Expecting others to change..or not to change..that is the question
 

just was thinking about how we sometimes say that we cant expect others to change or not drink, just cuz we cannot. This sounds like it could be a great discussion!! I know that for me...I dont expect most people to change or not drink around me..BUT I do expect my hubby not to..if its bothering me, I expect my family to not have alcohol in our home, cuz I cannot resist it right now, or maybe ever. I think if its people whom we love and love us....we can expect certian things..and they will accept that. If they dont..then we have to make a choice if we can live with that or not. I hope that makes sense...

What do you all think about these situations?

My best friend is a gambler..and she expects that I wont gamble when I'm with her..and of course I dont. In turn she will not drink when with me. So I guess I feel that it IS ok to expect others to change..depending on the situation..

ORRRR...maybe this is just my diseased" thinking since im only one day sober again.....

Hmm...
I was happily divorced when my drinking slid me into alcoholism.
And by choice....I've remained single in recovery....:)

I think I'll step away from this topic...as my experience
would not be useful to you....:hug:

Hi discoveringme
that is an interesting one!

I guess it burns down to...do you think it's reasonable to ask? Does your husband?

To be honest I would have thought it reasonable in my early recovery...now I'm not so sure.

I've seen it time and again here....to expect - or insist - that because we stop drinking our spouse will too, can cause a bit of resentment.

Have a talk with your husband by all means - explain to him why him drinking around you is hard right now.

I think you do have a right to ask that your house remains alcohol free - it is after all your home too.

But in the end, whatever your husband chooses, you're gonna have to choose to live, or not live, with that.

D

ohh in our home, my hubby never drinks and he never brings alcohol in the house. He will have a drink or two when out with his friends..but if im along..he has soda with me. (we hardly go out anyway) I guess I do expect that from him, and I (at this time) feel it is not selfish of me. I would expect him to feel the same way if the shoe were on the other foot.

Its just that I see said on here a lot that we CANT EXPECT others to change or not drink for us...but I DO...so I question if im being unreasonable or anything. I mean I dont tell my freinds not to have alcohol in their homes or not to drink when out..but if they are with me or want to spend time with me, I cant be around that. I guess its a bit of give and take huh??

I think when you live with someone you can expect certain things from them, but when dealing with a spouse there needs to be some initial give and take perhaps. They married one person and then that person makes a big shift on them by going sober. I think that is why there is al anon. But then I am single so who knows how much I know:-)

Peace, LF

Discoveringme...
I am trying to think of something that is not alcohol. If I am on a diet, do I expect others to not eat dessert? If I am quitting cigarettes, do I expect others not to smoke around me?

Alcohol. My husband has not been openly supportive of my decision to quit drinking. He believes I am not an alcoholic and I am strecthing this too much. However, since I do not drink he has not drunk at home at all. And we used to. A lot. My guess is that he is doing this because: 1) he loves me, knows I do not want to drink and feels it is the right thing to do and 2) he is not an alcoholic himself. So if I do not crack the wine open he does not think much about it.

Many of us have had very heavy drinkers/alcoholics as partners and friends. Our decision to quit drinking cannot come with the expectation that others quit drinking too. They probably have a serious problem to quit to start with.

My view: when you love someone you live with and that someone is quitting cigs., alcohol, chocolate cake, the natural think to do is to not smoke, drink or eat these things when your partner/mum/son is around. Unless, of course, you have a problem yourself

Great Question!

Early sobriety is one thing but overall, I don't want anyone changing for me.

I understand the feeling that loved ones should not bring booze into the home. That is cool. But for me it is a non starter. I need to be trained that it is time for big boy rules and the harsh reality is that society is not going to help me stay sober, only I am. So if my fiancée wants booze in the house then so be it, I need a mental defense against the first drink, not physical barriers. If it is one of the times that my mental defense fails, I have the HP.

Another thing is that when I was drinking, family and friends changed their lives enough for me as a result of my alcoholism, often at the expense of their own lives, so in sobriety it is time they stop.

I need to learn people are not always going to change as a result of the chance it might make me drink. This includes family. I have to be responsible for my own sobriety. My job, nobody else's. I can only depend on my own actions. So no, I expect no change from anybody and I conduct myself accordingly in sobriety.

I agree with you all! At one point I had 5 years sobriety. It didnt bother me at all if others drank. I guess it does for me now cuz i been struggling so badly staying sober. I am really starting to realize how selfish this disease makes me.....

