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first post: starting on the path

Old 06-22-2017, 12:05 PM
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first post: starting on the path

Hey everyone

I have been reading for a while but just signed up to post today.

I stopped drinking around one year ago, but had a pretty horrible relapse - a two day binge - at the start of this year. Haven't picked up since. And I was MISERABLE.

I've been to AA three times in the last three weeks (one meeting a week) and this week reached out and texted a woman in the programme who gave me her number. She was really great, and recommended that I read Living Sober, which I am slowly working through.

I like the meetings so far. I like sitting there with people who I can see are like me. I like not feeling like the only one in the world whose brain works like this. I like seeing the ability of others to laugh at themselves, to be kind and honest about themselves, and to be kind and honest with each other. I can't say I have ever seen that happening between a group of people before.

I am not drinking currently but I know my mind. I KNOW that not-drinking is the tip of the iceberg and that I need to do something to sort my head out. As the fog has cleared, these past few months, I've begun to notice what a selfish, controlling, terrified nature I have. I've begun to see that I have this huge, gaping void of craving inside me - and I am scared of it. I think I will drink again - and the next time I drink, or the time after that, I am going to drink myself to death. I don't want that. I REALLY don't want that.

I want to do the work. I want to do the steps. I have been working with a therapist these past few months (she convinced me to try AA) and she's pointed out that I've already taken step one with her: I know I am powerless over alcohol. I know if I pick up one drink, I will drink to the point of unconsciousness. I know that one day, I am going to pick up that first drink unless I do something to sort out my head and heart.

I'm guessing the work is going to be uncomfortable and painful. I think and hope I'm prepared for that - I keep thinking to myself, 'well, if you don't like AA or it doesn't work for you, you can always go back to being a drunk - nobody is stopping you' - and the thought is comforting and terrifying in equal measure. I'm scared that when I start looking really hard at myself I am going to be crushed: that I won't like what I see.

I'm lonely. I am really, really lonely. My marriage is in tatters: partly because of my actions - absolutely - and partly because, for reasons of my own, I chose someone so emotionally withholding it stuns me sometimes. I have superficial friendships and my children - because of my behaviour and emotional withdrawal from them during my drinking - are distant from me. I'm not sure I have the support I need - the help and care and encouragement - to take that long hard horrible look at myself.

But I need to. I know I do. If I don't, I will drink again, and if I drink again, I will probably die.

So I think that counts as me being ready. Or of the two choices I have: drinking and finding a programme, I want to find a programme.

Can anyone give me some additional advice?

I've got to be honest with you here too: I am looking for encouragement. My husband says, 'you shouldn't expect a medal for being sober and trying to act like a basically decent human being' and I say, 'yes, I know, you're right,' but I also think, in my heart, 'YES, I do want a frigging medal!'
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Old 06-22-2017, 12:23 PM
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It sounds like you're doing great and that you're ready to face some of the hard stuff. I'm not an AA person, but I sure do know what you're talking about. When I took a clear look at myself, I was not the person I had believed I was. Like you, I was controlling and self-centred. My recovery journey has been one of hard work and lots of joy. I learned that I could 'let go' of so many things and that it would all be fine.

Here is a compilation of recovery programs and ideas from our members:

http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...at-we-did.html
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Old 06-22-2017, 12:30 PM
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Originally Posted by shortrows View Post
I'm not sure I have the support I need - the help and care and encouragement - to take that long hard horrible look at myself.
You have your HP, your sponsor, the program, your therapist...

...and us!
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Old 06-22-2017, 12:31 PM
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thanks Anna.

I keep reading about letting go, surrendering, turning my will over, etc.

I KNOW I need to stop trying to control things. I'm pretty sure a big part of my drinking was in order to dramatically fall apart in public so that someone would rescue me - it's one of the ways I feel loved. Pretty much the only way. Now I need to rescue myself.

Letting go though. Like - intellectually, I get it. Emotionally - I have NO IDEA now to do that.

