prodigal

I hid two bottles of wine from AH last weekend. He generally leaves one bottle around before he staggers off to bed so he can enjoy his 7:30 a.m. "happy hour" when he comes to. I hid the bottles so he'd be relatively sober upon getting up. The lawn had to be fertilized and re-seeded with rye grass. He bought tons of bags of manure, organic fertilizer and seed. I couldn't do the work myself and I just wanted him to remain sober long enough to get the lawn completed. We were already three weeks past the due date for doctoring the lawn.

So I hid the bottles. I've faced so many weekend mornings with him literally staggering into my bedroom to make some "romantic" overture or suggestion. Eeewwww, gross! So I had totally selfish motives and I was in codie control-overdrive.

Well, I'm off to a meeting in a half hour - I really need one!!

FriendofBill

Awwwwwww...from one codie to anudder..((((HUG))))

Its hard to stop doing what we "think" is right, and start doing what we cant possibly understand is right....letting go...and letting them drink.

Hang in there,,,,you;ll feek better after the meeting...be sure and tell them about it...your not alone.

embraced2000

prodigal....hi there

hey, did it work???? (about the yard work gettin done?)

i always fess up at my meets, too.....and feel so much better after.

awwwww....the ole codie-curse.....we're workin on it tho.

i can flip into codie drive in 2.1 seconds flat and not think twice about it....it's only after that i start to think about what i've done.

blessings
jeri

prodigal

He got a garden planted, and reseeded and fertilized the front and back yard. He didn't drink during the entire undertaking. I don't hide bottles, but this time I wanted that doggone lawn finished before it was too late in the season.

embraced2000

lol......oh i just hate it when my codie-controllers actually work....it gives me reinforcement that maybe, just maybe....i was right!!!!!!

glad the lawn work got done for ya...

jeri

FriendofBill

Gotta laugh...

the alcoholic hides his bottles so family wont see them, then the family member comes and hides it from HIM!

Maybe we can make a board game outta if..call it "Hide the bottle" LOL

embraced2000

yup....guilty here of all above.....ain't it just crazy????

we get p!ssed when they hide them, and then when it benefits us, we hide them from the poor things. i've done it many many times, too.

come to think of it....i've smashed them, poured them out, gave them away, drank them myself....how stupid was that???? i hate taste of alcohol,...have also watered them down, and let me seee.....ummmmm....oh yea....there was the time i re-hid the ones he had already hid, just to watch him panic when he went looking. i'm not that cruel anymore....but then i'm divorced from him,too.

jeri

FriendofBill

How about this? Take all the bottles he has hidden, and bring then right out in the open, kitchen counter, quitely, no announcement.

Everyone knows he is drinking, except he thinks he's fooling them.

prodigal

I am guilty of the following:
1. pouring half the litre bottle of Scotch down the sink and adding water
2. re-hiding his bottles and watching him looking all worried and pacing the floors trying to figure out where his bottles went
3. placing them on the kitchen counter "on display"
4. attempting to drink some of that swill - Scotch (YUK!!) - tastes like nasty medicine to me
5. finding a bottle by accident (honest!) and sticking a post-it note on the bottle that read, "Boo!" and "Find a better hiding place, dopey!"

And we think the A's are nuts!! That was when I knew I was going to the tubes because I was getting some sort of sadistic glee out of pouring old Johnny Walker down our kitchen sink! Sigh ....

FriendofBill

Number 5 is hysterical!!!!!!!!!!!!

I agree wholeheartedly we are more nuts...and I think its cus we dont have the alcohol to numb out the crazies. I really do. If we just had something to take the edge off, huh?

embraced2000

me too, prodigal....what you just said.

got real satisfaction outta doin it.....for the moment.

then in the dark, in bed, my heart would just hurt cause i was so cruel to a sick person.

blessings
jeri

mallowcup

Do you hide it, dump it out or display it to humiliate them or to take back your own power? Would you turn down the bed sheets for your husbands mistress just to prove it doesn't bother you? You see the alcohol, You know he hides it, this is your home too. Would he pretend he didn't see your lover sneeking out of the house or hiding behind that door? If he found a naked man stashed in your closet how loud a noise would he make? The whole neighborhood would know. I don't see it as enabling or not detaching. I see it as saying, "hey, I'm not stupid and I don't trust a liar so save it!"

embraced2000

in the beginning of it all, i would display it in hopes of trying to "snap him outta it", or shame him into seeing the truth. after all the crap got into full swing, i'd sling it out there as if to say....look at you....this is disgusting....i'm so much better than you....in the end, it just didn't matter any more to me.

