anewdaytosmile

Hi, I am new here. I have a 23 year old son who has an addiction to opiates and alcohol. He is in a recovery house, which has been very good for my own recovery. It’s been a very difficult 3 plus years with him at home. We now have him somewhere that we feel he is safe and see him working the steps and doing very well.

Now that he is working on his recovery I want to work on mine too.
One big problem I now have is that it upsets me terribly when-ever my husband drinks. He usually only drinks wine on the weekends. I don’t drink anything and haven’t for over 30 years, because I never liked how it made me feel. I didn’t have a big problem with my husband drinking before, I never liked it when he drank so much he would vomit, but that happens very rarely, every few years. We’ve been together almost 35 years.

But last Friday night he first drank the rest of one bottle of wine (about 1/3) and I was fine with that, a little wine with dinner is normal. Then he drank about ¼ of another bottle and I hadn’t even noticed but then when he opened up the 3rd bottle it just hit me really hard. We were going to be leaving at 7:30am the next morning to go visit my son at his recovery house and I just didn’t think my husband should be drinking that much the night before. I said something and he just ignored me. I went to bed angry about this but just tried to let it go.

I didn’t say anything the next day. We got home from my son’s late and he had 2 beers and that was it.

But then on Sunday morning I ended up telling him that I was upset about his drinking. I told him that it was my problem, not his, but wanted him to know how much it upset me. I don’t want to have anything to do with him when he drinks. I started to cry and couldn’t stop. He didn’t drink wine with dinner that night, but ever since he has been really cold to me.

I’ve been upset about a lot of things lately. I’m sad that my son missed out on so much by his addiction, but am happy he’s getting help now but sad this will be a problem for him for his entire life. I’m sad I couldn’t have done more to help him avoid this.

My sister has terminal cancer and won’t live much longer, and I’m very sad about that. My mom is not well and is having a real hard time dealing with my sister’s illness, which puts most of the issues of what needs to be done for her on me.

My 21 year old daughter is in college and has a lot of health issues.
I think I’m just depressed in general and haven’t felt this way in a very long time. Now my husband is being cold to me because I don’t like it when he drinks. I’ve been very nice to him and am trying hard not to express my sadness to him the last couple of days. But he’s the one that I count on for my emotional strength, so when I have a problem with him, I feel so alone and sad.

I realize I need the help of al-anon and want to start working the steps. But with so much on my plate right now I haven’t been able to make it to meetings other that the ones at my sons recovery house. At least I’m going to those but my husband is also there so I can’t bring up my issues with his drinking at those meetings.

I read in one of my al-anon books the other day about how it’s unknown why one person becomes addicted and another person does not. That’s something I need to learn more about.

I didn’t know where I should post this, please let me know if you think it should post it to a different forum.