Today I have something to let go of - well, a couple of things. Someone at work asked me a hard question in public. I felt a bit incompetent and humiliated. I've been internally raging over it and turning it over and over in my mind ever since. This person won't have given me a second thought - I'm sure - and there was no malice in their question. But I'm STILL mulling it over and having imaginary conversations with them in my head, where they are an idiot and unreasonable and I rein supreme with my wit and cleverness. I'm not comfy admitting that, but there it is.

The other thing I need to let go off is hurt. My husband is distant. I want him to hold me and pet me and say he's proud of me. Most nights he avoids me, sits in a different room, and chooses to sleep elsewhere. I could cry or say I was sick or pick a fight to get some attention or interaction. It's always worked in the past. But I have to accept he can make his own decisions, I need to respect them, nobody owes me affection, and then stop being angry at him because he isn't acting how I want him to act. I don't like that.

How to let go? Like, literally, if there is someone reading this who can give instructions for an idiot. I am willing.
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Old 06-22-2017, 12:34 PM
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crossed with you, doggonecarl.

But thank you. I am working on finding a HP. I am open to an idea of god - willing to believe that I know nothing and there might be something. I am working with the idea of the joint experience and interaction of a group being a good HP for me too.

I don't have a sponsor yet. I want one. I'm attending a women's group (a good idea for me: I am emotionally needy and get attached to men inappropriately too easily) and looking out for someone. Do I wait for someone to offer? Do I ask? Are they waiting for me to ask?

And my therapist. Yes. Definitely going to carry on with that.

And you guys too. I hope so.

THANK YOU
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Old 06-22-2017, 12:37 PM
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Originally Posted by shortrows View Post
Do I wait for someone to offer? Do I ask? Are they waiting for me to ask?
Ask. They're recovering drunks, not clairvoyants :-)
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Old 06-22-2017, 12:38 PM
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Gotcha. I will do this.

And thank you for making me laugh. It's made me feel a bit more human, a bit less lonely, and a bit less self-pitying.
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Old 06-22-2017, 12:43 PM
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Welcome to the family! As far as getting a sponsor, just put it out there in a meeting that you're looking for one.

As far as letting things go, well, that takes time to learn how to do that. Working with your therapist would be a good idea.

I hope with our support, and your therapist, you can stay sober for good.
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Old 06-22-2017, 02:34 PM
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shortrows, it brings a smile to my face reading your willingness to change.

yes, it can be uncomfortable and painful workin the steps, but no more painful than an existence drinking, eh?
we have to go through the discomfort and pain to learn what makes us tick. then how to change. the great news is the steps are in order for a reason- each one prepares us for the next.

its really awesome reading ya admitting theres a lot of work ya want to do on yourself. 2 thumbs up!!
heres something from the big book that came to mind reading your posts:

There is a solution. Almost none of us liked the self-searching, the leveling of our pride, the confession of shortcomings which the process requires for its successful consummation. But we saw that it really worked in others, and we had come to believe in the hopelessness and futility of life as we had been living it. When, therefore, we were approached by those in whom the problem had been solved, there was nothing left for us but to pick up the simple kit of spiritual tools laid at our feet. We have found much of heaven and we have been rocketed into a fourth dimension of existence of which we had not even dreamed.

The great fact is just this, and nothing less: That we have had deep and effective spiritual experiences which have revolutionized our whole attitude toward life, toward our fellows and toward God's universe. The central fact of our lives today is the absolute certainty that our Creator has entered into our hearts and lives in a way which is indeed miraculous. He has commenced to accomplish those things for us which we could never do by ourselves.

Do I wait for someone to offer? how quick do you want to start recovery?
it reads like youre ready, so ya may not wanna wait for that to happen.

Do I ask?yup

Are they waiting for me to ask? and willing to help.

heres a good read on what a sponsor is:
Alcoholics Anonymous : Questions and Answers on Sponsorship

ALL of the promises of the program( not just the ones youve prolly heard at meetings) will materialize IF ya work for them.
do ya have a big book yet? if not you can read it online for free:
Alcoholics Anonymous : Alcoholics Anonymous


"How to let go? Like, literally, if there is someone reading this who can give instructions for an idiot. I am willing."

