sesh

Last night I cried and than again this morining. I just feel so angry and powerless. And I'm back at whys and what do do.
And it is not why and what to do to stop AH drinking, but to prevent his death. Our friend saw him last night, he said his eyes whites (I don't don't know what are they called in English) are yellow looking.
Friend said to him "What are you doing to yourself? You're killing yourself."
And he said: "I know"
And it's not like I didn't know it, but today again I'm going crazy. How are you supposed to stand on the side and watch someone kill themselves. If you see a man on a bridge that's going to jump and kill himself, don't you go over and stop him, or you say: oh, that's what he wants and go about your business?
I know there is nothing I can do but it doesn't stop me from going crazy. How am I supposed to accept this?
It does seem I'm in this over-stresses mode, letting go for the few days when my brain can not take it any more, and than I come back to this.

I went totally crazy this morning, I phoned his mum, who is totally ignorant of it all, and I told her: "When did you see your son last? Do you know what does he look like? Do you know he's killing himself? Do you know he's refusing to see a doctor? So I want to to know there is a good chance he'll die soon, and I want you to know that, so when it happens don't call me and ask me how come this happened." (Last year he was in hospital, and his liver tests were very bad, she asked me Oh, how come? even though I tried to explain to her so many times before he's an A.)
And she started saying things like "Oh, poor me"
And I said "it's not poor you, it's poor him and my poor kids"
So, why did I do it? Why was I so mean to her, even though I know there is nothing she can do?
Maybe because I feel responsible and I want someone to share that responsibility with, or maybe because that's the only thing I haven't done yet and I needed to do that to. Or I just want to scream to the whole wide universe how impossible this situation is.
I have no idea. I just know I'm going crazy.
I have this important meeting in an hour and I have to pull myself together.
I desperately need your help

Bolina

I am so sorry to hear you sounding so distressed, sesh. It's a dreadful position to be in, isn't it?

I found a lot of comfort in this sticky http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...-recovery.html

A very dear friend of mine also gave me some valuable insight years ago that might help. Imagine that all of your husband's decisions and their consequences are like a row of huge dominos lined up on their end. And the first one got toppled years ago, which set the rest falling one after the other. But part of the way along the line, you stood in front of one of them and kept the rest from falling. And boy, was it heavy!! Then, one day, you found the weight to be too much and stepped to one side. Of course, that meant that the dominos started falling again, one into the other. But that is not your fault. That is just the way they would have fallen anyway.

I only mention that analogy because I know that I felt so much guilt about stepping out of the way. It heped me see things much clearer than I had before.

Sadly, there are lots of alcoholics (and addicts of all kinds) who are on a suicidal path, however slowly that journey might be. You can share your concerns, support any steps towards recovery, even stage an intervention if that is appropriate, but letting go of the outcome is the only way to find any peace, imho.

(((hugs)))

Freedom1990

I feel your pain, and I also feel you carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders, hon.

It isn't your weight to carry.

Alcoholism is an ugly, painful disease that affects everyone in its path.

I can't take a front row seat to anyone's alcoholism, including my AD.

My EXAH died at the age of 47, and I had left him many years prior to that.

I don't know if you believe in God or a higher power, but I do know my God has big hands for me to put my worries, my pain, my fears right smack dab in the middle of.

Just know that I am thinking of you, and will check back in later.

A thunderstorm got me up in the middle of the night (I'm in the US), and for some reason I decided to check SR. I'm glad I did.

You are not alone. (((hugs)))

sesh

Thank you,
I can't begin to tell you how much comfort I find in fact that you understand me and are there for me.

Starburst

Hi Sesh, i am much in the same position, there is nothing we can do the addiction is what feeds them, my AH drinks in secret, he thinks nobody knows, i am sure a lot do, But as those of us who believe in the HP, have to hand all our burdens over to HIM and HE will carry them for us. This is a message from HP ''Good Morning, this is GOD, today I am going to take care of all your problems and your worries and all I want you to do is go out and have a beautiful day. I will take care of the rest for you.'' GOD loves you, HE knows everything about your life, HE cares and only wants the best for you. GOD is working one step at a time, HIS ways are not our ways and what is impossible for us is NOT impossible for GOD. Blessings and love

Jadmack25

I know how this feels, believe me. I kicked doors, punched walls, belted the hell out of pillows, and cried my eyes out. I begged, insulted, screamed at, and tried to bribe God.
I went on at AH about his drinking, his illnesses and he drank faster, and had more wine than ever....just to show me he was in charge. Not one thing I did stopped him, my doing nothing didn't stop him, my staying with him didn't stop him, nor did my leaving him.
Nothing I said or did changed his drinking habits, nor did his much loved daughters and gdaughter manage any better.
It took him 10 more years of solid drinking, to become sick, frail and demented enough to go into a nursing home and a few more nasty, bedridden ones before he died.

