Need advice re Christmas...

[ToughChoices]

I don't know what's best for anybody except myself.

What brought you here, Franticwife?

[theotherone]

I like your answer ToughChoices...I feel the same way.

[Franticwife]

Originally Posted by prodigal

When I first came to this board, I often read into what people had to say about the sad reality of alcoholism as negativity on their part. It also made me angry. I realized, in time, that when I got angry at the responses it was because they were hitting a nerve, and that nerve often hit a lot of truth. Truth that I was not willing to face.

That is exactly the way I am feeling Prodigal. Yes, I am finding this forum really negative, and it seems as though everybody now on it has "been there, done that". And so I guess I'm just a greenhorn with all this and am still trying to see the world thru rose-coloured glasses and all this "leave him, leave him" stuff is making me pretty angry, 'cause I really want to try to find a way before I throw away all we've worked and dreamed for over the past 11 years (married for 6).

I guess I came here to try to find some sort of support for actually staying with an AH and making it work somehow. Doesn't anybody have any positive stories to tell? Is leaving really the only way? I'm just not ready to do that and just need skills and support to stay and deal with it.

I know, I know - you will all nod your heads and say "Ah, I've been thru that - the denial stage". LOL (see, I can still laugh about it!)

[anvilhead]

IF indeed you come to the point where you've had enough, it won't be throwing ANYTHING away frantic, it will simply be moving along your own path in life........remember right now you're really the only one "fighting" to "make it work" - yer partner over there could really give a rip.

so, what IS IT that you are FIGHTING for? seriously.....what is it about your NOW that is unacceptable? and what of that can YOU change? let's assume he keeps drinking......is that EVER really gonna be ok with you? i mean you've already gone to great lengths to try and manipulate your travel plans and forewarn the troops with "god whatever you do, don't say BIKE RALLY" and you're already forecasting your own embarassment over HIS behaviors, etc....

you've been together for 12 years right? TO DATE, how much impact have YOU had on HIS drinking??? see that's the reality of it all......

we didn't cause it
we can't cure it
we can't control it

your husband drinks.
you don't like it.
who really has the problem?

[Franticwife]

Of course you're right anvilhead, but I've never really tried to do anything about it before - I realise now I've just been "enabling" him. So now I'm going to try the "disengaging/disenabling" strategies Al-Anon recommends and see what happens. If things don't improve (a lot), then OK, I'll probably have to go to Plan B.

[denny57]

When I was getting to the frantic stage, I also heard everyone saying leave him, leave him, yet no one ever said it. I don't see one post here that says leave him. I would never advise someone to leave another.

I know plenty of people in recovery. Some marriages have survived, some have not. I also have friends in Al Anon who have chosen to stay. Their marriages are not ones I would choose for myself, but they make them work and that is what matters.

I am the only one who knows what is best for me. I probably stayed in my marriage about 5 years longer than others thought I should. Good for them LOL!!!! The only difference I see for me, is that I wasn't aware he was an alcoholic and truly believed I was the reason he drank. I'm not a person to have regrets, but I do wish I had discovered Al Anon and/or SR way before I did.

I happen to very much believe in nothing changes until something changes, and that change has to start with me. I have no idea if what I chose to change about myself will someday have a positive impact on xAH. What I do know is it had an incredibly positive impact on ME, and today I would not trade my life for anyone's.

Keep posting frantic - you truly are among people who understand. I know that I wish for you and your husband the very best.

[hello-kitty]

Hi Frantic, I hope you do what you need to do to ensure you have the best holiday possible ok. Whatever is in your power at this moment. What you can handle. His alcoholism doesn't have to control your happiness. Even though it seems hard. It's really up to you.

Keep us posted on how things go! We can all relate...

[Franticwife]

Thank you so much guys - I feel much better after reading your posts. Yes, I guess I've just got to work thru it my way and if I'm stubborn and it takes me a while to see the light, so be it.

(Doesn't it seem weird to be talking so personally to someone on the other side of the world, eh?) LOL. Have a great day everyone!!