1st things 1st:
theres a whole lotta ass kikin your doin in your posts, so toss out the ass kikin machine. you are not an idiot!
you not a bad person either. bad people dont have the feelings youre having.
sick people do, sooo, youre just a sick person
and there IS a solution!

how to let go...well, get the death grip off of it 1st!
now turn your attention to something more useful
like pickin up the phone and calling that woman ya texted.
maybe even get out and go to a meeting.
maybe reading the big book.
but i think going to a meeting and/or making aphone call would be a good idea.

you can also kik that person out of your hula hoop.
and repeat
not my circus
not my monkey
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Old 06-22-2017, 02:37 PM
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"Letting go though. Like - intellectually, I get it. Emotionally - I have NO IDEA now to do that.'

YET!!
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Old 06-23-2017, 02:44 AM
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Hard morning. Hard, hard morning.

I didn't expect that sobriety - or at least my current attempts at it - would make my marriage so much worse.

For the past week my husband has been steadily escalating fight-picking sort of behaviours: he's acting critical, nasty, name-calling, etc. When I let him be and remove myself (trying to set a decent boundary for myself) he starts on the kids instead.

I've gone over this with my therapist: I know about co-dependency. I don't know, but I am guessing that perhaps he expected all the problems in our lives were to do with me drinking. Now I am not drinking, and they are still there, he either has to look to his own part in things, or find another reason to blame me. I think what I am seeing is him trying really really really hard to find a reason to blame me.

He's also angry - and I get that - he has every right to feel however he likes about the way I behaved while I was drinking: the fact I abandoned him emotionally for the bottle, and left him to take care of anything remotely difficult in our lives - from the practical to the emotional stuff. That really happened, and I am responsible for it, and he is entitled to feel any way he likes about that.

I guess he's not entitled to punish me. I want to listen to him and work with him, but I don't want to be verbally abused.

I am afraid - really really really afraid - that setting healthy boundaries for myself (I don't sit there while he's calling me names, I don't let him control my time etc) will implode our relationship. That I can't be healthy and be with him.

It is early days. I know it is. I know right now I need to work on myself, set healthy boundaries, and find ways other than my marriage to meet my needs for warmth and encouragement right now.

I know I have to respect his boundaries too. I want warmth and affection and intimacy and encouragement from him. I want honesty. I want to know what is really going on with him, past all the ranting. And he is saying 'no' to all of that, and I have to respect his right to say no to that kind of relationship.

I know all this. I just feel really really really really terrible today.
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Old 06-23-2017, 05:03 AM
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Originally Posted by shortrows View Post
I want warmth and affection and intimacy and encouragement from him. I want honesty. I want to know what is really going on with him, past all the ranting. And he is saying 'no' to all of that, and I have to respect his right to say no to that kind of relationship.
Hi Short, hang in there, it's really early days. One day at a time. You say you want all these things. Have you asked your husband what he wants? Have you opened up to him and been honest with him?
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Old 06-23-2017, 05:27 AM
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Yes, I have. I've told him what I want and I've asked him what he wants. He won't engage in any kind of meaningful conversation with me at all. He'll pick fights about imaginary things (today he was angry because he assumed I'd not done something we agreed I would do yesterday: I had done it, and when I said, 'no, hey, I took care of that,' then he's STILL angry. ) The man has a right to be angry - but I suspect it's easier for him to be angry because he imagines I forgot to put fuel in the car than it is for him to tell me he's angry because I emotionally abandoned him and had an affair with a wine bottle. So I don't think we're dealing with the real issue, and while I want to listen to him, I'm also not willing to allow myself to become his punchbag over some largely imaginary domestic slights.

I've told him I care, that I am committed, that I am willing to listen and willing to go to therapy. He gets angry because he imagines how terrible his life will be when we divorce. He tells me what I am going to do, how terrible it is going to be, and how angry he with me about it. I can't work with that: can't deal with something I haven't done.

