fluffyflea

So that,s my question.

One theory I have is when I hear words and see tears about a situation but the situation is not changing and I wonder are the tears and words there to keep me hooked?

Any other signs that we are being manipulated?

AnvilheadII

well first, we cannot BE manipulated unless we buy into what they are selling. we can only hear the addict oath so many times before it fails to have meaning. that oath you say?

I'M SORRY
PLEASE FORGIVE ME
IT WILL NEVER HAPPEN AGAIN

real change, real recovery are actually pretty silent.....few words, LOTS of action. instead of talking about what they are going to do, they just get busy doing it.

Pelican

Manipulative statement:

"If you A, B,and C; then I will X, Y and Z."

X, Y and Z never happen because the manipulated never quite seems to have A, B, and C to the standard of the manipulator.

Whiterhino24

The addict might not mean to be manipulating. If they say they are going to stop and are going to do better they probably mean it they just dont have the tools or the power to stop the voice in thier heads. I was not lying when i kept saying those things i truly believed them but my av was stronger than me at the time and i would fail. I hurt people and lost their trust because of it. Once i got a support group and started aa i started doing better but i did relapse a couple of times and in turn would lose that trust i built back up.

Chantal88

Manipulation from an addict can be a tricky thing, because first of all the person is sick. They are not even aware of how sick they are, or what or why they are doing what they are doing.

Think of it like the person has a mental illness. A person who is schizophrenic may behave outrageously, and try to control those around him, but at the heart of the behavior is an illness.

hopeful4

Stop listening to words...start watching actions

Breezie

A few I hear:

I didn't say that
You never said that
You are over reacting
You just don't understand
That's what everyone else does
You are the only person I know that would have a problem with that or thinks that

One I just noticed a few days ago (thanks SR!), I would make a statement and the reflection back was not at all what I said, but instead the crazy, unreasonable version. Example,
"I don't like you spending time one on one with other females in your group and texting I love you."
"So I can't talk to other women. I guess I will have to tell the 75 yr old lady there I can't hug her any more"
Um, no, I never said that. What I said was reasonable, what he reflected back was what a crazy, unreasonable control freak would say. I thought for a long time I was just being unclear, but now that I am paying close attention it seems like a sneaky tactic to make me question myself.

changeneeded

" I didn't say that"
"You're over reacting"
"You read into everything"
"Don't tell me what I said, I won't tell you what you heard"
"Wow, you're bringing 'that' up again?" (even though it just happened/whatever it is)
"let it go"
"You always find a way to ruin a good time.
Hmmm seems these A's go to the same school.

My A/manipulator will give me the silent treatment. My, I'm such a terrible person kicks in and I feel guilty over what the heck I've no idea.

LadyinBC

Yup they sure are. That is why we do it. Crying and telling you what you want to hear is a delay tactic and well we want you to feel bad for us. Just gets you off our backs for awhile.

Notice how after a bad bender we actually make you feel bad and sorry for us even though we treated you like crap? Notice how you walk on eggshells so that you don't set us off? Notice how everything is scheduled around us and what we want. It is subtle sometimes but we do it!

If you are doing things to make the alcoholic happy or keep the peace and not caring about what makes you happy? You are being manipulated, it is what we do.

Promises mean nothing they are simply words that someone wants to hear. Sounds harsh but it is the reality, at least for me it was.

changeneeded

OMG lady. OMG . I can't believe the bells have rung and light bulb just went off for me. I mean, what you said I knew but it's one of those things that I knew but didn't feel. Does that make sense?

I've always thought the I'm sorry I treated you like crap was kinda heart felt but not totally. I've always assumed that my A was sorta sorry because my A wasn't quite sure what really happened.

It is the stick to the guns my A does that drives me insane. It's the part when my A tells me that I triggered the anger, argument, the battle or whatever. I set it off. I try to point out (why I don't know because in 20 years I've never got the point across) that every relationship my A has had that ended; ended terribly. Could it in fact be because my A is so cruel when drinking? Nonsense my A says. And you know nothing about my past relationships. WTH are you talking about.

It's true. So why do I bring it up?????
But-- now I get it. It doesn't matter. My A does not really give a rats what happened that hurt me. Who cares. Get over so my A can get back to drink and start all over again.

This has been the worst night/fight we've ever had. I feel done.

Sorry to hijack the thread but its 2:30 am and I'm up looking for hope and peace.

LadyinBC

And that my friend is our ultimate goal in the end. When caught up in the addiction we don't care about anything except the booze. Everytime I drank I could come up with a hundred excuses and not one of them was because it was my fault or my choice. It was always something or someone else who made me drink.

It is easy for us to say we don't remember, sometimes we do remember, sometimes we don't, but either way we don't really have to think about it. I can just say "well you know I was drunk and didn't mean it". For the person on the other end of it, they can't unsee it or unhear it.

It is a vicious cycle. There is lots of help for the addict hardly any at all for the people that we hurt and get caught up in our dysfunction.

changeneeded

Thank you , Lady. You've given me new eyes.

DoubleDragons

When I decided to quit drinking, it was entirely something that came over myself for me. It had nothing to do with anybody else (no one in my life had asked me to quit drinking) In fact, it was really hard for me to tell anyone that I had come to this conclusion to quit. I quietly read books, found SR, prayed a lot. When I told my husband, I was quitting, I sobbed my eyes out because something so deep and emotional had turned inside of me and I realized I wanted something more, something different in my own life. I didn't care what his response was or if it pleased him or didn't please him. It had nothing, nothing to do with my husband, with my children, or anything outside of myself. It was something deep and spiritual inside of me. When I decided to quit drinking it wasn't after some horrific embarrassing event in my life (and there were quite a few of those), it wasn't after a health scare. Nothing had happened to me regarding the law. In fact, over the summer I had moderated my drinking pretty successfully. Bottom line is that quitting drinking is done by the individual when they have finally had enough and then typically we do it quietly, and we go about our sobriety with a laser focus (when it is truly something we want at the bottom of our hearts, for us). Listen to ACTIONS not words. I made no promises to my husband or my children. I made no apologies to anyone. I wasn't going to set up anyone I loved for hurt. I just knew intuitively that something in me had changed and as scary as it was for me, my way of living had to change for ME.

DoubleDragons

When I wrote my response, I want to make it clear that I am not diminishing how you feel or not understanding how crazy it is to deal with an alcoholic. My mother is an alcoholic and I have fallen into the same trap of questioning all of her moves and moods and what she says, etc. etc. And I should understand what is happening because I have a problem with alcohol myself!! I just need to realize and all of you who love an alcoholic need to realize, too, that only, only, only the alcoholic is in control of their own cure. And when we do look for the cure, we do it earnestly, quietly, hopefully, and frankly, selfishly for our own selves and lives. I am not saying that I don't care about my husband and children. I am not saying that I do not want to be a wonderful wife and excellent mother. I am just saying that I can only do those things if I am a healthy, whole person and that is why sobriety is entirely for me. When I save myself, then and only then, am I able to be everything else that I am inspired to be. Yes, my family is my biggest inspiration, but the true desire to quit came from the need to heal myself.