Hello - Just Registered Dad married to Addict
Member
Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: Starting over all over again
Posts: 4,426
Hello Freedom, welcome to Sober Recovery. Glad you found us. I'm sorry to hear your spouse is not "hearing". My ex-wife didn't hear either. She is addicted to a variety of pain pills and other miscelaneous stuff. I found it necesary to leave her after 20yrs of marriage in order to both save my sanity and give her the opportunity to live her life as she chooses. I pray that your wife is able to overcome her addiction before it comes to that for you guys.
Welcome again.
Mike
Welcome again.
Mike
Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Sep 2006
Location: Salem NH
Posts: 14
Thank you for the Post
Wow - so similar. Unfortunately - I filed for divorce a week ago. It took me 2 years to grow enough to actually get to that decision. My only hope for her is that the divorce and no access to her 3 children, will be what she needs to decide to get healthy. I can not be with her anymore though.
Member
Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: Starting over all over again
Posts: 4,426
Originally Posted by Freedom07
... Wow - so similar...
Originally Posted by Freedom07
... Unfortunately - I filed for divorce a week ago. It took me 2 years to grow enough to actually get to that decision. ...
Originally Posted by Freedom07
... My only hope for her is that the divorce and no access to her 3 children, will be what she needs to decide to get healthy. I can not be with her anymore though. ...
Mike
Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Sep 2006
Location: Salem NH
Posts: 14
Thank you booth for your welcomes. The two years involved, therapy, study and alot of self examination. I read John Bradshaw - The Family, Adult Children of Alcoholics, Adult Children of Dysfunctional Families, Codependency, Cloud & Tounsend's How People Grow, The courage to Change, and several others. At the same time I was listening to Chopera & Dwyer on audio book. I learned alot....about me.
Member
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Lake Luzerne
Posts: 1,786
Welcome Freedom07. I'm sorry you are going through this. I really appreciate your clarity and action. I admire that you don't take any reponsibility for this addiction. You sound like a great dad. I'm sure you've had a rough time of it. I hope you'll keep coming back to share what you've learned.
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Thread Starter
Join Date: Sep 2006
Location: Salem NH
Posts: 14
Thank you for the welcome
I appreciate that. It was really enlightening reading all of those books and determining that while I was not the addicted person, I was fiercely co-dependent AND it was part of my pedigree. I come from a long line of counter-dependent, codependent adult children of alcoholics. What a huge realization for me. Counterdependence was intentionally taught and actually misinterpreted as independence. The difference is, that codependence says I live in reaction to the addicted person. Counter dependence says, I don't need any help solving my problems or anyone elses problems, I can do it myself. Independence, while a good growth step, is not the end state of growth on the relational continuim, Interdependence is. Without Interdependence, we do not have the capacity for intimacy. Without intimacy, we do not truely have a loving relationship.
I think I got that right....
I think I got that right....
Member
Join Date: Sep 2006
Location: anywhere but here
Posts: 25
Freedom07,
The book recommendations are great. I know how hard this is for you to do but also know a life that isn't "real" is hard, too. How can you connect with someone who isn't there? You wind up feeling alone all the time. You've certainly invested enough time trying to help her and it didn't do the trick. This may push her to get the help she needs. I think a long-term program is in order but she needs to make that decision. As for you and the boys...who knows what wonderful things are waiting for you. Life can be cruel and wouldn't it be amazing to have a loving spouse to walk you through it? I will settle for nothing less.
You know me, Gus. We've been friends for a while and have much in common. I'm glad you found this site as it's loaded with useful information. It helped me to see what can happen to my family if I allow husbands drinking to go unchecked.
Write back when time allows and I'm so $%#$ proud of you right now!
The book recommendations are great. I know how hard this is for you to do but also know a life that isn't "real" is hard, too. How can you connect with someone who isn't there? You wind up feeling alone all the time. You've certainly invested enough time trying to help her and it didn't do the trick. This may push her to get the help she needs. I think a long-term program is in order but she needs to make that decision. As for you and the boys...who knows what wonderful things are waiting for you. Life can be cruel and wouldn't it be amazing to have a loving spouse to walk you through it? I will settle for nothing less.
You know me, Gus. We've been friends for a while and have much in common. I'm glad you found this site as it's loaded with useful information. It helped me to see what can happen to my family if I allow husbands drinking to go unchecked.
Write back when time allows and I'm so $%#$ proud of you right now!
1000 Post Club
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Recoveryville, USA
Posts: 1,297
Hi Freedom,
Welcome!
Have you tried alanon or naranon yet?
No better place in the world for those if us who live with addiction. Love, hope and support exists there.
Keep coming back....
Welcome!
Have you tried alanon or naranon yet?
No better place in the world for those if us who live with addiction. Love, hope and support exists there.
Keep coming back....
Member
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Los Angeles, CA
Posts: 5,075
hi again, Freedom
I, like you, did all the reading, etc. and also learned it was about me, not the addict. I then came to the same conclusion as you - leave the relationship. Hard as I tried, I could not figure out a way to honor myself by continuing in something so unhealthy. It was the most painful and difficult decision of my life so far, yet the one that has made my life so much better.
