i wanted to take a minute and thank everyone who responded to my last post.  i really need to be here right now.  it was very helpful to be reminded (and i need it over and over again) to take care of myself.  yes, i've been in therapy for 6 years.  it helps immensely with the sorts of issues i'm facing with my A but it does not give me what this board gives me and what meetings give me.  i've got a degree in counseling actually and i have studied about addiction and looked at it from a theoretical perspective (big whoop), and i've seen it up close in others, been in relationship with addicts for most of my life.  ding ding ding!  all this being true i am finding that i know surprisingly little about my own codependency--well, what i do know i have a hard time knowing that i know.  it is hard to look inside and take responsibility for co-creating these relationships.  and for being magnetically attracted to people who are bad for me and to people with addictions.  i would say that my father was a binger but his primary issue was his rage/shame, borderline personality disorder.  although, his father was an alcoholic and his father's father and so on.  my mom is codependent.  big time. 

so, i went to my Abf's house on saturday and told him that i could no longer be in our relationship--that i needed a separation.  that his addiction was hurting him and was hurting me and i couldn't stand by (i can see, but didn't say so explicitly, that my very presence was enabling him to continue his drinking and not to feel the consequences of his drinking).  also, for my own sanity i needed out.  i told him that i needed more from him than he could give me at this time.  he agreed, he knows he needs help.  he had been dry for 4 days so he was much less depressed and anxious and was more resourced than usual.  he is seeing this separation as a break for us to do work on ourselves.  i think that this is the best thing i can do for our mutual sobriety but i am trying to process it as an end because i know the devastation this disease causes and i don't trust that he is ready, for himself, to make the changes he needs to make.  i feel like i should move on until i see him take steps, for himself, to be sober.  he wasn't making changes (fast enough for me?) so, i have to make the changes i need to make to have some peace in my life.  this is hard.  i'm going to start going to coda meetings and alanon meetings.  i asked for no contact for a while and explained to him that i too had to deal with my addiction (relationships, codependency), i said that if he contacted me and i didn't contact him back i was only taking care of myself.  he agreed, then he texted me yesterday.  i didn't text him back.  but i could feel myself being drawn back in...then i felt something (hp?) that just told me that the best thing for me was distance, separation, not communicating...and then i knew it was best for both of us...and then i felt calm, i felt resolve. 

i have been praying to my hp every night and i really feel the difference.  strength and compassion.

i guess i need to vent.  and i need some support in my abstinence from my A.  i've become obsessed with this relationship and i need to take care of myself right now and let him take care of himself.  it feels great to know this and to take care of myself.  i even feel relieved.  then, there is another part of me that wants to figure out how we could work it out--what would i accept in order to return to him...one month in recovery?  dryness for a couple of weeks?  some say that people in recovery are just plain kooky for a year, the first year of sobriety.  here i am hoping that he'll change.  i have a friend who is 8 years clean and sober and she just tells me...go to meetings, get a sponsor, don't talk to him...if you do you'll get right back into the craziness.  he is my bottle.  i know she is right, yet i keep hoping he's ready and that we won't have to go our separate ways.  i guess that change is a reasonable hope for a relationship--but i suppose with alcoholism change can be harder.  i sometimes try to deny that his drinking is problematic--even when it is out of his control, when it makes him depressed and non-functional, when we have no relationship because he can't be present and i become an anxious worried overfunctioning obsessive younger version of my mother, when i feel crazy, when he feels crazy, when our sex life disappears, when he wants to kill himself, when he obsesses about drinking, the dry periods where he's cranky, the wet periods where he seems happier followed by the dark periods of guilt and shame.  why can't i hold onto the truth--that alcohol is a problem.  denial.  so much denial.  so much wanting it not to be true.  i love this man.

ugh.  i'm so glad you guys are here.  this place gives me hope.

love,

violet