Hi All,

I just spent a week off with my family.  In the past a week away with AH and my daughter and all our family coming on different days to visit would have been a nightmare for me.  All the anxiety about his drinking, the monitoring, the need to feel like I had to confront every miss step he made and point out problems every moment.  Feeling like I had no control of my life and that I was at the whim of an unpredictable A would have made me ready to come back to work.  But this was not how I felt at all this past week.  Sure my AH drank some nights and was a bit obnoxious and some mornings he was in a terrible mood but it didn't effect me the way it has in the past.  I'm not saying I wasn't bothered by some of the things that occurred but I felt more capable of handing my own life than I have in the past.  And on top of that I felt confident in giving him back the responsibility of his own drinking.  After all he's an intelligent capable man he doesn't need me to tell him what to do.  With that change in attitude I was actually able to relax a lot on vacation.  Lately I've been in the terrible habit of counting beer cans and that just made me miserable.  I was actually able to let that go.  I don't need to count the cans to determine what kind of day I'm going to have.  I can decide what kind of day to have.  When he was in a mood I made my own plans and had my own fun.  When he drank too much and went to bed very early I took some time to myself to unwind and sit by the lake and listen to the waves.  When he actually worked on NOT drinking too much and we all had some great family time I allowed myself to enjoy that too.  When I couldn't take the moodiness one day I told him so.  He told me he was trying to get out of the bad mood and he was struggling and I was able to stop taking it personally. 

A while ago I made an intentional decision to give him back the responsibility of his drinking.  By monitoring, pointing out and criticizing his drinking it was just making him hide it from me more (or try to hide it) and it was making it worse.  Since then I have been reminding myself that his drinking is his responsibility not mine.  I've noticed him noticing his own drinking more.  He often sets an intention that he will cut back during the week and sometimes he is successful and sometimes he's not.  He's been telling me his plan to ensure he doesn't get too out of control when with friends who drink even more than he does.  he's even been avoiding friends who tend to drink too much.  In the past I would have seen this as ridiculous.  If he's not going to go to AA and stop drinking he's not doing enough, he's not going to succeed he's still deluding himself.  But lately I've had a change of mind about that.  All that can be a good sign.  A sign that he at least cares about how much he drinks, how his drinking is effecting me and others in his life.  It is a sign that he has some awareness (even if I think he still fools himself about how much he actually drinks).  So instead of criticizing his efforts because it's not the way I think he should do it I've decided to keep my hands off and let him figure it out for himself.  I see those things as a positive.  I still have a realistic understanding of the disease to know that he will not always succeed so my hopes don't get too high when he makes plans to cut back.  I'm leaving it up to him and his HP.  I'm working with my HP to make my life better and enjoy things despite the circumstances.

I was driving to work today and I realized that for the first time in a long time I am coming back more relaxed.  I took a real break.  It's such a relief to feel that way. I feel more sane than I have in the past.  So I wanted to write this and share it because it feels really good and it is all due to Al Anon.