I am sorry to be such a dismal Dora, but I really have no good news or advice to give you, except to concentrate on your mental and physical health, and not let yourself go.

If he intends drinking himself to death, then YOU cannot stop him doing so. Do not go down that track of "I could have, I should have, why did I say or do..., why didn't I...,"
etc and so on.

If the threat of DEATH isn't powerful enough, to scare him into stopping his drinking, what makes you think you, or anybody else has any chance of doing it? You don't.
But you can wear yourself out, and make your life hell, if you spend it rushing around trying to find help for him, and it won't change him one little bit.

Please just hand him over to the care of the One who made him, and leave him in His merciful hands. Then live your life as well as you can, and be the WHO you were meant to be, a woman of love, strength, humour and joy of life......not part of the wreckage of a toxic, addiction killed marriage.

I have you still in my prayers.

God bless

catlovermi

Hugs to you, Sesh. This is one of those things we think is too hard to bear. Just too insane.

For myself, I had to boil it down to one essential question:
Once again, Sesh, here is a point of CHOICE.

For myself, I chose to believe that there is a dimension larger than myself. That there are things I don't have power over (a lot of them) and that make no sense to me, and that I would do differently. But I chose to admit that there may be something beyond myself, my human existence, that is larger than I am. That maybe I'm not the end stop in the chain of hierarchy of the order of things.

Maybe there is a larger plan than what I can see, from where I stand, and the existence I inhabit.

I chose to allow that possibility. I don't know for sure. I don't know what it is. I don't go around saying "it allows bad things to happen." I just GIVE MYSELF PERMISSION to open my beliefs that maybe there are things that aren't right to my perspective, that maybe fit into some larger perspective that I'm too small to see.

Within this paradigm, there may be good that results, a larger purpose. Within this paradigm, even in the worst case for me - that the person ends up taking their own life - there is a reason, an end purpose, a plan in which that horrible piece plays a part for a larger purpose.

And then, I practice choosing to turn these things over, to that... whatever it may be. Can I trust something, beyond myself? Perhaps that is the ultimate exercise, for me.

CLMI

catlovermi

On more thought on my previous post:

And if you think this question itself is madness, consider this: five years after winning the lottery, many winners are absolutely friendless and abysmally unhappy.

And on the flip side of this, some of the greatest of human nature - our resilience, our compassion, our innovation, our resourcefulness - comes in response to tragedy.

CLMI

catlovermi

(oops, technical difficulties, repeat post deleted)

coffeedrinker

sesh,

there's a difference between pulling a stranger from the edge of the bridge, and trying to pull a loved one. there is a different dynamic. i think you have discovered that you don't have the power to save him. so when the stakes seem higher....well, you still don't have the power.

i pulled my xabf off the bridge many, many times. he just kept going back to it. he didn't want to die, but he also didn't want to do what he needs to in order to experience True sobriety. it's not my responsibility, nor is it yours.

now i say "I love you and want you to experience the joy of living. But I can't figure it out for you; that's your job. mine is to figure it out for myself."

SoloMio

Once again, this thread is as if God sent it to me. Thanks, sesh, for posting your fears. They mirror my own.

In spite of the literal butterflies in my stomach that I get whenever I see that he's just not well, over the weekend I really did taste a teensy bit of acceptance. Not sure why, but I just kind of felt God's hand slip into mine. Again, it was nothing that I did. It just happened. It lifted some of the burden of fear (and guilt--ok, irrational guilt I know, but I know there's some stupid guilt in there)

The basis for the acceptance was very similar to what CLMI said about a larger purpose and how we react to the limited reality we're faced with, when really things unfold in their own time according to God's will. I have to believe that.

Thanks to you all for your wise responses.

sesh

So right. But I think I don't understand it yet. I know all the facts but they still don't add up to correct result. Like in 1 + 1 I say yes it is 2, but what if there is 3rd one hidden behind, and only I don't see it, than it's 3, not 2. Crazy thinking.
I guess I just can't comprehend that he knows what's he's doing and not chosing life. I know I don't need to comprehend it, but just accept it, but what's were I'm failing. I always have to understand something before I accept it. Which brings me to what CLMI said:


