Originally Posted by
Becky1234 
He isn't attending AA meetings. He never has - always refused. He feels that since he has managed to abstain for the past 3 years that he must be doing fine. I haven't yet pointed out to him that he hasn't actually tackled all other issues and that abstaining isn't enough.
Even if you point it out to him, he won't get it. He needs to make that journey on his own. My husband, while in detox, also didn't think he needed a program. His counselors tried to make me assist them in getting him into inpatient treatment (ironic given they work with a 12 step program and the first thing you learn on both sides is that the alcoholic is solely responsible for their addiction) and into a 12 step program. The harder they pushed, the more my husband didn't want to do those things. He wound hitching his own ride on the clue bus and decided to take part in outpatient treatment.
I also want to say that even though I had started the process of detaching from my husband's addiction long before he wound up in detox, the nearly 2 weeks he was in there, mostly without contact, was incredible for my healing.