thegf

I have been reading a lot of stickies on here as well as threads posted by others...and I have not come across many with positive outcomes (if any)....anyone?

GettingBy

A positive outcome is a matter of perspective.

If by positive you mean, that alcoholic found recovery... And the husband/wife lived happily ever after.... Then no, probably not a ton of positive outcomes.

But, if you keep an open mind and anticipate different options... The probability of a positive outcome drastically increases!

For me, when I started Al-anon... My AHs drinking was The Problem. Getting him sober was The Solution. Period. End of discussion. I just wanted someone to tell me how to get him to stop drinking so we could continue on with our little fairytale life. What I have learned through Al-anon is that my life can be filled with happiness and joy no matter what other people choose to do or not do. I have learned to swallow that big fat pill called Responsibility. Nobody makes me unhappy, or makes me angry... Those are my reactions and if I don't like them... That's my problem.

If my life isn't what I want... I need to do something about it. Oh yeah, and I've learned that doing something about it does NOT mean controlling and manipulating another human being to get what I want! I did that for years... And it did nothing but frustrate everyone involved!

Thanks for letting me share!
Shannon

Eight Ball

If you read often enough, occasionaly you will hear someone say that their dad has been sober for all their life or their cousins and uncles have long term sobriety under their belt. Some posters are themselves alcoholics with long term sobrietry and very helpful due to seeing both sides.

Many of us come to find this web site because our lives are out of control, we are living with/or separated from active alcoholics and feel helpless.

I suspect that those of whom husbands, wives etc have found long term sobrietry and partners who have found help for themselves through Al-anon are not in the desperate situation of having to search for help on the internet. There will always be a bias of 'distress' type situations on SR and very few postive outcomes.

Interestingly, (IMO) if you read the alcoholics threads on SR, you will find a bias of alcoholics who have found sobriety for various periods, some more succesfully than others. When I venture over there, it seems like a very positive place to be.

LifeRecovery

It depends on your definition. I think I have a lot more hope than I did a 18months ago, but that hope is set up more on me, myself and I than on any loved one in my life.

I had to change the framework for hope and though challenging it has always been up.

For me regardless of the side we post on I feel a lot of recovery going on and from that I gain a lot of hope.

m1k3

So far I am having a very positive outcome. Six months ago I was at the bottom of a pit and saw death as the only release for my pain. I wasn't suicidal yet but life was very dark.

Today I am living on my own, I have my own apartment, I am busy with boxing and Al-Anon and my daughters' families and enjoying life. My bad days ate now better than my good days were then.

I have a healthy relationship with myself, I now enjoy my work, I have quit trying to control people, places and things. I now only assume responsibility for myself. I am happy and content most of the time and when I'm not I have the tools to figure out why and fix it.

I know I need to keep working my recovery and I know that there are even better places ahead of me. I have an outlook that is grounded in reality, what is, not what I wish it was. I know that my life is mine to live as I choose to live it. Life is good.

I hope this helps.

Your friend,

caughthiminject

I guess if we were happy, then we wouldn't be here...

thegf

Amen.

caughthiminject

Actually - I was just reading the "My story" recovery stories forum, and it's very uplifting if you are looking for stories of hope. It also helps to understand. Because for me as someone who doesn't even eat meat or drink a glass of wine - I literally have no idea what my AXBF finds attractive about alcohol and drugs and smokes. I'm just wired differently. There's nothing I can't live without to the detriment of the rest of my life and my own health. Reading those stories helps a bit to understand.

TeM

I have one personal, anecdotal case of what I would consider a happy ending. My uncle, who is in his 80s, has been sober for about 40 years, at least to my knowledge. Nobody in the family has told me how he did it, but he's still with his wife and is relatively healthy.

As others have said, "happy ending" is a relative term. One thing I've gained from this forum is the realization that I don't have to cure my wife's alcoholism in order to be happy.

Summerpeach

Hope for me changed often.
When I 1st started al anon and came here, hope was about wishing my ex and I would get well and have a happy relationship.
We would go to aa couples groups where I saw almost ever single couple in there make it and have a happier relationships, so I held on to hope that my ex and I would have the same.
I had the hope, he did not! He was too busy being a lying cheater.
Then when I realized that would never ever be, and I left him, my hope turned to hoping I got over him and got on with my life.
Now, for me, I let go of all hope to anything because it keeps me attached to outcomes that may never be. I just try to live in the moment and instead of hope, use my energy to work on today.

