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My AH has been sober for a few months after a brief relapse in November.
I know there are times when I would like to know if he has been drinking due to his behavior, however I also know that this same thing occurs on days when there was no way he could have had a drink.
EVERY NIGHT, typically at about dinner time, AH gets very argumentative and will try and pick a fight about the smallest thing. He will mumble under his breath things like "just a few more months" and "she can have her boyfriend, at least someone is hitting it"....He is just a mean, disruptive, and difficult person.
When we get up in the morning, it'll be as if nothing happened
Has this happened to any of your qualifiers?
When things like that happened in my household, even though I knew there was no way he could have had a drink - he had had a drink. I underestimated the sneakiness of the disease. He had those tiny airline bottles stashed everywhere. He had one behind the washing machine. He had them in the garage. He had them behind the bushes in the yard. He had one under the sofa cushions. This is a guy who is so secretive that still in my entire life I have never seen him actually take a drink. But what else were all those little bottles for? And the smell on his breath, the behavior, the DUIs - they all told the story.
I know people are also belligerent dry drunks sometimes. Mine never got to the point of being the dry kind.
I guess that same old saying applies - "He's going to do what he's going to do - what are you going to do?"
Hello EarlyBird, I don't believe we have met before.
I have to admit that your post (though certainly not "funny") made me laugh a little because it reminded me so much of my "old" life. I can just hear my RAH's friends saying something exactly like this (except I was never really accused of having a boyfriend). In my case, I was accusing him in a way....subtly of course, but accusing nonetheless. His friends would often comment similarly, because they thought it was all a joke; of course I didn't at all. I took everything way too serious, but it did feel very very serious at the time.
When I look back now, they were playing cat and mouse with me, as was my now RAH. This was before recovery, of course. Now, he would never allow things like that to occur.
I completely agree with the other poster, who said that her qualifier was drinking, even though there was no way they could be. Mine had alcohol stashed everywhere. It was amazing how he could find a way to have that many beers hidden and cold of course. Looking back, it's almost like he used my physical limitations the place alcohol in places that I could not get to. He would take a ride down to our buildings behind our house to get something or to move a lawnmower or four wheeler, the Polaris, the golf cart, or even a tractor. He would go to our camper or our mill house to "check on it" and make sure no mice had sneaked inside. Each place has its own stash and, as I'm sure you're aware, beer smells like beer, so that one can he admitted to drinking might have been 30 or more. I had no idea he was drinking 30+ every day for so many years. You might want to how I missed this considering the cost, but he found a way to hide anything.
It wasn't until he was in recovery that I found out exactly how much he was drinking.
That much alcohol impairs a persons every thought and certainly impairs their ability to respond. I also didn't know that he is nearly deaf, because I thought walking out of the room in the middle of a conversation was simply a way to be a jerk. And of course, most alcoholics are jerks in one way or another. Naturally, that is my opinion only and is taken from the life of the person who lived with an active alcoholic for over 20 years.
Things are very different when a person is truly in recovery. Are they perfect? Of course not! Are they much, much better? You can bet my life on it! I did!
Believe me when I say it was time for me to get out and that's exactly what I planned to do. My higher power had something else in mind and intervened at exactly the perfect time. The day I went to see an attorney was the day my qualifier hit bottom (at least I pray this is his bottom). He has been sober over a year now and is working his program daily. He also now has hearing aids and that has change so much. Just before getting them, and while in recovery, he thought I said F you when I said thank you. That is a pretty clear indication that he might not have been hearing me clearly. Don't you think? LOL
Patterns are fairly easy to see with an alcoholic when you step back and look from another person's perspective. If you think of your life like a movie and watch it from afar, what do you see? If you see a pattern of behavior that repeats itself very often only after a person has been drinking, then chances are they are drinking. For example, before recovery my qualifier would always tell me he was going to be home in "15, no 20, minutes", which I know meant 2 to 3 hours at least. It was simply a fact I knew and did not question. That's not to say I didn't worry about him drinking and driving because he did that every single day and my stomach stayed in knots because I wasn't sure if he was going to on kill someone by running over them and not even know, run into a busload of children, or simply end up dead in a ditch too drunk to know anything.
