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I'm so sorry this is gonna be long but I need to vent....My A's family had a bbq on Saturday which had been planned for many weeks. At these events it's always a drinking feast and when my A was attending AA he tried to distance himself from these get togethers. But for this one he was all game. Should have been my first warning besides him having not gone to a meeting in weeks. Anyway, I was looking forward to going because I LOVE and ADORE his family and I thought he wouldn't drink because there would be some many people there and he wouldn't be that dumb (yes I am the dumb one).
To Rewind a little bit my A decided to go down on Friday night with his other brother. I knew this was a bad idea. I tried so hard to get him to go out with me instead or to just stay home. This just made him mad at me. He says I was treating him like an A. Whatever that means. He went to his uncles and sure enough he called me and it ended in a fight.
Saturday morning he called me like everthing was fine and like an idiot I drove 2 hours to the uncles house. When I got there I KNEW he was drinking. He thinks I lie when I say this but I can tell if he was drinking just by the way he stands and speaks and laughs. He completely changes. Anyway as the night went on he became more and more drunk. Eventually not hiding it and drinking out of a beer can. I decided to leave and not sleep over trying to just avoid a fight. It was so late at night I just drove to his cousins and stayed there. Plus I thought staying just made it seem as if I approved. Well, as I was deciding to leave his entire family was saying how much they love me blah blah blah. They were saying how they couldnt believe he was drinking again and they were so mad and disappointed. That he is never going to have anything in life and he's never going to change and he can't give anyone a future let alone himself.
Well today when my A called me this morning I let him have it for drinking. I was crying and begging him to come home and go to a meeting and not drink today (b/c everyone stayed over for a 2nd bbq today) Well he was screaming at me and telling me that all I do is start trouble and I'm the only one who noticed he was drinking and I'm lying about his family noticing that he drank at all. (he's now back to denying he even has a drinking problem) He got to stay there and have fun all day and act like he did nothing. With the same people who were yelling about him the night before.
His mom called me in the afternoon and I told her it wasn't fair that he gets to think he did nothing wrong. I told her that everyone needs to tell him that it wasn't acceptable that he fell of the wagon. They can't wait until he does something serious again to be mad at him and tell him he's wrong. I keep looking like the all might enemy when he drinks because I am the only one who says anything each and every time. She told me that she hasn't spoken to him at all and she plans on kicking him out tonight. She said she is furious at him and that she just didn't want to start something there. I told her that they are making him think it's ok to drink when he gets to hang out and swim and party all day the day after he was wasted. By the way before I went home today I stopped at his house and he had beer bottles hidden in his suitcase.
It's not fair that he gets to sit and party all day while I cry over my broken heart. How can he tell me he loves me so much and wants to be with me forever sober with a good life and then a week later act like I'm worthless. I feel so weak for even caring that he doesn't want me. I know I can't take more crying and feeling like this. Why am I getting blamed for him falling off the wagon. He told me today while he was yelling that he wants someone won't treat him like an A. How am I supposed to treat him? How do I act like I trust him when I don't.
I should have never went to the bbq. I knew in my gut not to. Hell, I should have never given him another chance to get sober. I am so weak and I keep asking myself when will I start making the right choices. When I try to leave him I break down and feel as if I can't handle leaving him.
the one thing that i have learned for sure in my life with A is that you absolutely cannot try to reason with them when they are drinking. Alcoholism is a disease, managable for some, but a disease that is always there. It will never go away, even if he quits for 10 years it will never go away.
They always blame us for their drinking. If not us then it is "the job" "the weather" "the whatever" to take the light off of themselves.
Just as being in alanon we realize that we have to keep returning to step 1 (or any others), the A cannont be "cured" by a few months (or even years) of sobriety.
We fall back, how can we expect them not to fall back when their thinking process is so messed up.
Take care of yourself and remember, you did not casue it, you cant control it, and you cant cure it either.
Take care of YOU and keep coming to alanon. You are not alone
One part of "you can't control it" that you might find freeing is that it is not your job to check if he is drinking, and to punish him if he does. The drinking is HIS problem, not yours.
If you can't stand the sight of him when he is drinking, then you're right , the best thing is to get away. But you don't have to give his drinking the power to keep you from being with other people that you like, doing things you want to. You do have choices.
I think many of us feel that if we don't get on his case about the drinking, then we are somehow giving him 'permission' to drink. The thing is, though, he doesn't need our permission. And, he doesn't need us nagging him, to get sober. I could have saved my breath, and not said even one of the millions of things I said to my husband about his drinking, and I don't believe it would have made even one day difference to when he sobered up. My ragging on him was just another excuse to drink, seeing as how he was married to such a bitch.
Some A's are brought to rock bottom when they lose the one they love to their drinking. Some are not. You really don't know what it will take to get your A sober, but you do know some steps to take to get yourself happier.
I agree with Lin. There's no doubt in my mind that my a knows I don't like him to drink. Why would I need to tell him something he knows (I gotta remember that!). It doesn't look to me like my a is having fun when he drinks. He looks like a slave to some stupidity.
He isn't drinking "at you". Try not to take it personally. Yeah, I know it's tough, but that's what detatchment with love permits us to do. You can have a great weekend with his family regardless of his behavior. I wish you the best. ---Jill
I have had many a bad weekend with the A. I also know that when he is in the disease there is no talking to him. I have stopped going to social occasions with the A. Basically I cut back on a lot of activity with him. I would rather not be around if he is drinking.
I think it is very difficult to rationalize their self destructive behavior so I don't. I also understand that it is for him to decide he wants to give up. The consequences never seem to wear on him as they do me. I think that denial is one huge part of their disease.
