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.
A is not my husband. We have lived together for 5 years, we don't have children together, and I don't feel the same responsibility that everyone here seems to have in coping with their A. I care about A but I don't want to have to use coping skills to deal with his drinking and abuse. Yes I will miss him, but I won't miss the problems associated with the drinking. I know this is a disease and A has been there for me through health issues.
I do keep thinking ....he is sick....do you walk away from someone just because they are sick...this is different his disease can destroy us both...
I agree with you completely LL. My A was my spouse until I divorced him last December. I did not want the legal responsibility for his actions. We are still together. Like you, I would miss him. I love him dearly, but I will not stand by and let this "disease" destroy both of us. And I don't want to have to use coping skills either. You are the first person who tells it the way I do.
Best wishes, and good luck, Diva
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"Speak your truth quietly and clearly..." Desiderata
I agree with you and Diva, if my alcoholic were not my husband and I did not have a legal and moral obligation to him I would leave him so fast his head would spin. I don't say that lightly either, I love him very much, but it is just too emotionally draining and miserable to put up with him for "fun" if I didn't have to.
Sort of like if you marry someone who has a horribly difficult, mouthy, disobedient child who is a delinquent and a terrible rebel. You really don't have a choice but to keep trying to get along with them and when they visited you to try to talk some sense into them. But, if you had a foster child who disrupted the household, talked back, rebelled and generally made your live one long tale of woe, you would probably "send them back" as you had that option. I know I would, who would live a life of misery ON PURPOSE if you had a choice?
I too have made this choice. Before I married my A I was engaged to the most wonderful man on earth. He was kind, successful, totally faithful, hard working, and not only my boyfriend, but the best friend I had ever had. This man was a total health nut like I am. No smoking, or drinking or drugs. Not even social drinking (so much for the Alanon thinking that you "pick" addicts because there is something wrong with YOU). Right after we got engaged he was in a terrible accident and was horribly injured, this did not happen until we had been together for SIX YEARS. To try and deal with the terrible pain he was in constantly with a spinal and head injury, he finally reluctantly began to take prescription drugs for pain. Sadly, he became addicted. He had plenty of money and began to "doctor shop" paying cash for visits and prescriptions so that no one caught up with what he was doing as he stockpiled and abused his powerful meds. He kept all of this from me and I did not know anything was wrong until one day he called me up and told me that dinosaurs were once again roaming the earth and I needed to come to his home immediately so he could keep me and my daughter safe...sigh!
I hung up on him and went to see him the next day to confront him. He admitted sort of what he was doing. He really tried to get well, he went to a pain clinic, got one of thes electrical pain thingies, went to therapy to deal with his addictions, but was unable to stop. I just couldn't marry a drug addict on purpose and know I was sentencing myself to a lifetime of misery.
My husband now was not an alcoholic when I married him, he was just a college type of "binge drinker" and I did not even find out about that until after we were married. Be glad you see the problems now so you can get out while you still can!
