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Bear with me - this is painful
In brief - I'm an alcoholic with 15 months sobriety. I met a charming woman when I was in rehab. Nothing happened when we were there but we stayed in contact when she left in January. We admitted we had feelings for each other but what I didn't know was she'd relapsed soon after leaving. She sobered up and we kept in touch. She relapsed again in May - I went to try and support her but ended up enabling her. She was vile, manipulative, cruel. She told me I may have made her pregnant. I nearly relapsed myself but it damaged me. It reminded me of what I was like. I can't judge her. I lent her money, tried to sort some practical stuff out but she ended up drinking so I had to leave. Since then to protect myself I've not been in contact as often. I love her dearly and it's horrid. When I have phoned she seldom answers and when I text I seldom receive a response. It's killing me. I know she's been sexually assaulted, attacked and mugged in that time. I'm at my wits end. I don't know what to do. As I said I try not to judge and try to be loving and supportive but I seldom receive much of a response and it kills me every time. I'm worried I'll relapse myself at some point. I realise at some point I'll have to walk away but it's killing me. I can't deny my feelings but I don't know what to do. I phoned Al-Anon today and I'm going to go to a meeting on Wednesday. It's a reminder of the hell I put my family through. I have my family back and I'm so grateful about that. I'm just so scared. If there's anything more I could do I'd do it but it's tearing me apart.
I'm so sorry to rant like this. It's just horrid to see this play out and know there's nothing I can do about it. I try not to take it personally as when she was well she was the sweetest soul one could ask meet.
It's painful.
Welcome Paul, congratulations on your 15 months of sobriety and for reaching out for support at this difficult time. As you know, alcoholism is a dreadful progressive, chronic disease over which we are powerless. Since we did not cause it, cannot control it, and cannot cure it, the best we can do is to learn how to interact with the person who is suffering from the disease in a healthy fashion.
I am pleased that you have located Al-Anon face-to-face meetings and are planning to attend. It was at these meetings I learned to break the isolation caused by living in the chaos of the disease, developed new and constructive tools to live by. These tools taught me to live one day at a time, keeping the focus on myself and my needs, to stop reacting and to act in my own best interest, trust a power greater than myself, and to get to plenty of meetings for support.
I can readily identify with the anxiety and pain that you are experiencing and would like to suggest you keep coming back here as you are not alone
I too have had those overwhelming feelings for someone who started out wonderful and then everything seemed to change. And yet my feelings didn't change. I've come to wonder why that was. In your case, you describe her behavior as "vile, manipulative, cruel," damaging, and rejecting. I asked myself why, when my beloved displayed many of the same qualities, I didn't take that on board as well.
In my case I think it was for several reasons. One was that I had such an overwhelming need for someone as kind, loving (and even needy) as I thought the person was, that it was devastating to acknowledge that that person didn't exist. My need was greater than the reality.
Another reason was that the craving to get the rejecting person to love me was like heroin to a heroin addict. I had spent my childhood in the quest to get my parents to show love for me, and this was like a continuation of that quest. The craving was abolutely overwhelming. I know that real love is peaceful and calming and accepting, not like this turmoil and quest and craving. But the craving felt so strong that I thought "This has to be love."
The third reason was that I was addicted to drama and turmoil, because it was familiar and because it distracted me from looking at my own life, which needed a lot of changes and improvement. Here it looked like the improvement was going to come from the outside in one wonderful package and oh boy! Things were going to be great! And there's nothing like a quest to win the attention of a relapsing self-absorbed manipulative (but sometimes charming) addict to add drama and excitement. I've heard it described as "excited misery" and that said it exactly.
When I realized that what felt like love was actually all these other things, a kind of sick craving, it helped me get some perspective. I won't say it made the pain less, but it gave me some perspective on how real the pain was. That is, the pain was real, but my "need" for the person wasn't real. I had real needs, but they were in other directions.
Meetings and reading and support and a sponsor could be wonderful helps. I hope you are working your own AA program really hard too. The disease always looks for cracks to work its way back in. Take good care of yourself.