Freedom1990

This is so important, what you have just said.

I am of the belief that hope is an emotion based on the potential outcome of future events.

Therefore I chose instead to have faith, faith that things are as they should be, and like you, I focus on the moment and work on today.

I have no hope for my AD. I do have faith that God's plan is at work for her.

That gives me a great deal of peace of mind.

nodaybut2day

I have one story with the "positive outcome" you're seekiing: my uncle Bob (yes, I have an Uncle Bob).

He was a not-so-functional alcoholic/rageoholic who verbally and physically abused his wife and kids for about 15 years. He himself was physically and sexually abused by his stepfather for most of his childhood. His wife left him and from what I understand, the divorce was EPIC...as in "tried to have his wife committed to a mental institution for wanting to leave him" Epic...

It took about 20 years of therapy, during which time he remarried and was summarily dumped by his second wife who took him for all the money he had. That's when things started turning around for him. He and his first wife remarried in their late 50s. He only found recovery about 2-3 years ago, as he learned he had advanced skin and prostate cancer. He is 61.

He's been clean since then. He's also quit smoking cold turkey. He goes to AA meetings 3 times a week, and therapy once a week. He's dragged himself out of his depression and gotten himself his real estate agent license, and finally, after years of being supported by his wife, he is bringing in a little money. He has changed a lot but his marriage with his wife is still difficult at times. There is a lot of resentment and frustration between them after a combined 23 years years of marriage. I mean, this is a man who, in a drunken argument with his wife, dropped her off on a highway in Texas in the middle of the night and drove off. He wasn't a nice man.

Even though he is now in recovery and in therapy, his adult son hates him with a passion, extorted him for thousands of dollars and continues to blame him for all the bad in his life, including his own alcohol and cocaine addiction. His daughter seems to have mended her relationship with him because he has done everything to help her with her two children, but it is a strained relationship at times.

So, it is a "positive" outcome in that he and his wife are still together, he is sober and tobacco-free (though about 30 pounds heavier for all the ice cream he eats!), but it's not a perfect outcome. The consequences of his life-long choices will follow him to his grave, and sadly, that's soon to come.

wellnowwhat

I have an uncle that I never knew as an alcoholic. He lived far away. He and my aunt divorced and I never knew her. This uncle came into my life when I was about 18 and he lived with my family for a couple of years before he moved on. He was a happy and enthusiastic long time AAer by then. When he moved on he met a lovely lady and they were very happy together, and obviously smitten (it was so cute) until he died in his late 60s. I would consider him a success story.

I have a friend who became an alcoholic very quickly when we were all young and "raisin' a little hell". After one particularly bad episode we sort of had an intervention with her, although we had no idea what an intervention was, it was just the only idea we came up with (this was 30 yrs ago). She went to her doctor (a relative) the next day and joined AA the day after that. She was the youngest person in her group. She has been successfully sober since and met and married a member of her group, who is a great guy and also successfully sober since then. There was alcoholism in her family and unfortunately they did not find sobriety or recovery, but her son is a lovely young man and I think the cycle has been broken. I think she, her husband and son are a success story.

Thumper

My uncle was an alcoholic when I was young. I did not see him ever being abusive but then I didn't live with him. Somewhere along the way he quit drinking. I have no idea how. He was a very nice man and I would say 'recovered' in the true sense in my adult years. He was never married or had kids so no idea how that would have played out.

My grandpa was an alcoholic. He was sober before I was born but by all accounts he was a very rageful frightening man. Lined his wife and kids up and pointed guns at them. Stalked his wife around the farm with a gun threatening to shoot her. They all spent many nights sleeping in haystacks. Somewhere along the line he buried a bottle of whiskey and never drank again. We found that bottle when we cleaned his house - he had apparently dug it up and kept it in the cabinet. My grandma was very much a product of that life and the arguing (after his sobriety) was epic. My grandma moved from one of her kids to the other all throughout my childhood because they could no longer live together. All their children had a fairly positive relationship with both my grandma and my grandpa. I don't know what it was like when they were younger - I think most moved from home one way or another very early. Like I said, he was sober long before I was born, but everyone got together for all holidays etc and there was never all that much drama. Loud though He lived with us for awhile. I always saw him as a very normal guy but a little gruff - as in not very warm and fuzzy, nothing frightening or abusive.

