FireSprite

Hello SR Network!

I just registered to the forum today but have been lurking & reading & learning here for about the last 10 months or so. I have learned SO much in reading about all of your experiences & at times it has been a great comfort as my husband & I make our way through his battle with alcohol. Sometimes just knowing that you aren't alone or going crazy is enough to keep a person sane & I've come to see this forum as a stand-in for the therapy I'm not currently able to fit into my active life in any other way. I figured if I'm viewing this as therapy then I need to start interacting at some point, and not just participate as an observer.

So thank you ALL just for being here.

I am also ACOA & I have come to terms with my dad's drinking over my lifetime; I'm lucky that he was able to get sober in the last 5 years of his life & we were able to repair a lot of emotional damage.

However, despite my ACOA status, I somehow missed a lot of signs when it came to my own marriage. When my husband sat me down & told me he had realized he was an alcoholic, I was shocked. The circumstances & situations are SO different but now I realize that so many of the alcoholic traits were hiding in plain sight and because of those subtle differences I wasn't seeing them for what they really are. (Does that make any sense??)

I am happy to report that my AH has now maintained his sobriety for 10 months (as of last week) and is working his program through AA. We are not living in 'crisis' mode any longer and working together to repair our lives; emotionally, physically & financially. He managed to do significant damage in all these areas in such a relatively short time. (don't they all??) We both still struggle with putting things back together (obviously) & we're still working out issues but so far we managed to handle it with some respect & rediscover love for each other that we thought was dying or dead. We have an almost 8-year old DD & have been as honest with her throughout this process as possible.

I have no problems sharing our 'story' but this introduction is long enough already. (Feel free to ask any questions, I'm not shy.) I just wanted to introduce myself to all of you before I just jump in & start posting.

Thanks again for sharing all of your lives with me online. You'll never know how much you've all helped me get through my darkest, scariest days.

wicked

Welcome FireSprite!

I am so glad you are posting now.
Congratulations to your husband on 10 months! That is good news. Keep working it.
Yes, this is a wonderful place, for support, experience, strength and hope.
(Great user name and avatar too. I am an Aries, so fire is a good sign. )

Beth

CeciliaV

Welcome! I'm so sad to hear you've gone through hard times, but I'm so glad and uplifted to hear a story about a RAH who's made it to 10 months sober - that's fantastic news, thank you for sharing! Honestly, there are so many stories with not so good outcomes that I am beyond elated to hear this - as someone who's with someone only about 11 days sober (and someone who's relapsed several, okay, lots of times), would you mind sharing some more info about how you've been able to traverse the stormy times and come out the other side? I could use all the tips you care to share!

I really do hope that the successes continue for the both of you. Thanks for posting!!

TakingCharge999

I am glad you decided to register ! Welcome !

HitRockBottom70

Welcome FireSprite. Congratulations to you and your husband on 10 months, you must be a great team. I am so happy for you both. Thank you for sharing.
Also, I love your avatar.

FireSprite

Thanks! I put some thought into my name/avatar because in making my way through this process one of the things I have learned to focus on is ME. I am a red-curly-haired woman who is a full-on Sagittarian so I identify with fire on a basic-instinct-level; but for me it also represents rebirth & starting over. (Much like the proverbial phoenix rising from the ashes.)

FireSprite

Cecilia - I'm happy to share but I know that this is a work in progress & sometimes we have difficulty finding balance. We both struggle with letting go/healing the past while still pushing forward with TODAY. It's easy to get discouraged, easy to backslide. I’m not so bold as to say we’ve beaten this thing or that he’ll never relapse. … so this is all with a grain of salt, ok? My full story follows & it’s really long, so I apologize in advance!

FireSprite

Truth is that our reality isn't much different than so much of what I read here. The only reason we have had ANY success is because HE finally took off his blinders, got honest, asked for & accepted help. Without that I was just constantly beating myself bloody against a stone wall. & beyond that – most of the deep-rooted issues that caused & kept him drinking were things that go back to his childhood… into the core of who he is… things I have nothing to do with but that shaped his perceptions, definitions & methods of communication.

