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Hello. I've never done this before, but I need to unload and my friends have never dealt with this stuff. I need people who can understand how I feel and what I'm going through.
My husband is an alcoholic. He has been sober now for 29 months. I'm very glad that he's sober, don't get me wrong about that. His alcoholism was destroying our relationship, it was affecting our children, our finances...everything. I just never thought for a minute that sobriety could cause our relationship to deteriorate even more.
I never thought that my husband becoming sober would save my marriage even though most of our problems as a couple stemmed from his problem. I did however, think that once he was sober, he would open his eyes at least a little and be more willing to work out different issues. I couldn't have been more wrong.
Let me backtrack to when he was drinking. I was totally alone...literally. He would leave to run to the corner store and not return until either I went looking for him at the homes of various drinking buddies or until one of them dumped him off totally wasted. I used to lye awake all night long, just waiting for him to either finally come home or for the phone to ring. I dreaded hearing it ring because I was sure that I would get a phone call saying he was either dead or in jail. The jail calls did come too...four times. I was totally alone and felt completely ignored and unloved. It seemed like the only times we were able to even remotely act like a normal couple were on the rare occasion that I drank too. When we were finally in a position to even think of buying our first home, I jumped at it because I hoped that moving away from most of the drinking buddies would help him to get a handle on things. I was wrong. Against my better judgement, we allowed a friend if my husband to move in with us temporarily. Things went from bad to worse because now he had a live in drinking buddy. I begged, I pleaded, I argued, I threatened...I wanted him to get help before it was too late. I cried, I screamed and yelled, I threw things...anything to get his attention on the fact that I was lonely and wanted my husband. No go...the drinking and buddies always won. I finally threw the friend out...literally into the street without warning. It may sound coldhearted, but at the time I felt that it was the right thing to do. I blamed the friend as much as I blamed my husband. Eventually, I sought the attention I wasn't getting from my husband in other places. No, I didn't have an affair or anything like that. No matter how bad things are, I couldn't and wouldn't ever do that. I did however develop an addiction of my own of sorts...the internet. I found a group of people who shared many common interests and eventually met and formed friendships with them offline. He hated that. He hated that when he did choose to grace me with his presence, I had other things to do. I know that was wrong, but at the time I felt closer to these friends than I did my own husband. We drifted further and further apart, no matter what I did to try and stop it. Finally, my husband got back to back DUI's...his third and fourth. I had sworn after his second that if it happened again, that was the end. My thinking was that he knew what he was doing and if he cared that little about our children and me, then we were better off without him. When he got his third one though he finally admitted that he had a problem and sought help. I decided that if he could try, then so could I and I stayed. Within a month or so he slipped, drank and drove home. Boom...another DUI and a phone call from jail begging me not to leave him. I'm not sure what it was, but there was something in his voice and the things he said that told me that he finally had hit bottom and really wanted to become sober. That was in November, 2003. I stopped drinking then too. Alcohol never was an important thing in my life, so not having it was no big deal to me. I was willing to do whatever it took to make the whole process easier on my husband. He went into an inpatient program and threw himself into AA very heavily when he came out. I was full of hope and really thought that things would get better. They did for awhile too...or maybe I just fooled myself into believing that they did. I'm not sure which it is anymore.
I said that I thought that once he was sober, my husband would be willing to listen and start to work on the problems we have as a couple. I thought that he would finally see things that he couldn't or wouldn't see before because he was too drunk. I was so totally wrong about that. Instead, all he can do is fire off about the things that I did...most of which were a result of his drinking in some way. Back then I blamed myself for his problem for a long time. I felt that if I was more attractive, a better wife...whatever, that he wouldn't see the need to hang out with his 'friends' all the time. My self esteem was shot. I did say very hurtful things and I did do things that I probably shouldn't have. I make no claims of innocence and I never have. I try to talk to him and all I get is "You did this...". I defend myself and try to explain WHY I did whatever it was but he refuses to listen to any of it. He says that he knows what his drinking has done and accuses me of harboring resentments. My feelings are that he doesn't know what his drinking has done. He may know that it has caused problems in our marriage, but he refuses to hear what his drinking has done to ME. I'm not trying to harbor resentment, I don't want to. I do however want him to understand exactly what he has done so I can finally put it to rest and move on. The ironic thing about all of this is that he finally does see things more clearly now...things that I've been telling him for years, but he only sees them from his side. I try very hard to look at both sides and take everything he says and has gone through into consideration. Am I wrong in wanting him to understand what his alcoholism has done to me?
I said that I felt lonely and unloved when he was drinking. The drinking buddies were always more important than me. He was willing to do almost anything for them and ran off to be with them at the drop of a hat. I still feel the same way now only he's traded the drinking buddies for non drinking buddies. He's still gone every single night of the week and I'm still home alone, filling the hours any way I can. The only difference now is that he's hanging out at the Alano club. I'm very happy that he's found new friends, friends that won't destroy him, but is it selfish of me to want the same attention and time that he showers on them? He claims it is.
