Ustacallmelola

I am not sure what to do with these feelings. Keep in mind that very few people even know I have a problem with alcohol to the degree I do. The last time I quit drinking my husband told his twin brother who tried to give me "encouragement". I was mortified and embarrassed that my husband would say something and betray me like that. That was about 4 years ago. To say I was enraged is an understatement. I really did not think he would forget that lesson.

Today, my husband went and picked up my adult step daughter so I could cut her hair and we could visit with her. The FIRST thing she says to me walking in the door is "I heard you quit drinking and it's been about 2 weeks now".

ARE YOU KIDDING ME????????

I politely expressed my disappointment in front of her that he would tell my personal business like that. That is just what I need, my personal issues making rounds in his family. Inwardly, I want to rip his face off. Trust me, he knows how screwed he is. I am so hurt and angry that he would do that. It indicates to me that he has no idea how hard this is or what I am going through. This is MY business and not his to tell anyone. UGH!!!!!

I want to cry and my beast wants me to drink and show him. I am getting off here and going to the gym instead. There is going to be a fight and I cannot take it right now. He took her home and I will not be here when he gets back.

Just what I need.

PhoenixJ

Behappy1

This crap going "public" sucks! I understand fully how mad you are. Try to put a positive spin on it though.... Now that your daughter knows you have additional support and yet another reason to stay sober. That probably still wouldn't stop me from strangling your husband though. :-)

MeSoSober

I got an "encouragement" card in the mail once from a stranger (to me) in my mother's Sunday school class. She'd put me on a prayer list and I have no doubt she was specific with them as to why I needed praying for. The next time I spoke to my mom I asked her if it had ever occurred to her that maybe I didn't want my personal business broadcasted to the entire congregation (come on-- we know word gets around) of her church. But even though I was annoyed by what she'd done, I also knew it came from a place of love.

My point is that even though I agree with you a hundred percent that your business was not his to share with anyone, maybe consider that he didn't see it as a betrayal. Maybe he thought the people he told would support you. I can't know his motivations, but maybe just consider that they were good.

Please try to talk to him as calmly and rationally as you can about how what he did hurt you and the kind of support that will be most helpful.

Don't let this derail you. Be strong! Hugs to you.

Leaflet

I know it's hard to be different and not be able to drink normally. I feel the same way about talking about my addiction to strangers. However, with family I find that it helps when they know I don't drink. It's a bigger commitment when others know you aren't drinking. When it's just you, and you're keeping it a secret it's much easier to relapse because no one will know the difference. Also, maybe your husband is proud of you, or maybe he is trying to be supportive by letting people know you aren't drinking so they won't offer you alcohol. It's amazing how much being sober can change a relationship. It's important to communicate openly about feelings.

NewRomanMan

So your problem with alcohol is your business and nobody elses? I used to think nobody knew how much I was drinking or how much I needed alcohol to feel the way I wanted to feel. Turns out everybody knew. My wife, my parents, my friends, my in laws, my neighbors. I thought for sure no one could possibly know I had a drinking problem. Turns out once I admitted it, they all knew. And they had all know for a long time. I also thought I wasn't hurting anybody. After all it was my own business. Never went to jail, never lost a job, never lost a house. But my drinking was affecting those I loved so much more than I knew. When I finally found out how much, I was in disbelief. Was a horrible thing to discover. I hope everything turns out ok for you. Wishing you well.

Ustacallmelola

i

I have been open with some people that I'm not drinking. I don't mind that. My addiction is my business to share if I choose. It's not his addiction he's putting out there for people to see. I hardly talk to this girl and I hardly need her support. My closest friends know what's going on and I have their complete support. Then there are people who have no business knowing unless I choose to tell them. She's one of those people and he knows I keep my distance from her personally. He screwed up BIG TIME.

Delilah1

I completely understand how upset you are, did you let him know that you don't want him sharing about your sobriety, and that is something you will do when you are ready.

