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Feel like I dont know if Im doing the right thing at the moment been a hard couple of months. My husband as been a drinker for the past ten years started out as a couple of cans after work and escalated over a period of ten years to around 10 cans a night Ive watched the disease take over him and we have had so many arguments I have a 8 year old daughter who has had to witness alot of things she shouldnt I feel guilty for putting her through that and hoping he was going to change he cut down we even went to counselling he though he could control it but it always escalated back so finally after feeling scared and not recognising my husband anymore I took our Child and left early hours of the morning after a row when he was drunk. i told him I wanted a divorce and I wasnt accepting his behaviour anymore and putting my daughter through it. i stayed with family who all think I should move on and forget about him. He begged with Me, pleaded with me to give him another chance so I said I cant live with you like this he said he would do anything apologised everyday said he was quitting the drink but I knew this was going to take time he wanted my daughter and me to be back home so he left the house and moved into a bedsit round the corner he visits me all the time and Emily hes not drinking and never drunk Im not sure whether he has had relapses he has been doctors and is in medication which is helping him me and my daughter are at peace now theres been no alcohol in our house for two months and it feels great but I miss my husband very much and I still love him seeing him not drunk makes me want to be back with him I dont know what to do Im giving him time to recover he knows if he did come back there wouldnt be drinking in the house he accepts that hes really trying do I turn my back on him or do I support him and let him come home my daughter said something to school today about what had happened because she was upset going to school so they asked her was there problems at home she told them things which they were concerned over so I had to explain things to them im worried about that now aswell feels like Im a bad mother I want my family back happy but dont want to fall back into the circle how much time to I give will I know Just dont know what to do dont feel I can give up on him and Im loosing sleep over it
Hello and welcome to the board. First of all you have come to the right place. The disease of alcoholism is to much for most of us to bear alone. In my experience no matter how much I pleaded, threatened, begged, cried and wished for things to be different, nothing changed until my loved one was ready to embrace recovery for themselves. I to also had to make a lot of changes and had to learn to detach, and stop trying to manage and control someone else's life. I put my own life on hold for three years trying to save my loved one and it did not work. In fact we both just got sicker. Her addiction/preoccupation was alcohol and drugs and my addiction and preoccupation was fixing her. I encourage you to find a local Al-anon meeting for yourself. There you will find the support that you require. Sobriety/recovery does not end when the alcoholic drinking stops. There is a lot of inside work that must be done. Hopefully your spouse is seeking support through AA for himself. In my experience very few people can do it alone. He requires fellow alcoholics to support him and you require fellow Alanoners to support you.
Hello and welcome to MIP. So glad you found us and so glad that you posted. Alcoholism is a progressive and powerful disease, and recovery is possible if one truly wants it. AA is one recovery program for an Alcoholic, and Al-Anon is for family and friends affected by the disease in another person.
I do encourage you to seek local Al-Anon meetings and get a feel for how our side of recovery helps us recover from the affects of the disease. We don't give advice as each has our own journey yet we share ESH (Experience, Strength & Hope) with each other.
Al-Anon meetings helped me to better understand the disease, the diseased and how I react to it. Keep coming back - there is hope and help in recovery.
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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
Im going to attend a meeting tommorrow Im starting to realise I need help on my reactions towards alcohol I feel my husband is trying so hard after reading other stories and I dont help with the way I react I always look for signs and wonder if he has had a drink even when hes not and then I throw accusations I know I need to let him recover and focus on myself and my daughter now he no longer lives with me and we are seperated at the moment he wants to come home and I want him to but he needs to recover and I do first I need the advice on how to deal with things he visits me and my daughter on a daily basis now and I have not seen him drink or seen him drunk for a couple of months now he can go all day without a drink he is doing well so I need to let go of my issues with drink aswell while he is recovering and stop the control its out of my control my daughter is suffering from anxiety I think its from our past arguments i need to focus on making her feel secure and myself now not sure how to be supportive with my husband Yet I have said our house is an alcohol free zone and he Has respected that since we seperated so he is doing ok.
I once left the now ex A for four days. He promised the world.
I.went back and within minutes knew nothing had changed.
The stress of being away.from my home was great.
When I went back and nothing had changed I had no al anon tools to falk back on.
The tools you can learn in al.anon will help you. That is irregardless of what he does. It is worth taking the time to look.at them. New skills take time to learn.
Surrounding yourself with people who understand where you are at is also helpful. There are meetings here and a chat room.
He could be having very little and yes thats my fear him coming home and things go back and he starts sneaking it the house I have asked him has he been AA he said he has been to a couple of meetings and he has been doctors for anti depressants I have told him u can get help and that most are successful when they have Ive made it very clear if he crosses the line and he tries to bring it around me and my daughter again it will be a divorce and dont know if Im wrong for doing that but thats how I feel now Im not tolerating that life anymore he cut down once before I never seperated from him and he started to say he could control it I let him drink in the house again it started out as one can and it soon escalated Ive no tolerance for it around me now it wont be in the house again and I wont be allowing it. I dont know if thats the wrong thing to do but I have to think of my daughter I dont want it affecting her again to that extent as much as I love him I am prepared for divorce as much as I love him
I think that you've done a good job of making your boundaries clear which means that there does not need to be any need to revisit them in the wee small hours. When I do that I take my mind to a happy thought - my dog, my friends, a beautiful place - anything that feeds my soul with something that I'm grateful for.
