Mango blast

No one likes to talk about people they like who are drinking too much, but they will at times.

I'm finding no one outside our doctor, Alanon and SR want to have recovery mentioned at all. Not mine, not his. It's not like I'm saying much, but it's shut down immediately and people have actually walked away and turned their backs finding something else to do. I am being open and authentic. I have nothing left to hide. No secrets. And then I realize...

1) they don't get it. any of it.
2) they don't care. they're tired of dealing with the turmoil it brought to them, even far on the sidelines
3) so he stopped drinking. yay. hurrrah.. (taking bets to when he starts again...)

They would talk to each other but not me about his drinking, so this shouldn't surprise me.

So here I will celebrate my recovery and his. 7 days for my husband is worth celebrating. He is working his program. I am working mine. I am taking this one day at a time, and each day we go forward is worth a bit of a celebration.

If he relapses again, we'll deal with that in it's own time. For now, each sober day is a gift that I am grateful for.

Mango blast

4) in denial of something out of balance in their own lives.
5) missing their drinking partner and the "good times", even if they don't have a problem with alcohol.
6) they haven't known the sober person in so long (or never knew him/her), that they don't know what to expect.

The more I think about it, the more it makes sense.

embraced2000

ktf.....I think that many people don't understand much about addiction, the process of recovery, or the magnitude of the whole issue.

I think many folks think of alcoholism as a character defect, and that a drunk is just a drunk.

I think many people like to stay into the problem because it's a comfort zone for them to gossip, pre-judge, and make prophecies about the likely outcome.

I think it's ok for others to not know what we know about it.....I pray that others may be spared the education that we received.

during my xah recovery attempts, (and there were many, many), I found that what worked best for me was to surround myself with other ra's and their partners......people that knew exactly what we were faced with, and they modeled to me how to handle these kind of unsettling social interactions with the "outsiders".....it was a safe, secure, knowledgeable, and supportive environment for me to gain my footing till I was strong enough to handle the kind of moments you have described.

keep on....hang on....I wish you all good things

Mango blast

Thank you. Keep strengthening my own support network is a very good idea.

HopefulinFLA

First of all...Hooray for 7 days! I pray that this is the beginning of many many more.

I've stopped talking to anyone about recovery and relapse except for SR folks, and my Alanon friends. No one else gets it anyway. I get tired of being told what I should do, and feeling judged.

DoubleBarrel

When I got sober, I had to realize that people weren't gonna have a parade to celebrate my being a responsible parent, husband, business person and contributing member of society.

Recovery is the hardest thing I've ever done but expecting others to understand it just wasn't realistic.
Besides, they have been doing what I should have been all along, and they are more unsung heroes than I was, being a selfish deadbeat.

Congratulations you to you on your sobriety. This is a good place for the support, cause we DO get it. We get how hard it is, and we get what an accomplishment it really is too.

SeriousKarma

God Bless the Normies. I think they just find the subject a little boring, and can we really blame them. We here can wax poetic for six forum pages trying to convince a young woman why she shouldn't move in with her alcoholic BF, who she claims is her one true love, after the first date. We can be a bit verbose about recovery, and all things recovery related, because for us it's like discovering oxygen! You gotta try this stuff!!!!! But, Normies have been breathing it for years. Ain't no big deal. A lot about recovery is trying to learn, or relearn behavior that should have been intuitive. Like healthy boundaries, or loving detachment. Normies behave this way normally. That's why they're called Normies.

Be patient and forgiving of the rude Normies you encounter, and remember if it wasn't for them the world would be ran by only addicts and codies. Oy Vey!

Keep on sharing here KTF, I love hearing you wax poetic.

Mango blast

Well.... picture me in the same building as my husband's co-workers, at another location, a big shop with lots of equipment. They weren't quite as easy going as normal and I since I know from the past they really are concerned about him and the other day when they were at our place he was most definitely not doing well, all I said was "He's doing much better now. He went to his doctor's and is getting some help." Couldn't turn away fast enough.

Mouth/Foot. I didn't know it was taboo! To make matters worse, I've gone Paleo for my health and no longer bake desserts for them. Just me being me. They'll get over it.
To be fair, afterwards they seemed to get that it was okay to talk to me about it. A couple other instances were by phone with family. They'll just have to get used to it. It may not happen often, but I'm not going to hide from it either!

choublak

It's only taboo to the people who don't live it.

Raider

My Mom is so embarrassed of me and my addiction even though I'm 84 days sober and 55 years old. I suppose that's just the way it is.

OnawaMiniya

Well I think you answered your own ponderings, and this is a good topic by the way! Interesting thing to talk about.

I am with you that you should just celebrate your own victories - and his - and deal with things as they come.

I agree also that people have a variety of reasons they won't discuss it with you - even if they will chat amongst themselves about it. Number one is perhaps that they truly don't get it. We have all gotten ridiculous advice from people - solicited or not! - that is impractical, ignorant, and sometimes downright rude and even crazy.

I'm sure between us all we would have a million dumb pieces of "wisdom" from others to share lol.

People don't necessarily understand the way this kind of thing impacts EVERY LITTLE THING in some way...

From finances to sex life to going out to places.... and so much more.

So, perhaps they don't want to say the wrong thing to you.

