Seren

Bump for some of the newbies!

MandyButterfly

This makes me sad. Alcoholism is a disease, yes? If so, does this mean alcoholic's are not responsible? No one asks to have a disease. I feel I made my ex's disease worse because I could not be who, what he wanted, needed, do as he requested, etc... I feel I failed him in all area's. That because of me, his drinking and abuse towards me became worse and our marriage failed as a result of it. I have the if, should, could, have's... if I only, if I were, if I did, if I did not, I should have tried harder, done more, I could have... Well, you get the pic...

NYCDoglvr

Well, sure. Alcoholism isn't a disease of the elbow, it's a mental illness.

TRex

This is all so true. My AH is still highly functioning and it is this "control" over his life (and mine) that he uses to prove he is fine. Everything is fine. I am overreacting and being dramatic. At first I read this and thought "Wow, I'm not crazy". Then I thought, "He was like this when I met him and I married him anyway. I am crazier than he is."

Seren

Oh, no, I don't think it means that the alcoholics are not responsible. They very much are responsible for their own behavior and choices--and the consequences thereof.

It's really not comparable to other diseases--like diabetes or cancer--to which it is compared frequently. That said, I am diabetic, and I am the one who has to make that decision on a daily basis to take care of myself and do what I need to do to keep my blood sugar under control. No one can do that for me.

LexieCat

Nothing YOU did caused his drinking or made it worse. Alcoholism is what causes alcoholic drinking, and it gets worse in spite of anything YOU might do or not do. It INEVITABLY gets worse. Believe me, among all of us here, we have done everything conceivable in response to alcoholic drinking in an attempt to "help" the alcoholic. NOTHING WORKS. It is the alcoholic's own responsibility to accept help, and usually they create quite a destructive path in their wake before they are ready to do that. You were just part of the collateral damage, not the cause in any way, shape, or form.

nbay2013

Hi, I am a newbie here.

My ex-AB has been sober and in AA for about a year and still has not done steps, rarely sees his sponsor and does not read any material. He still is all victimy and whiny, and his life is still in chaos. So, the disease model is very iffy to me. You know Seren, I have diabetes also. My A1C is 5. You know what that means I am sure. And I am now Vegan. My ex-AB has high blood pressure and a few weeks back, on the 4th of July, he picked up a jar of pickles and started drinking the liquid. I gasped and he said, "I know, I am weird that way, I love pickle juice." And I said, "No, I am surprised because that is so salty...that is risky". He shrugged. He has never stopped eating salty food or smoking or done anything to treat the high blood pressure except take a pill. And of course now he is almost impotent due to the meds. Mind you, this guy is intelligent. But it's the addictive, not taking responsibility behavior that seems to own his mind. It's pretty awful to watch. He doesn't drink, as far as I know, but he dumped me one week ago, so now I need to let go of his problems and heal.

Hugs,

Carrie

Seren

That's quite admirable! I'm usually in the low 6's

nbay2013

thanks Seren...i was in the high 5s until i went vegan. I don't know why it helped but it did.

lillamy

Trust me on this: NOTHING you could have done would have changed his drinking. My AXH claimed he had to drink because I was fat and disgusting (that was ONE of many excuses over the years). I got down to a weight that would have gotten me kicked out of Weight Watchers because I was UNDERWEIGHT and guess what? Then he said he had to drink because he was jealous of how other men looked at me.

You can't win.
And that's because it's not about YOU. It's about them getting to drink.
You may have heard the joke that alcoholics only drink on days that end with a Y?
That's about it.
Mine would drink to celebrate a good result at work or drink because of a bad result at work.
He would drink because it was nice to sit out on the deck with a drink or he would drink because the weather was depressing. He would drink because I had a haircut. He would drink because I hadn't had a haircut.

Alcoholics drink. We can drive ourselves crazy trying to get them not to. We'll never succeed. They have to want it for themselves.

ALSO: The way you speak about your responsibility for the marriage falling apart, for causing him to abuse you is unhealthy. And I say that with a lot of love, because I've been there. I thought so to. It's how you get conditioned to think when you live with an abusive person.

If you haven't already, please call your local abuse hotline and talk to someone. You don't have to give your name. But there are people who can get you out of feeling like everything is your fault. It is NOT. It never was.