I've told him I accept that he's angry and that he can't trust what I do or say, can't trust my intentions, and can't trust how things will be for us in the future. I'm stumped as to what else I can do.

Thank you for the reply.
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Old 09-24-2017, 01:59 PM
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Just checking in again - it's been a while since I last posted.

I have a sponsor now and we've done the first three steps together. I am feeling good about that. I have no idea how to pray, but I sit on my bedroom floor and read the step three prayer aloud. Then I say, 'I can't take care of all this. I think you can. Please take care of it all' which is the most heartfelt and honest I know how to be right now. I don't know if there's a higher power or not, but I am willing and I am following suggestions. I feel both peace and fear: peace that I don't have to be in charge of everything, and fear that I have no idea how this is all going to work out.

My marriage is getting steadily worse. I am trying to be kind and keep my mouth shut. He's escalating the name-calling (he called me a bitch and a c*** today) and passive agressiveness. Today he's angry because he said I swore at him in front of his mother yesterday. I know, 100% that I didn't. I KNOW I didn't. I said, 'I can see you're really angry. I'm sorry for my part in how we got to this point,' but that wasn't good enough. He called his mother in a rage and wanted her to confirm that I had sworn at him. She said she didn't hear me say anything. I am horribly embarrassed that he pulled her into it.

I KNOW that marriages are often really bumpy during early sobriety. I've asked if he'd like to see a therapist with me, and he's refusing to go to any 'mumbo jumbo' because he doesn't have any problems or anything to work on, doesn't have anything he needs to say, and all I need to do is *insert massive list of character defects here, some fair, some not* and then his life would be great.

It's horrible. HORRIBLE. I go to AA meetings and I feel amongst friends and equals. I come home, and it's like he needs me to be contrite and admit that I'm absolute scum before he can be at peace.

He enabled a lot of my drinking: most of the alcohol I drank, he bought it for me. Drinking was my choice and my responsibility, and everything I did while I was drinking is my responsibility to sort out and clean up. I know that. But he's unhealthy too and I am thinking that my sobriety is going to implode my marriage because the only marriage he wants to have is one where I'm contrite, shamed, guilty and doing anything he says to make it up to him. When I am calm and peaceful and not letting him abuse me, it seems to ignite things.

I think I want him to leave. I am just sitting quietly tonight and trying to say my prayer and wait it out. I didn't expect everything to be sunshine and roses, but I didn't expect them to get so much worse.

Can anyone share experience with me?
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Old 09-24-2017, 03:44 PM
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HI Short rows - I'm glad your recovery is going ok.

I'm sorry for your domestic situation though. Do you think it's feasible to get him to leave rather than you leaving?

D
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Old 09-24-2017, 11:09 PM
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I was wondering the same thing. Can you leave him instead of pushing him away and waiting for him to leave?

He's been very clear, and you are too, about what he didn't like about your drinking.

What was he getting out of your drinking that he's being so nasty and unsupportive in your sobriety? In fact, he's doing everything he can to STOP you making progress in your sobriety!

Is it possible that he used you and your drinking as a scapegoat for anything that he was unhappy about and/or not going the way he wanted it to in life, and you've yanked away that lifering? Is that why he's so terrified about seeing a therapist with or without you, because then he'd have no choice but look inward at himself?

He sound like he very much enabled your drinking. If he hated your drinking so much, why did he go out and get you alcohol?

Does he drink in any way, either alcoholically or in a relatively "normie" way? Could he be upset that he's losing a drinking partner?

I know that there are two sides to every story and I don't know you or your husband...but I doubt you're entirely (or even mostly) wrong here. You're doing the right thing and getting sober FOR YOURSELF, maybe that's why he's upset, you're not doing it for him and becoming more independent.

When's he going to give up the anger? Does he want you to bleed on the floor or something?
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Old 09-24-2017, 11:23 PM
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I've asked him to - the problem is he is entirely financially dependent on me and has been for years.

