Hi, I'm new
Good Evening everyone, I have been looking for an alanon message board for a while and I'm so glad I finally found one. I've read a few posts and I feel like you all are very nice here.
To make my story short & sweet, I've been married for 22 years and my husband didn't start drinking until a few years ago. He started drinking to try and control a chronic pain problem he has. When he started doubling and tripling up on his pain meds, he would run out early and could not get a refill for a few days so he would drink to help his until he could get the refill. Well, I'm sure you all know the story....it kept getting worse and worse and he had to take more pills and drink more alcohol and finally he got to the point where he would be sick if he DIDN'T drink. The dr finally quit prescribing him pain pills but as you all know, liquor is on every damn street corner in town.
He had me feeling so sorry for him in the beginning, even bad enough that i went out and bought the crap for him when he was too sick/drunk to get it himself. I fell for his trick but I know better now. I've been attending alanon for over a year now and he's been through many detox's & rehabs. It seems that nothing is working.
I know i can't do anything to make him stop but I have 2 teenage daughters who do not deserve to live in a house with a man who cannot go a week without drinking. I feel like I'm not being a good mother by letting them be exposed to this. I go back and forth trying to decide what to do. I can't seem to make up my mind... i think part of that is that he keeps doing this week on-week off crap. On the week he doesn't drink, everything seems great and I pray to God that this is the time that he will have long term sobriety, only to be shot down a few days later when i suspect he's been drinking again and I'm always right. Even my daughters now can tell the instant we look at him. It disgusts all of us but we know he's got a disease....
Do we abandon him because he has a disease, would we move out if he had diabetes or cancer? NO, we'd just deal with it. But, is that what we're supposed to do? I am so wishy washy and i hate that feeling. I know that no one at Alanon or on this board can TELL me what to do, I guess I just need to get my frustrations out and know that someone out there understands what i'm going through.
I hope i haven't turned any of you off, I promise i won't type such long messages in the future. I just don't know what to do. I keep telling myself that it's okay to not do anything right now, but then my other self is saying, I can't just keep putting up with his drinking, he's got to know that I mean business when I say I don't want to live with an actively drinking alcoholic husband. But, is that manipulation on my part? I'm so confused...
Sugarplum