He’s a musician & we spent years socializing 4-5 nights a week between his practices & gigs. We were a double-income household with no significant debt (just a mortgage) & could spend our time/money however selfishly we felt. We planned for kids, bought a house & kept the big picture in perspective, but were also determined to enjoy our lives as they were. We drank a bit in our early 20’s, & in those days he was too paranoid to perform with a buzz so alcohol was not always part of his music. We both started drinking in our teens, years before meeting but we just never really drank much, it just wasn’t necessary to our lives. (& if I’m being truthful, I prefer pot ) As his band gained success, the drinking increased & without realizing it we were both developing amazing tolerance. It was literally never-ending; fans, bar owners, bartenders & waitresses bought us so many drinks we could never drink what we were given. Even on nights we were out socially when he wasn’t performing. He eventually started shooting back his shots & then spitting them into an empty beer bottle he kept behind his drums. It always looked like he was chasing his shot with a beer but he just couldn’t handle that much drinking & people sometimes don’t take no for an answer. Classic people-pleaser, he is.

Alongside this we both battled massive infertility issues & eventually, after 2 years of treatment with a Reproductive Endocrinologist, we had our daughter in June & celebrated our 10-yr anniversary in August. Things were perfect. He decided to switch his focus from drums to vocals & ended his working project so he could focus on working in his studio at home with us more. It was always something he wanted to do & the timing was great – no more 4-night weekends full of gigs in addition to his regular full time job. The economy was great & his line of work was in high demand so he went into business for himself & was successful from the get-go. We both drank, we hosted many parties & our home was a social center point for almost all of our friends. (Who, as you can imagine, are almost all musicians themselves.)

Then as our DD outgrew babyhood & became a toddler & then a preschooler, he stopped being able to handle things. I think as she became a ‘person’ & not just a baby he mentally started regressing & dealing with a lot of issues he has with both his mom & dad & questioning whether he had it in him to be a good father. There are BIG issues in his family that he refused to ever acknowledge, but suddenly being a dad himself seemed to be triggering a lot of crap inside that he couldn’t handle or even identify. So he drank more. He started to lose his grip on reasonable drinking & got drunk more often.

Then the economy plummeted – we live in one of the 1st areas affected by the real estate craze in the early 2000’s & since he works in construction it immediately killed his successful business. It took his ego along with his paycheck & he drank more. He latched onto the ghost of what ‘was’, refusing to believe it was REALLY happening & made horrible financial decisions. Even though I have years of business consulting under my belt, he refused to allow me to help but also couldn’t handle it all himself so we started fighting regularly about finances & his decisions. So he drank more & we fought more. He started making more stupid decisions & seemed to have no regard for the most basic things like his own safety. The more I questioned him, the more he felt ‘judged’, used that as fuel to shift the blame to me & an excuse to drink even more. Not that I would know, because by now he’s fully hiding the amount of his drinking & I have a preschooler going into KDG that needs a lot of time & attention herself. In hindsight, I can see where just about everything in his world blew up at once & he had NO skills or tools to communicate it to me or to handle it himself. He couldn’t express it, but hey, alcohol could numb it away in no time.

What happened to Mr. Happy-Go-Lucky? Where was the guy I felt safe with, who promised to face these challenges with me? When did he start lying to me & why was I suddenly the target for everything & anything?

We had spent 2 of the 3 years prior to his "epiphany" separated & dealing with what I thought were just marital problems. In the beginning it was ok – we seemed to talk more & I felt like a little space would help us both gain perspective & a little appreciation for each other. But over time that wasn’t enough because WE didn’t have problems, HE did. I became impatient & he felt pushed, but really he could take any reaction from me & manipulate it into whatever negative thing he wanted it to represent. It got to be like talking with someone who is fully crazy. If I said the sky was blue he’d start a raging fight over how it was really green.

He had been pulling away from me in order to hide how aggressive his drinking had become & was having to play a lot of games in order to hide it & the people, places & dramas that it inevitably brings. He, like all alcoholics, eventually found himself in a spiral - exhausted from running in circles of his own making & losing track of his lies & manipulations & running out of ways to consistently direct the blame to me.

That’s mostly because I won’t back down when I know that I am right or my intuition tells me to dig deeper. The closer I would get to the truth, the faster he would either start another distraction to occupy me or he’d simply run & hide. Now I can see that he was also running from himself, but his actions never came across as anything but a personal attack on me. I didn’t have SR as a resource then but I finally realized that the only thing I could control was me & my reactions & that I had to make sure my DD was taken care of. For me that also means being a strong woman as a role model so I r*e*f*u*s*e*d to roll over & play victim (anymore).

During our separation I realized that I did have some control. When he hit a ‘rock bottom’ moment & I had tried & failed with all of my efforts, I cut him off completely. I reported our credit cards lost & ordered replacements for me only. I emptied what we had in the bank & started a new individual account for myself. I hid cash in my daughter’s room knowing he’d have a snowball’s chance in hell of finding it. There was NO WAY he was going to destroy me fully on his way down because then WHO would be there for my kid??

