maybell

Here is what I have learned. Run. As fast as you can and don't look back. I was so ignorant of alcoholism. Recently I talked to a woman who has lived with an alcoholic for essentially her life. They are almost 80 years old. He has been sober for 25 years. That means that he raised his kids drunk, why they only recently started talking to him!!! They have been active in AA for 25 years. So she lived with him drunk for 30 years and then listened to him talk about it for 25 more.

Escape. I asked her if she knew what she knows now would she stay. She said No. It broke my heart. Now he is sick and she is still taking care of him -- she depends on him for nothing, she learned to detach. What a way to live your life. Ok, I know it is a disease, so limit its victims to one. Don't include yourself, your kids, your family pet.

I told my alcoholic after four years of enabling on a large scale -- no more. No job, no money, no vehicle. I just kept providing and providing. His money went to booze. When you have to keep a roof over your head and food in the refrigerator because you have kids and someone lives in the house who is drunk .... guess what? The basic survival stuff is met and they can survive quite nicely doing nothing.

Then comes the charm and the empty promises and the ways of getting money out of you .... finally he drove my truck drunk, I took the keys and said you cannot live here and drink. So for two years he didn't drink, but he couldn't go anywhere, because he would want to drink if he did, so we stayed at home and got addicted to video games and ate too much and lost contact with the entire world.

He still didn't contribute and when I said this time you must give me a start time that you will at least help with the utilities -- he backed a truck up to the house loaded everything he wanted, including the can of change -- and moved in with his sister who provides a net. He did this while I was out of town. BUT -- he loves me.

Of course he is drinking again and hiding it from his sister. I would tell her, but right now my motivations are spiteful not caring. So until I have the correct heart, I am staying silent.

Here is the deal. You can't change an alcoholic. So leave, protect yourself and your family. He will work on your confidence til you have none. He will entrap you because that is just what happens. If he wants a different life he will go get it (a sober one) and if you haven't completely expunged him from your heart then maybe and that is a big maybe -- you have a chance of working it out.

Why do you want to live with someone that you have to detach from? What in the hell is the point?

I don't miss him. I am annoyed with his sister who keeps out the welcome mat -- he becomes her "son" when he moves back home. She doesn't think he can succeed at anything and makes sure that he knows when he fails one more time -- he can come on back. He is 45. 45!!! Holy cow. So, take this fool's advice -- run run run and don't look back.

He will replace you, don't worry about that, cause until he is sober and sober in his head she will have the miserable life you left behind.

And as far as the ranting goes? The best defense is a good offense. So when someone is telling you all the nasty things they think of you -- they obviously thought them, and sometimes it is just a good ploy because if they yell first, you are put in a position of defending yourself --it deflects from the actual and very real situation that they are falling down drunk. Again.