Jackie1

Ive been scavaging this board for days now. Trying to find a post i can relate to, advice i can take, and for a sense of not being alone. I havent found much.
Is there anyone here that has stayed with their AH? I am absolutely no where close to wanting to end my marriage. Most people her are talking about leaving, being mentally and physically detatched, going through or are divorced. I am none of those things. I wrote a post telling my story and what i heard back (in my mind atleast) is that hes not going to change, im not going to be able to save him and to stop putting my kids and myself through hell by staying. Where are the sucess stories? Not the ones where someone sucessfully left their AH, but the sober ones??
I plan to attend my first al anon meeting tonight. I really dont want to go if im just going to be told to or taught how to leave my husband. Thats not an option for me right now. I need coping skills and people that are in the stage that i am.

BoxinRotz

I'm not leaving my AH. I have had to leave for a couple nights here and there but to divorce? It will never happen. I don't know if you read about what we are going through or not but the thread is titled: My husband was in a motorcycle accident. Part 2 is on the first page of this forum and there is a link to part 1 in Part 2 if you want to read it.

Bottom line is, I love him even though we are walking through hell right now. I don't know much about the love you feel for your AH but I can tell you that my love for my husband is GRAND and aside from his alcoholism, I know he loves me. He is just not in a good place to show me at this time due to his alcoholism.

BoxinRotz

Just lost my post to the laptop monster! ARGH....

Anyways... about detachment...

Detaching is good as long as it's done with love. You detach for yourself because if you don't your day warrants a first class ticket to hell because the 2 of you are in a battle of wits and guess what?! You can't argue with a drunk. To be honest with you, I find myself STILL falling into this trap. I'm still learning. I will tell you this though... This board has changed me for the better because HE has asked me, just recently too, WHO ARE YOU TALKING TOO? You are changing.

You need to take what you want and need and leave the rest. It won't be easy.

Jackie1

Thank you both so much!

NWGRITS

Welcome to SR, Jackie. The responses you were given were based on many, many years of combined experience from those here on the boards. There are some success stories, but none of them started with "I made my spouse quit drinking." Your AH has to stop drinking because HE wants to. There is absolutely nothing YOU can do to make him stop. Since you are saying that you will absolutely stick it out no matter what, all that I can recommend is getting to Al-Anon and learning to take care of yourself and your children. I grew up in an alcoholic home and would never wish that on my worst enemy, but I can't tell you to leave your AH.

I suggest you learn everything you can about alcoholism. It is a progressive disease and it WILL get worse. The success rates for long-term recovery are very low, so the more you go into this knowing, the better. I wish you all the best.

FireSprite

Hi Jackie. I've stayed with my RAH but I think the definition of "success story" is pretty subjective. He is just slightly more than 2 years sober, but even at this point & after ALL of the struggles I would hesitate to claim that we are a success story.

Many, many alcoholics NEVER get sober & that makes it difficult for those around them to find a success story, it makes it necessary for them to detach & ultimately move on or continue to be dragged into the muck. It becomes CRITICAL to remove children from a household where they suffer constant abuses, no matter how minor. You already see this - your 3-yr old knows when daddy drinks & doesn't want to interact with him.

And in all honesty, while it is in NO WAY the same kind of hell as living with an active alcoholic, working through recovery with my spouse has been it's own brand of hell. There's nothing easy or direct about it. It's a heck of a lot more than him just not drinking..... it's a lot of WORK for the entire family!

With all due respect, after reading your first post & seeing how long you have lived in the dysfunction of addiction, I think you would really, really benefit from taking every thing you think you know about addiction & how it affects your family & toss it out the window. Hit the reset button & allow some new ideas in for consideration. Coming from an alcoholic FOO (no matter how high functioning your mother was) & having lived with alcoholism in your marriage for so many years, you sorta have no basis for "normal".

