program and using the steps/tools/slogans) that my HP doesn't just pull me through difficult times. Instead, he leads me to them to learn and through them to be a better person.
When I get up in the morning, and start to consider my day, I only project through what I want/will make for dinner. I then work backwards to fill in that which I need to do, want to do and should do. I try to make my plan a blended one - including self-care, self-love, work and chores. When my mind drifts to tomorrow, or next week or .... I try to bring it back to dinner and then backwards again.
It sounds simple and perhaps a bit crazy, but it works for me. I allow myself to make plans, but I do not project the outcome as I truly don't know how it will go...
Glad you are here and looking forward to walking this journey with you.
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Practice the PAUSE...Pause before judging. Pause before assuming. Pause before accusing. Pause whenever you are about to react harshly and you will avoid doing and saying things you will later regret. ~~~~ Lori Deschene
Iamhere I am so glad to be here. I look forward to reading the board every day and when I find something someone shares that I can relate to it helps me get thru my day. I think that is a great idea to only think as far as what I will make for dinner. I am definitely going to try that. This site has been a lifesaver for me. I am looking forward to attending F2F meetings as well. (((HUGS)))
