you are in the right place. i am so sorry that you are going thru this. someone told me once that if i keep standing in front of the train (the alcoholic) i will keep getting run over. i need to get out of the way and let the train crash. i can't stop it but i can take care of me.  just keep comming and keep posting and reading and your life can get better.

Aloha Lady Libra...

You are in the right place, right now.  You have come to the place where you can get the help you need from many of us who have gone thru and are going thru the very same thing that you are going thru.  This is the family of friends, relatives, spouses, family and associates of alcoholics.   Don't go away you are not crazy although you might feel much like that.  We have what it takes to help you if you only make a commitment to stick around and check in and take suggestions from those who have been where you are at and followed thru on the suggestions given to them and are now on their way to a happy, serene and sane life. 

I have been where you are at now and some of you story is as if you had read mine.  Irresponsible forever drinking and drunking with me feeling resentful and lonely and confused.  Thinking that she didn't love me and even more was doing this to me on purpose, just to hurt me.  Blaming her drinking on everything other than her own compulsion to drink, her alcoholism. Gone for days...police, ambulances, hospitalizations, bars, infidelities...on and on and on.  I didn't have a clue as to how to make her out to be the person that I wanted her to be until I found the rooms of the Al-Anon Family Groups.  At first I thought all the members here were the crazy ones and that they all spoke a foreign language.  This was because they spoke the language of recovery and not the language of people who try to change another person (in this case my alcoholic wife) who didn't think there was anything wrong with them, didn't want to change, and believed that I was the problem.  (For me I was the problem...but I wasn't responsible for her disease.)   Sound confusing?  Stick around it gets clearer. 

We don't give advise.  It is not in us to tell you what you are supposed to do.  We can only tell you what we did and what worked for us.  Here a just a very few of the suggestions I was given and followed up on.  Go to as many face to face (f2f) meetings as I could in my area in the next 90 days.  (There were 439 recovery meetings in the tri-county area around where I lived this was an easy to do.  Did over a meeting a day.)  Get and read as much literature as I could within the 90 days. (much of it was free pamphlets that helped me to wake up and gain a lot of understanding.)  Get a Higher Power...a God as you understand God.  If you don't believe in a usual form of God find something to believe in that is greater than youself and your human power.   Listen to others express how they understand and work the first three steps and start working them yourself.  Keep and open mind, ears, eyes and heart and look for someone who has time in recovery, is working the program, and who has made some the changes you would like to have...then ask them to sponsor you.  If they say no...go ask another person under the same conditions.  This is a humbling endeavor...it was for me...and scarey...AND IT SAVED MY LIFE!! 

These are the early suggestions for me.  I didn't do it perfectly; no one ever has.  We work for progress and forget trying to reach perfection.  I stopped trying to lean on my alcoholic for my peace of mind, serenity, security and self esteem.  I gave up trying to make her make me happy.  I gave up trying to make he stop drinking the way she was drinking and drink a different way.  I had no idea that she drank the way she did because she couldn't drink at all. She never drank with the intention of hurting herself or others and when she started she could not stop.  Alcohol owned her and the rest of the family we were all affected.  I learned that she had a disease (an AMA registered primary disease) and that she wasn't a bad person. This wasn't a moral issue. (I had come to see her as a BITCH.  How sad.)  she was a sick person suffering from a life threatening, often times fatal disease and that she has only three choices...sobriety, insanity or death.  I also learned I couldn't save her...only she could make the decision to do that.  I had become insane and I needed to find my peace of mind and serenity or die myself.    I got to the doors of Al-Anon twice.  The first time I wasn't convinced and the second time I had no other choice.  There wasn't much motivation to live anymore so I tried the groups a second time.  This time I stayed and got my soul back, my mind back, my spirit restored and a life a wouldn't give up for anything or anyone or any promise of something better.  To me this is as good as it gets even when life isn't going my way. 

Stick around and go thru the suggestions above.  They are only suggestions.  They worked for me and for the people that gave to me and for many of the family and others I have given them to over the past years. 

There is no law that says you gotta keep doing what isn't working and no law that says you musn't change.   Last suggestion for now?   KEEP COMING BACK!!

Your's in love and service...Jerry F/Hilo HI.

(((((HUGS)))))

Welcome LadyLibra,

You reminded me so much of myself a few months ago. I could almost feel you pain, but I reply so you can see there is a way to recovery for yourself.

I agree with Jerry. It took me a while to realise I had my own problems with this disease. It is insidious......when you live with it it affects you too.(This was a hard realisation for me)


Please remember you are not responsible for his drinking. Remember the three C's.

You didn't cause it...you can't control it...and you can't change it....

I spent years thinking I had a magic wand that could do all those things, until I eventually realised how wrong I was. My self esteem had taken such a beating that I couldn't see clearly anymore.

I couldn't see that I was a caring person who was actually worthy of great love and respect....I put up with much heartache and criticism and ridicule etc before I started to recover.

Someone said to me "if nothing changes nothing changes" and my eyes started to open. I had spent years doing the same old thing....putting up with the same old rubbish...and somehow made excuses and felt hard done by when nothing changed. I now know I am not to blame for his drinking..........yes, sometimes I have days when things go wrong....I don't beat myself up... I accept I am only human!

No one's perfect...not even me!!!

So, I hope you won't be too hard on yourself from now on. Give some of that loving kindness to yourself now. Do something you enjoy doing for yourself.......(it took me ages to figure out what I enjoyed doing, but I got there in the end....you will too!)

Keep coming back and find the healing you deserve

sending you love and prayers
AM