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I am new here and new to the Al-anon program. My husband of 13 years just returned from treatment and has been home for 5 days. He has been sober for 36 days and is struggling daily to keep himself on track. He is doing okay but, after tonight I am really starting to wonder how much longer I can keep up the encouragement and the fake sense of calm I am portraying to him. Don't get me wrong I am glad he is home, we have 3 kids who desperatly missed their dad. But, we have hardly seen him since he has been home. He has been gone everynight to meetings for 5-6 hours. He basically leaves around 5 or 6 and gets home between midnight and 1 am. I know he is not using, I know he is going to meetings but its just frustrating because I expected him to come back and be an active part in this family again. His treatment center is about an hour away from us and he heas gone back to that town three of the 5 nights hes been back, because he says he feels comfortable with that group of people. Last night he went to a meeting at 8 and 11 and didnt' get home until 12:30. tonight he went to a meeting at 8 and said he would be back at 9:30 he called me at 9:45 and said he was meeting one of the guys he went to rehab with at starbucks and that they were going to go to a midnight meeting and he wouldn't be home until 1:30. I am beginning to wonder what the point of him even being back is. I know that I am supposed to just worry about myself and the kids, but we are a married couple and parents and its like he is not even here. I have been totally understanding and encouraging up to this point. But I can't help feel frustrated. I can feel myself starting to want to go back to my old ways. When he called to tell me that he was going to go to another meeting I really just wanted to say "what the @#!%" ? I thought you said you would be home at 9:30" I was able to bite my tongue this time. I just hope I can next time as well. The last thing I want is forhim to be able to have something to blame on me. He claims that his counselor told him that I was a trigger for him and I am trying not to be that. I really think he is struggling with being here with me in the evenings after the kids go to bed because that is when he used to do most of his drinking. I understand he is trying to avoid situations that he used to drink. I am just wondering if he will ever be able to just be normal and be home in the evenings. This, of course, is not how I envisioned it would be when he got home. I knew he would have meetings to go to. But I never expected they would take 5-6 hours out of his evening and eliminate any possible family or husband/wife time we might have. Does anyone have any similar experience with their A who has come home from treatment?
Hi, sorry you are going thru this and feeling alone... I dont have this experience because my husband doesnt "need" help.. I think i would feel the same way you are feeling if i were you. It is hard when they drink we are the adults, the parents taking care of the house and the kids .. Then they get sober and here you are still taking care of the kids and being the parent.. Frusterating I agree... I dont think he is capable for the emotional relationship you are looking for right now.. Give it time, he is really new to recovery and i am sure he wants to stay sober not only for him but for you and the kids.. Try to be patient as hard as it is...
Take Care
Tammy
** just my opinion, i havent ever been in your shoes...
There is a lot to learn here and lots of stories to hear and you will find some similar to yours and some not.....Are you attending meetings, reading litature, or anything along those lines? You will find that you need to take care of you because living with an A and/or addict can be so hard and at times I tend to focus on what he is doing and not doing instead of gently taking care of me.
Read lots, post often, attend meetings, you will find so much serenty in all of that.
Lani, It is critical you find time for meetings. I know timing is tough with three kids and all. What you need to realize is that he is just newly home and needs to learn new habits. If evenings is when he drank no wonder he is going to meetings at night. This will be for awhile..but I would think he might slow that down at some point. What I think may be going on is that he is not used to dealing with the family sober. He doesn't know how to stay sober and deal with you guys at the same time. He also may be avoiding dealing with the family. I think it is really necessary for you to go to alanon. It is a family disease. He is in no way well yet. He has just begun his journey. I know this is a lonely and needy time for you. Try some meetings and come in here often..be with good friends to get your needs met. He will come around. But I suspect you and he may need counseling.
Early sobriety is a very hard time - I know that I was filled with hope, and was very disappointed when he wasn't instantly better. "You're not drinking, what's the problem here? C'mon and be the man I want you to be". Instead, he was more like someone just out of major surgery, and that's a good way to look at it. He is enormously fragile right now.
This does get better - if he gets to his 90 days, things should start to calm down just a bit.