I can say that because that's exactly how it was for me. My father was a high functioning A throughout most of his life & having been born into that dynamic, his addiction helped to shape my definitions, expectations & tolerance for what I found acceptable. When I started my own recovery I found that my issues went back much further than dealing with my AH - I had to strip down internally all the way back to my childhood & examine everything I thought I knew about myself. It has been humbling to say the least. I thought I knew A LOT about addiction. I had a fair amount of education on the subject but since I was seeing it through tinted lenses, I was only ever getting my interpretation of things. Reading the experiences of people here on SR has been a crash-course in addiction that I will be forever grateful for.

I'm pasting your OP here since I referred to a lot of what you shared:



What so many here are telling you is that if he REFUSES to stop drinking there is, quite literally, nothing that you can do to make him. At that point you have 2 choices: Either decide to stay & live with active addiction or leave. All of the tools that you can/will learn (like detachment) are only good for short-term use, they aren't enough to make an intolerable situation tolerable. Ultimately in order for things to change, something has to change. No quick fixes.

I wish you luck! I hope you stick around & continue reading!!

Tuffgirl

Jackie, I came here looking for the very same thing. I also went to Al-Anon in search of success stories. They are few and far between. Doesn't mean its not possible - just that the odds tend to be against relationships successfully making it through alcoholism and recovery.

This forum tends to serve people in crisis. That's why you don't see a lot of stories you are looking for here. You may find more in Al-Anon. You may decide at some point that you have had enough, and your story changes to become something different. Mine did. I consider myself a success even though my marriage failed.

One of my favorite sayings here is to take what works and leave the rest. If you don't feel encouraged or supported in your decision to stay married - find a place that does offer you that. Or stick around for a while and see what happens. I did, and I am glad I did, because I learned some very valuable new coping skills that helped me weather the storms until they finally passed over. Now I stay to pay it forward.

Either way, you are always welcome here. Keep coming back!
~T

AnvilheadII

there is no SUCCESS if the alcoholic continues to drink. it just gets worse. for everyone.

you said how YOU grew up in an alcoholic home and the marks that left on you. and then you write this about your children:

2 teen daughters that have no relationship with their father, who cant have friends come over for fear of being embarrased of their drunk dad. Hes also turned them into little bar maids. They must fetch beers or be yelled and cussed at if they refuse. We also have a 3 yr old son who is now becoming perceptive. He now knows when daddy is daddy and when hes drunk. He doesnt want to play when hes been drinking.

but yet YOU aren't ready to leave....maybe think about what a post from your daughter's would read like....you can STOP the cycle. THAT could be YOUR success.

honeypig

Just wanted to second what NWGRITS and so many others have said. No one is telling you these things to "be mean" or anything like that. It just happens to be the unfortunate truth that an awful lot of A's don't choose to get sober, and eventually most of their partners get tired of the chaos and pain of an alcoholic marriage or relationship, realize they want and deserve more from their life and end up leaving.

In my case, I came into Alanon ready to file for divorce that very minute. I was advised to take a year to clear my mind, so that I would be coming from a place of calm and strength, not a place of fear and anger. I am about 6 months into that year. Things look different to me now; however, that's not to say that I know for sure that we will or won't stay together. So don't be so sure about what you will be told at Alanon w/o even going and listening, as I most assuredly was not "told how to leave my husband."

I'd also advise you to take a look in the Adult Children of Alcoholics forum (if you haven't already) to see what effect your decision to stay w/your AH may have on your children. Please remember that you're not the only one being affected by your choice, and that the kids don't HAVE a choice other than the one YOU make for them.

Folks here don't tend to sugarcoat what they say; hope you're able to still take it in.

lillamy

Fire sprite nailed it. The only thing I can add is that Al-Anon, in my experience, will not tell you fifty ways to leave your husband - on the contrary, they won't talk about your husband an awful lot at all. What they will do is give you a (sorely needed, I would guess) place where it is legitimate for you to focus on yourself.

Not all alcoholics refuse recovery and not all spouses leave. I had a coworker who had just gotten sober in 1990 when we started working together. His wife stayed through his recovery and worked the Al-Anon program while he worked the AA one. She says their marriage is great now, but that it took 15 years from the time he entered rehab to the day she first thought "I actually am happy in our marriage again."

fml23

Not sure if this is of any support, but I first joined here in November 2012. I wrote a post telling my story, got many supportive responses and a couple (in my mind) that were tough love answers: you can't change him, you deserve better, you should leave. I took what was said and it sat in the back of my mind for the past (nearly!) 2 years. I wondered back on a month ago because my AH had a brief sober stretch and I was worse than ever! I realized I want to be different. That's all those first replies were really saying I think, but it made me feel defensive of where I was and my choices.