Big hugs.

Louise13

Thank you for posting this. I'm new to the forum and this has really helped.

jarp

That was like reading a description of my partner. I'm going to reread this many, many times.

Upsetnneedhelp

That is a great article. I think some co-dependents become cons as well. I was always lying to family members, teachers, neighbors, police, probation, ect.. concerning my sons issane actions while under the influence of alcohol and drugs. He once borrowed my car and smashed it up and I had to call the police and say it got stolen. I never thought I would of thought that I was capable of lying to that extent but I did. Co-dependency is progressive also.

BtheChange

Incredibly accurate and helpful, thanks Seren.

Seren

Bump for the newbies!

NYCDoglvr

I'm a recovering alcoholic (in my 23rd year) and can toss out some examples of how we think. I've changed a great deal thanks to the 12 Steps and lots of therapy but I'm still an addict and think like one sometimes.

In the Big Book ("Alcoholics Anonymous") Bill Wilson describes active alcoholics perfectly. Self centered in the extreme, huge self-will, delusional. We have enormous egos and suffer from low self-esteem (I think it's self hatred) and grandiosity. "His majesty the child" is one way of putting it ........ the level of immaturity is scary. For an active alcoholic the bottle is his/her higher power, God, great love of his life; we'll let family and friends go rather than give up booze (although a few of us do, thank God).

Why? Because rationalization and denial are part of our distorted thinking. Remember, it's a progressive disease. I've heard people called "high functioning alcoholic". Well we were all high functioning in the beginning but if you keep on drinking life gets worse and worse.

So what are sober alcoholics like? There's a saying: you can't turn a pickle back into a cucumber. If you take the alcohol away from a drunken horse thief you have a horse thief. I got sober in AA. The odds of staying sober aren't good: roughly 30% make it to one year. We put the booze down and very quickly it becomes clear that if we don't change we won't stay sober. I had the "gift of desperation" because I came within a hair's breath of dying so I took every suggestion: 90 meetings in 90 days, got a sponsor, avoided people, places and things that could trigger a relapse. The big changes come from the 12 Steps and cognitive therapy. It takes years, a great deal of motivation and hard work to really change.

Remember alcoholism (addiction) is classified as a mental illness. Alcoholics think differently from non-addicts. The insanity is we keep drinking despite the terrible hangovers, disastrous relationships, continued isolation and misery. In the beginning alcohol makes us "high"....but at some point it turns on us and takes us into deep misery and self-hate. Many of us drink as a way of self-medicating in order to avoid painful feelings.

I come here because I'm also codependent, but my big addiction is alcohol (with a sprinkling of Valium, lol). Now I can laugh when alcoholic thinking pops up ("if one is good, 27 is better"!). I still have denial and rationalization, the reason I still go to meetings. I know I have another drink in me but I don't think I have another recovery. Getting sober is the most important thing I've ever done.

Codependents waste so much time trying to figure out alcoholics. I don't know what it's like to be bipolar and you will never figure out addict thinking. It's not rational so let it go. Through Alanon I learned that the problem isn't the other alcoholic, it's me. That there's a big difference between love and need. It's so much easier to focus on someone elses problems instead of dealing with my own. Recovery was learning to choose people who are normal and healthy, who bring happiness and joy to my life. One of my favorite lines comes from Thelma and Louise: "Thelma, you get what you settle for". And, fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me.

As Bill W. says "drinking is but a symptom" of a much bigger problem. Always remember it's a mental illness.

HopefulinFLA

Thank you NYC. This was very insightful, food for thought.

blake1989

The words used, the vocabulary in this list puts into words things that the chaos, heartbreak and confusion prevented me from articulating.

The list is staggering, and I'm pretty much beyond words from it. I have nothing else to say, but thanks for bringing it to my attention.

Yurt

I am not really a newbie, but I would not have read, absorbed, or believed much of this article when you first posted it. That says a lot about a person's ability to change for the better. Thank you for reposting; it has given me a lot to think about.

Seren

I think when I first found SR...I never would have understood this article. Only comparing my own experience, looking back, could I see the similarities.

I know that these thought patterns are not universal to all active alcoholics, but the commonalities are amazing.