Can I trust something beyond myself?
I think it all comes down to that.
I don't think a can, not completelly. I thought I do for the last few days, but now I can see I don't.
I think it comes from always depending only on myself. That's all I ever had. If I let go of that, what do I have left?
I think faith would be a correct answer.
But to my mind it sounds like walking in the hurricane hoping something will save me.
You right that's a choice too. But how do I make it? My mind is resisting it. When I think more about it, I can see that faith means final let go, peace, but I'm terrified.
There is something I just remembered. Once I spoke to my mum and told her how often as a child I felt she loves my brother more. She said of course she didn't love him more, but she worried about him more, and had to work more on him to make sure he stays on the right path, while she always knew I'm so strong and I can take care of myself and I'll be fine. She said she always had complete trust in me and never daubted me. That I was always confident, always knew what I wanted and my heart was always in the right place. She said at the age of 3 you were the complete person, I never had to worry about you.
Thinking about it now, I don't think I was, but I was very intuitive and I knew what she wanted from me, and I did it to please her, to show her how good little girl I am, and I even put some extra in it, to convince her even more.

So it seems this is another pattern I need to break from.
I have to work on my faith. I don't believe in God as such, nor I really dissbelieve it. I feel there is something outthere, some kind of comsic balance, some greater power at work. But I'm so scared to surrender myself completely to it. The fact I was brought up an atheist (rules of the comunist country) doesn't really help. We were thought in schools there is no God, and the most important things are our country and fellow citizens. 20 years ago that country fell apart, and the world as we knew it ended, and the scale of values on life was ereased. Some people turned to religion, others stayed stuck in beliefs that don't longer exist, and I stayed in some kind of limbo: there is nothing we can no for sure. All I knew is that I have me. That's a scary place, but familliar one too, and so hard to let go of.

I'm sorry this is so long, but you gave me so much to think about, and I really need to share, so you can help me get through this.
CLMI, it seems this is going to be an ultimate exsercise for me too.
Thank you

LaTeeDa

Here is another really good post about saving someone from jumping off a bridge.

http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...very-long.html

catlovermi

OK, I'm going to pull an aside here, and interrupt the program for a short intermission, to present the 13 characteristics of Adult Children of Alcoholics, as presented by Janet G. Woititz in Adult Children of Alcoholics - The Expanded Edition. Good basic, classic information. Not that it's the be-all-end-all, but it's a framework for a landscape.

I might add that the more one ponders these, the more profound you realize they are. The first few dozen times through them, one doesn't REALLY get the impact, until one starts to see the effects of them, in a situation such as this thread.


OK, so let's just start with a few ideas. ACOAs grow up in an environment that is unstable, which really translates to a child as a fear landscape.

A fear landscape creates what? A need for the illusion of control.

A need for the illusion for control creates what? Black and white thinking. We MUST SOLVE, in order to get control.

Conversely, when something goes out of our "control," we are spun into outer space, function-wise.

Just to realize that these patterns apply to you, and THAT YOU ARE NORMAL, for the mold within which you were formed, can be a start. Your fears, reactions, need for control, panic at losing control -- these are ALL NORMAL within your framework.

So the task becomes to know your framework well, and learn how to manage it, expand it, change it, to become more functional. Learn to let go of black and white, learn that out of control doesn't equate to annhilation. Learn that because you can't see around the corner doesn't necessarily mean it's a black hole waiting to consume you. These are vestiges of ALCOA landscapes. The first step is to recognize this. None of this is personal to you; it's part of the PATTERN that exists.

I might add that, in my experience, the word "thinking/believing" can easily be substituted in number 13 where the word "action" appears... we lock onto something and go, often without surveying all the choices and options out there... our challenge is to ditch the black and white, absolutist thinking, and become open and flexible to possibilities.

I'll leave this at that, for now.

Food for thought.

CLMI

sesh

Ok, I'm going to try to address all of these 13 characteristcs as honestly as I can.

1. Adult children of alcoholics guess at what normal behavior is.
- Not so much guess it, as much I always need to be completely possitive what I'm doing is normal. I always have to do the thing that is most right. Like it's my duty to be good person, good people do good things, that's normal for me, not only that, I think that has to be normal for everyone. In my head that's a rule. If you're not doing that you're failing (failing who I should ask).
So ok I'm smart enough to know there is no normal that applies to everyone, there is only normal under the cirumstances. I know it but I don't act it, I'm searching constantly for the ultimate truth and the ultimate right. Those two go hand and hand together for me. Truth = right. So that's it black and white.
A lot to think about there

2. Adult children of alcoholics have difficulty following a project through from beginning to end.
Only if it's for my own pleasure or my own good. if it is for someone else I finish it in record time.
So what am I really saying here: i don't really matter?

3. Adult children of alcoholics lie when it would be just as easy to tell the truth.
Never do. Never tell lies. Sometimes I might not say everything I mean only not to hurt someone, but also I never say the truth bluntly (except to my AH), I always try to smooth it as much as I can. AH says I'm too honest.