Others probably DO understand from experience, but either don't wish to open up about their first or second hand experiences, are thinking that the sobriety will be short lived, etc. So perhaps they too don't wish to say the wrong thing or upset you.

Some people, as you said, might have issues currently going on in their own lives and your topic makes them feel uncomfortable because it might make them face something they don't really wanna face.

Still others just don't like talking about personal things in much depth at work, period, no matter what.

I don't know. Sometimes it is nice to be able to talk about these things... but sometimes it's just a hassle, given the ignorance out there.

Keep on being happy and productive, and do not worry about them! Best wishes to you both

Peace.

Edit: just read this:

Have they heard about other attempts at him recovering and then going back to drinking? If so, maybe they are thinking it will happen again. And it might - and that is out of your control. But, I like what you said about dealing with that if that's what happens, when it happens.

Might have something to do with the missing sweet treats too! People are so selfish lol. Really... I would not be surprised if that had something to do with it! It is so stupid... but, people like getting things for free and when it stops they pout.

Sigh.

Peace.

LadyinBC

I'm lucky my mom is supportive. She is also an alcoholic and she still drinks. However, when I talk to her about what it has been like for me, she totally gets me. And the nice thing is I totally get her now. I never thought this would happen to me and it has brought our relationship to another level of understanding.

jacrazz

I've come to believe there are no such thing...

Ifnotforgrace

Nobody wants to hear about your or your loved ones chemo treatments either, or have conversations centered around insulin use and sugar restricted diets.

Recovery is of no interest to those not affected by addiction and uncomfortable for those who are..and are not in recovery. People don't like to talk about things that make them uncomfortable like death (we all are/have been or will be affected by death, but no one likes to sit around and talk about it). I don't fault people for that. Besides it's not the "normies" job to understand addiction..it is the addicts.

There is debate in the medical, legal, & even in the recovery community about viewing addiction as a disease, or a moral defect, recovering vs recovered, or whether or not alcohol is a drug yada yada, and when you go to talking about AA,NA or any other A--passions on all sides can run high if words like God, Cult or Religion are mentioned. It's easy to see why people "outside" the groups shy away from such.

redatlanta

This ^^^. And, in my own codie recovery one thing I have done is stopped getting involved in other people's problems. I have enough of my own.

It isn't that I don't care about others problems, certainly I will discuss or be s friend. What I have found though is that people don't take advice, they repeat the same mistake over and over, they talk about leaving their relationships and don't, etc. etc. The few times I have gotten in too deep in another's problems in a relationship I ended up losing the friendship as well as stressed out over something I had zero control over.

I was lucky to have a friend whose mom was an alcoholic and she had been there and done it before when RAH relapsed. For the very few others that I discussed it with they were as clueless as me at the time on how to handle it. My own thought on how to "fix" it (lol) was just to get him to AA and then he would stop. That didn't work out so well, btw.

MissFixit

side note: every time i see this thread in my mind i read "recovery tattoo" and wonder what one would look like.

ichabod

A lot of people, myself and my RAH included, are intensely private people and I think discussing someone else's recovery (in my case, discussing his) makes people think I'm overstepping or infringing on him. It also makes people uncomfortable to know too much.

My husband is in his 5th year of recovery. I'm very proud of him. Other than to two people IRL, and then only rarely, I don't mention it outside of this board. At the beginning (he made a bunch of half-assed attempts to quit before this one) I didn't mention it figuring it would last a month or two like most of his efforts. Then when it took there was no reason to discuss it.

hopeful4

Once I began to discuss my XAH's addiction and stop hiding it, it set me free. I don't go around screaming it from the roof tops, but if someone wanted to know why I was having a tough day, I would openly tell them. It ticked off my XAH at first, but I think it led him to be able to be open with some people. Not many, but a few, which helps him.

Hiding addiction, if it's yours or someone you love's, it toxic to our mental health. The day I opened up, I was free. Free from hiding it, free from unexplained behaviors, free from telling lies to cover up, and most of all, free to have a support system for me!

I hope the recovery continues, good work!

XXX

dandylion

This reminds me about how I hate people talking to me about their medical problems in social situations. They think that I should be fascinated by the subject. I am not. I find it boring and exhausting when I am out of the workplace. And, I cannot advise them properly without detailed knowledge and the ability to examine them...LOL!
I am not without compassion---quite the opposite, I think.
Just not socially, and, not for entertainment.

I don't know if this is exactly the same........

dandylion

Katchie

Some people just can't relate. My dear friend couldn't really relate. She listened which I am so thankful for because I needed someone to HEAR what I had to say. She recently came to me sobbing when she found out that her husband was having an emotional affair with an old high school sweetheart. She then confided to me that she came to me over other friends because I had "problems" with my husband too. Well, not quite the same thing, but honestly, my alanon lit has been helpful to her too even tho alcohol isn't a factor in her marriage. Thankfully, they are both doing well and working on their marriage and themselves individually.
People just don't know what to say until there is something equally difficult they face in their own relationship. At least that has been my own experience. Until my own blinders were taken off and I faced what was happening in my own life, I wouldn't have known what to say to me either, so I don't blame any of my friends who looked like a deer in headlights when I told them about my AH.