I read your first post. U seem like someone who has been 'holding' everything up for a long time! I don't kno if I misinterpreted but you also sounded really hard on urself and like YOU feel pressure to stay or go and 'fix' the problem. I personally think anybody you tells you what you should or should not do is projecting their own situation on u. Although I get there is no magic pill to help ur husbands disease. I have just realized working on codependence is for me, not a tool to 'fix' my AH disease. Maybe if u reframe to that u won't feel pressured about al anon and can shrug off anything unhelpful!

BoxinRotz

You will NEVER make him stop drinking Jackie.

I will NEVER make my AH stop either.

You can not stop the inevitable! If he's going to drive, HE'S GOING TO DRIVE! He will take the vehicle and wrap it around a pole with or without you. You can not stop it. Only he can do that.

I have no children in my home and I thank God everyday that we share no children. We do share dogs but I have had to remove them for their own emotional well beings. They are DOGS and they have been traumatized! I could not imagine having children live the way we have, let alone dogs, that I go above and beyond to protect AND remove from the house, even at 2am if I have too!!!

Sometimes, there is NOTHING we can do or say to bring them out. Ya know, I honestly thought that riding pavement and bouncing an unprotected head against pavement at 50mph down a road after being thrown from a 2006 Harley Night Train would have been enough of an eye opener for my AH to stop drinking 2 pints of vodka a day and to be honest... it will probably take him his very own coffin to stop him.

firebolt

I came here looking for the success stories as well. They are out there, but they are far and few between. And by success, i either mean years on the alcoholic has recovered and committed to recovery, the partner of the alcoholic has detached, and eventually they repaired the damage done. OR the partner of the A has found a way to have a happy life despite active progressive alcoholism in their household. As I said, they are far and few between.

Regardless of what happens in your future, Alanon will help! And they won't tell you the only way to be happy is to leave your A. Also, this place helps too. We all have opinions based on our life experiences - we're happy to give them

It's up to you to take what is useful for your life, and leave the rest - and sleep well at night knowing that you have support here NO MATTER WHAT HAPPENS or no matter what choices you make, and that there are no judgements....because we've all made many of the same choices, and that is why WE are here as well.

Bottom line is you need to take care of you - and I hope you use EVERY tool available - even if it's not easy - to give yourself some peace.

Hugs and luck to you!

choublak

Sometimes it seems that way, doesn't it? Spend some time in the program and you'll run across lots of couples where one spouse is a long-term AA member and the other is an active member of Al-Anon. I have heard alcoholics with decades of recovery and a ton of program experience say in Open AA meetings that the one key factor that, in their opinion, helps sobriety the most is for the alcoholic to be living with people who are working a program too.

choublak

With that said, marriages with alcoholics are hard, so there are a disproportionate number of people in the program with past relationships that didn't make it. Not every alcoholic seeks recovery, and not every recovery fixes the problems in the relationship. People have to make hard decisions about whether to stay or whether to leave.

Florence

I came here looking for the same advice. It was suggested to me that I revise my definition of "success story."

I chose not to raise my children in an alcoholic household, got myself into intense counseling, and got my hands dirty changing my life. It is and was hard work. This is not what I planned for myself. I hate the idea of being the divorced mother or two children with two dads, never enough time for myself, unable to find time without the children to do things for me.

