advice please and support

Old 04-05-2010, 07:35 AM
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Question advice please and support

hello everyone . well its been a while since I last posted . My AH had been doing ok for around 3 months . stopped drinking all the vodka he had been drinking in the past . We were very happy together or so I thought . He did drink a few beers daily during the 3 months that we had peace in our home . Any way we made an agreement that if and when he ever felt he was going to drink vodka that he had to tell me because I did not want to be around that at all ever .. so this one evening he asked me to take him to a hotel . I did . he of course drank vodka , the next morning called me to pick him up ..which I did . he sounded good on the phone .. but he was very drunk when I picked him up a few hours later . He then proceeded to be crazy , immature ..out of hand you name it . that afternoon he insisted that I take him to his parents . I had to go to pick up my son anyway so I dropped him off .. he threatened his mother and was obnoxious . she called the police . he is now in jail for probation violation . they are trying to help him . he will be there 3 more weeks , then to a half way house to work on sobriety, then come home with an ankle bracelet that monitors alcohol levels .(total of 8 months ) anyway my question and massive confusion is this ...I dont feel threatended by AA or him getting better but what i do feel and hear from more then a few poeple ( his mother, the drug and alcohol counselor of the county ) well he may not be able to come home right away . like meaning that to be sober he would perhaps not be able to come back to his environment for a bit of time . like a year . this pisses me off .. please advise me and help me out here . I was not threatened by his recovery until I hear this in a way .meaning why the hell would someone say that ? I dont drink .do not have drugs here .. have 2 children at home . his first responsibility is to us!!! right ? i am furious! of course no one takes into account what he wants because he would say if he could he would come home ... so ..dont know ..but am I a trigger ? does this environment ( family stress ) encourage his drinking ? and then from there what does that mean to me ? sounds like it means I am alone when I havent even been the one that is whacky and cant handle responsibility? i am not angry at him ....just saying that I feel kinda rejected ..why can he not do this with me ? and thats ok if he can not but why ?
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Old 04-05-2010, 07:56 AM
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Honey, I don't think it's personal against YOU. But your environment is not really helpful to his recovery. He still drinks in your home - albeit not vodka. You drove him to a hotel so that he could drink. You picked him up the next day. Your accommodations of him do allow him a "safe place" to drink.

He has to do what is necessary to his recovery and he has a probation officer who makes his rules for him. This is really out of your hands.

And yes, it stinks when they get to work on their recovery to the detriment of caring for their family and their children. It is selfish. Maybe a necessary selfish, but still - where does that leave you?

You are responsible for your children. Your husband is non-functioning at best and may go to jail. You should make some plans to take care of yourself and your little ones. You probably can't count on him to be around and responsible for a long time - if ever.

Good luck to you.
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Old 04-05-2010, 07:11 PM
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I lost many painful years dealing with the ups and downs of this insane roller coaster ride. Promises to not drink, promises to get better ... a few good days here and there, where our lives would improve only to see it come crashing down once again. Each time hurting more than before and the relapses gradually getting worse.

My AH would plead to move back home, swearing he would not drink again. He would badger me until I gave in, and usually within days he would resume the strange behavior, all the time denying he was drinking again. The craziness and insanity would invade our family home again... irrational behavior followed by ridiculous excuses. Anger, denial, blame and lies became a way of life. After a few years I grew so weary of this unstable, unhappy and irrational lifestyle, seeing no long term improvement ... and worried continually about the long term impact on our children. They were unwilling prisoners in this dysfunctional lifestyle.

One of the last times my AH badgered me to move back home, trying to make me feel guilty and always telling me he needed to live at home to stop drinking, I finally realized that he had spent so many years living at home WHILE drinking ... that living at home had actually become a trigger for him. It was an environment he had grown accustomed to drinking in. He used the garage for years to hide beer in, then endlessly found excuses to work on "projects" in the garage. For years, he used any form of stress in dealing with our children and family responsibilities ....and any disagreement with me, no matter how minor, as another excuse to secretly drink. When I finally told him he couldn’t move back home because it had become a trigger (due to his own past behavior patterns) for his drinking - he was stunned. I could tell it had never occurred to him that because he had spent years drinking around our home, it was now almost impossible to separate being in his home from drinking. It was almost like asking an alcoholic trying to get sober while living in a bar they used to frequent during their drinking days.

There was only one time my AH was able to live at home and stay sober, and that was when he fully committed AA and attended meetings at least once a day. His sponsor continually worked with him whenever he felt a trigger to drink. Unfortunately, he eventually found reasons to miss AA meetings and the secret insanity began once more. The almost daily support proved essential to his sobriety ... without it, he quickly fell back into his destructive old habits. It was never a refection of our home, children or me...it was a pattern of deeply ingrained behavior and association he chose through years of excessive drinking in our home environment. Something I eventually found myself powerless to change as long as he lived with us.
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