LemonGirl

Hey everyone. I've been on here and there... Started attending Alanon regularly. Missed two weeks in a row of that and boy did I get off track! Lol.... I feel so much better when I do go. And this week I'm seriously going to need it.

Last week I was at my abf's house and sat on his bed and felt something hard and as I ran my hand along the fold in the cover I found a bottle... on total accident, and right in front of him. I didn't react (yay me; I already knew he had relapsed anyway). He gently asked me not to go and to stay and somehow, my acceptance of it.... of him drinking... just got him to really open up. I realize this is weird for "normal" couples (or not), but the conversation we held for the rest of the evening and morning were good simply because it was authentic, honest, and filled with compassion for one another's plights. A rare moment indeed.
I left the next morning knowing that despite his addiction and despite my little codie future trippin freak outs, he and I are good.

Fast forward to Friday... well, Saturday morning for me... He got his first DUI. And he was already in trouble... being in the military. It's going to be a very long and hard legal battle for him and of course a big stress for finding another job.... So how did I do in the midst of an alcoholic's crisis? Well.... he needed his keys and so I drove to get his spare for him. I also paid the cabby (that took him from the jail to his car) for him because his credit cards were locked in his car and he couldn't pay. And he stayed the weekend with me aside from getting to AA (on his own)....

I needed to ask myself some things as I am your typical rescuer....

Am I cancelling my day to accommodate his needs? Um.... sort of? I still took my daughters on a hike right after I got him his keys; I feel really good about that. We laughed and had a great time doing the hike... discovered a new trail... ate a picnic at the park. All while he did whatever it was he needed to do with his car and whatever else. I am glad to say that he came clean to his chain of command immediately. He still came over for dinner that night too as we had already planned that.

And another question... 'Is this affecting me negatively?'

Nope! I have really been practicing "happiness is an inside job" and it IS working! Don't get me wrong.... I called a good friend who totally understands and loves him and I both and I vented. And I came here. And I made sure to write in my gratitude journal. And I got in some extra reading about alcoholism and codependency this week. But really? I am NOT falling apart! And that is progress for me.

And I was able to truly thank myself for the first time in a long time for NOT having moved in with this man earlier this year. The old me would be wiping his butt for him. Lol... The new me is still struggling not to show him all the meetings available to him or yack his ear off about my own spiritual findings through my own recovery in he hopes that I "rub off on him"... But I am doing soooo much better than I used to.


Thank God! And thank God for SR and Alanon! Blessings everyone!

LexieCat

Sorry to hear about the continued drinking, but glad for you that you aren't living with this insanity 24/7. I take it his previous disciplinary matter was concluded finally? This guy is running out of chances in terms of his career.

LemonGirl

Well his career is already over. They were nice enough to extend his work till sometime next year and give him an honorable discharge. But now with this who knows what it will be. He currently feels that this must be a felony charge and will ruin his chances of future employment as well. But I don't think it is a felony. What he actually got caught doing was "intent to drive"? Whatever that means... So.... the next week or so will be full of not knowing what is going to happen with him.

And I will be here trying to stay on my side! Lol

jjj111

Have you thought at all about where your boundaries are here? I think I remember that at some point before he came back your boundary was that you wouldn't feel comfortable taking him back until you'd seen extended sobriety? And then after he got back and it turned out he was lying about being sober, your boundary was that you would support him so long as he was making an effort to get sober? I may be remembering wrong, but just curious if you have limits on what kinds of behavior you're willing to accept...

Lilro

Hey Lemon!
Sorry for what has happened to your guy but YOU sound great. Staying on your side of the fence I see.... Good for you!!! Keep on doing what your doing, it's working!!

LemonGirl

Um.... I don't think that was me. Lol... I do remember saying that I wanted him to be sober a year before he and I moved in together. But I won't put it past me that I've changed my mind and just "don't remember".

How I do remember it is that I broke up with him in January. He continued to drink. He said he wanted to get sober but he continued to drink. He deployed around May and at that time I felt the need to go NC. He got into rehab while deployed and stayed sober a little over 100 days and relapsed a few weeks after coming home. I had started talking to him again somewhere in those 100 days and we never really validated getting back together, but we both considered each other in a relationship again at some point. The "relapsing" has gotten closer and closer together.... though it never seemed to get where it was before... or maybe I have just been getting better at minding my own business about that! Ha!