However! The reality is, your marriage has of necessity been based up to this point on him drinking, and you doing whatever it was you did to deal with his drinking. This will now have to change, if you want to have any kind of a happy relationship. Both of you have developed all sorts of unhealthy ways of dealing with the insanity you have been living with for so long. You can't just snap your fingers and be a healthy loving trusting wife, not after all that you have gone through, and he probably doesn't know HOW to be a loving healthy husband. It's taking him 5 -6 hours every day just to handle the changes he's going through. You will be going through changes almost as large - it's too hard to do on your own. Alanon is for just that purpose. Here is a safe place for you to vent all the frustrations of getting what you thought you wanted, and finding you don't like it. A place for you to get some companionship and understanding while you go through what may turn out to be the most difficult part of your life. You don't want to be pouring all of this out to your husband right at this time - he is too fragile and necessarily too focused on his own recovery. However, you can't just keep it all bottled up inside, either. Here you can work on the changes you need to make to your own life, while staying out of the way of his recovery.
Please, if at all possible, try to get to meetings in your town. If child care is a problem for you (many of us are so isolated that we don't know anyone we can ask to care for our children while we go to meetings) call the contact number for the local meeting and explain your problem - they may be able to help you. You can also involve your husband in this - have him watch the kids while you go to a meeting, if he needs an AA buddy there with him while he does this that would be fine. If possible, try to get to the occasional open AA meeting, just to see what it is like there; I find it very helpful to see the problem from the 'other side' now and then. Also, 'talking program' can give you and your husband something to talk about that is fairly safe - there are probably plenty of minefields in your relationship, that will have to be explored eventually, but maybe not right now. Read as much of our literature as you can, and a little AA literature would also help. Old posts here are also full of insight - not eveyrthing you read will apply to you, but some will, I promise.
Above all, welcome. We really can help, this is the right place for you.
Hello Lani , your doing what most of us do with early sobriety expecting way too much too soon. His meetings and contacts from treatment centres are what are keepin him sober this is a life and death deal for him right now and he needs space. i understand your confusion and that u would like him home more but for now try and not take his absence personally he needs to do this. For all of you.
Enjoy the time he is home even if it is only a few hrs a nite at least he is sober and u can have a little time with him and a actual conversation . bonus !!! tho its not up to us to keep them sober we can make it easier for them by changing our own attitude and giving them a reason to want to come home. He will calm down after awhile. HOnest .
I hope your going to meetings for yourself Al-Anon, you say u have children perhaps u could ask him to look after the kids one or two nites a week while u go to a meeting ,( we do have to ask ) they are not mindreaders.
You need people who have been thru early sobriety and let them share how they got thru it , your situation is common , I on the other hand would have given my left finger to have my husb go to meetings all the time , ( I always thought he needed more ) hehe but thats not up to me . His recovery is none of my business he had to do it his way so he managed on two meetings a week for along time.
This is a one day at a time deal Lani , dont miss the good days worrying about tomorrow. enjoy
My father was sober after 40 years of drinking through AA. I didn't meet him till I was 30. After that I spent many a day at his house. He had a program house and I used to listen to these people talk about sobriety. There were a few things they were not prepared for. Many people think once he/she gets sober it is all clear sailing. This is not true. After sobriety they need to clean up the wreckage of their life. Make amends. Often after newly sober things are worse due to these things. Another thing is what has come up in this post..the spouse needs and wants that sober person to be there for them. What happens alot is that you then lose that person for a time to their meetings and new AA friends. That is why Alanon is such a good place. One can get the love and support they need while spouse is going through this. Another thing that these people used to talk about was that when they tried to become a willing spouse..take over bills and so on this was met with HUGE resistance as the non-drinker is so used to doing EVERYTHING and they are afraid to let the drinker take over anything! I met one lady who complained to her hubby about his non-partipation in the household duties. He said he would do the laundry. Well he didn't do it. She didn't say a a WORD..she said it got so bad that laundry was piled all the way into the hallway..stinking and she still said nothing. She was NOT going to rescue him after he said he would do it. It was like weeks..she had to do her own stuff but did not do the rest. Finally he did it and kept it up at that point.
Hang in there and please realize he loves you but needs these meetings right now. Be nice and don't let him set you up to be the fall guy if he falls off the wagon.
Thank you everyone for such great responses! They were exactly what I needed to hear. I went to a noon meeting today while my husband watched the kids. I also found a meeting on Wednesdays that has babysitting! I think I might just make it. It's funny how I knew all these things you all shared with me to be true, but I needed to hear it from somebody else to make it sink in. Patience and trust have always been a little tough for me when it comes to my A. But I will work on it.Today was a better day. Thanks everyone.