[anvilhead]

addiction doesn't stop at the equator Frantic!!!! and stubborn ain't ALL bad, how else do you think i got the name ANVIL head???? LOL

[prodigal]

Originally Posted by Franticwife

I guess I came here to try to find some sort of support for actually staying with an AH and making it work somehow. Doesn't anybody have any positive stories to tell? Is leaving really the only way? I'm just not ready to do that and just need skills and support to stay and deal with it.

You can only make your life work for YOU. I think right now you are hoping someone here will tell you how they have managed to say with an active A and make it work for the A. As the disease becomes progressively worse, you will get worse too. That's just the way it is. I can't change that.

The reason you aren't seeing positive stories is because an A, left untreated, gets progressively crazier. They make us crazier. Something's gotta give. And walking away is usually the only form of relief so we can get healthier.

I will share my ES&H with you a bit. My AH is in the end stages of alcoholism. He is drunk every single night. He is passed out or drinking from Friday night until Sunday night. 24/7, week after week. I don't even think he knows reality from fiction at this point.

How do I live with seeing an emotional and physical trainwreck stagger into the kitchen for yet another glass of that cheap rot-gut he drinks? I just shrug and say, "His disease, his problem. I can't solve it or fix it. I put it in God's hands." Still, I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired.

But I'm done. I'm leaving after I graduate in May. For many of us, it just gets to the point that the A becomes intolerable, crazy, chaotic, zoned-out, and the person we loved is gone. Dead and gone. Long time comin, long time gone.

That's why I'm leaving. There is nothing left of my AH. It's just a body that lives for the next drink.

[Franticwife]

Oh Prodigal - maybe that's what I needed to hear! You have me crying (here at work - not a good look!). Yep - that's what I'm waiting for I think, for the time when there is nothing left of him and I have no choice. Stupid! Stubborn!

My first appointment with a counsellor this afternoon. Perhaps she can make me see the light.

[FormerDoormat]

I'll share my personal story, too, Frantic. I never married my ex-alcoholic boyfriend, but we might as well have been married. I met him when I was 22 years old and we stayed together until my 45th birthday. That's the day I finally decided I'd had enough and I drove him to a local motel and drove away. It was the hardest thing I've ever had to do.

He, too, was an end-stage alcoholic. He'd been drinking for nearly 50 years. Like others have already mentioned, alcoholism is a progressive disease. As his drinking worsened, his health began to fail. He developed diabetes and high blood pressure, his liver and kidneys began to fail, and he lost his vision. He had many close calls with death during our last few years together, but he managed to escape it multiple times.

After we split up, he rented an apartment close to a local hospital so he could take a bus to his nearly daily medical appointments there. He attended rehab twice and AA meetings for a time, but he quickly reverted back to drinking again.

From time to time we kept in touch and I invited him over to my house for dinner occasionally on weekends or holidays during his sober periods. When he'd revert back to drinking, I'd withdraw and stop accepting or returning his calls and stopped all visitation.

Just over a year ago, I received the call I'd been dreading for quite some time. He was found dead in his apartment with a bottle at his side. The last time I spoke to him I asked him if he'd been drinking. He said he hadn't had a drink in months.

Apparently, his landlord had called the police when neighbors complained of a bad smell coming out of his apartment. When they found him, the police estimated that he'd been dead for approximately two weeks.

Now many people would think that my story is not a success story but it is. Today I'm happy and healthy, my life is peaceful and calm, and my house is filled with love and it's the sanctuary that I always wanted it to be.

I gave up the magical thinking a long time ago and took a good, long look at reality. Those rose-colored glasses clouded my thinking for a long time. As the clouds began to clear I was able to see my relationship as it really was. It was not life-sustaining and joyous. It was life-draining and painful.

Success comes in many forms. For a select few it comes in the form of both partners finding and sustaining life-long recovery. For the majority of folks here it comes in the form of letting go of an unhealthy relationship and starting a new, healthier life. For a few like me it comes in the form of the alcoholic finally succumbing to their disease, coming to terms with their death, and ultimately finding peace. But the end result for all of us here who've sought recovery and worked hard at sustaining it is success.