I have as of now come to a point where I am comfortable with a decision for not worrying about whether or not I will move in with him next year in August. I feel that I can set that worry aside and stop future trippin over it.

And my boundaries are: I shut my phone off at night and do NOT look at it (and god it keeps me up at night when I do!). I also will not hang out with him if he is drinking (which he hasn't even tried to do; the bottle was from some other time). And he knows to never come to my house after drinking. So far, these boundaries work for me.

I'm still working on my need to fix, rescue, be consumed by, give too much of myself... and then forget myself, incessant worrying about the future, and learning to trust myself...among other things. Lol

FireSprite

Hey there LG, glad you are checking in!

I gotta say.... I see a lot of high-flying red flags here & I really hope you are treading as lightly as you think you are. You are SAYING you are keeping a distance but I'm HEARING a lot of emotional enmeshment & I don't want to see you get your heart stepped on again. ((((hug)))) I feel like you're dancing in the same circle, just slower. But it's the same dance.

I'm going to offer the opinion that this isn't relapsing - it's drinking on his part & minimizing it on yours.


This is good..... awesome that you shut down the electronics, but are you still thinking about him & what he's doing, where he's at, who he's with? You may be following through with plans, but rearranging or rescheduling them to work around his emergencies....

.....same dance... just slower, see? Remember the frog? One day the frog was just too tired to reschedule because the latest emergency zapped her energy & she never noticed the temperature turning up by a degree....

I'm just saying, Please Be Careful. Actions, not words. Actions are showing you hidden bottles & DUI's. At this rate, by next August he may be in jail. Even if he commits himself fully to recovery right this moment, none of that means you can make Life Plans that depend on him by next August. Trust doesn't happen on a timeline like that, ya know? But you can do a LOT FOR YOU in that same amount of time. A LOT.

What are you doing for you? Less than 2 months ago you shared:

But I think you were already walking down Relapse Road & not even realizing it. (9/19/15) In the past you have defined this relationship as "existing in a state of limbo", but is that how you want to KEEP living? What is the expiration date on "Limbo"? I know you deserve better!

LexieCat

I'm a little concerned, too, about the fact that you think it might be possible to move in with him in August. Right now, he's drinking and you're accommodating/rescuing. Frankly, I'd be shocked if this DUI is his bottom.

Let's assume for the moment that the stars align and he stays sober for the next nine months. Is he a good bet to move in with? Especially with your young children? Given the history of lies and broken promises?

I'm not suggesting you have to break up with him or give up on any hope of his recovery. I'm just suggesting that at this moment, the future does not look promising for imminent permanent recovery and you risk a lot if things go bad and you are living with him.

If I were you, I'd consider taking any firm (or even semi-firm) plans to move in together off the table for the time being. It puts unreasonable pressure on both of you--it increases the likelihood he will lie about his sobriety and it increases the likelihood that you will turn a blind eye to the red flags.

If you're OK with limbo, then continue in limbo. Just be careful about forcing the issue--which is what tentative plans to move in together in August seems to amount to.

I'd watch it with the rescuing, though--even when it doesn't cause extreme disruption to your plans, things like fetching his keys after he's gotten himself locked up for DUI isn't allowing him to experience the consequences of HIS OWN actions.

LemonGirl

Um.. I totally appreciate your words and views but I really am not trying to say some of the things you think I'm saying?

I AM emotionally enmeshed with him because I am in a relationship with him....? I wasn't trying to NOT be emotionally involved with him. If I said that in the past then it was appropriate and directly connected to that moment in time. I have grown some and changed inside some of the things I was doing since even just two weeks ago. And I'm sure that I'll waffle a bit as I go on... but that's okay because we are after progress and not perfection, right?

