Sarah8180

I am new to this site but my story is very similar to many I have read here. I really don't even know where to begin. So much has happened over the past 2 1/2 years I feel like I can't even sort my own thoughts. I met my now ex-BF during a very hard time in my life and he seemed to be my perfect match. When I met him he was clean at the time and not knowing much about addiction/recovery I just assumed thats how he would stay. I have 2 parents who went to rehab and AA and have been clean ever since, and that was 20 years ago! Thats just how I thought it went. I never even heard the word "relaps" pertaing to addiction until dealing with him. Boy was I naive. To make a VERY long story short over the last 2+ years I have found out the name of more recovery places than I ever wished to know. I was presented with this promise of such a great life only to be given disappointment after disappointment. I have 4 kids from a previous relationship who think the world of this person and I am just exausted from trying to shield them from the truth. I know this may sound scattered, it is just so hard to think this all through. Anyway, after being clean for 11 months and promising never to hurt me or my kids again, he had another "relaps". This is the problem in ever being able to trust or believe in him or a future...he is ALWAYS in "recovery". Thats all he does, piece together a couple months clean and then throw everything we built in that couple months away. Over this time there has been the usual lying, stealing, manipulation going on. At the end it was so bad I was sleeping with my wallet and keys. Well, after throwing away the 11 months clean he managed to piece together about 45 days clean and Thursday he decided to once again throw it all away. That was the final straw. I put ALL his stuff on the porch and told him he had till trash day to come get it. The worst part is after the last relaps I made him leave but only reconsidered and gave him "one more chance" because I found out I was pregnant. Over our 2 year realtionship we have lost 2 pregnancies so this supposidly meant so much to him. I was told not to worry, I wasn't in this alone. I was told how thankful he was to have a second chance with another child after not being able to be there for his first. Yet here I sit ALONE, maybe by choice since I made him leave, but enough is enough already. This is all so hurtful I cant even begin to put it into words. I have decided reguardless of the baby I CAN'T live like this anymore. The stress is too much. There is not enough time in the day to constantly worry about him and try and live a normal life. If he wants to throw the rest of his life away then there is nothing I can do about it. I surely can't love him clean cause trust me I have tried. I guess I am just trying to figure out where to go from here. I have already decided to avoid contact at all costs. Other than that it's just hard picking up the pieces and trying to explain to the kids when they ask where he is. If you read through all this thank you so much and any opinions/suggestions would be greatly welcomed and appreciated.

lc1972

Hi,

So sorry for what you are going through and you are not alone. There are many people on here that have been where you are. Myself I am living in it now and I have also found more rehabs than I ever wanted to know about.

I have not made my AH move out yet, but I have an appt with an attorney this week. I am trying to figure out how to tell my children their father does not live with us anymore and it is killing me. I am so tired also and I have not been living in this nightmare all that long, but it is long enough for me. I have been looking up articles and stuff online for suggestions on how to deal with it. Some I have found are pretty informative and I guess it also depends on the age of the child.

I will keep you in my thoughts and prayers

Kindeyes

Sarah
Welcome to SR.....I'm so glad you found us but as always....very sorry for the reason that brings you here.

Relapse is heartbreaking. Addiction is heartbreaking. There are so many people here on SR who have tried to love the addict in their life clean.....and you're right.....it doesn't work.

To answer your question......What Now? That depends on what you want to do and only you can REALLY answer that question. For me, I threw myself into reading and learning about codependency and addiction. For me, I found my answers in the rooms of Alanon and Naranon.

I hope you stick around here and learn and post and share. SR has been a life saver for me. I hope you find comfort here.

gentle hugs

Lushwell

All a matter of perspective. You took responsible action, removing the disease carrier from your home, protecting yourself and your children from further impact. Good for you. Like an addict, you must break the cycle. This is done much easier with a support network. I sound like a broken record, I know, but the truth bears repeating until everyone who can benefit from it has heard it.

Go to Alanon. Chances are, growing up with two alcoholic parents, you may be a bit predisposed to fixing broken wing birds. Alanon can provide the support and tools to rebuild and set yourself on a path that is productive and healthy, with some direction for your family.

Nasty stuff, this alcoholism. Insidious. That means its sneaky. It has no sense of fair play. The family isn't off limits. The family actually supplies the best victims. Young and innocent. It has produced many nine year olds, going on 40.

