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.
I am so stressed and I just want some peace in my life...even for a day. Doesn't everyone deserve a break once in a while?
I want to be able to go to bed and fall asleep peacefully, not with 1000 things running through my head. I want to wake up in the morning thinking about positive things...not worried about whether or not my A is still even alive.
Why can't he just get help? Why can't he somehow be forced to go to rehab?
He nearly died Thursday night from his drug use. He has lost everything.
I hope he has reached his botton. I don't know how he could go any lower. I pray every night for him to have the strength to make the decision to get the help he needs. But how can he make a healthy decision for himself if he's always on drugs? Some days I feel like my prayers aren't being answered.
I know that I'm just rambling, but I needed to vent. I so envy people who have "normal" lives.
__________________
Just concentrating on getting through one day at a time.
Just wanted to send you my love. I know what you're going through. I know the tears and overwhelming sadness of it all. I know the desperation of wanting him to be able to see how to chose a better life for himself. And I have felt the heartache at trying to understand how he can ever chose a different way whilst constantly being under the control of drugs and alcohol.
And the sadness of seeing the happiness slipping away....and not being able to understand why it was happening. I've felt the anger and the frustration and sadness all mixed up together....
I try now to do what I can for myself. Sometimes I feel selfish for doing this and I don't like it. But, I know my sanity was and is at stake, and if I don't look after myself first, then I will be of no use to help anyone else. I've fallen so far that I don't really have a choice. I have to protect myself.
It's not happiness...not what I want really. But it's what I need, I need my sanity for myself. Sometimes, we have to take what we need in life.....what we want is something else.
I have no answers Jayda. I just wanted you to know that you are not alone. I understand. I hope you find your way through for yourself, and I hope you find your peace.
I think A's want what we all want, they just want to be happy too, but they are sick people and sometimes they just don't know how.
I know how hard it is to watch someone you love hurt themselves. As my hubby reminds me, what we think is their rock bottom is not what they think is thier rock bottom. They have to find it for themselves.
Even if you "force" them to go to rehab, they have to want their sobriety enough to work their program. If have gotten into trouble with the law more than once, then they can be mandated to treatment. But then again, it doesn't always work. The bottom line is that they have to want their sobriety more than life itself. Because it's the only thing that will save their life. Turn him over to his HP. That's all you can do.
As for you, please remember to be extra good to yourself. Detaching with love is a hard lesson to learn. But it also empowering and freeing. Try and give yourself a day just for you. I call them "Piper Days" (after my kitty). When I'm home all day, Piper can do anything she wants. Run outside, be lazy, etc. If she can have those days why can't I? It mean that you are treating yourself a day devoted just to you. It doesn't have to be expensive. Just do the things you love to do. Focus on you and only you.
Don't give up hope on his finding his sobriety and recovery. There is always hope. It took my hubby a long time to find it. He chronically relapsed for 2 years before he found his rock bottom. But he did find his way out of the darkness. Most importantly, don't give up on your recovery. Keep working your program. You recovery has to be about you and only you, regardless if sobriety and recovery is in his future. Don't loose yourself in his disease.
Love and blessings to you.
Live strong, Karilynn
__________________
It's your life. Take no prisoners. You will have it your way.
I can totally relate to your frustrations. There's not guarantee that he hit bo9ttom. Even if he did...and quits...a few months or years from now he may find a news bottom he has to hit.
I keep in mind the three Cs..i didnt cause it, can't control it and can't cure it. So it's not up to me to get him to see he needs to go back to rehab. (for the 5th time)
I will share what seemed to work ONE time. I am a very organized person. I do things well in advance. I start Christmas shoopping around Christmas for the next eyar.
I calmly told mine one day at breakfast that I had his funeral all p0lanned. I had resigned myself to the fact he wanted to drink himself to death and I did not want to wait until the last minute to plan the details. I told him what kind of flowers, who was gonna sing, what songs, the pall bearers, etc. He said you ar really serious. YOu have actually thought this out carefully. I said..you know me. I dont do last minute very well. I want to have what I can have prepared. I had even bought myself a new suit to wear to the funeral. (i've had lots of great occasions to wear it...LOL) 2 days later he checked into a rehab. I'm not sur if the funeral plans helped or not. But it did appear to.
Do people really have normal lives? Or are they just better at hiding their insanity?
HP is listening to you and your prayers, but please remember that your "A" and where he is is beyond your control, and sadly he has his own path to follow. You may not be getting the answers that you want to your prayers. That is something that I struggle with on a daily basis, accepting that it is not my "A"s time to get clean.
Just try to focus on you, do something for yourself, and take care of you.
Yours in recovery,
Dolphin123
__________________
"Today's problems can not be solved if we still think the way we did when we created them" -Albert Einstein
I am praying for you. It is funny, I was just thinking this yesterday, as I worried and wondered where my A husband was - as I laid in bed, praying for God to give me some peaceful sleep, try to get my thoughts to stop!!! I was thinking how peaceful it would be to have some sense of normalcy again. To just be happy with him again.
I feel exactly what you are feeling. You are not alone. The only thing that is helping me is the advice others gave you above, to take care of yourself. It is such a hard thing to do, I don't know about you but I am not used to taking care of myself, just everyone else! But, the more I do it, the better I do feel. It is a slow process. I am finding that exercise helps my mood tremendously and lessens my depression and crying jags. The world is not ending right now. I pray, alot, for his strength, and that God will show him a happy life. I don't know what will happen next. I hate living with that unpredictability. I cannot make plans with him, he seems to always blow me off or have something else to do. I feel our relationship dying. But, then I try to remember, maybe it isn't about me? Maybe it is something greater. God is doing his work he needs to do on our As, and in God's time it may take some time. We want everyone now, we want our prayers answered right now. Well maybe God wants to do things on his time, and we need to step back and let him do what he needs to do, and have patience, and love and tolerance.
Jayda, I have been where you are. I would always see if he was breathing.
The thing is, even if he was "forced" into rehab it would not do any good. Only he knows when he is ready to commit himself to a program of recovery.
It would be sorta like deciding for someone else they are ready to completely change their life and go on a raw food diet.
Jayda they have to get so sick that they feel they would do anything to never feel like they do, again. Bottom is how they feel, how horrible they feel.
Some would rather kill themselves and keep going, than to quit. some just hit bottom and that bottom is death.
Some grasp for AA the one thing that is there, that they know will help them.
Have you read the book,"Getting Them Sober?" I don't think I have read anything better. It is very easy to read. right now ya don't need some heavy thing. It gets right to the point.
The thing is also, for me, I had to change me. Can't change him. I go to bed easy and wake up easy. Fall asleep for naps.
I always use the same thing, I can't stop a river, I cannot stop the A. Can't control it so give it no energy. Would be crazy to try to stop a river, to me it is crazy to try to stop an A from being A.
It takes time but we can detach and be happy in our lives and still love them. In me the love is so much different than when we got married. It is more a caring love.
Glad you are here, glad ya let it out. That is healthy for you and us too.
OH and prayer, well in my experience, my prayers are always answered, but always not in any way I would have thought they might be.
When you work on you, it is one step at a time. You do the work for you. You move forward, surrender to hp.