But when life requires you to pivot, you pivot. My STBXAH was my high school sweetheart -- we reconnected after some years apart. He became a father to my son and we had a daughter together. To most people, we were a young up and coming creative couple, people to watch. Underneath, he was spiraling to depths I wasn't even aware of. He was trying to quit drinking and seizing in the kitchen after I went to bed at night. He was drinking bottles and bottles of vodka right under my nose, camouflaged by hairspray, cologne, mouthwash, toothpaste, and cigarette smoke. He cared for my children while wasted. When we had sex (rarely) he was wasted. He wouldn't sleep with me at night because he was wasted. When it came down to the brass tacks of marriage -- money, parenting, household duties -- he was completely absent. My earliest posts here are me, pregnant, panicked, terrified about what was going to happen. I discovered I was pregnant while he was in rehab #2. I saw him through two additional rehabs before I filed for divorce.

My darkest days were when he abandoned me with a newborn to recover from a c-section by myself and return to work after maternity leave while he was in a five star treatment center. When he got home, he informed me he wasn't going to help me at night or get a job right away because his recovery was too important.

People here told me: You hit the ground running. Everything else is an excuse. I believe that now.

Point blank, I'm saying that my decision to leave my marriage was because I wanted to survive it. He could put on the motions of recovery as long as he had people to hand him money and a place to live (he still is). It wasn't enough and never would be. It's about more than my selfish happiness (that said, since when did happiness become a luxury for people who lived perfectly and made perfect choices?), it was for my kids because they deserve better than living in that kind of emotional hell. And for me too, because I was a ****ty mother living with him and his chaos.

Jackie1

Thank you all for your replies. I guess im just in denial and will eventually reach to where you are now.
I would like to defend myself in one statement made. The one that more or less said that since i grew up with an alcoholic parent, youd think i would want better for my kids. Here is more of MY back story:
Born to 2 alcoholic parents. Mom beat senseless by drunk and high dad constantly. Dad left, never came back so she moved us all in with my alcoholic grandparents. My moms brothers, who lived next door drank too. My moms friends were fellow drinkers and i was friends with their kids. Why am i saying this? Because someone NOT drinking was what I considered not normal. I didnt stay the night with friends with sober parents to comepare my mom to because there were none. Up until very recently, someone who drinks on a daily basis is what i thought to be natural. It was not until i noticed that my girls were having problems that my eyes opened. Thats why im doing this.
I dont know if its vital, but both my brothers are alcoholic now too. How i escaped not being one is beyond me.

Florence

Many of us tried everything we could think of -- and then some. I said that if I didn't try everything I could think of before letting go of him, I wouldn't forgive myself. I gave everything and more, but when I was done I was just done.

The nice thing is that you don't have to decide anything today. Just do the next right thing, whatever that is.

Consider starting Al-Anon in earnest. Hang out on SR and start sharing (writing this out helps -- really). Perhaps consider some personal counseling to give you a sounding board and a neutral place to process some of your concerns and dreams for yourself. Read the stickies at the top of this forum (they're awesome). Check out some books on codependency and ACOA.

For me it was hard to see myself in the materials in the beginning. Once I started participating for real, it changed my life. That's a good thing.

Hi and welcome.

ichabod

Hi Jackie. I came here for the same reason. I needed support, but I didn't want to leave my husband most of the time . So I didn't. He's in his fourth year of sobriety now, so I like to think of us as a success story but I know that life can change very fast. I keep my eyes open and still hang out here occasionally to read and learn. I am happy. We are happy.

This is going to ruffle some feathers, but I generally feel that few here want to hear the success stories. Everyone looks at alcoholism through the eyes of their own experience. If you say, "things are going well and I'm feeling hopeful" the next post will be, "I thought the same thing until he came home and hid alcohol under the porch. Your AH is never going to change. Leave."

It's exasperating, really. Most people don't recover. That is true. But some do recover and hope is important. Hope, while being realistic and protecting yourself. One size never fits all.

dandylion

Jackie, I have seen success stories--quite a few of them. Most all of them are surrounding the AA community. I have had the good fortune to work around and have quite a bit of contact with the AA community--and, thus have met many long recovering alcoholics.

I once had the good fortune to visit Hazelden Recovery Center in Minnesota (as a guest) several years ago. It made a big impression on me--because I saw how big the recovery world really is--and I saw what is possible. I have never forgotten that.

There are stories of tragedy--lots of them. Ther are stories of success--lots of them. It is all up to the alcoholic.

sincerely,
dandylion