I don't think my relationship with Richard was a failure. I don't think Richard's life was a failure. I don't think I'm a failure for having loved him. I don't think anyone on this forum is a failure.

I look at where each member of this forum came from when they first joined SR and I look at them today and all I see is success. In time, you'll consider yourself a success story, too, regardless of whether you choose to stay in your relationship or to end it.

[prodigal]

Frantic, I feel for you - WE feel for you. Believe me, we're not here to tell you to leave him, kick him to the curb, or toss him out the door. But a lot of us have lived with this disease for years. As you read from FD's post, it can end in a tragic death.

Suggestion: seek balance. Balance for yourself. We codies are known for going from one extreme to the other. We love them into sobriety. That fails. We hate them and wish them dead. That fails. Finally, we toss up our hands in defeat and frustration.

I know you love your husband. Hey, I ADORED my husband. I would have gone through he!! and back for him. I respected him and cherished him. But whatever demons were rolling around in his head got the better of him. My love couldn't save him. I've watched the progression of this and I've cried a river of tears.

Then, a year ago, I got the wake-up call. It took contracting a chronic disease for me to get myself focused on me. And to see that he didn't mean it personally, but he just wasn't capable of being there to support me through my illness.

Start reading. Start counseling. Start Al-Anon. Get educated. Hon, I'm telling you this from the heart; it's not that he doesn't love you, but you don't figure into the equation of his addiction. It's not a personal thing, even though it's very hurtful for you.

Keep posting. We ARE here to support you. Trust me on this; I haven't stuck around on this board for almost five years because the folks here are bogus. There's a lot of wisdom and recovery you can tap into. Just be open-minded to it and give yourself time. Pull up a chair and get comfortable.

[Franticwife]

OMG! I can't read these stories without tears pouring down my face. Thank you so, so much for sharing. And FormerDoormat, forgive me! I had you pegged as someone young and bitter and my God, what you've been thru! What you've all been thru makes my story sound trivial. So Prodigal, I've been reading all week and I'm off to counselling in one hour's time.

Now I think what I need is a forum for Addictions to Forums!

Love you all,
Frantic.

[FormerDoormat]

I don't know why I come across as bitter to others (I've heard this before). I'm not bitter at all. I'm grateful that my boyfriend led me on a path to recovery. It was his greatest gift to me.

Your story is not trivial. This is your life we're talking about.

[beaglebaby]

Originally Posted by prodigal

The reason you aren't seeing positive stories is because an A, left untreated, gets progressively crazier. They make us crazier. Something's gotta give. And walking away is usually the only form of relief so we can get healthier

Wise words Prodigal.

I've just divorced my ah after 21 years of marriage. His drinking escalated about a year ago -- he also started flirting with many women, text messages, photo emails and phone calls to several women. "Business associates." Yeah right.

Then my ah took a massive slide into drinking. In July he decided to go on a date with a woman, then bring her back to the house. Only we were still married. I was out of town on business. My 16 year old daughter was home.

I can't tell you how awful it is to get a phone call from your teenage daughter while you are 800 miles away..."Dad has a woman in your bedroom and he won't come out."

After that I really started looking... at cell phone bills and things like that. What the h&ll was going on? Then I found a singles ad that my husband had taken out on a local web site. "Looking for women to share dinner with..." yeah right.

Just before he moved out of the house, he went on a drinking binge. Apparently spent his entire paycheck at a strip bar. Cabbed it home at 4:30 am, didn't know where his car was, and broke a couple of ribs. Not sure how. Blacked out. A few weeks later he fell and broke another bone. Another black out.

At that point I was still looking for my husband to realize what he was giving up. I wasn't looking for reconciliation, but I kept thinking he would snap back to reality and try to keep our family from splintering. But that never happened. He's only got one mistress right now... and it's alcohol.