And I didn't manipulate anything in my schedule to "rescue" him. I actually did very little to "fix" or "help". And anyway, it is my understanding that in helping our job isn't to judge and divvy out only what an addict or alcoholic deserves or not help because it may hinder their rock bottom or that it might be considered enabling... MY job is to make sure my happiness is in tact and that I am not losing myself in the process. In the past I would have picked him up, cancelled my plans, GAVE him money and not expected a return, called a lawyer for him, helped him "feel" better about it or minimalize what he did, etc, etc... My picking up his keys for him isn't going to affect his drinking or his sobriety either way. Him spending time at my house is a normal part of our relationship and again, affects nothing with regards to his sobriety or drinking. In my opinion, I'm doing damn good at letting go of the need to control or thinking that I can.

What I am aware of, however, is the impending possibility that this will eventually affect my relationship with him. My step dad died of liver cancer and was an alcoholic and he remained an honorable and wonderful man all his life despite the alcohol and some of the chaos we went through. At some point, I will come to the decision COMFORTABLY that I need to let this go. But right now, I honestly do not feel that way. He is a wonderful man who has an awful addiction and it gets him into trouble. Trouble that I am not directly involved with and am proud of myself for not having moved in with him this past August when my lease was up.

And I have had to give my worrying about next August (when the lease is up again) up to my higher power. It had me in nots and codie freak out mode and future trippin.... I have realized that my needing to make a concrete decision RIGHT NOW is a part of my defect and just another way to control.

Next year when it gets closer, I am at peace knowing that I will know what to do. :-)

Does that all sound better? Sorry for the rant, but honestly, I've been doing really good. This is about my progress and not whether or not my abf is lying about getting sober or his drinking. Of course that will happen; he's an alcoholic...

LemonGirl

I agree that this quite possibly is not his bottom. And no Lexie, I am not living with him nor do I plan on it... I had to give my ideas of moving in next year in August up to my HP. It DID cause a lot of stress.

And I agree with the being careful with the rescuing. I had to stop myself and ask myself if I felt like it was over stepping my boundaries or if I had given up my own happiness to "help". I don't feel bad about it... but I do think that maybe it's a slippery slope. Food for thought for sure!

Still... I do have hope. And yes, the good far outweighs the bad within the actual relationship so long as I let go of my desire to control or fix. Funny how that is ALL about me and has nothing to do with his drinking. I feel good about :-)

schnappi99

No effing way I will live with or near active addiction in any form if I have any choice in the matter. All I have to do is think back to that darkness and the trouble I caused in relation to it... recoil as from an open flame.

If my wife relapses then I think my short-term response is either she doubles-down in her program (red-alert time I sure will be doing that in mine) and it remains an isolated event, or one of us moves out and our daughter stays with me.

FireSprite

You don't have to defend your relationship status here but yes, I AM using your posting history as reference. He was your Ex all the way up through July & I missed that you started referring to him as your ABF in Sept, so yes, I thought you were getting unknowingly enmeshed in old patterns with your EX. I apologize for that.


You said this in reply to me:
But THIS is from your OP in THIS thread:
I'm not saying anything that you aren't saying first, yourself? But it obviously struck a nerve because you gave me 3 paragraphs of JADE in reply.


Again, apologies - I am NOT judging you in any way, but you seem very conflicted & that's OK too. This isn't a linear process with mapped checkpoints. It's HARD.

I completely agree & that was the point of my entire post. I really AM sorry if it didn't read that way.

FireSprite

Absolute ditto. Too many moving pieces for me to deal with active addiction; I will not waste my days like that by choice.

jjj111

LG, I'm glad that you feel more at ease than a few weeks ago. I do think it's progress that you are turning off your phone at night. I remember the moment with my AXBF when I realized that I had a right to just turn off the phone and not enable him or engage in the chaos for a while. That felt amazing.

I don't think any of us here are trying to give you a hard time or misrepresent your progress. We're just sharing how we've perceived your journey, and maybe making a few suggestions for further progress. I've been especially interested in your recent posts in encouraging you to think about boundaries because I remember how useful the concept was for me. By articulating boundaries with my AXBF and identifying a firm sense of what I needed from a partner to feel OK in the relationship, I was able to better notice when the water in the pot was getting hotter, whereas early on in the relationship when my boundaries weren't very firm I didn't notice as clearly how the pot kept getting closer to boiling.

