maia1234

My A friends,

I was wondering what it was for you, to recognize that your life was a disaster and realized that alcohol was the root of it? For the majority of you, was it a major alcoholic related event that you "saw the light"?

I am watching my AXH's life swirl down the drain and I dont think he has a clue to why, but maybe I am wrong. Nearly everything I read of what you have all experienced is falling into place for him. Depression, no motivation, stressed, confusion, can't focus , sadness and will be losing his job soon. (These are all his words in his last email) It is one thing after another that he keeps losing, but never any alcohol related factors. It has been almost a 1 1/2 years since we discussed that he had a drinking problem and I will not go there again as it is not my job. I am just there to tell him I'm sorry.

But I was just wondering if you all new down deep, or if you didn't have a clue that your life could be better, if you stopped drinking, or stopped smoking dope daily after a 35 year career of it. Am I nieve to think that he has no idea, or does he know and just not ready.

I appreciate your perspective from the A's side of the street. You all have helped me so much in my recovery. I wish you well, and thank you all for giving back!!

MIRecovery

For me I could see that I was about to lose everything I cared about l. My wife, home, job, sanity and life. The final straw was when I withdrew at work and had to be take to the hospital

entropy1964

Denial is incredibly powerful. And I believe there are levels of denial. One can 'know' there is a problem but not accept it truly. Its almost as if there are two people with separate brains at play. Once I admitted I was an alcoholic there was no turning a blind eye. But that didn't stop me either. My guess is he 'knows' but can't accept the reality of what he needs to do.

Soberwolf

I didn't think life could be this good sober when I was drinking no I really hope your husband finds recovery

JD

I think most of us know there's a problem and at some level wish things were different. I think many of us use alcohol as an escape from whatever ails us. It could be a mental illness or just not wanting to accept the realities of life. There are probably others that enjoy the buzz and the camaraderie of hanging out with other like minded souls. Those are probably the ones that need to hit a very hard rock bottom before the damage they are doing to themselves and others sinks in. Others get sick and tired of what they're doing and make the decision to change their life. So as you see they're is no typical alcoholic and therefore no one size fits all recovery plan. Until the individual is ready to make a change for themselves that change won't happen. What makes one ready to change will be as individual as the individual.

PS, to answer your question on stopping after a 35 year career, the answer is yes. That's about the length of my career dinking. And I got sick and tired of it. Didn't have to lose a job, or get a dui, etc. For me it was just time to make changes in my life. Wish I had done that much sooner but that's in the past and I can't do anything about that now.

tomsteve

i think MANY of us have been in his shoes.
that dam pride and ego(and maybe one or 2 other character defects) kept me from admitting alcohol was the common denominator in all my problems. as the alcoholism progressed it took more work to stay in denial.
there were times i thought that existance was my destiny. yeah, i knew life could be better, but that was just my destiny.
then i was given the gift of desperation. the pain of getting drunk had finally exceeded the pain of reality.
that came a day after a rip snortin blackout drunk when my (by then ex) fiance told me some of the things i had done and said the day/night before and tossed me out.
thats when i walked into the rooms of AA.

ScottFromWI

For me knew I needed to quit for a long time, and I tried several times with some success, but eventually one morning I simply woke up and knew that it had to stop. It wasn't a magic moment or epiphany of any kind, I just had been on a week long bender over the holidays and had enough of it.

JeffreyAK

Yes, denial can be viciously strong. I knew there was a problem, as I was accumulating increasingly severe negative consequences including job problems and being referred to the EAP, but I was convinced I could figure it all out somehow and keep drinking but lose the negative consequences. I just had to figure out how to moderate again - after all, alcohol is legal, everyone drinks, I need it for stress relief, I used to be a moderate drinker with just occasional binges, blah blah blah....

The real turning point was not admitting that I had a problem or even that I was addicted to alcohol, it was admitting that the only solution to the problem was to quit totally: Abstinence.

tim68

Drinking always starts out fun. I was 15 or 16 when I started. My progression to dependency and obsession took decades. It is so scary looking back how this happens. Taking an "honest" look back I let it ruin at least one relationship but at the time i was in denial. Matter of fact, every negative event in my life involved alcohol! My wife has let me know on well more than one occasion of my blackouts as well as my foolish behavior. I love her so much. She deserves better. I deserve better. Not only have i begun to focus on my marriage and her feelings, I had to be honest with myself on where I was headed. 30 years later the occasional drinking had become an obsession. I planned my life around it. I developed all the alcoholic symptoms like high blood pressure, blood sugar control problems, weight gain, terrible panic/anxiety attacks, sleep disorders depression, lethargy and my give a damn just broke.