4. Adult children of alcoholics judge themselves without mercy.
Yes. And I don't even see it as that. I can't tell you the reason why is this, but I just have to be prefect all the time. everything has to be done right. I always have to do my best. Again this in my twisted mind qualifies as right = normal, which is followed by we all should do this (to ourselves). On the other hand I never judge others.

5. Adult children of alcoholics have difficulty having fun.
True. I only loosen up and completelly relax if I had few drinks. just can't do it at other times. I'm thinking why and I came up with this: I feel like I'm on some kind of mission where so much depends on me, and if I just relax and don't have all my senses at highest something terrible might happen, or everything can go wrong or whatever (or to be honest I lose control) OMG

6. Adult children of alcoholics take themselves very seriously.
Oh yes. There is just so many of I have to for me, so I just never see a funny side to anything that is to do with me. I have to be strong, I have to be prefect,... if I don't the world will fall apart.

7. Adult children of alcoholics have difficulty with intimate relationships.
very hard for me to trust someone and really relax.

8. Adult children of alcoholics overreact to changes over which they have no control.
Yes, yes, yes. I'm never ready. I feel I should be notified of all the changes I didn't make a lifetime in advance and even that wouldn't be enough, excpet for the changes made by my mum and brother, I'm always perfectly fine with that.
On the other hand I love making plans. Plans of the trips I'm going to make or anything else. By the time I'm done planning I don't even have to have it happen. planning it is a fix for me.

9. Adult children of alcoholics constantly seek approval and affirmation.
I guess. Yes. i do need validation all the time, but only from my loved ones, I don't really care that much what others think

10. Adult children of alcoholics usually feel that they are different from other people.

very true. I tend to think people in general make decisions at the spur of the moment, without considering all the facts, I always gather all the facts, and end up thinking always there is an even number of pros and cons for everything, so I don't ever really do much, as I always seem to know the outcome, and it rarely feels like the best option and than I kind of don't see the point in doing it.
OMG Am I really this crazy?

11. Adult children of alcoholics are super responsible or super irresponsible.
Super, super responsible.

12. Adult children of alcoholics are extremely loyal, even in the face of evidence that the loyalty is undeserved.
SO, so true.

13. Adult children of alcoholics are impulsive. They tend to lock themselves into a course of action without giving serious consideration to alternative behaviors or possible consequences. This impulsively leads to confusion, self-loathing and loss of control over their environment. In addition, they spend an excessive amount of energy cleaning up the mess.

What can I say, that's me!



Well now, this is almost funny, I read this few times before but always thought it doesn't really apply to me that much. I thought ok I am serious, responsibile and loyal but what's wrong with that.
OK so now we know I'm a control freak, I can never relax, I take responisbility for the spinning of the earth, and I never think about me. and there is so much more to it too.
And the worst thing is for some of these behaviours I can see it's wrong, but for others I'm still asking isn't that normal.
I have to think so much more about all this.

sesh

The strangest thing is my AF did the same thing, for years in and out of hospitals and every time he continued to drink, until he finally managed to kill himself. And I almost understand it, I take it like ok that was all he was and all he could be, and I've accepted it.
So why am I than going this crazy when my AH is doing the same thing. Why can't I understand it just the same and accept it?
Is it because I had to accept it once and I did, and I could move on because the one is exception, but two is a rule? Or because I make it about me?
I can see I'm missing something in this reasoning, and I have to work on it more.

Jazzman

Maybe because this time you're at the helm instead of your mother? An imagined responsibility role?

LaTeeDa

Yes, exactly. Unresolved childhood issues. Your mother couldn't save your father from himself, so you are going to "right" that "wrong" by saving your husband?.................

L

Jazzman

BTW, I've just got to say it's really impressive you can put all your defenses aside to be totally honest with yourself about these issues. Not to mention the fact you're doing it under tremendous stress levels.. just amazing.

catlovermi

First, I hope you didn't think I meant to pigeon hole you with these. It was meant as a tool, to observe a pattern. You may or may not fit parts of these. You can allow yourself to think privately about anything presented to you at SR and do not have to answer to "us."

Second, do you see the harsh, judgmental light, and black and white approach with which you looked at yourself through these 13 things? This is a pattern to use as a tool, not a blueprint to use in judgment of yourself. It doesn't apply worth or value to you, or remove from you these things.

Third, think about denial. What is denial, essentially? It is lying to oneself, about what one knows on some level to be true.

Every time I revisit these, I find something I hadn't thought about, before. There are so many layers, to peel back.

CLMI