prodigal

He told me FIVE days after his boss pulled him aside in the hallway to tell him that he needed to straighten up and go into the Employee Assistance program, or take the consequences of keeping his job solely on the basis of his performance (which isn't up to par). Anyway, I got only part of that story from my AH. So I called his boss because I knew he was lying to me.

Comes out that the boss did NOT pull my AH aside in the hallway. They had a private discussion in the boss's office. Bottom line: my AH reeks of alcohol some mornings, other project managers don't want to work with him, and he's not doing his job up to standards. In fact, according to the boss, my H was rambling on incoherently during a meeting last week and it got back to him from others who attended the meeting.

My AH complains he is overloaded with too many projects, too much stress, can't handle it all. Perhaps this is true. I asked him if he let his boss know this. He claims he did. His boss told me he's familiar with my H's work from the past and he was far better at what he did six years ago than what he is doing now, performance-wise.

So .... what goes down here??? My H gets drunk every night and dreads going to work. Meanwhile, his boss told me he gave my H the opportunity to go to the Employee Assistance Office where a counselor would get him into intensive counseling and detox. If my H agreed to that, he wouldn't be judged on his less-than-satisfactory job performance. He could save himself if he slipped up. But, nope. He didn't want that. He could fix this on his own without any outside help. So now his professional future and reputation rests on his performance alone because he refused the help offered.

Thank God I'm finally going to f-2-f Al-Anon meetings. It's the only way I could make it through this mess and have a "hands-off" policy while I watch my H totally trash his career. Basically, he's totally destroyed his professional reputation. I am SURE his job is stressful, but it would at least be manageable if he would (1) get the help his boss offered and (2) get into a detox program to stop drinking.

He won't work on his problems or addiction, so I have to rely on my various groups' support to keep me from tryng to make him see the light. Y'know what I've learned???? It doesn't matter if you scream the truth in their face ... they won't listen until they hit their own bottom.

What a burden off my back and a relief for me to finally have given myself permission to quit offering unsolicited advice!