I'm sorry, I've rambled on long enough. I'm just so confused and I don't have a clue what to do or where to turn. I'd love to start going to Alanon, but believe it or not, the Alano club here doesn't offer meetings and the closest ones to me aren't accessible to me since I don't drive.
Yes, alcoholism can destroy all around it and not care for a second about what its destroyed....I am glad that your husband has found sobriety. It takes everything to keep that sobriety each and every day, and he is doing what he needs to do for himself and in his heart he is also doing it becaues he loves all of you......We have meetings here every night and you are more than welcome to come, pull up a chair and chat with people who have been right there in those shoes after the meeting as well.
Hello Rio , right now his life depends on AA and the people in it, try not to be resentful of his meetings regardless of how many he is going to a week . what ever it takes to keep him sober.
I had to focus on the few hrs a week we did have together and learn to enjoy them . Anything was better than drinking days at least a couple of h rs aday sober was progress. Don't forget to enjoy the good days rio. I hope u get to find some al anon meetings for yourself we need to get our own program and recover once settled in al anon u will be so busy fixing YOU that u won't have time to worry about him . We need to stay out of thier face and off thier backs.
He is never going to truly understand how his behavor has affected you andymore than u are going to undetstand alcoholism . Accepting that will save u alot of heart ache. good luck Louise
Wow, thank you so much for posting your share. I must tell you that I could have written nearly every word of it. When I came to Al-anon, I felt so lonely and abandoned. I had isolated myself from everyone in my life, including myself and my own feelings. It has been 4 months and I am slowly starting to feel a little better.
Come here when you can, read other people's posts, come to meeting and read the literature. You can order the books on line if you are unable to get to a meeting. I have found that reading the literature is so important to my recovery. I am blessed with a sponsor who always has a great suggestions on topics that I can read on to help to clear my muddled thinking. The daily readers are a great place to start. Also there is a book on living with sobriety, I will try to get the name of it for you. (and apparently for myself - lol - since i started this by saying I could have written your post myself)
I was sharing similar thoughts with my sponsor and she told me that I really needed to look at what I expected from sobriety. Write it all down, look at each thing. Are they things that my husband did regardless of his drinking? Is he emotionally mature enough to do those things? One thing she also explained to me was the emotional maturity of an alcoholic. She said that if you determine the age the person began to drink at and add to that the length of time of true sobritey, that is the age they are at emotionally. Therefore, in my husband's case, he has about the maturity of an early teenager. No kidding, once I figured that out, it explained soooo much. My sponsor went on to explain that the rational for this theory is that from the time the alcoholic began drinking until finding sobriety, they did not mature, the alcohol was always there to numb any and all experiences (happy and sad) that would have caused growth. Pretty powerful idea if you ask me.
Just some thoughts, and I will try to get the name of that book for you.
Welcome to MIP and the first day of the rest of YOUR life:) Lynn
Thank you all for your thoughts. I do know that his sobriety depends on going to meetings and that I wouldn't trade for anything. I guess a big part of me is jealous...very jealous. One thing that I did think would change was that I would have him around the house more often, that he would want to spend time with me again. It hurts that even two and a half years later, I still don't have him. Maybe he's right and I AM being selfish about it, but I can't help it. I want to feel like I have a place in his life and right now I don't feel that way.
There are days when I almost wish he'd take a drink. Let me explain that one because it makes almost no sense at all to even me. I understand that for him, stress was a big factor. We couldn't make the rent or house payment because he spent it on alcohol? He went and drank more to blow off the stress. Now he gets mad...very mad. He starts yelling and playing the blame game. When that starts, I'll find myself almost wishing that he'd resort to old behaviors just so I won't have to hear it. Of course I regret thinking that as soon as the thought pops into my head and feel horribly guilty, but I do have the thought every once in awhile. I do give him lots of credit...we're in a very bad financial spot right now as he's just come off of six months unemployment and his new job hasn't taken off yet. We've both been under major stress and he hasn't relapsed.
I went into the chat room last night and was immediately struck by how friendly and willing to listen everyone was and I thank you all for that. That willingness to listen is something I'm definitely not used to. I'm used to having to fight to make someone listen to the smallest detail. I'm also used to being told that I'm wrong to feel the way I do. I'm used to being accused of making things harder for my husband and jeopardizing his sobriety (mother and sister in law). I want to make things easier and I don't want to do anything to jeopardize his sobriety, but having to keep everything inside and take everything on by myself is tearing me up. Everyone last night was so friendly and welcoming...I'll definitely be back. Thank you.
Your post brings back a lot of old memories for me.
Years ago, after yet another long separation, my husband agreed to quite drinking to "prove" to me that he was NOT an alcoholic and could quite drinking whenever he wanted. He did not use AA, or any treatment program at all, just quit cold turkey from sheer will power (and rage, and resentment, and anger).