We can also add and that he passed out in the chair in the den each night and I would either try to get him in the bed, which was a horrible experience , or after I finally quit that, I would try to position his head after I got the nasty dip out of his mouth so he wouldn't choke on it. He snored so badly and stop breathing repeatedly until I left my own room and slept in an entirely different area of the house for about a year, making it even worse between us, or slept in the bedroom with virtually no rest at all. During his one period of not drinking; I would not call it sobriety because he was not working a program, he finally got a CPAP machine which saved his life and mine. I think I was going nearly insane from no sleep because the only time I slept was when he was at the hunting club with his buddies and I knew he would not be coming home. I gave myself the ability to sleep by pretending he would be fine while he was there.
Thankfully he does not go to the hunting club anymore because it is a trigger for him and he does not want to relapse. I thank God for that decision on his part because it is not my decision. Also I thank God because I don't have to worry anymore about the drinking and driving and the ridiculous decisions he used to make. He travels now for a living, but I don't worry.
I am telling you all of these things from because they show that you are not alone. You need not feel like you are the only person who lives this every day. Things can be very different, even if your qualifier does not stop drinking.
As my wonderful doctor told me, the ball is really in my court, as it is in yours. It's just that I did not fully grasp that concept. It would have taken time for me to learn to play the life game again and to get out on my own, but I could have done it and I still can if need be. I choose to stay now because I am happy. Should drinking take over again, I will have to make other decisions about my life. This is something I have to do for myself. I do not suggest that you do the same thing or that you make any decisions at all in the immediate future, because we recommend not making major life decisions for six months to a year. (Someone please correct me if I'm wrong on the time.)
I do recommend Al-Anon and especially this site and the readers that Al-Anon has. I believe that the big book for AA is an extremely important book to read because it gives you information about alcoholism that you cannot find anywhere else. I read it from cover to cover, more than once. It was my way of trying to understand. It also helped me to see and fully grasp that I have no control over anything or anyone besides myself. This has been so hard for me because I am a controlling person, which was also quite difficult for me to admit. I thought I was simply right. I thought I knew it all. God forgive me for that truly ignorant thought process.
And, God bless you as you work toward a brighter and happier future.
(((EarlyBird))) - hugs for you.....living with the disease had me get super creative with my self-care. All 3 of my family members happen to be my qualifiers and are all male. I know many who suggest only women have moods and cycles and speaking for my home only - I believe some males do too.....each of them has their own moment/chaos that has 'tells', and before the program, I always wondered/questioned/obsessed and analyzed it and them.
When things would go crazy, I wondered if they were drinking or not, using other substances or not, hiding the truth about something or not, affected by something I did or did not do....I spent far more time focusing on them, their moods, actions, reactions trying to find the answer/solution/problem. It was my disease in full blown reality that caused me to look at them more often than myself and obsess over solutions to problems that they didn't even acknowledge.
As I get into the program, I realized that self-care often involves changes in perceptions and creativity. I began to do more crock-pot meals and casseroles - the goal was self-serving meals. Wanting to sit down together as a family for dinner was a great Norman Rockwell goal, but it rarely happened here. There is something in my home about dinner time being the witching hour, so I began to plan other things, leaving a note saying, Feel free to eat if/when you are hungry. I would go out for a walk with the dog, go wash my car, go to the gym, etc. I learned to love myself enough to do what mattered to maintain my serenity. Family dinners were not serene, so I changed it up. They now have much more meaning when we do it.
The serenity prayer suggests if I want to have and keep my serenity, I need to focus on what I can change and take action accordingly. Spending time trying to figure out why another is doing what they are doing just drains my serenity. Constantly looking for the 'root cause' (hidden bottles, pills, etc.) made me even crazier and never, ever affected my recovery. Actually, when I kept looking to place the blame for my life on others, it took away all my peace and joy and often resulted in resentments. I can't live with resentments any more and have serenity - the two just do not co-exist in my brain/heart.
So - there are a million reasons why he could be having a moment, mood or 'other'. If he's not willing or able to see what you see, detaching with love and choosing self-care sounds like a plan for peace. I no longer spend my time wondering why or when or what or ... - the program tells me to replace thoughts of that with thoughts of me, my program, my growth, my assets and of course gratitude.
As we say, This too shall pass. Hang in there - you are not alone!!
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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