As far as your alcoholic, without long term sobriety that is without strings or bargains, all you have is talk. Consequences become a way of life, avoiding consequences our greatest skill, and the illness has it's own built in survival system. When the threat of intervention becomes too great, the heat of consequences too hot, the illness's survival instincts kick in, and either it conforms until the heat cools off, or it moves on to more fertile ground.

Alcoholics may or may not respond to love. Alcoholism does not. It is self contained, needing nothing other than to be in control of it's host. Sadly, the alcoholic is not the only party involved that is powerless over the illness. There is only one thing we do have power over in this situation. We can't control the alcoholism, but we can control the direction of our lives. Alanon has the map.

You didn't give anyone alcoholism, and you can't remove it from anyone. The responsibility for arresting the illness lies with the person that has the disorder. There comes a time when you have to examine this race horse's track record, and figure out if it is worthy of your bet. Let the record speak for itself.

greeteachday

Welcome Sarah! Lots of great support here and if you have the opportunity to get to a face to face Naranon meeting that would be very beneficial too.
I know it seems overwhelming...just try to take things step by step, minute by minute and keep reaching out and in time you will find things start changing for the better. You have taken a great first step to decide when you have had enough and make a change for you and your kids.

Sarah8180

I am hoping my posting as a reply to my waaay older post actually brings this back to the current board. I have not been to this forum in over a year. And now that I have been lurking for the past week or so, and have seen so many new "faces" going through the same exact thing I have, I wanted to offer just a little experience and maybe find some hope and strength for myself. I figured if this could help even ONE PERSON avoid what I have been through, it would be totally worth it.
And I chose to reply to my very first post so any one who may read can see exactly where i was....and still am, kind of. I am almost ashamed to say, that after this older post, and many others, I still stayed. I wrapped it up in many justified, pretty rationalizations such as "I am just being supportive", "the kids need him", "I need him", "why should he get to walk away and be free while I have to do all the daily managing of the kids/house", ect, ect, ect... You could insert 1000 other excuses.
I am so embarrased that I stayed for so long that I almost created a new user name so no one could go back and read my old posts and see how I did a lot of talking and practically NO follow through. But today is different for me. Today I need to own my decisions, mistakes and failures so that instead of pretending they weren't that bad or didn't exist, I may finally start to learn from them.
So to fast forward to today and what has brought me back I will give you a breif summary (as breif as I can make it, anyway!) of the last 22 or so months. After my first post, he entered rehab about 2 months later. He stayed for about 4 months or so till it was time for our son to be born. Once he left rehab, he established a great support network, got a sponsor, enrolled in a fantastic outpatient program and went to meetings faithfully. He graduated his IOP after a year of attending, got a great job in the recovery field helping other addicts and was being an excellent father to his own son, as well as all the children involved. And as of last week he had about 20 months clean time.
Sounds great right? Well on the outside, yes. And I was oh so proud of him, telling him every chance I could how well he was doing (because surely that would motivate him to keep on doing it!). Well I will fill you in on a secret that some may know and some may not....living with some one in RECOVERY is no picnic either!!! I can NOT stress this enough. There is no happily ever after just because the drug use/drinking has stopped. The behaviors still exist! And they rear their ugly heads every time you think you can finally sleep with both eyes closed.
I can not tell you how many times we had argument after argument about things he said or did that were NOT in allignment with some one in recovery or trying to make ammends. And that is what I wanted - ammends! I wanted him to show me every day, all day how sorry he was for all he had put me through. I wanted him to finally "get it". After all he wasn't using any more, so surely he could see all of his mistakes. Well, in 20+ months of recovery, he never quite "got it". And my demading of his constant ammend making was only allowing him NOT to work on himself and his issues.
