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.
My first post, and I'm pretty new to the program, though dabbling in it for years.
Through my my readings and therapy sessions, I've become a lot better at not enabling, setting boundaries and avoiding trying to solve my husband's problems. I still pick fights when I've hit my limit, but have learned to not let myself get too tired, hungry, etc. and that helps a lot.
Last night was a doozie... Without going into the *whole story* (which usually ends up with me defending him and justifying his behavior), he has had periods of sobriety and has spoken frequently, lately, of his weakness and powerlessness. Today was due to be "d-day" for quitting unhealthy behaviors (drinking and smoking), with yesterday as the "taper off" day. Maybe he was freaked out by the thought of not being able to drink today... He drank beer - not a ton - on and off throughout the day and explained his stumbling as just really tired (eye roll). He recently admitted to me that he stashes mini bottles of vodka and I'm positive he was hitting those.
Before he seemed drunk, when he had had only two beers in my presence and after a long nap, he offered to go the store for me with my list for dinner. A bit later, when I was preparing a lovely comfort food meal for him and our three kids, I find that most of the items were missing. He said he got them, must have left the bag in the car. Nothing there. I really wanted to explode. By that point he was stumbling and a complete mess. I took a deep breath, packed up what I started and put frozen pizzas in the oven, asked my daughter to take them out, and went to a meeting (so grateful to find one on Sunday evening!)
While I was gone, I was getting texts from the kids ... The 12-year old: "I think Dad is drunk", later: "Dad is lying on the floor by the door", then sent me a picture. I reassured him that he didn't need to do anything, to hang out with his sisters where they were all reading in the bedrooms. When I got home, the 14-year old told me "Dad fell again" referring to a different occasion by the bedrooms. The 10-year old had tried to help him, with the oldest telling her "it's ok, come here". I've had talks with the 14-year old about Dad, alcoholism, and Alateen. The 10-year old seems too young and is very protective of him.
I'm doing ok today. He feels like crap and has again told me he's powerless and his life is unmanageable. Tells me he's sorry.
I want to tell him what he did because I don't think he remembers. I want to tell him about the kids' reactions because he's incredibly loyal to them and wants to do everything to give them a better childhood than what he had. I probably also want to tell him, because I want to make him feel bad.
I started writing this post to get some advice and clarity on whether or not to share these things with him and the best way to do it. Also, now that I'm writing it, advice on the kids.
Thanks for for letting me share.
-- Edited by letting go and hanging on on Monday 28th of September 2015 10:46:56 AM
Wecome Letting go and hanging on, it certainly sounds as if you have some powerful Al-Anon tools at your fingertips and are using them. Alcoholism really is a dreadful, chronic, progressive disease over which we are powerless. Alcoholics are unhappy and make several promises to stop, as my son did, however when the day arrives, they are unable to comply.
AA will tell you it is because they must surrender and hit bottom . I do believe that expecting someone to give up alcohol and smoking on the same day is unrealistic. Both addictions are powerful and difficult to conquer.
It's good that you examined your motives regarding last night's incident so that, if you decide to share what went on , you can do so in a detached, caring manner. I see no problem in your sharing this as your concern for the children is valid.
Since we are powerless over people places and things, the best I can suggest is that you search out. Alateen meetings for the children and continue to attend face-to-face meetings for yourself.
I too welcome you to MIP Letting go and hanging on....so glad you found us and so glad you are here.
What came to mind here is that your concern for how it affects the kids/family is valid, and if you can say what you mean, and mean what you say without saying it mean - then go for it.
When I work with folks who are in similar situations, I always recommend the write about it first and speak with a sponsor or program friend. You mentioned motives - this seems to help me and those I work with keep the focus on the facts/issues vs. my emotions and feelings.
Certainly take some time and meditate/pray about it. I believe since you are asking and it's important to you, the 'way' to go about will be shown if you pause and ask for help.
Keep coming back - 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
I think it extremely reasonable that you discuss this with your H. If your children were expected to behave like adults by watching themselves and then deal with the adult situation with your H when they are only children, he should be able to own his actions. He probably won't but their safety was at issue. I also agree that giving up drinking and smoking is too much to handle at one time. The smoking will at least take the edge of quitting drinking.
LGHI, welcome to MIP! So glad to hear you are in Al-anon and maybe getting the children involved in Al-teen would be helpful for them as well. I commend you for sharing with us as well and hope that you keep coming back.