Alcoholism is ghastly and I'm not sure if you are questioning your actions but it seems to me you've helped everyone and have been very loving even though it must have been so tough - it seems that you are experiencing peace in your home at the moment. Your husband has had a good wake up call and you are going to an Al Anon meeting. These are all great steps. It also seems that you are very aware of how the conflicts that surround alcoholism have affected you, and after ten years I'm not surprised.
I loved it when I discovered that I did not have to rush anything. I did not have to carve out all of my future this week, this month or even this year! It was ok for me to say 'I'm not ready yet.' After all, it has taken years for some of us to arrive at this point - why on earth do I imagine that it is all going to be hunky-dory in just a matter of days??!! That is my disease talking me-thinks! It sounds to me as though you are keeping your home safe, it sounds as if your husband is taking steps to work his recovery. Two months is not long and recovery is not easy. My AH said that he learnt something new with every relapse. When we started to rebuild our relationship I used to imagine that I was in the early days of dating, learning not to rush and let more reveal itself as we went along, I learnt to trust my instincts about what felt comfortable for me.
There is a beautiful phrase in Al Anon and AA - Just for Today. When I feel overwhelmed by decisions that I don't really know are right for me I simply do the right thing for me 'Just for Today.' Eventually I started planning a bit further ahead, but my plans are flexible and if something feels uncomfortable down the line I can change my mind!
Be gentle with yourself, you are doing better than you know. (((((Hugs))))))
I think I can beat myself up about my "reactions" too much. At one point the ex A went to a program. My reaction was not necessarily wonderful. I could not make the prescribed meetings because I was working. The idea that I could lose money to go to those meetings was out of the question. I did not certainly behave like the model person while the ex A was there.
I don't know that that attitude had any effect on his subsequent relapse. I believe he intended to relapse all the time.
I can beat myself up about a lot of things related to recovery. The fact comes down to, if you attend AA you will hear some people who are "willing to go to any lengths to recover".
That is indeed what it takes, to go to any lengths to make it a priority. For some people they do make that choice, some of it can be that they are afraid of losing more. For others it is a spiritual enlightenment.
These days I don't over value my response to anyone's recovery. I am certainly aware of what I need and what I deserve. I am also aware I am very very human.
Being in a separation is an incredibly hard undertaking. Having feelings is entirely normal, being hyper vigilant is pretty normal.
I know that when I have heard alcoholics in recovery share about their recovery, the single most important thing was not anyone else's attitude it was all their attitude and their willingness to go to any lengths.
I noticed at first my AH panicked when I said it was over begged said he would do anything and then now we seperated for a couple of months he has stopped all that and he just says he is doing his best my belief is he is alcohol free around us but when he leaves I think he could be drinking for a couple hours every night if he wants to quit he will do it for himself Iâm not going to question him Iâm going to focus on myself now just signed up to yoga and Iâm going to start enjoying my life and focus on who I am I feel like I have lost myself along the way if heâs not serious about recovery hopefully I will have the tools to deal with it and move on it is hard seperating but when you have exhausted every avenue itâs only a matter of time
if someone is saying that they are trying that is better than lying.
Nevertheless the cost of living around all that uncertainty is very very high.
For me there was something very compelling about all this "need' in a relationship with an alcoholic. I could feel important. I attached some value to that.
I had to get to a point where I valued myself more than I valued them. That went against all my childhood conditioning where I was trained to value everyone else except me.
An alcoholic for me fell right into all that conditioning I had a s a child. I grew up in chaos, chaos did not feel that strange to me. I grew up in high stress drama filled situations.
That felt pretty normal to me then. I had to get to a point where it wasn't merely "familiar".
Of course the ex A grew up in a extremely deprived drama filled life too. That is all he knew. Drama, chaos and uncertainity is about all he knew too.
I know it still does not feel as "bad" for him as it got for me.
For me I had to be willing to learn new tools (which were pretty dififcult) trust in others that their suggestions were going to get me somewhere. I also had to be thoroughly fed up to the hilt before I was willing to change.
For some alcoholics there is no bottom. I don't know that has much anymore due to the love of their partner. If love could cure alcoholism they would certainly be cured because there is certainly a lot of devotion around for them.
It sounds to me as though you are keeping your home safe, it sounds as if your husband is taking steps to work his recovery. Two months is not long and recovery is not easy. My AH said that he learnt something new with every relapse. When we started to rebuild our relationship I used to imagine that I was in the early days of dating, learning not to rush and let more reveal itself as we went along, I learnt to trust my instincts about what felt comfortable for me.