The alcoholic in me had to see and feel things for myself. Everyone else was crazy, but in reality they were right. I have finally reached that stage where I know they were right. I smoked for 10 years of my life and after multiple attempts at quitting I haven't picked one up in 22 years. I have zero desire to do so ever again. I firmly believe one can do anything if they honest to God truly desire to. It has to come to that. There has to be a plan. My plan has been to connect with God more in my humility, to treat my body with respect, feed it and exercise it properly and to be the husband my wife deserves. I'm 34 days sober today giving it my all. I truly feel success right around the corner, one day at a time Lord willing. I'm just so tired of feeling bad from drinking and I realize the joy stage of alcohol is long gone and will never come back. It only gets worse and thank God i realize that after several failed attempts. Finally! For now I just simply "choose" not to go back. Each day the journey gets easier. The key to success is total honesty with yourself and developing a plan of recovery. You have to absolutely want it. And all those symptoms of my alcoholism are gone since I stopped drinking. I feel incredible.

Thumpalumpacus

I knew I had a problem drinking, but I was functioning -- working fifty to sixty hours, no DUIs (though only by luck), no lost jobs. I wasn't getting ahead very well.

I didn't realize the seriousness of it until my girlfriend left me because of my drinking. We talked about it several times, argued about it a bit, and I was firmly in denial, so she left. (Like you, she's in AlAnon now).

Everyone's rock-bottom is different. I'm glad mine seems to have been so relatively gentle.

Your ex- may not be mentioning his alcoholism as a factor in his problems not because he doesn't recognize it, but rather -- he might be in active denial about it, or he may not want to admit that you were right when you made your points in that conversation 18 months ago.

I hope your own recovery is going well. Be strong and thrive.

least

I relapsed after being sober six months. I woke up after drinking for two days, feeling horrible and hating myself. I knew I had to stop drinking. That was six years and three months ago and I've been sober since then.

I just got sick and tired of waking up feeling awful and hating myself.

sg1970

None of my thinking when I was actively drinking was rational. I was afraid to stop. Terrified actually. I knew I had a problem in my early twenties. Finally at 45 The pain of continuing exceeded the fear of living without it. I didn't have any of the major mishaps. But the fear, self pity, anxiety, guilt, anger, etc... finally built up to the point that I honestly felt almost insane. Perhaps I was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. I don't really know. I reached out to the only person I knew who had recovery and he took me to AA. I barely knew the guy. He saved my life. I did not think life could be good sober which is ironic considering how miserable I was. I just don't think someone who hasn't been there can understand it at all. No matter how we try to describe it. Like I said, it's just not rational.

teatreeoil007

This.

teatreeoil007

I'm a very creative person. For the life of me I still sometimes wonder why I couldn't get more creative with problem solving than to drink. There are other solutions to life's problems. Not necessarily EASIER solutions, but definitely BETTER solutions. And, speaking of problems, drinking or abusing any substance creates more problems so you have a supposed solution to a problem creating more problems. That's a very poor solution isn't it?

Che

Honestly Maia, I think that those problems are more related than you appreciate. Alcohol is an unhealthy and unhelpful coping mechanism for other real and difficult problems. It makes problems worse, but people get addicted because they are stressed and in some way that barbiturate is providing a very temporary relief from that stress. In the long-term, it makes life overall more stressful, but in the very short term, it does the job pretty well and that's why people abuse it.

The root of it is not really alcohol. I really think that's just wrong. It's just that alcohol can make the real roots of the problem a whole lot worse and a whole lot harder to figure out. Your AXH probably has genuine grievances with his life that he needs to face, and it's a bit unfair to act like alcohol is the only thing stopping him from being happy. Quitting is definitely an important step in fixing the real problems though.

Thumpalumpacus

Exactly. The drinking is a symptom of the underlying problem, and it does indeed befog the issue.

Timmy1028

Personally, I knew I had a problem since my 20s. I'm 42. People could tell me all they wanted I had a problem, but it's not until I hit my bottom that I decided to sober up for me.

Where is the bottom? Hard to say - it's different for everyone. The common thread is that the alcoholic has to quit because they want to - not just because someone else wants them to.

I hope your XH finds his peace soon.

notgonnadrinknm

This is an interesting question. I ended up in a number of situations where I could have been arrested and for some reason I never was. Eventually I just started realizing that if I had been arrested every time I did something becuase of alcohol, I would have a 0% chance at ever being a productive citizen. I backed up into a car drunk and nobody was in it and I just took off. I woke up in my car in a Waffle House parking lot with an empty bottle of vodka in the center console and had no idea how I got there. I drove the wrong way on the freeway offramp. Eventually, I was just like damn, I need to stop doing this or I'm screwed for life.