__________________
"Forgiveness doesn't excuse bad behavior, but it
does prevent bad behavior from destroying your heart". ~ unknown
I also believe this is something to bring up. There is a way to do it and not be nagging or controlling. I am also hearing him spitting out AA lines with zero back up and not using them in the right context. Sounds like he is misinterpeting step 1 and using it as an excuse to feel sorry for himself and drink. If you are powerless over what something does to you when you use it, and it ruins your life, you stop doing it....a day at a time.
I agree .. this is like not addressing the elephant in the room .. what Pink says about the whole regurgitation of AA and not backing it up with actions as well as using it as an excuse. It sounds like you are going to face to face meetings? Maybe this is a good opportunity to reason things out and get a clear perspective of saying what you mean meaning what you say without saying it mean. Sounds like the kids handled things very well considering the insanity that was going on around them.
Hugs S :)
__________________
Faith minus vulnerability and mystery equals extremism. If you've got all the answers, then don't call what you do "faith". - Brene Brown
"Whatever truth you own doesn't own you" - Gary John Bishop
I think it is very important that what occurred in the children's presence while he was drunk be discussed with him. He is not fragile, and does not need to be protected from the truth of his own behaviour. The children however do. Given that you are examining your motives and taking your time and not reacting in the moment I believe shows that you are acting in a reasonable manner keeping everyone's best interests in mind.
I guess I have slightly differing view from some here.
My thought is first what are you hopping to accomplish by telling him? Are you angry and want to make him understand you POV (point of view) What will telling him actually accomplish? It is something to think about. Are you trying to change his behavior by telling him, when it be through anger, hurt, examples of what he did ect... then I am not recommending it. In the end you can't change what he does. Trying to explain, or guilt a response is about like hitting your own thumb repeatedly with a hammer. It doesn't get you any thing you want but causes you a great deal of distress.
HOWEVER, if you can simply tell him (not emotionally) what happened and suggest a boundary such as our children and myself do not need to be exposed to you when you drink. If you choose to drink, which I can't control, then please find somewhere else to be until you are sober. I love you, but I don't love your behavior drinking and you can't be around us when you are. then I would be in favor. (not that you in anyway need to use that as a boundary. I just pulled an example out of a hat. Find a boundary that works for YOU and YOUR family. I can't advise anything, since I am not in your shoes. I just picked a commonly used one.
I do agree with encouraging your children toward an alateen program as another posted also. If it is working well for you, it would be great to provide your kids an outlet also.
i agree with Rinn. The kids don't need to see him lying on the floor or stumbling around. If he chooses to drink, perhaps you can set a boundary so the kids have the freedom of their home. It is so hard. I know.
Thank you all for your support, encouragement, and wisdom. I do go to occasional f2f meetings, but not super regularly. I feel like I'm already up to my ears in other therapy - couples, individual for myself, individual with my daughter, and another group for family members of trauma survivors (husband).
I've not yet brought myself to share at a f2f - the groups are so big, and I haven't felt like I've "connected" with any of them yet. It also seems like the face to face meetings I've found are so full of years of healthy recovery, that I would be the only one "whining" about a current, active situation.
Helped by comments I received here, and a fortuitously well-timed therapy session I already had scheduled for yesterday, I spoke to H about the behaviors of the night before. He was already expressing extreme remorse and embarrassment and said he probably needed to talk to the kids. I agreed, and then in a calm moment in the evening, said I wanted to share what the kids witnessed and talked to me about, to give him the information he should have before talking to them. All non-emotional and it went fairly well.
I can't seem to stop myself from getting overly optimistic about his plans to make a change. But it's been a broken record, so I'm learning to *try* to not rely on him. He's tried AA at different times, but doesn't like it. He is the most intelligent person I've ever met, and has a way of outsmarting even well-trained therapists when he wants to. From his experience of being brought into essentially a cult at about 12-years old, he has a distrust and hatred of any sort of institution, authority, or identification with any type of label.
For today, though, I'm going to keep meditating and hitting my pause button when I need to. I'm going to work more on setting my boundaries - when I figure out what they are.
Letting Go. Welcome. My AH did the same thing regarding hiding bottles around the house and in his car. I think you handle the situation very well especially with kids involved. Good for you taking the emotions out and discussing it calmly. Don't feel intimidated with speaking up in F-2F meetings. I too feel like I am a newbie compared to many in my F-2-F meetings but you have to remember that everyone has been through hard times in that meeting and they will only help to support you in this difficult time. People in crisis are the ones that need those meetings the most. Best wishes and big hugs during this difficult time.
Oh sweet Letting Go. This is a share that brings tears. I see myself in your story. This really hurts. I think for me the hardest part is the kiddos. They are such sweet, loving, innocent babes and it's so unfair that they have been exposed to this disease - but it's here now isn't it? So what to do....
For me there were several slogans and tools that helped me hang on during this phase. I know you know what works for you.
