I heard a story this morning getting ready for work and it spoke to me and I'd like to share it with you...
A woman was walking in the forest when a snake came slithering up to her. "Excuse me, can you please put me in your jacket? I'm cold and we're going the same way." The woman looked down at the snake and was very apprehensive but after a minute decided to be a good samaritan and give the snake a ride and the warmth it desired in her jacket packet. As she was walking along the snake bit her. The woman yelled, "WHy did you do that? I was nice and helped you out and you bit me!!" The snake replied, "What did you expect? I'm a snake, that's what I do."
It immediately made me think of my AH of 8 years. He's promised to not drink. Tried not to drink. Told me he loved me more than life itself. Swore on all his dead relatives and the lives of his children that he'd stop drinking. Been to rehab twice, arrested for assault 3 times, spend a year & a half in jail and is still an active alcoholic with no identifiable signs of wanting to work any kind of recovery program. He does what alcoholics do, but for years I was the woman yelling why are you doing this to me when I'm trying to help you!?!
I've had to accept that he's going to do what he wants to do, and when it comes to his disease of A, what it tells him to do. Of course it hasn't been easy to accept but each day it's becoming easier. If he says he's going to call me back and doesn't, I don't call him. I don't try to track him down. I don't cuss him out the next day when he finally does call. When he shows up at my door or calls me drunk, wanting his wife, I set my boundaries, let him know I won't deal with him in that condition. If he gets mad, he gets mad, not me. For instance, he called me when I was on my way home from work today:
Me: I'm just gonna go in the house & crash. I'm not coming back out for nothing.
AH: You mean to tell me, if I wanted you to come out, you wouldn't?
Me: No I wouldn't. I have to get up early & run errands before I go to work tomorrow.
AH: I don't care.
Me: I know you don't but I do.
AH: So it's like that now, huh?
Me: Yes, it is.
AH: You can do everything for everybody except me. Whatever! (Hangs-up)
See I've learned his issues are not my issues. I love my husband very, very much but I've learned in Al-Anon that my "protective" instincts or desire to protect him from himself is actually hurting more than helping. After all, if everytime he gets in trouble, wifey bails him out, what's he got to lose? If anything, he's got it made. There are no real consequences he has to deal with because I've dealt with them. How's he going to see this disease really is hurting him if he never feels the pain? If anything, my not rescuing him is showing how much I truly love him, even if he doesn't see it at first.
"His issues go way deeper than just drinking. He has no family, and had no one until me. He was kind of a drifter and thought very little of himself. He is just now starting to see that he can be whoever he wants to be and can have whatever he wants. His life has gotten so much better in the past year."
8 years -- Let me repeat 8 years -- My AH comes from a extremely neglectful parenting background. Both his parents died addiction related deaths in their early 40's. He was hustling up money to feed his mom and siblings since age 8. Dropped out of 7th grade to support them hustling on the streets. His mother lost custody of his younger siblings when he moved out at age 13. He's spent 12 years of his 37 years in juvenile and adult detention facilities. His two living brothers are addicts themselves. Since we've been together, he's experienced the longest stretch of time since age 12 that he wasn't arrested or incarcerated, he's traveled across the US, opened his first bank account, lived in a house he could claim (I brought it prior to marriage), worked legitimately, has learned to read & write effectively and can hold a conversation with CEO's and Board Presidents at Black tie functions, which my jobs have often required me to attend. Trust me, he'll be the first to tell you I'm the best thing to happen to him and he doesn't know where he'd be without me - actually he'd say he'd either be dead or back in jail. Yet he still drinks, he still gets crazy, he's still an active alcoholic. I have taken better care of that man than his own mother but he has a disease that I didn't cause, can't cure or can't control. A snake will do what a snake instinctually does and an alcoholic will do what an alcoholic instinctually does.
In Al-Anon we learn not to give direct advice but to just share our story. This was mine. Take what you want and leave the rest. I pray it helps.