I started journaling again, I signed up for yoga classes at my favorite studio & started inviting my girlfriends over for Girls Nites. I dusted off all my old CD’s, converted them to mp3’s & started exercising. I read & read & read & read. I took classes on reading tarot cards because it interested me & I made new friends that I really like. I planned activities my daughter loved & new things I could teach her & thrived in watching her grow. I went to visit my grandma & listened to the stories of hardship that she endured in her lifetime & gained strength knowing I have some of those same genes running through me. I prayed. I’m not religious but I am deeply, deeply spiritual & believe that things are connected in a great circle & I tried to find understanding of why & where everything fell apart because I still really didn’t understand his selfish behavior.

I interpreted his actions to mean that he had fallen out of love with me even though I was still very much in love with him. (It had to be true because you don’t emotionally abuse people you love, right?) I cried buckets. I ran on nervous energy & started needing sleep aides at times. I prayed that he would find happiness again even if it meant that we couldn’t be together; I wondered that maybe over so many years & from such a young age we had just changed in too many different ways. I cried more.

I made a list of all the things that are great about me & I read it all the time. When he would pick fights or pull a disappearing act, I would remind myself that his weaknesses aren’t my failures. Eventually I realized he was sucking me dry energetically & when I finally snapped, I packed every freaking thing he still had at the house & told him to meet me at the courthouse in the morning so we could discuss going our separate ways… that staying with him was doing nothing good for him but eroding me in ways I would no longer accept. I told our families, friends & co-workers that we would be divorcing. I prepared myself to go on living without him & expected that that is exactly what would happen.

So, I got lucky. That woke him up & he accepted responsibility for some of his actions but it would still be months before he would connect the dots to realize he was drowning in alcohol. He moved back in & he started trying to work it out. Last summer we visited our very best friends who live about 1000 miles away. Once I wasn’t distracted by our daily lives & was watching his drinking through our friends’ eyes, it really started to shake out. Something happened there that made him see himself differently & in the week after we got home he seemed more & more overwhelmed with depression (which is something he has struggled with his entire life, but of course, the drinking only made it worse.)

A friend of a friend of a co-worker happened to catch him in a “moment” and offhandedly mentioned AA to him as a resource for help. Something in that conversation triggered for him and he went to a meeting that night & almost every Saturday since. I was flabbergasted until he sat me down & started being honest about how much drinking he was hiding. Suddenly, so many light bulbs were going off that I felt blinded. FINALLY SOMETHING MADE SENSE! Until that point I felt like I was fighting ghosts because I never understood the root of the problems, just that there were so MANY and they all seemed to tumble together in a confusing mess. In reality I was trying to fix the symptoms without knowing the problem it stemmed from.

So here we are. 10 months later & I wasn’t sure I would survive the first 90 days. The longer he goes without the alcohol the more his buried emotions come to the surface & he’s got a very long hard road of therapy ahead of him. Luckily he seems to have a great sponsor; I stay fully detached from his therapy still so I haven’t met him at this point. Eventually, maybe. We’ll see…. I think it’s been important for him to have that sanctuary so I’m not anxious to invade that space.

wicked

Thank you so much for sharing your story, FireSprite.
You and your husband seem to both have an understanding of what you are up against, and even though it will be difficult (hard as he77!) when you come out on the other side, it is miraculous.
You write well. LOL I was leaning forward, closer and closer. hehehehehe
I hope you share more with us.

Beth

Stung

Goodness. I have absolutely no idea where your or your husband's recovery is at today, but this sounds like such a happy, good start. I want to read more stories like this! I'm keeping my fingers crossed that things have only gotten better from here for your family.

(P.S. in one of my posts last week you said I could feel free to read through your old posts, so I'm hoping this isn't intrusive. BTW, I see so many similarities between your story and my own. Except it sounds like you handled things with so much more grace and patience. I feel constantly overwhelmed.)

FireSprite

Not intrusive at all, I can definitely see some similarities in our situations when I read your posts. Especially in the rawness of your emotions right now - it reminds me SO much of how I felt before I found SR & started seeing the need for ME to start my own recovery.

It's interesting to see this bumped up today & to read my own words back again. I go back through my own posts at times when I want to see the evolution of where I've been & where I feel like I'm headed. I often remember the emotions I was feeling & other small details about the time I was writing the post as much or more as the written words themselves.