If something like this happens again, you may want to respond with a simple "Yes, I have stopped drinking as part of a plan to be healthier." It's the truth, and hopefully will stop any further conversation.

Two weeks is a great place to be, you should be proud.

Algorithm

Lola,

Before I respond further, please know that this is not an attempt to 'make you humble'. I don't really lose anything if you allow your Beast to drive you to ruin, but I do like to parse the thing out, and to shine a light on it.

The part in bold, above, is your Addictive Voice. Pay close attention to the verb tense used ("I have" vs "I had"), implying that the drinking isn't really over yet.

The AV of AVRT is not just the "alcoholic voice" of recovery groups that says "f-it, just drink". The AV is any thinking or feeling that supports, or even suggests, your possible future use of alcohol and other drugs.

Self-doubt about further drinking fits the definition of AV. Your Beast is essentially saying, in the present tense, "Yes, Lola, you are one really tough case, worse than anyone else, an impossible nut to crack, born to drink, and destined to struggle against desire, only to die a drunk."

I can understand your privacy concerns, but consider that your Beast may want you to rip his face off for threatening its precious option to drink some more. It is transferring responsibility to him, as if it were his idea to quit drinking, and not your own idea.

It is "hard" for whom, Lola? For you, or for your Beast?

Why do you care if your Beast suffers? Be willing to let it die, and be glad that it suffers, after all that it has done to you, and will do, if you go soft on it.

Your Beast is transferring responsibility, thereby implying that you need his support in order to abstain. As you should clearly see, the desire for support in order to abstain is just a Beastly plan to drink in the perceived absence of support.

Yes, you mentioned in another thread that you had started telling people that you quit, because you didn't want to go back to drinking, which I took to mean that this was so that you might keep yourself 'accountable'.

This can be a Beastly set-up as well, though, if you don't recognize the embedded plan to drink. Is telling people a way to increase the odds of abstaining? What would happen if they didn't support you, or keep an eye on you?

Perhaps, but don't let your Beast transfer responsibility.

It might be better to simply, clearly, and calmly tell your husband that you would prefer to keep the whole thing private.

Ariesagain

Did he think he was helping? Or maybe he thought since it was your step daughter, not someone outside the family, and otherwise she might pressure you? Or maybe he was just bragging on you a bit?

They sometimes just do NOT get it. I've been sober a year and last week my husband comes home from the store, says "Look, I found this wine in a carton, it's supposed to be really good," AND THEN HE HANDS IT TO ME.

WTH? I know him well enough to know that it wasn't malicious, it was just absent-minded. Also stupid. But it's also true that I have kept my struggles largely to myself because he still drinks and this needed to be my decision, alone, or it would have been too easy to use his drinking as my excuse.

But my face did this, I'm sure...

Anna

I didn't tell anyone, including my husband and children. I had made promises in the past and failed, so I made up my mind I would just do it quietly. I knew I was far too vulnerable to manage anything like a situation you are talking about. It's clear that your husband doesn't 'get it', that you want privacy

sg1970

Being an alcoholic isn't victimless. Perhaps he needed the support.

kintsugi

I doubt he's telling people to hurt you. It might feel like 'your addiction', but it's not just your struggle.

Believe me, i can understand your hurt. I would be incredibly embarrassed if I found out that my husband mentioned to anyone that I quit drinking and they brought it up to me... but I'm entirely sure he HAS brought it up to someone (likely his parents). And that's his right. It's his relationship, and this impacts his life too.

Perhaps he told his daughter to make sure she didn't offer you a drink. Maybe he's proud of you. Maybe he needed someone to confide in. In any case, while it's super uncomfortable to have to confront a problem and I understand feeling like they were gossiping about you, you have to realize that if it came up it's because people probably already knew a lot more about your drinking than you have them credit for.

In either case, it happened and it's over. People know. You know they know. And they know you know they know. You can't undo it, so move forward on it.

