gardens

I'm in NA and my partner is a counsellor.

She has taken an interest in all things addiction mostly because of my behaviour but also due to many other people around her that suffer from addiction.

She's started to give me feedback that I'm doing too many meetings, that she considers I've swapped one addiction to drugs/alcohol with meetings. That it's not a balanced lifestyle.

I'm only 60 days clean and have relapsed twice before. I'm currently doing 1-2 meetings a day. Every time I've relapsed it has been because I want to manage my life and family but also keep using. The last relapse I convinced myself that I was doing them a favour because I was technically more available to them, even though I was mentally absent.

I feel really frustrated and disappointed. I feel like I'm being patronised and treated like a lab specimen to be analysed and I feel upset that even when clean and busting my ass to stay clean what I'm doing is still not good enough, even when she was the one on my case to get back in the program this time around.

I don't know if this is common or if anyone has any thoughts on how to deal with it. I struggle to communicate in my relationship at the best of times and she can run circles around me with psycho babble and counsellor head games. I just want to say to leave me the hell alone and let me try and get well, instead of now turning this into a game of NA/AA vs my relationship.

Thanks for listening.

CRRHCC

In my opinion, all addictions are caused by one underlying emotion: intolerable, helplessness. Addictive behavior always serves and emotional purpose! Addicts have learned to empower themselves and regain control of how they feel, with a displaced quick fix or mood changer of substances and other behaviors. Non-addicts empower themselves and regain control of their feelings by facing them directly or replacing them with a more healthy high-value behavior.

Your meetings are a form of healthy high value behavior if you find them valuable. My guess is that your councilor feels that you are just, "White knuckling your sobriety," in meetings.

Transformation begins in the mind, because the way we reason affects how we act. Romans 12:2

Action

I think if you need a meeting or two a day you should do a meeting or two a day with no judgements. I did as many as I could do the first months, it keepted my mind focused and occupied with sobriety. I did close to 140 meetings in the first 90 days. Your partner can't tell you what you need to stay clean.....
Good luck with your recovery, Action

hypochondriac

My sister said the same thing early in my recovery (I am 10 years sober from alcohol). She thought I needed to spend more time around 'normal' people who didn't have addiction issues. She couldn't have been more wrong. I needed to live and breath recovery just to be able to function. When I was working I was listening to podcasts and when I wasn't working I was on this forum, at a meeting or sleeping. You need to do what you need to do to get by, no one else can tell you what you need and unsolicited advice is rarely helpful (I should probably listen to my own advice!). I would encourage your partner to read more about people's personal journey in recovery, particularly if it is an area of work they are interested in.

edoering

As a former partner of someone who had been in recovery, I fully support a very active meeting life if you feel that it is helping you stay more centered, stay clean, and build yourself back up!

I won’t lie, when I first started dating my AXH he was freshly out of rehab and I had no prior experience with addiction—I struggled with how much “time out of his life” meetings took. I struggled with accepting that the more our lives became intertwined, the more recovery became a part of my life as well. I had this vision of how a serious relationship looked and sharing so much of “our life” with NA was not my original picture. Luckily, he knew what he needed to keep himself healthy and I came to realize I just had to decide if I was open to this kind of relationship or if I wasn’t. But I’m sure I accidentally said something like “are you sure this much NA is healthy?” 🤦🏻‍♀️ (I was even secretly sad I’d never get to just have a beer or a glass of wine with the man I loved!)

We were together 7 years, married for 3-4. Over time, for a variety of reasons, he started wanting to move away from NA and focusing instead on the life we were building together and “normal people stuff.” I was naively excited because he seemed so stable, I think we both thought he really had “beat this” and maybe moving forward, his recovery would look different (though we knew he’d still have to be working on active recovery!). He seemed “ready” to try a different, more personal recovery journey. He stepped back from NA. Not long after that he relapsed, starting by believing he could reintroduce alcohol or weed in moderation, and not long after that he left me and we got divorced. I got to share that glass of wine with the man I loved! And then I lost him.

I share this because I can empathize with why she might be saying those things—it can be a lot to adjust to and being a partner with someone in recovery is not for everyone. But also based on my experiences I think recovery really does come first. And only the person dealing with addiction and recovery can do it for themselves! Sure, going to a lot of meetings is not a guarantee of staying clean… Life has no guarantee! That’s why we focus on just for today. But certainly a partner (like me) can’t manage their ALO’s recovery for them, and a partner can’t (and probably shouldn’t) replace a recovery process; basically, I can’t cause it, cure it, or control it. Only my ALO can manage their own recovery.