My update would be this: RAH managed to stay sober for 2+ yrs before relapsing, spectacularly. The first incident kick-started a chain of events that brought him to a new rock bottom. In a way it was the way he had to find his bottom I think - to see that while there was very little actual drinking involved in his relapse, things still spiraled out of control because he was still nurturing his addict-like behavior under the sheen of sobriety. Between getting caught up in circumstances, being in the wrong place at the wrong time & walking straight into his own BS that he himself created he landed in a heap of trouble. (feel free to dig those posts up too - they are recent, his relapse started late Oct & the fallout happened just before Thanksgiving)

In a nutshell, IMO, he was dry but not working his recovery. He got comfortable with a sponsor that wasn't pushing him in the traditional sense so he felt like as long as he was attending meetings, he was doing just fine. Then the meetings started getting spaced further apart but he still wasn't developing other tools to help deal with his stress. I felt like he never really humbled himself all the way down with full acceptance of his flaws - that part of him still protected that innermost core around his Ego.

I was concerned at what I felt was a lack of effort toward recovery on his part, but until the relapse it just didn't matter..... staying detached, staying on my own side of the street kept me (thankfully) from keeping an ongoing inventory of him & going crazy with things I couldn't control. I think I even posted a thread once called something like "This is the LONGEST recovery in recorded time" or some other such smart-arsey thing. My opinions were based more around seeing how much *I* was putting into recovery & how hard the process was for me but it wasn't for me to say that what he was doing was working or not for him. It just really appeared as though he took the longest possible path sometimes, made it harder than necessary & stubbornly repeated past mistakes determined that the results would somehow be different "this time".

Luckily, I had taken steps to protect DD & myself over the last 2 years. We are still enormously impacted but not necessarily as damaged as we could have been. She is always at the front & center of my focus & I've found that to be a very reliable guidepost.

It has been just about 6 weeks since his grand fall from grace, but the changes I have seen him make are different than the ones he's taken before. New sponsor, more meetings, it *appears* that he is working the steps, more prayer & acknowledgement of his own spirituality, more appreciation for his life & use of works like "gratitude", "blessings", "humble". He listens more & talks less defensively, walking away from conversations instead of escalating them into an argument, taking more time choosing his words & communicating more effectively. He's opening up at times about his past, his childhood, & unleashing all that he previously hadn't accepted as part & parcel of his underlying issues which drive his addictive behaviors. He's getting better at verbalizing when he is struggling instead of just letting it show in his attitude. He's home more since he's not running in circles all the time keeping himself too busy to think, which had been an adjustment for ALL of us, lol.

I am doing SO much better than when all of this started. I was exhausted & physically drained for a long time, my body was a wreck in every capacity. My energy levels were non-existent, my circulation, nervous system, hormones all raged out of control. My adrenals were dangerously exhausted, my legs felt like lead weights I carried around all day until I could finally fall into bed at night. I had headaches alllll the time, I slept poorly, my weight spiraled down then shot up, my skin changed, my mind felt like a permanent fog had taken up residence. When I went in for my first acupuncture appt I openly wept on the table out of sheer exhaustion & confusion as to where to begin rebuilding my health.

When my physical health became less critical, my mental health started to evolve naturally. Some of the fog lifted & cleared, I sought new resources like SR, the books & blogs referenced by members here. Once I started reiki on a regular basis & started to really embrace my spiritual development, things started to come full circle for me & DD (by osmosis, lol). For me it is all about getting all 3 parts of my Self (mind, body, spirit) into a harmonious synchronicity.

Stung

Oh I'm so sorry that he relapsed. But I'm so glad that you're doing such a great job of trudging through and taking such good care of yourself and your daughter. I'm feeling majorly inspired by you. I think my biggest fear (and I already know that this is something that *I* need to work on, and I'm beginning to take steps in that direction) is taking the gamble of staying with my husband is the fear of a potential relapse. I think taking some steps to prepare a sort of emergency backup plan like you did will help to give me a little insurance that my daughters and I will be okay no matter whether he relapses or not - which was something I hadn't even considered as an option before.

Thank you for suggesting that I read your posts. Seriously, this has been as helpful, if not more so, than some of the stickies that I've read. Your story motivates me to want to behave a little differently and look at my own behavior and attitude with a different perspective.

MissFixit

stung,

that is a really wise idea to have a back up plan for you and your kids. i think that the folks that become desperate are those people who completely rely on the A's for their self esteem, self worth, money, lifestyle and happiness (i was partially in this category years ago). if your well being and happiness and that of your kids is totally independent of the state of your AH, then his issues have less impact on you.

eventually, as someone who was alone for a couple years following that relationship and am now with a non-A, i wish for all my friends and people to experience an easier time with someone who doesn't cause you pain.