I remember coming here the first time and the pain I had inside that I thought would never go away. Like Betty has said Al-anon will help you to learn how to detach with love. You can be there without being there but in turn caring for yourself. Like when the the plane is going down. You put the mask on yourself before you put the mask on anyone else because if your not breathing you can't help anyone.
Take care and keep coming back because you are not alone.
(( hugs ))
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Lord, put your arm around my shoulder and your hand over my mouth
Speak only when you feel that your words are better than your silence.
Thank you for your response. It means a lot. Part of me feels a fraud as it's not like she's my wife, parent or sibling. Feelings are feelings though. If I learnt one thing through my own journey it was not to ignore or devalue these. I've kinda ignored them the last few months. I think the hardest thing to accept is the best way I can manage this is to manage myself......
So right on Paul--The best way to manage a relationship with someone suffering from this dreadful disease is to" manage ourselves"-- and remember YOU are so Worth it !!!
It's true that feelings are feelings and strong ones mean something important. Exactly what they mean sometimes takes some deciphering. For instance you might have strong feelings telling you that drinking will solve your problems ... but you know what those feelings are worth. They mean that you urgently need SOMETHING to solve your problems, or to start to solve them - but the voice saying 'Drinking will do it' is not a voice that has your best interests at heart. I've learned that any feeling that's overwhelming telling me I "have" to do something or other - that's a time to put the Al-Anon saying into play - "Don't React." Wisdom responds rather than reacts. You've come to get support and wisdom and the experience of the program, that's a huge step toward making things better right there. Hang in there.
One of the biggest drawcards to al-anon for me was realising that I didn't have to justify or explain my feelings, even to myself. But what I COULD do was put them aside somewhere safe and make calm decisions that felt right for each moment without feeling as though my actions had to somehow validate and back up those feelings...I don't know if that makes any sense.
But basically when i entered the program my entire world revolved around my feelings and my constant reactions to those feelings.
Example...I've had a fight with my A. So now I feel scared and rejected so my next action MUST be to somehow make that fear and rejection go away.
Alanon taught me that the feeling was perfectly OK, but I could put it somewhere safe for a while and practice some other kinds of thoughts and actions. Getting better at those other thoughts and actions made for better feelings and it became an addiction in itself really, lol.
I hope you'll give l-anon a try; I imagine you might gain a great deal from it and it might enhance your recovery to no end
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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)
Many thanks to you all for your kind responses. There's so much I can identify with. My time in AA has shown me the power of such things.
I'm really glad I phoned Al-Anon and posted on here. I spent much of the night working out what to do, should I phone, should I text, should I check when she was last on Facebook, what would I say, would I be kind would I be hurtful. Experience has shown the futility of such thinking. I always try and make sure any communication is both compassionate and loving. I've no room in my best for hate, recrimination and resentment - they eat you from the inside. I'm gonna hold fire, or try to hold fire from any further communication with her until I've gone to the meeting. Hopefully it will at least give a kind of perspective. I'm not expecting to be told what to do, more to have some kind of safe space to talk, be heard and to listen.
Thank you all so much
I too welcome you to MIP - so very glad you are here and that you found the courage to post/share.
I came to Al-Anon from the other room (AA - 27 years sober). I will talk about that for just a moment - your sobriety MUST remain your number one priority. As you've come so far, I'll just quickly remind you that taking a drink (or other) will NOT help with this situation or any other situation. It will just magnify it and make it worse. Keep yourself planted in the present, be grateful that you've made it this far and work your program!!
Now - putting on my Al-Anon hat - yay that you found F2F meetings and plan to attend. All that you feel resonates with my journey and how I arrived here and at Al-Anon. What Al-Anon did for me was to help me understand the 3 Cs - I didn't cause it, I can't cure it and I can't control it. We talk in AA about being powerless over people, places and things - in Al-Anon, that's a huge premise for program work. All we can truly control is how we act/react and how we choose to live our lives, also - one day at a time.
