I loved alanon and the other counseling I did at the time of and after the separation from XAH. I started going thru EAP at work during lunch. XAH knew and didn't like that at all. Too bad, so sad.
After the divorce I continued the Alanon at lunches and did it after dinner (and ironically the meetings often were in the community center across the street from his favorite bar where you could see him sitting in the window guzzling his alcohol while his little daughter who lost everything, her house, her family, her dog, her toys, her routine, was abandoned to spending her evening with strangers).
I also continued with our marriage counselor once a week since she knew him and had some insights (not a good marriage counselor, but was a great get-rid-of-the-jerk counselor: she reminded me what Shakespeare said: If you love someone, they are in your heart forever; if you hate them they are in your mind forever).
I tore myself apart and inside out, felt like I scrubbed out gunk from my veins and the marrow of my bones. And within 3 months of the actual divorce, 10 pounds of weight was gone without trying or dieting. 15 now. I had huge brown circles under my eyes--gone. My hair and eyelashes were falling out--that stopped and my hair came in shiny and my eyelashes thicker. I used to break out every day in hives when I was with the alkie. That stopped. The last time it happened was last Xmas when I was in Target and the lady in front of me starting yelling at the cashier--wham, instant hives from stress and conflict, and it didn't even involve me!
I used to be so quiet at work, now I'm warm and funny and engaging. I was like that when XAH met me. I'm more so now. I've gotten two promotions at work. As I mentioned in another thread, last June I started seeing someone. We went on the Epic cruise ship and HE didn't mind sitting with me unlike Alkie X who wouldn't sit with me on our honeymoon because he was scared it would upset his mommy. (And btw the ice bar is mega cool, literally). Trust an alkie to make a cruise miserable.
You don't just want to get rid of the alkie and his toxicity--you want to get rid of every trace of him in your life and from your brain. There's a book by a man named Amen, The Brain in Love, and it discusses about how your significant other becomes imprinted in the synapses of your brain (the inability to leave is not always codependency, altho don't be too quick to dismiss codependency. Even for non codies, a significant other, no matter how happy or unhappy they've made you become inbedded in parts of your brain and can sabotage your efforts to move on or move out).
Therapy and pushing yourself into other activities (I did a book club, line dancing and Lock and Key parties--and had a BLAST), reprograms your brain and really can erase the toxicity of the alkie and the relationship from your mind.
I encourage you enthusiastically to keep on. Find a therapist to guide you who is helpful; find an alanon group. Find non-alkie fun activities, clean out the gunk and move in the new stuff.
For all of you who have struggled so long in despair and confusion because someone you loved and entwined your life with betrayed you with alcohol and turned on you, making your life scary and miserable and bringing chaos and irrationality and unfairness into it, I hope all of you find a path out to what is BOUND almost GUARANTEED to be a better life.
Invest in yourself instead of the alkie (you'll be able to make better use of the investment than s/he'll ever be able to). And the best most cost effective way to invest in yourself is through things like AlAnon, therapy, meetup.com, classes at the Y or community college.
This is YOU!!!!
:day6