"He is either gonna drink, or he won't.... what are YOU gonna do?"

girlthing181 · Newbie

I really need advice

Faith73 · Senior Member

(((girlthing))) <-- hugs, cute nickname btw.

well, you've certainly come to the right place. all here have been affected by someone else's drinking in some form or another, whether it's a child, spouse, parents, friends, etc, so i certainly understand the hurt and confusion you are going through. this is an awful disease, but there's hope for us alanons :)

i don't have the answers for what you should do, but i can suggest you get yourself to some live face to face meetings and keep coming, you will learn a lot. congrats on taking the first step and reaching out. there is also a chatroom here if you look up and to the left of your screen you can click on link if you'd like to talk with someone or attend meetings there.

888-4AL-ANON ... you can call for meetings in your area

keep coming!

love in recovery, christine

Atera · Veteran Member

girlthing, I feel your pain. I did get married to my AH. He was sober when we got married, but went back to drinking soon after. I am on the edge of a divorce now, and I don't know what to do. I do love him, but we can't seem to work it out. I do have one piece of advice. Don't leave him to "scare him," unless you're really ready to leave. I did that, thinking I was ready, when it was really only a desperate bluff. He holds that over me now. Find a face to face meeting and listen to the people there. That helped me so much in learning about the disease, and what it had done to both of us. You are not alone.

Christy · ~*Service Worker*~

girlthing,
Hi and Welcome!

I agree with Faith..Find some local meetings and begin to learn how to heal from this. It's not $85.00 an hour and it's the best free life counseling you'll ever get.

The Good News: You've reached out to Alanon before you've made any commitment on paper. This gives you time to get some Alanon tools, learn that you do not need another person to fulfill your life and that you are whole, all by yourself.
Marriage is a big decision. From my point of view, HP (Higher Power, God of your understanding) has led you here and hopefully to meetings to help you make that decision. If there's one thing I've learned, it is to listen to my HP and follow the path that is set before me.

The Bad News: Alcoholism is a progressive disease. Unless it is arrested in some way there are two ways for it to end. One is to stop and hopefully get help, the other is ultimately death.

Unfortunately, death is slow and most suffer years of problems with DWI's, finances, jobs, jail time and relationships before their bodies feel and are affected by the ravages of alcohol.

Alcoholism is a disease. The disease is cunning. It will go to extremes to survive. The excuses are rediculous. The lies are blatant.
The person with the disease lives in a constant state of denial, explaining away his/her actions, unable to see what is really happening to him/her and those that love them.

Alanon is for you, not the alcoholic. It is not to learn how to change his behavior, you can't. There are no words that will ever work.
You didn't cause it, you can't control it, and you can't cure it..

We have all come to Alanon hoping to change the alcoholic, even cure them. We are/were desperate, unhappy, lonely and insane with frustration.

What we find out is that we can only change our own behavior. I know, it doesn't sound like a solution right now. When I heard that I had to change me I was disappointed. Me? What the heck did I do? I'm not the drunk!
I wanted a plan, a quick fix to straighten my alcoholic out, make him see the light. If it were only that easy :)

Through Alanon, you can learn to be whole, learn to be happy and get your life back.
It's up to you ....

I chose to give you information rather then advice. What I can tell you from my own experience is that if I had found Alanon years ago, I would have saved myself a few thousand tantrums, heartaches and years of despair.

Christy

-- Edited by Christy at 10:05, 2006-05-08

nycbt · ~*Service Worker*~

Welcome to MIP. You are not alone. There a lot of people who understand.

World Service Organization Website –

WWW.al-anon.alateen.org

Phone number is 1-888-425-2666

Alanon meetings 800-351-9996

Alanon literature Worldwide 888-425-2666

Alanon meeting info. 800-433-7266 AA info.

Chat room is open 24/7 there here the link to www.mipchat.net or http://www.12stepforums.net/chatroom2.html

Here are some things that have helped me since in the program.

Go face to face meeting & online meeting.
post on the board here on the site. I have gotten a lot of good feed back.

· Set support system. people do not judge.You need someone who can go for coffee on a bad day, or pick up a phone and call when in trouble. The support is what is important when you first this program.

Have a sponsor. Someone work one on one with you.

You don’t have to do this the minute u come to the program but I suggest that u do it when u can. It help.

Meeting schedule: meetings are in here and run approximately 90 minutes from: Monday-Friday, 9 am and 9 pm EST, Saturday: 10 am and 9 pm EST, Sunday: 10 am and 7 pm EST. Topics are selected by participants at meeting time. UK +5 hours, central -1 hour, mountain -2 hours, pacific -3 hours. Open chat all other times.

canadianguy · ~*Service Worker*~

It's both tough, and inappropriate, for me to be able to offer any "advice" as to what you should do here...

I would encourage you in two ways.... First off, please re-read your entire post, trying hard to separate the "facts" from the "feelings", and ask yourself if this is really what you want out of life.... If your answers begin with "when he isn't drinking....", then you need to look at those in detail as well.... My sponsor used to remind me of the old line from the tv show Dragnet, where Joe Friday used to say "just the facts ma'am". It's way too easy to allow our hopes and emotions cloud those facts...

As for the counselling at $85/hr, try looking through your local drug and alcohol counselling services... most towns have some kind of free help available to people in your/our situations...

Hope that helps

Tom

Jennifer · ~*Service Worker*~

Hello (((Girlthing)))

Welcome to MIP. I'm glad you are here. Please keep reading the posts here, you'll probably find many similarities to your situation in everyone's posts. I hope you can find some peace for yourself soon.

Jennifer

Diva · ~*Service Worker*~

Others choose to give information. I leave that to them. I choose to give advice. Remember, in doing so, I have your best interests at heart, and you may not agree with me. It's fine if you do not.

I think before committing to this man, he would need to face his addiction, follow a program, and have at least a year clean and sober. That's not saying his alcoholism will not rear its ugly hear sometime in the future, but I would not marry an active A. Remember, this is what I would do. What you do is entirely your decision to make. Surely, as things stand, you have a good idea what your life is going to be like. Is that REALLY what you want?

You need to get yourself to some AlAnon meetings. Whether or not you choose to stay with this man, you can do yourself good by learning the tenets of AlAnon and applying them to your life.

Good luck and caring best wishes, Diva

-- Edited by Diva at 12:57, 2006-05-08

Juster · Veteran Member

Girlthing

I'm sorry you are going through this, it is never easy. I think there is a lot of very good information in the replys to your post. I am too new at this to be much help, but this is a great place to be for all of us. I think it would help if you read as many posts as possible and you will see a number of situations similar to yours and maybe they will help you. As others have said, nothing you do will cause your ABF to change, only the A can do that. You can only change you! I also have to constantly tell myself the 3-C's, you didn't cause it, can't control it, can't cure it. I hope that whatever decision you finally make is the right one for you. I hope that sometime in the future you don't look back and say, "if I only knew then what I know now". You might be able to glean something from rereading your own post again too. Best wishes in recovery.

Juster

girlthing181 · Newbie

thanks to all who have responded. i am going to try to attend a local Alanon meeting tomorrow night but i am concerned as to whether i should tell him that is where i am going. he is going to ask and if i dont tell him i will by lying and i dont want to be a hypocrit.

should i tell the truth and tell him i am attending an Alanon meeting.

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.

"He is either gonna drink, or he won't.... what are YOU gonna do?"