I recognize that you are feeling better about your level of detachment, but I will also gently suggest that the pot you're in is getting hotter. When he first came home, he claimed that he'd been sober for 100 days. (It sounds like it's hard to know whether that was true--we do know that he messed up badly enough while he was gone to get kicked out of the military.) Then after he got home, he slowly admitted to a couple "relapses." But still he denied drinking at other times when you sensed he'd been drinking. And now, most recently, you are finding bottles hidden in his bed and now a DUI. It's great that you are detaching more, but I humbly suggest that it's still important for you to pay attention to the temp of the water you're swimming in with detachment, and have a clear sense of how hot you're willing to tolerate before you jump out of the pot entirely.

Right now it seems like your boundaries are focused on what you will or won't tolerate in order to move in with him. And if you stick to the boundary you mention above, that he would have to have a year sober before you'd move in with him, then it sounds like moving in in August is already off the table, right? August is nine months away, and he just got a DUI. So why not make that decision not to move in with him now? That will free you up to make definite plans for where you and your children will be living in August, and will also free you up to start focusing on setting boundaries around what you will or won't tolerate, period, in a relationship? It might be good for you to think about how long you are willing to tolerate active addiction in a relationship?

And yes, I agree, our focus should be on our happiness and not monitoring the alcoholic. But I do think there's a logic to, as Lexie has suggested, allowing the alcoholic to experience the consequences of their actions. Even if we feel like we have the time to spare to help out, by helping the addict deal with the aftermath of an arrest, we are cushioning their landing. And really, there is always something better to do than clean up after an arrest, IMHO. There are hobbies! Long walks in nature! Cooking for loved ones! So many lovely things to do in life besides clean up after an alcoholic's DUI!

I hope this doesn't come across as judgmental. I really struggled during my relationship with my AXBF, and it's sometimes hard for me to see other people going through it without making suggestions. ((((LemonGirl)))

LemonGirl

Well, I suppose that is what i don't get. I felt as if I was clear on what I said in my original post because I went on to say what I did that day, which was to continue with my plans. the sort of was because it did take about 20 minutes to get him his keys. I also wasn't trying to say "relapses" as if it weren't all out back to drinking again. The quotation marks around the word were to rectify how I said that because they aren't true relapses.

Please know that I am the type that has a hard time speaking up about what it is I need to say when something bothers me. I usually try to accommodate and smooth things over to avoid conflict, so this is me, saying something. I actually find this a lot on SR, and not just with me. And it bothers me. I think the best approach for each other is to use our own experiences to speak to one another. Because we cannot know exactly how or where someone is coming from. SR is my place to BE ME exactly how I am in all my mess as I navigate every day towards a more peaceful and mindful life.

So.... letting this go, right now. Thank you for your responses, however. I do value you...

schnappi99

In one week you found a bottle <in> his bed and he gets a DUI? What more is needed to call it a relapse?

+1 for not losing your $hit over all this but I am concerned about him "really opening up" as if its some kind of compensation for you. It could also be manipulation on his part to keep you there rescuing him, ie quacking.

There is nothing good about bottles hidden in his bed and a DUI and him losing his job. Might be good to think about how bad things have to get before its enough for you to leave.

Me, I don't have the stones to be one of those Alanons who can manage to be happy while the alcoholic is drinking.

Sorry LG, I'm really trying to not push buttons here but I'm screaming inside when I read your posts in this thread.

LexieCat

LG,

I hope you know we aren't out to tear you down. What we ARE trying to do is to open your eyes a bit, because right now they seem to be sort of squinting the way I do when I look in the mirror and am trying not to see the wrinkles.

This IS a return to drinking--a relapse--assuming that he ever really HAS been sober. That seems debatable based on what you've posted. You're going on what HE has been telling you, and truthfulness does not seem to be his strong suit. You FOUND the bottle--he didn't tell you about it.

He's behaving the way active alcoholics do. It's the same way I behaved when I was drinking. He's not a monster, but he's a sick dude, and what I'm seeing in your posts is a real reluctance to acknowledge how bad it really is.

I think it's great if you are able to go about your life and not suffer because of what is going on with him. But you need to SEE what's going on with him. Acknowledge it, to yourself. He's a mess right now. He's sorta kinda holding it together, but it's coming apart, more and more. And it will continue to go that way until HE is ready to make it stop.