My other grandpa was an alcoholic and died an alcoholic and my grandma did not have an easy life. AFAIK he was not violent or physically abusive.

I can look at my parents and aunts and uncles from both sides (and my cousins) and see how the cycle continues through the generations. It is such a sad thing.

My xah's dad was an alcoholic, died an alcoholic, and I suspect two of his kids will die alcoholics. Very sad - none are physically abusive or violent. Again, I can so see how this played out through the generations.

Thumper

Dang - I totally rambled there - not even sure why I shared all that.

When I felt hopeless I was trapped into thinking there was only one outcome I was allowed to march towards and since it was clear that outcome was not in the cards - I felt all hope was lost.

I try very very hard to not march towards any specific outcome these days. To keep an open mind about what happiness means and have faith that doing the next right thing will get me there. The story is in the journey, not the destination.

It is working for the most part. My life is much better today. I am sad that I didn't get the outcome I wanted. I am sad that I can't force an outcome that I want for my kids. I don't allow myself to get stuck there though - I try really hard to have the faith that Freedom spoke about.

wellnowwhat

I try very very hard to not march towards any specific outcome these days. To keep an open mind about what happiness means and have faith that doing the next right thing will get me there. The story is in the journey, not the destination.

This!

Terminally Unique

He probably quit the old-fashioned way. Once upon a time, before "addiction treatment" and "nobody can do it alone" became de rigueur, people "cowboyed up" and did what they had to do (to borrow a phrase from OnMyWay11). Their stories are far more common than most people assume.

Terminally Unique

I backed myself into a corner, and was given a choice between the bottle or the family. If I had kept on drinking, I would not have been allowed to stay. That snapped me back into my right mind, so to speak, and I chose the family. I will never drink again, and I will never change my mind.

Cyranoak

And it's because new folks, when given hope, often use it to make incredibly bad decisions. But, it is correct that it's a matter of perspective and is all relative. In my opinion, anything that makes the alcoholic go away is positive, including recovery which makes them a recovering alcoholic (of which I know and admire many).

But, if your real question is, "is there hope your alcoholic will recover, I'll just say there's just as much hope for you as there is for anybody, but you can't cure it, you didn't cause it, and you can't control it.

If you want to live the rest of your life with an alcoholic, stay. There's a good chance you will. A very good chance.

If you want to live the rest of your life without an alcoholic, find yourself a recovery program like Alanon, counseling, or both and I believe there's a good chance you will. A very good chance.

Good luck. Take what you want and leave the rest.

Cyranoak

P.s. Hope is not a strategy. And, outside the movies, love, hope and faith don't change a damned thing as far as addiction and alcoholism are concerned.

lillamy

I can pretty much ditto Mike's post -- my life has improved by an order of magnitude since I left my AXH. (The difference, I think, was that I never contemplated suicide as a way out, but I would daydream about AXH dying in horrible accidents and me being the grieving widow secretly cheering inside at his funeral.)

I think "is there hope?" depends on what you mean.

I have quite a few friends who are recovering alcoholics. One woman has been sober for ten years and hasn't had one relapse. She has also faithfully attended three Al-Anon-meetings a week at a minimum, every week for ten years. One man has had a couple of relapses but been sober for 25 years. One man has three-four relapses a year after rehabbing 10 years ago. They are all still married.

None of these alcoholics were abusive. The men were lying cheating manipulative jerks, but not verbally, emotionally, or physically abusive. In all three cases, they went into recovery before the alcoholic elevator had gone too far down into the regions of hell. They all managed to get sober before they had completely ruined their marriages. And in two of the three cases, the spouses are heavily involved in Al-Anon, still.

I look at the spouses in those three marriages and respect their choice and the incredible work they've done on themselves. BUT, and this is just me, I couldn't have done what they did. The process they've gone through, that they're still going through, would be unbearable for me.

For me, the process of recovery included the realization that nobody else can make me happy, and that I don't owe anybody else my life. I am responsible for caring for my minor children. I am responsible for myself. I was not responsible for my AXH. I am not responsible for my new man. We are separate individuals, and no matter how married we were or are, I have no obligation to stay in a relationship that's detrimental to my mental, emotional, and physical health.