Blueskies18

My husband is in rehab and coming home for the weekend. He asked me if I could help him to dig into his past to figure out why he drank for thirty years. His councillor wants him to figure it out. I know the details of the trauma he experienced as a child, the neglect, I probably know his whole history, I've been with him for thirty years. We have talked about this and he really doesn't think this caused his drinking. He just thinks he likes drinking, like the rest of his family. My thoughts are that maybe he doesn't need to rush, and he can figure this out in his own time. Or, maybe he is right. He just needed help to stop. I'll be there for him anyway and listen. Thoughts? Do you have to dig deep to be successful?

columbus

The "revelation of why" will come when it comes (or not).

Perhaps just best to focus on the Now of recovery for a while?

2ndhandrose

I don't usually quote myself but I just made this post on Newcomers!

"I used to think if I could figure out why I drank, it would be easier to stay sober.

Then the longer I was sober, I realized that even though I had a ton o' issues, the real reason I drank is because I am an alcoholic.

Now that I don't drink, ironically, it frees me up to actually work on those ton o' issues."

I agree with the post by columbus.

All the best, Blueskies, I hope you continue to post, there is lots of information on SR

TheToddman

I don't think I could've put it any more eloquently than what Rose and Columbus said. I've lived a good portion of my life in ruminating regret of my past mistakes. Failures don't define us; only how we move forward. Hope you can live in the now and ready to embrace what will be.

Best!

T.

tomsteve

Do you have to dig deep to be successful?

idk what successful would be, but if its to be successfully free of my past, hell yes.
it was also necessary to look at every underlying issue alcohol was just a symptom of.
why i drank for all them years is quite simple- i was an alcoholic with untreated alcoholism.

i encourage you to allow your husband do his own digging into causes and conditions for why he drank. his counsellor knows what theyre talking about- its your husbands journey and your husbands responsibilty to do the work himself- THATS how he will learn ,change, and become a better person.
nothin wrong with supporting him, but doing the work for him- is there any chance that has been quite common?

Forward12

It's the same reason for all of us, because we are alcoholics. There may be building blocks like past trauma, though if there are any past issues to be dealt with, that would be something he would work with, with the therapist.

Dee74

I always thought I needed to know why in order to stop drinking.
Turns out I needed to stop drinking before I could even hope to work out the why.

D

Stayingsassy

I didn't dig at all. I'm doing fine in sobriety.

I have problems and childhood hurts, but none of that has anything to do with my addiction to alcohol, and if it did, it wouldn't matter because I still had to quit.

Lotsa folks excusing drinking because of psych stuff...people, you are addicts. Just get off the stuff already. I promise your issues will be there to work through after you get sober.

Zebra1275

Don't over analyze things.

I had a difficult childhood. However, my childhood is not why I drank.

I drank because I liked how it made me feel, it helped me overcome being introverted with girls, and I could have fun with my friends.

Without alcohol I was less successful at all of the above. Over the years I learned how to achieve all of these things without alcohol (although there is only one girl now).

Blueskies18

Thank you everyone. Yes, of course I've been an extreme fixer and a worrier after living with someone who drank every day for the last thirty years. I'm noticing that my old behaviours are coming back again and I am working on it. Then yesterday, my husband literally asked me, "I need you to try and help fix me tomorrow, if you're up to it." So, a plea for help and a challenge!! It turned me upside down. But thank you for all the comments here. I'll be calmer today now and more likely to just enjoy his company. I know I will need to re-read this thread at least a few times today. Very grateful!

Ken33xx

I believe I understand why I started drinking in my late teens. However, by my early 20's I was happy. The happiest I had been in years but my drinking didn't slow down.

I began to realize it didn't matter. Happy, sad or indifferent I wanted to drink.

There was a brief period where I thought I could smoke a joint or two and forget the booze.

But I just ended up doing both.

Pagekeeper

I also had childhood trauma and started drinking shortly thereafter its occurrence.

However, there are many people who have childhood traumas who do not become alcoholics. I would even go so far to say that most people who suffer from trauma do not become alcoholics. There are also those who have wonderful childhoods and yet they become alcoholics.

One thing is certain - alcoholics drink. They will find any and every excuse to drink or need no excuse at all.

The idea that one needs to figure out the reason for their alcoholism in order to recover is not only unnecessary, it may be impossible. I think acceptance of the condition is much more important than trying to come up with more reasons why one drank - I mean, haven't most alcoholics been coming up with reasons for why they drink for many years anyway?

Just my 2 cents.

Blueskies18

^ this is exactly what my husband is telling me thanks. I'm very grateful I can talk here. It looks to me like my husband is very successful at being sober right now. I have to keep working on my own issues. I would like to ask here, if it's ok for me to do so, how long have you been sober for now? (I am getting lots of encouragement from my husband's councillor, and my husband to help with digging deeper...but I think I have said enough, So I'm just trying to balance listening and taking care of me)

Gottalife

The experts tell me I am alcoholic because I was born that way. I have in recent times become aware of certain things about my life and my mother that did some emotional damage as I see it now, but I didn’t need to know that to get sober. The why doesn’t matter. Acceptance is the starting point.

Acceptance to me is not just knowing and admitting. I knew I was alcoholic quite a while before I stopped. Admission plus action on a solution is getting close to acceptance. Admission with no action is really denial. Yesterday I was 38 years sober in AA.

Ken33xx

I'll be coming up on 25 years of sobriety next month. My guess is that if your husband has been drinking for 30 years he's addicted to the stuff.

For me I found life less complicated after I stopped. But it is hard for the drinker to comprehend life without the bottle. I'm sure your husband is aware his drinking does cause problems. I didn't want to stop drinking. What I wanted was to drink without the drama and trouble.

Unfortunately, I never quite found that safe middle ground where I could drink the way I liked without the negative consequences. Now, I'm not suggesting every time I drank there were problems. But the problems never stopped.

Again for me life runs better without the drink but such a life can be difficult for the active drinker to see. I wasn't interested in AA or any other recovery program. I had no intentions to stop drinking. I just wanted the problems to go away

It was only after years of being sick and tired of being sick and tired that I considered AA.

Forward12

You should check out the family and friends section on this forum, and perhaps attend Alanon. Codependency is an addiction in itself.

SoberCAH

Happy birthday, amigo.

I am pleased to have spent 4 - 5 of those years with you on this forum.

JeffreyAK

I'm not sure I ever did "figure it out". It had roots in my childhood, I'm sure, the ways I learned to cope (escape), a sprinkling of "you'll never be good enough" attitude from Dad, the friends and peer influences I had as a young teen, but it doesn't really matter. I thought it mattered, once, and for a long time I thought I'd have to "figure it out" before I could really quit, but that was a reptilian lie, and it became another justification to keep drinking.

I couldn't see all this until I had been quit for a good while, and by that time my focus was (and had to stay) on doing things to help keep myself sober. After a while longer, I stopped caring about the remote past and how the tangled web of influences led me to become an alcohol addict - it only matter that I no longer was, and that I had a new fresh view on life.

NYCDoglvr

Why did he drink for 30 years? Because he's an alcoholic.

It's no more complicated than that.

In early sobriety we frequently ask "why"........... And if you figure out a reason it won't change a thing.

SoberCAH

I work the 12 Steps of AA, which requires a searching and fearless moral inventory of myself.

That was tough.

I have also given a good bit of thought to the extent that the alcoholic home I grew up in may have on the path I pursued and the extent to which my childhood issues (various forms of fear) remain in my life today.

Good thread.