I look forward to hearing your insight here.
I, like you, did all the reading, etc. and also learned it was about me, not the addict. I then came to the same conclusion as you - leave the relationship. Hard as I tried, I could not figure out a way to honor myself by continuing in something so unhealthy. It was the most painful and difficult decision of my life so far, yet the one that has made my life so much better.
I look forward to hearing your insight here.
Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Sep 2006
Location: Salem NH
Posts: 14
Denny57,
I am very quicly learning that many of us have been blind for years. Living a stale, grey existence, and being completely unaware, that this evil force has surounded and cloaked our natural state of Grace & happiness. You are right on with your statement that it is not about the addict, it is about us. There is a great relatively unknown author who knows of our delmna. Clinton McClemore. He is the author of "Toxic Relationships and How to Change them." I learned so much about what was being done TO me in this book. McClemore, is one of those earlier doctors that understood and describes real life challenges in psychology with their related passages in the bible. One of my personal favorites is this, " I send you out as sheep among wolves, therefore you must be as wise as the serpent, and as gentle as the dove." We can not hide from the realities of Life, nor can we delude ourselves into playing the victim or martyre. This is not what God intended or directed us to do. I have misinterpreted much of scripture into believing that we are to be docile, floormats, in the past. But that is wrong, that is not what is intended by our creator. He intends for us to learn and grow; to taste the delicious spiritual abundance that he has given; to touch as many people as we can. This is what he intended. He provides us all with an opportunity to find Him and grow. He is always giving us guidance, however, The Deceiver, is hard at work distracting us, and keeping us so busy, that we do not often enough take time to listen. Sometimes, the most Loving thing you can do for someone, is to leave them. How can this be? Well, you are taking the courageous journey away from enablement, and towards Love. This is the correct move. Your are placing the largest possible motivator to your partner to get well. Your are telling them that you place a higher value on yours, and their wellness, that you do on the self gratification and security of just having someone there. And even as I say this, I realize that the vision that we HAD about what our reltionships, were, quite simply, a delusion, a fantasy. A truely intimate relationship can not, and does not exist in a partnership with an addict. Why? Because, they are infatuated in their relationship with an inanimate object, a "Feel Good" without any work attitude. They love the addictive substance.
It is kind of paradoxical, I think, because, they want what you and I want, inner peace, joy, happiness, Love. They are fooled though, they believe and are under the incorrect belief that these things are Sensual (felt by the physical). Some day we can chat about the nature of sin & self gratification. The point here is, as Dr Wayne Dyer puts it, We are Spiritual beings having a human experience, Not Human beings having a spiritual experience.
Chat again soon - Keep the Faith and Don't let the bastards get you down.
I am very quicly learning that many of us have been blind for years. Living a stale, grey existence, and being completely unaware, that this evil force has surounded and cloaked our natural state of Grace & happiness. You are right on with your statement that it is not about the addict, it is about us. There is a great relatively unknown author who knows of our delmna. Clinton McClemore. He is the author of "Toxic Relationships and How to Change them." I learned so much about what was being done TO me in this book. McClemore, is one of those earlier doctors that understood and describes real life challenges in psychology with their related passages in the bible. One of my personal favorites is this, " I send you out as sheep among wolves, therefore you must be as wise as the serpent, and as gentle as the dove." We can not hide from the realities of Life, nor can we delude ourselves into playing the victim or martyre. This is not what God intended or directed us to do. I have misinterpreted much of scripture into believing that we are to be docile, floormats, in the past. But that is wrong, that is not what is intended by our creator. He intends for us to learn and grow; to taste the delicious spiritual abundance that he has given; to touch as many people as we can. This is what he intended. He provides us all with an opportunity to find Him and grow. He is always giving us guidance, however, The Deceiver, is hard at work distracting us, and keeping us so busy, that we do not often enough take time to listen. Sometimes, the most Loving thing you can do for someone, is to leave them. How can this be? Well, you are taking the courageous journey away from enablement, and towards Love. This is the correct move. Your are placing the largest possible motivator to your partner to get well. Your are telling them that you place a higher value on yours, and their wellness, that you do on the self gratification and security of just having someone there. And even as I say this, I realize that the vision that we HAD about what our reltionships, were, quite simply, a delusion, a fantasy. A truely intimate relationship can not, and does not exist in a partnership with an addict. Why? Because, they are infatuated in their relationship with an inanimate object, a "Feel Good" without any work attitude. They love the addictive substance.
It is kind of paradoxical, I think, because, they want what you and I want, inner peace, joy, happiness, Love. They are fooled though, they believe and are under the incorrect belief that these things are Sensual (felt by the physical). Some day we can chat about the nature of sin & self gratification. The point here is, as Dr Wayne Dyer puts it, We are Spiritual beings having a human experience, Not Human beings having a spiritual experience.
Chat again soon - Keep the Faith and Don't let the bastards get you down.
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