i'll never forget one night when i got his bottle after he had said something so nasty to me.....i was beside myself with all the verbal abuse....and i poured it down the drain and shouted at him....there...if you want it so bad...slither down that drain and get it like the snake you are.

i will never forget the look on his face.....he wasn't in the moment at all...he didn't hear what i had said.....he just saw his drink go down the drain....it was the most forlorn, sad, and panicked look i had ever seen on him.

that moment was a turning point for me because i saw how sick he was with the look on his face.

it was sad. and i knew then, that i could not humiliate him like that anymore, because he was truly sick.

when it didn't matter anymore about the bottles, i found a little bit of freedom.

blessings
jeri

prodigal

I think we are all bringing up relevant and somewhat similar points here. I remember we drove our R.V. up to Tempe last Christmas. Our house was under construction so we decided touring in our R.V. for a few days in Phoenix and then onto Sedona would be a nice getaway. He had bought a pint of Scotch that he proceeded to display to me. He was going to "treat" himself because it was Christmas. I grabbed the bottle and drained it down the sink. Man, was he mad.

See, I thought I was controlling something: "You told me you would ONLY drink wine and NO hard liquor." He started arguing that he was going to drive back to the liquor store. Hey, he was trashed. So I said, "You get in MY car and I'll call the cops to pull you over as soon as you pull out of this park."

ARE WE DISCUSSING MAJOR CONTROL ISSUES HERE OR WHAT???? This lovely little scenerio is two sick people having an equally sick power struggle. So I can laugh at some of my foolishness. But I also feel ashamed of the sense of power and control I felt when I became the dominating b****-woman who felt so righteous and was going to shame the drunk outta drinking. Yeah, right. Get a grip, right?

prodigal

But I see myself as sick, if not sicker, than my AH because I think my behavior has power over him. It does not. But what happens when I "punish" him is I get crazy. He still drinks. Now he's back to whipping out a pack of cigarettes. Last night, he pulled a pack out and said, "Don't say anything." I have lectured, begged, nagged, threatened - you name it.

I took affront to this. I have asthma. His smoking bothers me. I consider his smoking shows a lack of respect for me. Probably it does. But it shows a greater lack of respect for himself. He's trashing his own lungs. Heck, his liver is already gone, so I didn't say a word.

Let him smoke and drink himself to death. I still flinch everytime I hear the phhhttt of the beer can being popped open or the turn of the corkscrew, but there is nothing more I can do than to allow him to kill himself. Believe me, I'm just going to let it rest.

embraced2000

we have to laugh prodigal....or we would go right over the edge....lol

we do what we do....they do what they do.....it's all caused by that damn disease of alcoholism.

i felt sense of power and control too, all the way to the end, till i was so sick physically and mentally, i simply could not go on any longer.

there are many women in my al-anon family that have stayed married to their husbands and seem very happy.....well, as happy as one can get living with a disease from hell.

i always admired them so much and wondered why i couldn't make it work like they did.

blessings
jeri

mallowcup

You didn't know then what you know now. Alcoholics have a disease, A cruel disease. They don't want to be the way they are. But for the grace of God it is not a disease I have. It must be horrible lonely and sad to be an alcoholic. It must be devastating to be humilated and judged becasue of the way alcoholism presents itself. No one wants to tremble and shake and kill themself one drink at a time. If you have ever had that moment of truth when you see the fear in their eyes, you know what I mean.

embraced2000

mallow.....i've seen the fear....and had the moment of truth that it brought. my heart just breaks for alcoholics....and like you said....therefore the grace of god, go i.....

i still mourn so deeply for xah.....hope god moves his hand over him....and xah grabs it...that's the key, huh....for xah to grab hold.

god always does his part...i't up to us to do the rest.

blessings
jeri

prodigal

... but I saw the deep pain and hopelessness in his eyes. It was like looking into a vacuum that only allowed pain into that space. It was sad, embarrassing and pathetic. He still has the scar on his left side that he incurred when he staggered into the sharp edge of a piece of furniture before falling onto the floor. I looked at him for a brief moment, then I turned away and went to bed.

I just couldn't bring myself to haul him off the floor one more time and drop him into bed. It hurt too much.

embraced2000

(((((prodigal)))))

well, i'd say you did the right thing.....detached with love.

i understand how tough it is.

you love em, you hate em. can't cure em, and it's against the law to just shoot them.

so we do the next best thing, and go to al-anon.

blessings
jeri