I read once that an addict must be as selfish in recovery as they were in their addiction. That it must be all about working on themselves. That was unacceptable to me. I demanded he work on himself as well as our relationship. It is what I deserved after putting up with so much for so long. Well secret #2 is that that's just IMPOSSIBLE to do. Unless you are willing to accept being second to his recovery and ALLLL that comes with it (and it is a LOT), you will never really be happy. You will be me. You will be sitting around, waiting for the prince charming you thought you would get back once the drug use/drinking stopped. You will spend most of your time and energy clocking his every move and evaluating if he is doing everything he should and shouldn't in recovery. And when you're not doing that, you will be waiting for all the "ammends" you feel you deserve. Please, please, DON'T BE ME!!! It will NEVER work! No matter how many ways you try and "help" them in their recovery, no matter how "special" their children are/were to them, no matter if you argue every day, all day or if you spend your every waking moment making sure they have the best, stress free home life possible IT WILL NEVER WORK....unless and until they are ready to take FULL responsibility for their addiction and their life - FOREVER! Otherwise, it is like putting a nice new rug over a dirty old floor. Looks nice and pretty for a while, but the dirt is still there and sooner or later it WILL be revealed!
Well to take you to present day, he relapsed on friday. I was at work, doing an overnight shift, and one minute we were saying "I love you, talk to you later" and the next my teenage son was calling me, asking me where he was. He went to "walk the dog" and never came home. The hell I and my family went through that night are unimaginable. First we think something happened to him, so my mom calls all the hospitals in the area while my son, neighbors, and his sponsor search the area for him (did he have a heart attack? Get mugged?). This goes on for about 2 and 1/2 hours. We give up. I am a mess at work and can not just up and leave for fear I will be terminated.
Then he calls his sponsor, clearly high, and asks him to come get him. He says no, he will not up and leave his house to go across town and pick him up. So about an hour later, he is banging on my front door, telling my mother he is going to break the door down. I am on the phone. I hear my mother, sister, and teenage son begging for him to stop and please go away. My mom calls the cops - twice. I am listening to this all play out, over the phone, powerless to do anything. I call his sponsor, who lives around the cornor, and ask him to go over there. He does, but by the time he gets there he has left.
The cops come, a report is filed and his sponsor sleeps on my couch to help protect my family should he come back. I come home from work in the morning. He is waiting for me at the top of my street. I get some of hisstuff for him and he leaves. He is now staying on his sponsor's couch till he gets enough money for a room. I have finally hit MY bottom. I could NEVER trust some one who would not only put my family through what he did, but also some one who would up and leave my (and his) children with out so much as a word to anyone, knowing I am at work.
For once I didn't throw him out to teach him a lesson, let him feel the consequenses of his actions, or secretly await his return so he could make it all up to me. I did it because I am FINALLY tired. The pain of staying FAR outweighs the pain of leaving. Forget about living with what he has done. I couldn't live with myself if I continued to stay with some one who showed such little reguard for my children as well as his sweet 16 month old son. We ALL deserve better.
I am going to see my old therapist Friday, the one I stopped seeing when he stopped using, because my life was suppose to be easy sailing from there. But this time I am not going to see her so she can help me fix or deal with my relationship. Today I am going to see her because I want a better life, because I know whats wrong with him, but what the hell is wrong with me? I am co dependant. I look for my happiness in other people. I am addicted to him as bad as he is to crack. I don't know where I end and he begins. I am addicted to hope and fantasy and the cycle of break-up and make-up. And I am tired. I want a "normal" life without going through spurts of extreme fear or panic of what is or isn't coming next. And I need help. I can not do it alone and I can not fix anything but myself. Thanks so much for reading and PLEASE PLEASE ask yourself if you really want to live the way you have been. You don't have to. No matter how long you have stayed it is NEVER too late to do somethimg different. I wish you all the best of luck and all the happiness in the world. And tomorrow I will be thankfull for another chance to do something different and slowly, one day at a time, take charge of MY life.

crazybabie

(((((((Sarah))))) You have been on quite a journey I am glad that you have decided to return to your own recovery you are worth it.

ISOHumility

Sarah,

I am relatively new to this site, but I suspect your post will help others more than you know. I know it helped me.

Maybe the ONLY good thing about the pain you are in right now is that you have finally faced the truth about your relationship. Truth is very painful, but it can ignite change and set you free.

I am working on finding out the truth about me. I've made a bare beginning and that's good enough for today. sounds like you're at the beginning, too, and I wish you well on your journey.

You deserve better. I hope you work for the "better" you deserve, and can have. It can get better. I truly believe that, because I am experiencing it, one very long, very interesting day at a time.

Thank you for sharing this. I hope you keep coming back here to get the support you need and deserve.

Sarah8180

Cynical One, the dog was never really walked. She was asleep in the house the whole time. No one thought to check until he went "missing"...