When I read your post about not being able to stop feeling optimistic I can really relate. I took the bait every-single-time. I jumped on that Merry-go-Round quickly. All the empty promises, the smoke he blew to get what he needed from me, the being reeled in over and over was absolutely my choice. That's on me. I now choose not to bite that bait. It's too bitter.
The "ah-ha" moment came when someone said that My happiness does not depend on what he does or does not do. My happiness is only up to me. I am not powerless.
So with that information began the real "traction" in my program - the rubber meets the road there.
Boundaries are also incredibly important and I cannot add any ESH there as I remain baffled by them. What I do know has come from reading and research. Here is a quote that I've been processing:
A major facet of codependence is assuming, interpreting, mind reading, and fortune telling - due to our childhood conditioning. We think we know the intentions and motives of others. We assume that they are conscious of their behavior and will know what we are talking about. We need to stop interpreting and start communicating. It is important to describe the behavior rather than our interpretation and assumptions about what the behavior means.
"When your face gets red and your voice gets louder and your hands clench into fists" - is specific and descriptive. It does not assume - rather it describes the behavior that appears to us to indicate anger.
This taught me that I spend an enormous amount of energy interpreting and mind reading - both of which are counter productive to my program of working on ME. Second, this example at the end was a good script to use when I don't know how to speak feelings, boundaries, etc. I go back to it when I find myself ruminating on his behavior and unable to speak.
1-identify the action, 2- speak my feeling, 3-verbalize my boundary or intention ( if this happens then I will choose to do __________) and then 4- calmly stick to my specific and careful communication.
I can identify with so much of this - it's very hard. I totally know about being overwhelmed by therapy appointments. We did every kind of therapy in the book, it seems like. My experience of this brought me to two conclusions. One is that many well-meaning and otherwise excellent therapists don't really have a handle on alcoholism. They've studied it in a course somewhere, but they don't "get" it like Al-Anoners get it. I had so much well-meaning advice from therapists about alcoholism, all of it wrong-headed and some of it destructive. Some wanted my AH to promise to stop drinking, and he'd say, "Sure, I promise, because I don't have a drinking problem anyway," and the therapist would think, "Good, that's solved," whereas it just led to more lying, disappointment, etc. Some would get him to promise to go to AA or another program - again, we Al-Anoners know about broken promises. Some would take his objections seriously and spend a lot of time investigating why I was so "hyper-sensitive" to normal drinking and why I had delusions that he was an alcoholic. Some would just say, "Well, if it's a problem, leave him, and if it isn't, then no worries." Some would try to reason with him.
None of it worked. And this is my second finding: that unless the alcoholism is addressed, none of the rest of it can get better. Because there's a big source of ongoing insanity. Therapists are trained at how regular people work. Regular, neurotic, dysfunctional, self-defeating people, maybe, but rational and sober people. None of that applies to the alcoholic. They're not honest about their drinking or about anything else they want to keep doing and hidden, they make a decision one day and do the exact opposite the next day, they don't remember what they said last time around, they can be paranoid, and they'll do anything and say anything to protect the drinking. Only an alcohol-trained specialist can make headway against all that, and only if the drinker has already decided he wants to make headway.
So I wasted a lot of years going through all kinds of therapy that weren't useful at all because the elephant in the room never got taken seriously. I hope the same won't be true for you. I also wish I had gone to Al-Anon and stuck with it many years before I did. But you are here and on your journey! Take good care of yourself.
Wow, it feels so good to me to be able to interact here. Again, appreciative of the comments.
We're going to our Couples therapist today. H just texted that he's anxious, like going into the principal's office.
I had a heads-up phone convo w the therapist yesterday to let her know what's been going on. The program or philosophy of the therapy is "Emotionally Focused Couple Therapy" and I wanted to point out my concerns after reading a section in the book which gives examples of situations where the therapy likely won't do much good. As you all probably already know, a big one is any type of active addiction or affair. The therapy has to be focused on our couple relationship and if a third-party is there, be it another woman, man, alcohol, whatever, it's not gonna work. It will definitely be addressed in a big way today.
Definitely a valid point about working with therapists who "get" alcoholism and alcohol-qualified codependency.
Love Mattie's post and that's been our experience here too. When there are addictions involved, there is always another complexity that is not addressed by the best of the best if they are not schooled in addictive behaviors. Unfortunately, for any therapy to work, it is like recovery - it must be 'wanted' - change and recovery must be desired for the good of the whole. Complete honesty is also required for any change, and we all know this is virtually impossible with active disease.
I hope it went well for you both - prayers and positive thoughts headed your way!
__________________
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