I think it's fine to ask family/household members not to drink at home (especially in the beginning) and not to keep alcohol sitting around in the house. As has been pointed out, if they refuse, well, we have to learn to cope with it unless/until we are willing to change our living situation.

I don't feel I have the right to ask/expect anyone ELSE to change what they are doing on my account. I avoid occasions where drinking is the "main event" but it doesn't bother me a whole lot if I'm out to dinner and someone orders wine or a drink (the smell sometimes gets to me, but I concentrate on the food/conversation and I soon don't notice it).

I didn't drink at home, EVER, for the first few years of my husband's recovery. Eventually I asked if it would bother him if I bought one bottle of brandy at the holidays, and by then, he was OK with it as long as the bottle was gone after the holidays were over (I was not drinking alcoholically at that time).

I read somewhere that expectations are future resentments. I pretty much agree. We can hope, but we really can't expect.

Awesome question!

Relationships are a two-way street so for me that means i change some for them and whoever also changes some for me. It's a shared agreement of live and let live together. If I'm not ready or wanting to do some changing then I need to revisit why am I with this person be it family, friendship, business, whatever. Seriously. Responsible change is really high on my list of: ways to better love others and myself. :)

Do I expect just anybody to change for me? No way. Will I change just for the sake of change? No. When I share my life with somone, I already know I'll have to do some responsible changing. It goes with loving in a healthy relationship. Does alcoholism need special status in a relationship? Hell, Yes!

Any life threatening illness deserves no less. I don't mess around with alcoholism. My sobriety comes first. I have to continously change to live a solid sober life. Others who are with me be it family, friends, or whoever either choose to love me as the recovered alcoholic I am today or they can choose to let me go. It's a big free world full of personal choices everyday and that's a good thing. Living sober is always first. Everything else is always second. Including me. Including whoever or whatever and whenever. That's just the way I roll with my recovered sober life. I expect no less from anybody else.

That's my two-cents. :)

RR

.....or are is the disease the result of our out-of-control selfishness?? ;)


I'm with ya Chops. My close friends (who still drink) like to tease me about my "declaration" to them that I'm on this sobriety path for ME and that if they want a drink they should have a drink!

I didn't want to be anymore of a burden on the ppl in my life then I already had been. I believed it was up to me to get "recovered" as quickly as possible so they didn't need to inconvenience themselves just because I may be around. I looked at it as a form of amend for me to get to the point where I had ceased fighting alcohol / so that I would recoil from it as if it was a hot flame / so I could react sanely and normally around them and booze. I didn't think it was fair to put my "issues" on anyone's shoulders other than my own.

Good topic.

My experience is that my wife has a "tall white wine spritzer" ;) every night before bed. Or on saturdays, maybe two. It sucked at first, but so did everything in early sobriety. Now I hardly notice it. Sometimes I wish I could join her, on the front porch by the light of the moon, but I can't, so I just enjoy her company and the sounds of the crickets....

My son, 21, is home from college... He rents a house with four guys and he could spend he summer there, but he chooses to come home a lot of the time... we listen to music, talk, do a project on a car or something.... I had a great evening with him... he had at least 2 cold beers through the course of the evening... I am happy that he spent the evening with me, as he gets older, and I do too, those evenings with my son are finite in number....

IDK... I think if I tried to exert my preference that no alcohol was allowed, I might find myself alone in front of the TV...

Besides I've recovered, I no longer have the obsession.

:c006: :c011:

I'll start off by saying my husband drinks every night. He also brews his own beer and makes his own wine and mead (which is legal in our state as long as you're not selling it). I drank beer and wine (to get drunk) but never truly enjoyed them. My poison was scotch. Seeing and smelling the beer and wine is a minor temptation for me. However, I suck it up. Nobody ever says sobriety is easy. They say it's worth it, but they never say it's easy.

I knew when I quit drinking that Husband wasn't going to quit along with me. I also knew that if I drew my line in the sand regarding his drinking, it would be the hill our relationship died on. Because of that, I had to think carefully about our relationship and whether or not it was good enough for me to watch him have a few beers every single night of the week. I decided that I love my husband enough to put up with this habit of his.