No one is judging you for quitting. They're probably relieved and trying to show you support. Instead of being angry, let them support you. Tell them what you need, even if what you need is for them not to talk about it.

LadyBlue0527

Your feelings are valid, I felt anger in me when I read your post. You did the right thing by going to the gym to blow off steam. Our minds always want to go the "drinking and show them" routine but I'm sure you've heard it before that drinking at someone is like taking poison and expecting them to die.

Point blank, regardless of who might already know that you had a problem, or whatever caused him to open his big fat trap, one thing remains true.

Sobriety is one of, if not, the most sacred and personal journeys you can take. It's hard work. It belongs to no one else but you, others just get to enjoy the benefits. It's not anyone's place but yours to choose who is told and who is not told and the ONLY person who should be sharing that information is YOU.

You have a right to feel the way that you do. However, the discussion with him would work best by forming an alliance rather than creating an enemy. Is he reasonable so you can give him an analogy that would allow him to understand how this made you feel? I went through this. I don't think my husband realized just how very personal this was to me until I asked how he would feel (not in an angry tone, in a reasonable tone) if I told others "X" about him. He got the point and it never happened again.

Ustacallmelola

And I yelled a little. He came up to the gym and put my favorite candy in my car and moved it to a closet spot trying to be nice. I know he feels bad, but that doesn't change what he did. His daughter would be the LAST person I'd confide in about my problems, yet now she knows. I told him if he can't keep his mouth shut then I'll stop confiding in him. I reiterated the seriousness of what's happening with me and how deeply personal it is. The last thing I need is humiliation.

I went to the gym and did the eliptical then put on my gloves and did some boxing punishing that bag. I didn't drink.

bexxed

I'm sorry you're hurting.

One of the difficult things for me to accept is that my behavior and my drinking affected people in ways I will never stop learning about and will never know the full extent of.

This girl may not be someone you see very often but she may care about you, and, may care about your husband. You may not "need" her support but she may support your sobriety nonetheless.

Your husband exists as a person outside of his relationship to you and your drinking probably affects him.

It's a hard situation, that which is created by our illness.

I've been on both sides. My mother was a really ugly active alcoholic. It tore all of us apart. Demanding to keep that, which affected us so much, a secret was coercive and abusive of her, and, a manifestation of the illness. My siblings and I didn't run around with banners or issue a press release when she stopped, but if someone close asked "how's life?" well, that was a major part of the answer to that question and holding back would be continuing to exist as a prisoner in her illness.

When I started to see myself acting like her, was when I knew it was over. That was what finally made me quit.

Your husband needs to have his support network. Being married to an alcoholic is difficult. That being said he could probably benefit from his own support. Go read around on the Friends and Family section here.... really read, with an open mind. What the people who love us go through is heart wrenching and they cannot be expected to clam up.

My best to you.

xoxo

B

Algorithm

Alcohol addiction is essentially a love affair with the bottle, as Caroline Knapp suggests in Drinking: A Love Story. It creates a love triangle with a very jealous lover, which inevitably causes conflict.

bexxed

yep...

LadyBlue0527

I don't think anywhere is there denial of the pain we caused others due to our drinking. I also don't see any denial in the fact that those we have affected may need help.

The right thing to do if he wanted to tell his stepdaughter would have been to talk to you first Usta. Even perhaps maybe have a conversation about how deeply affected he was and still is and needs someone to talk to.

Telling the stepdaughter in the car on the way to the house is idle chatter. I think just now I'm realizing why this is irritating me and for that I apologize. I do not have a good bond with my stepdaughter as her mother would never allow her to bond with me. Not getting into all that here but the fact that the stepdaughter came through the door and it was the first thing out of her mouth tells me there's possibility of the same situation. Additionally, it would be the same here. My stepdaughter would not be able to wait to get home to tell her mother, who in turn, would just live to the high heavens having that information to spread around.

There was a far better way to handle this. That's all I'm saying.

Ustacallmelola

I read this book. It is was very good.