This will be my first post since I joined SR about a month ago, just before my ABF went into rehab. Around the same time, I went to my first Al-Anon meeting and that was the best choice I made. We live a fair distance from each other and he is in rehab near where he lives. He was supposed to go about 6 weeks ago but relapsed just before he was due to go. He made it and has been there for 2 weeks now.
The time leading up to his going to rehab was pretty stressful for me as I alternated between looking after myself and worrying about another relapse. Once he made it, it felt like a giant weight of worry and fear was lifted off of my shoulders as I knew he was safe there and had that feeling of relaxing and doing things that not only needed to be done, but things I wanted to do but had neglected during the course of our relationship. I'm planning a move out to be with him once he gets out of rehab -that's been due to a couple of factors keeping me from doing this-one being the weather, the other being that I wanted to wait till rehab was over, to see how he reacted to it - to be honest, to see if he made it through, as he expressed many reservations to me about the place he was going.
He's halfway through rehab and in our daily calls, I have come to realize that my recovery is part of this process as well. It is about him, but it is also about me - the way I tried to control his drinking, the way I reacted to it. It's not an easy thing to do to accept that you can't control, nor did cause, nor can you cure their drinking, but my Al-Anon group has helped me see this. He is also finally realizing that he is not the only one in recovery, I am as well as he was pretty upset I went to Al-Anon, thinking I didn't need it. Now, he sees me not only going to my group and following the steps, but accepting that he has a disease. Both of us have had to face some hard truths about ourselves and the process is ongoing.
I felt the same way as you did, spikedaball-that it would be 28 worry free days but halfway through, I'm seeing that I have to look at things a different way-that he has confronted a lot about his past and is looking to our future but it is an ongoing journey for both of us. Each and every day while I am doing the routine and mundane things, different truths hit me as I read Al-Anon literature, books, this forum and listen to others in Al-Anon chronicle their journeys.
It really is one day at a time - more than the days on a calendar. Some days, I take it an hour at a time as I accomplish or do something that before, would have been neglected as I wondered whether this would be the day he relapsed again. We have talked about it as much as we can given the time constraints of phone calls and both of us realize that once rehab is over, that's just the first step for both of us.
Together and apart through AA, Al-Anon and joint counseling once we are together, we are staring to understand that the journey we share together will not be easy, there will be good, bad days, the possibility of relapse is always there, that addictive thinking may cloud decisions and that by taking it one day at a time, there is hope.