Now, if he were an obnoxious, mean drunk (like I was), I would probably have kicked him to the curb along with the alcohol. But he's not that. In fact, I can rarely tell he's been drinking. He doesn't get silly or slur his words. He doesn't turn into the king of the smart alecs. He's still the same great guy I've been with all these years.

The bottom line is, the person who changed is me. I can't expect Husband to change just because I did. He's been nothing but supportive of my desire not to drink. There have been a few times I've had to tell him that I can't [fill in the blank]. I told him early on that I wasn't going in the liquor store to buy stuff for him. It was just too much for me, so I drew my line in the sand. He said he understood, and that was the end.

But here's the truth I live with each day:

I couldn't say it any better than these folks have. I always resent it when someone asks me to change what I'm doing to suit them. So I'm not going to do it to anybody else.

My sobriety is my responsibility. I chose to drink a 5th of scotch every day. Now, I'm choosing to improve my life by abstaining from alcohol. It's nobody's business (or issue) but mine.

However . . .

Everybody has his or her limit, just like I was talking about with going in the liquor store. I'm not just talking about alcohol, either. I don't like to be around people who turn every discussion into a debate, so I avoid those people. I'm a grownup, and it's my choice. Sure, I might miss out on some loyal friends, but the need to debate is a trait I just can't stand. I think that's the thing to remember about all of this. You might choose to tell people they can't drink around you, and they might choose not to hang out with you anymore. Win some; lose some. It's the game of life.

It's like Mark said:

Lexie made a good point, too:

Like Lexie, I choose to avoid occasions where drinking is the "main event." My husband and I share one vehicle. I've taken him to quite a few drinking occasions and dropped him off with the instruction for him to call me when he's ready to go home. I'm not going to sit around and watch a bunch of people drink. I don't want to be repeatedly offered alcohol (which is a whole 'nother topic), either. Therefore, I avoid occasions where drinking is the main event.

However, I don't mind if I go out to eat and one of my dining companions has a beer, wine, or even a cocktail. As long as they don't get embarrassingly drunk, I mind my own business. If they do get loud and drunk, I'm ready to hit the road.

I guess my whole point here is this: Think carefully before you draw your line in the sand. Sometimes it's worth it; sometimes it's not. The only person who can know what's right for you is you.

In the first year of my sobriety I did not want to be around anyone drinking and I stayed away from places where alcohol was served; if someone had lived with me I would have insisted there be no alcohol in the house I don't think that is unreasonable. 5 months into my sobriety my mother passed away and 1 night I went to dinner with 2 of my sisters and my brother, 1 sister made a big deal about choosing the perfect wine...the other 2 declined alcohol-- I believe out of curtesy to me and by the looks they gave the drinking sister they were annoyed that she would drink in front of me...I don't think she realized her "error"...the few times I've seen her since she has always asked "do you mind if I have a drink". I think if someone really cares about you they will not drink around you if you are struggling or at least they would/should inquire if you minded.

In a perfect world, of course our loved ones would change their habits or whatever in order to make things easier for us. We do not live in a perfect world. In a perfect world, there would be no alcoholism. So, while I would hope that my family, etc. would not drink in front of me or bring alcohol into my home, I think it is going too far to expect it and be upset if they don't do as we would hope.

Interesting topic.

Here's my take. Gambling and drinking are a tad different. . .so not sure that anaolgy works for me. My hsuband drank after I quit. I even bought beer for him on occasions. I was done drinking, and it was okay. Would I prefer that he didn't drink? Yes. But I don't expect everyone to not drink, or not drink around me, just because I have a problem and I recognized it and stopped.

However, last week, he abruptly stopped. he decided that if I could quit, he could as well. I have no idea if he will continue to not drink or not. I am happy with his decision as of now. Should he decide to drink sometime, that is okay as well.

Alcohol is my problem. No one else's. I think it is nice and perhaps thoughtful if others don't drink around me, but again, it is not their issue. If there is a situation where I think I could not handle the alcohol that is around, I simply avoid it until I am ready to be in that situation. That is my choice.

I think we are all different, and where each of us are at any given time is different, so the support we need is different.

Non-smokers expect and even demand that others not smoke in their homes or near them I don't see why it is any more unreasonable for non-drinkers to prohibit drinking around them. When I was married my husband and both smoked then I quit, he did not quit but he never smoked in our home again and when we went out we no longer sat in the smoking section (back when they had smoking sections...)