Did I say "concede power"? Context, I believe, is that my issue is conceding my right to defend myself, my right to happiness, and my right to freedom from verbal assault in my own home, my castle, my refuge. The "power" to stop someone from sabotaging an otherwise relatively normal and pretty fine life - and people - and family.
And I am worried this isn't ALL about drinking... However, I suppose the fight you aptly described (for the right to drink) goes on regardless of "intoxication status", doesn't it?
You absolutely have the right to defend yourself, the thing is, most often with regards to addiction, it will fall on deaf ears. Part of their journey is facing that they have a problem. To them, the crazy justification is that they don't have to face it and change if you have problems too. I get it, most of MY relationship arguments used to end by me defending and then blameshifting to get out from under accusation. "You are worse than me so BACK OFF." Oy.
my right to happiness, and my right to freedom from verbal assault in my own home, my castle, my refuge. .
This is where walking away comes into play. This site is full of experience after experience that the only way you are going to be able to exercise those rights is to get the hell out of the tornado.
The "power" to stop someone from sabotaging an otherwise relatively normal and pretty fine life - and people - and family
You are coming to terms with the fact that you can't make her do anything. It took me a while too
And I am worried this isn't ALL about drinking... However, I suppose the fight you aptly described (for the right to drink) goes on regardless of "intoxication status", doesn't it?
DING DING DING. You are absolutely right. With addicts, it is rarely JUST an addiction problem. It is a psychological / personality disorder lurking below - the addiction 'helps' them through it. For that matter - often with partners of addicts too - but that's for a different day.
Here - in our big group hug called Sober Recovery, we ALL have experienced your very situation, and the common denominator is alcoholism. The symptoms are pretty textbook, the relationship and family issues are pretty textbook, and codependency is pretty textbook as well. Different people find different solutions for all that, and we just want to push on you what has worked and what is working for all of us. We ALL have to learn this the hard way. We have ALL been told by others here that we are going about dealing the wrong way - albeit the best way we can muster at the time.
Not that this big ole overwhelming mess is ALWAYS life or relationship ending...IT'S NOT! We all just realize that what we have been doing isn't working, so we come here for answers. Most of the time, it leads to really, really positive change within ourselves. With any luck, it happens that way for the alcoholic too.