Both programs use sponsors - I'm fortunate to have one that is like us - a Double Winner. You can discuss your situation openly at an AA meeting and will get some good feedback. Al-Anon is a bit different in my area where topics are pre-decided. Each topic always applies to me/an issue I am having so it's all good. Use all the program friends (both sides) you have to maintain your sobriety and then incorporate the Al-Anon program as logical.
It was a bit confusing for me at first as I would sit and try to figure out why I was bothered - is it an AA issue or is it an Al-Anon issue. That 'dilemma' was all in my head - it was a life issue and I needed support. For every challenge I've had, I've been able to find ESH from either side and feel better.
Lastly there are 2 meetings here each day. The schedule is at the top left - great meetings as well! Keep coming back and know that we're just a post away!
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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
Wow - I'm so humbled by this feedback. I truly am. It's given me some focus, context and clarity. My main worry is I'll drink - I nearly did when I went up to 'help' her last month and felt so rejected and hurt when she didn't get back in contact and I felt I was chasing her. The second worry is I feel so inadequate and that I feel I've gone above and beyond trying to love and support a woman who is almost certainly unable to reciprocate anything. I cried a fair bit today. I feel so low but I guess it's not what happens it's how you deal with it..........
Okay now you're reading from my diary PaulF so let me get you to the part where you'll understand that there is no justification for alcohol...none...nada...never. When I learned that I had to admit I was never better in the consequence only much much worse. You want to be better so it would be insanity in doing that which you already know will only and always make you worse. I had to get to the point where my head was this lucid so that I didn't do something I already knew would not work. Like I am here I am also a double with Al-Anon being the first door my HP pushed me thru because I found and fell for that awesome vamp called an alcoholic woman who I just had to add "wife" to her title. I would have gotten the same result by sitting in the middle of a busy intersection in our town, pouring a flammable over myself and then igniting it. Drama!! we do DRAMA best. You're not at the humor stage I can tell and I hope you get there cause when I was where you are at now ending my life was a very reasonable (NOT!!) alternative. Alcoholism is a fatal disease so dying would have been part design huh? I've been alcohol free and in Al-Anon also for a long time just one day at a time. The disease is nasty and seeing as the last word in the 2nd step is sanity I know that you and I are in the right place at the right time. Insanity was a consequence of my best thinking, planning, wishes and wants. I did it like you did it exactly...fell is lust with a awesome alcoholic woman and then kept telling myself love....love....love dammit!! Testosterone and alcohol what a fatal cocktail. Anyhow I got thru it and survived very very well just as you will if you keep coming back and keep your mind open.
We are in support and you can knock on my door anytime you care to. ((((hugs))))
Thanks Jerry - yes it's familiar and all too true. There have been times when suicide seemed preferable to the pain. I kinda thought: Am I that unloveable? Is this the price I pay for bearing my soul to her? What does that say about me? Before I entered rehab I spent four months in a psychiatric hospital - my eighth admission to such places - there were times, in fact there are times I'd rather be in there then deal with or try to navigate through this desolate, lonely and tragic emotional wasteland. If rehab taught be anything it was that absolute emotional honesty was needed. I can't play this game any other way.
Maybe you know the Al-Anon saying "going to the hardware store for bread" - that's what we do when we go to an alcoholic for attention or real love. They cannot give it because their lives are bound up in the addiction. They simply cannot give it. The question to be solved is why do we hope for it from them - why do we make ourselves vulnerable to people who can't give back? When I began to solve that, my healing and self-care took off. Yours will too. Keep at it - there are miracles in store.
I kinda thought: Am I that unloveable? Is this the price I pay for bearing my soul to her? What does that say about me? Before I entered rehab I spent four months in a psychiatric hospital - my eighth admission to such places - there were times, in fact there are times I'd rather be in there then deal with or try to navigate through this desolate, lonely and tragic emotional wasteland. If rehab taught be anything it was that absolute emotional honesty was needed. I can't play this game any other way.
Hi Paul,
Her actions are about her, and your actions are about you. That's why we have another saying "Quit Taking It Personally". You aren't unlovable, but, in the place she is in, she is probably incapable of loving. That says nothing about you.