FireSprite

Wow, thank you. That's an incredible compliment!

It is the furthest thing from Easy to make the decision to stay or leave a spouse no matter what the circumstances.

For me, we had a LOT of really great, no-BS, non-addict years. He stood beside me & supported me through a lot of terrible things in life & underneath it all I still see evidence that THAT guy still exists inside of him.

Was it Michaelangelo who said something like "I just see the image of the statue in the stone & carve until I set it free" or something to that affect? I can see the image inside of him of the person he really is, but getting to BE that person is an Inside Job - he has to carve it from the inside out.

It's impossible to accept sometimes, but often I am the recipient of collateral damage - meaning that it isn't maliciously intended. That doesn't make it ok, but intent matters to me. Putting up boundaries, working with detachment, working on being a better person myself & setting limits on what I will accept from his behavior help me keep from feeling like I'm being taken advantage of. And when things shift & "more is revealed", I adjust for new information. I may not be able to control how he handles himself & his recovery but I CAN control how much I put into my own growth - I figure no matter where he chooses to be years from now, I can prioritize becoming someone I love & respect since I lost a lot of that over the course of this war. There may come a day when I decide I've had enough & I walk away, but for now I choose to stay so long as I see forward progress, no matter how slowly.

Having a backup plan is just plain SMART. Financially, emotionally, etc. I have few IRL friends but they are rock solid & I can count on them for anything. I've separated us financially & then even more so after his relapse. Your DD's are young yet, but your oldest is close to my DD's age when we started on this journey. Never underestimate how much they understand or forget to listen to their POV - they are sometimes nothing but eyes & ears.

Stung

MissFixIt, I agree! I moved a few months worth of living expenses into an account that's only in my name two weeks ago on the night that he hit a new low. It's in an account that only I can access. But beyond that I have no plan. Before two weeks ago I was confident that things would never get this bad.

I'm still thinking about how to proceed after we hit the 30 day mark and he can see the girls and I again. It's tough because he's now talking like you guys. I told him last night that I was afraid of what our future holds and he told me that that's my fear and he can't control it and then later told me yhat he can only maintain his side of the street. My jaw nearly hit the floor. I guess you guys really do know what you're talking about if he's saying the same stuff and he's totally independent of me at this point.

martina12

FireSprite I am truly wowed by your posts. I really felt such a warm glow from your first post that I couldn't help but keep reading all the other posts. You have shown such strength and perseverance and courage and..I could go on. So very inspiring and it gives me such strength to read what you have been through and are continuing to go through. I really hope it all has a happy ending for you as so many of us have lost our loved ones to this dreadful disease..keep us posted please?!

Hammer

hahahaha ahhhh.

[psst. Of course. We are a Cult. We All Say The Same Thing. ]

Just figured I would say it. The doubting accountant part of your mind was going to pop that up on you sooner or later, anyway.



You know you are going to feel Really Stupid when he starts lapping you around the track and you are still sitting on the side not wanting to tie your running shoes.

==================

but on a Super! Note for you -- the Set Aside Emergency Account. Good Job.

That matches both Dave Ramsey AND Alanon. Alanon practices a Prudent Reserve philosophy. When I asked the various Treasurers how they practice Tradition 7, they all said they keep 3 months or more money in Reserve and send the rest up or spend it on Service. So as we Practice These Principles in All Our Affairs, we tend to do that, too.

So Good for YOU on this. You are really going like it when you get in.

==================

Tradition 7. Every group ought to be fully self-supporting, declining outside contributions.

AND

Step 12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these Steps, we tried to carry this message to others, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

martina12

I've been hanging around this site for a good 7 or 8 months or so and at times clinging on tightly as I need such support...Hammer I luuuurrrvvve your insights they either make me laugh cry or feel like I need to hug you! We are all in this together folks and somehow we will get through I just know we will

hopeful4

Firesprite...wow. I always feel like we are kindered spirits! Thank you so much for your insight and sharing. I feel as though it is hard to type it all out sometimes, but it definitely frees your mind of the junk.

I am so glad you and your family are doing better! Hugs!

Stung

Hammer,

1. With my husband's impressive alcohol belly that he's sporting, I might actually have a spiritual awakening if he could literally pass me on a track right now.

2. WHOA! I've already completed step 12?! *****! Looks like I'm too advanced for alanon after all. Yay me!

3. Prudent account says "save 12 months of mortgage payments in the event that something catastrophic happens." I just shifted money from one account to another. Hubs asked me where it went, I told him and then dared him to argue. Crickets... I should have told him I bought Giants season tickets. LOL!!!