What followed was the worse year of my life. He was the nastiest most horrible person in the world. He had warned me that I used his drinking as "scapegoating" the "real problems" and that when he quit drinking, the 'real problems" would come out when I could no longer use the "lame bailout" that he was a drunk. Of course, he made sure this was a self fulfilling prophecy...
When I confronted him about his verbal and emotional abuse he would say "SEE! I told you the real problems would come out when I stopped drinking". He stopped speaking to me entirely, and moved into his home office. His conduct became intolerable, he literally lost his mind.
I too used to think that my husband stopping to drink would solve all of the problems and we could be happy again. However, I have since learned that addiction is an extremely complex disorder with many many deeply rooted underlying causes. Some of them undiagnosed mental illness. Even experienced phsycologists have difficulty understand and diagnosing and treating an addict. It is not so simple as quitting drinking and returning to normalacy, when the addicted person was never really normal in the first place.
It is like a smoker who eventually gets emphysema. They may stop smoking, but the damage from the smoking is still there, and the effects are still there. They just don't dissapear, and teh lung damage is often permanant. They may get better if they cooperate with treatment and stop smoking, but they will always have underlying lung damage.
I have read that when you become an alcoholic at an early age you stop your emotional growth and development. Rather than learn to work through problems, you stay unconscious through them. This seems true in my husband's case. His way of thinking, his rationalizations, his view of things all remind me of a teenager...when he started drinking.
He does not have the coping skills of an adult, does not know how to deal with problems without drugging himself through them, and does not know how to relate to people. None of these hard learned skills will come to him through osmosis when he stops drinking.
Getting sober is a very very long path that takes a lifetime of hard diligent work to accomplish. You have to first stop the drug, then work on developing your personality that has been stunted by the drinking. That is hard work, and few truly have the will to undertake it.
To hear my husband talk, I am the cause of all of his problems. SIGH! I just tell him to move out and get a divorce if I am so bad. He won't of course, he just wants someone to blame. When I don't fall for it, he goes away and gets drunk and then forgets and pulls it again...
Through alanon I have learned to detach. I no longer research addiction and its effects. I am not my husband physiciatrist. I have my OWN problems I have to research and deal with.
I have my own life and hardly notice his anymore. I have learned to do most things on my own. My husband refused to come to my college graduation, my brother's wedding, and my father's funeral. This used to really bother me and hurt me. Not anymore. I have learned to take one day at a time.
No matter what my husband does, continue to drink, go to AA (I won't hold my breath, he thinks they are a dangerous cult), or go to a treatment facility, or even drop dead I have a plan B in place and my life will go on.
I am not saying this is easy, or I don't care, but it is more like accepting life the way it is. Accepting him the way he is.
I wish I had a traditional husband, but I don't, and that is the way things are. Pretending or wishing isn't going to help me any.
Try to slowly build a life without him. Volunteer at your children's school (one important thing that I did), go yard sailing in your neighborhood, try to network and meet other Moms to do things with and take your chidlren along. Even though I am not a divorced Mom, I live like one, and most of my friends are divorced Moms and we do things together and are a support system for each other.
Concentrate on YOU. I know this is easier said than done. I used to think that I did not get married to live a divorced life, SIGH, but I got tired of feeling rejected, alone,and miserable. My husbands first love is alcohol and there is barely room for me on the sidelines. In fact, he openly boasts to me OFTEN "YOU will go from my life before alcohol ever will". Talk about a self esteem builder...
I really left his life long ago, and he does not notice...sad...we have no real connection. We live like roomates in this house. He has his own room where he keeps ALL of his things and clothes, and I have my own room. We both have locks on our doors.
When I realized this his words no longer hurt me. I felt sad for him...how sad to see someone so addicted that they see no other life.
ok what is the Alano club? Is it AA or is it just a place for non drinking people to hang out?
If an A is not in AA learning skills to stay sober AND be a better person, he is just an a not drinking.
If he is in AA, going to a lot of meetings this can be normal too.
I just reread your post again. Relate to the lonely and unloved part. The thing is, in my experience, I realized he would never make me feel what I needed to feel from him. I gave up all those expectations you mentioned. I expect nothing from A. I ended up being glad for what he did give.
I am sure he knows what the disease has done to you. They can hardly face what it has done to them, then to have to look at what it has done to loved ones....
Our job is to take care of ourselves. The A can do nothing for us, nothing. We can get to where we feel fulfilled and happy with out them, or with them.
Their disease is their problem not ours. We can not do anything about it except build our own self up.
I hope you can find your own path to recovery. We have meetings here, this message board and pms. I got where I am now, from just this site and reading everything I could get my hands on! face to face is wonderful but we can get the program here.
I am so glad that you found us. Please do not ever apologize for writing down what you feel. Some of us need to write a lot and some of us just write less. It takes what it takes. You will learn that the process is as important as the outcome.
Do yourself a big favor, and take a breath hon...you are home. We can and will help you if you help yourself.