Our divorce was final a couple of weeks ago. This past weekend he took another woman away for the holiday weekend. He showed up at a family T-giving dinner with a brand new girlfriend. Can you imagine how my kids feel? He never called his kids on Thanksgiving, never told them he was leaving town... just mister out-for-myself, out having a good time with his new mistress... and some other ****. lol.

I'm certain alcoholic dimentia is starting to kick in. I'm also certain that he's beginning to drink during the day. Told me a couple of weeks ago that he was bleeding from a couple of places. High blood pressure, he says...

I've told my kids that I believe he'll move in with this other woman very quickly. He's drinking away his paychecks and can't afford rent. I've also told them that I am afraid he could deteriorate very quickly and that they should make peace with them so they don't have any regrets.

My daughter and I are no longer in contact with him. My son speaks to him some, he knows that he will have to establish his own boundaries. I've told my son it's possible his dad could ask for bail money or a ride from jail if things continue on their current path.

Right or wrong, I really think my husband did these outrageous things so that I would have to kick him out. Then he'd be free and able to pursue his drinking. He's said that he could no longer handle the pressure of being the family man that we expected him to be. Part of the twisted slide of end-stage alcoholism.

Long-winded, hi-jacked the thread. The point is -- untreated, alcoholism will continue to deteriorate. I did not really understand that. If I had known 10 years ago the way this fairy tale would end -- my kids and I would have been gone long ago.

I'd never recommend that anyone leave their spouse either. However once you start talking about alcoholism or divorcing an alcoholic, people start opening up to you about their marriage. They say the same words that you might have spoken a few years ago. My response is always the same -- untreated, alcoholism will continue to deteriorate. If I had known 10 years ago....

This past 4 months has been the most difficult thing I've faced in my life. Pain, guilt, hurt, pain, shock, pain. My ah has said the most horrible, scathing, awful things to me. Words that are seared into my brain.

My husband has fallen behind on his child support. I had hesitated to ask my lawyer to go after wage assignment. I realized that was enabling behavior, and that the best thing I could do to help him hit his rock bottom -- was to make it not so easy for him to drink his paycheck. Recovering from codie behavior is a slow and gradual process.

I wouldn't wish this on my worst enemy.

[ViolentHill32]

I guess I came here to try to find some sort of support for actually staying with an AH and making it work somehow. Doesn't anybody have any positive stories to tell? Is leaving really the only way? I'm just not ready to do that and just need skills and support to stay and deal with it.

Please believe that this isn't negativity. I know it seems like a lot of advice that doesn't "fit" your situation, but from what I've read on these forums, so many of us have gone through the same a thousand times, and we're all in different places in our recovery. I feel like the advice I've read is speaking to you from years of experience and a place that maybe you nor I have found yet.
I realized this week that while I'm so much happier without having to clean-up these "messes" you've referenced, I still hate that I can't have a normal holiday with my AH. I hope that you won't be taking care of him for 4 weeks, that the mother-in-law will step-in, and he will stop drinking, but personally, I can't think of a time in the last 7 years that I wasn't taking care of my Ah. Even with his family involved and him going through rehab- I was always stuck with the mess.

Good luck and know that the people you meet here are well versed in this and seemingly supportive of each other.

And, thanks to all of you have shared, I have taken a lot from it. I am happy and feel stronger at the moment

[liveweyerd]

I know that I always felt better if we drove separately, when I was with the xabf.
Many times I was grateful to have my own car.

[LaTeeDa]

I never wanted to leave. To give up. I stayed for 18 years, the last 5 or so of which was pure hell. The verbal abuse escalated to the point where I was concerned it would turn physical. Once he hurt the dog. Sometimes I would get to the point where I would respond by being verbally abusive myself. My children witnessed much of it. I became someone I didn't like.

I tried to make it work, honestly I did. He only took advantage of my desperation. I lost all respect for him and in the process, all respect for myself. Leaving was the absolute last thing I wanted to do, but I had exhausted all the options. My biggest regret is what my children went through. I wish for them that I had protected them sooner. That I had realized their childhood was following the same pattern mine did. We have a sane and peaceful home now, but we could have had it all sooner.

L