He says he'll go to his parents' house today. I was supposed to travel for work today but I can cancel it.
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Old 09-24-2017, 11:29 PM
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Originally Posted by MindfulMan View Post
I was wondering the same thing. Can you leave him instead of pushing him away and waiting for him to leave?

He's been very clear, and you are too, about what he didn't like about your drinking.

What was he getting out of your drinking that he's being so nasty and unsupportive in your sobriety? In fact, he's doing everything he can to STOP you making progress in your sobriety!

Is it possible that he used you and your drinking as a scapegoat for anything that he was unhappy about and/or not going the way he wanted it to in life, and you've yanked away that lifering? Is that why he's so terrified about seeing a therapist with or without you, because then he'd have no choice but look inward at himself?

He sound like he very much enabled your drinking. If he hated your drinking so much, why did he go out and get you alcohol?

Does he drink in any way, either alcoholically or in a relatively "normie" way? Could he be upset that he's losing a drinking partner?

I know that there are two sides to every story and I don't know you or your husband...but I doubt you're entirely (or even mostly) wrong here. You're doing the right thing and getting sober FOR YOURSELF, maybe that's why he's upset, you're not doing it for him and becoming more independent.

When's he going to give up the anger? Does he want you to bleed on the floor or something?
It feels that way - that he needs me to be a punch bag (emotionally, but not physically) for the rest of his life. It was that way when I was drinking too, and I was always so ashamed and remorseful of my behaviour when I was drunk that I felt like I deserved it. Now I KNOW I have not and can't ever fully made amends for the **** I put him through when I was drinking, but I've been sober for over eight months, I am in therapy and have a sponsor and go to meetings, I am willing and eager to take responsibility for my part in things and make changes. But allowing myself to be verbally abused on a daily basis isn't part of making amends.

When I met him, he hated his mother - blamed her for everything that went wrong in his life. These days he's on decent terms with his mother and he hates me. I don't think I've ever heard him apologise for anything - and I don't think he's willing to accept that he's a normal human being and might have made mistakes too. He's clinging onto his martyr role with both hands, which means he needs me to be a drunk and a family problem, and things aren't that way any more.

If he can't forgive me I must accept that, and I must take responsibility for my side in it. But it really can't mean that I need to accept this behaviour from him for the rest of my life, can it? He's still on at me to apologise for swearing at him in front of his mother and while I know I didn't do it, it's making me feel crazy.

Drinking - he's not an alcoholic. He drinks lightly most of the time, and heavily when he's upset with me (which he then says it my fault). I don't think he has a healthy relationship with alcohol, but he doesn't have that obsession and inability to stop that we have (as far as I can see from the outside).

He isn't missing a drinking buddy - I used to come up to my room at 7pm and lie in bed getting trashed on my own every single night. Ten or twelve times a year I'd go out and have a massive bender, with friends he doesn't know. I don't see those friends any more, and in the evening I seem to be taking up a bit more space in the family room than he prefers, when I am not out at AA meetings.
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Old 09-24-2017, 11:34 PM
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Hi,
I didn't see your post first time round but have read your thread through this morning. What comes across are 2 things:
Firstly, how strong and determined you are and your post is an inspiration to me in the early weeks of sobriety.
Secondly, how abusive your husband is. No one should have to put up with being called a b.... or a c... That is truly awful and there is NO excuse for it. It doesn't matter what you did or didn't do when drunk or are doing now sober. It's so unhealthy both for you and for your children to see.

I'm glad to see your husband is leaving. Even if he is financially dependent on you that is no reason for him to stay. At least he has his parents to go to. Financial matters will be discussed by the court if you divorce.

Congratulations on your sobriety and strength.
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Old 09-24-2017, 11:38 PM
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Thank you.

I KNOW I am not perfect. There's plenty of character defects alive and strong in me, and he'd of course write a different story.

But I don't need him to be perfect. I just need to be an equal - two flawed adults trying their best to sort out a situation that affected us both, and was mainly created by my drinking, which is my responsibility.

Instead, he wants some hungover and contrite victim to control.

I KNOW part of my drinking was about trying to make my marriage tolerable to me - the loneliness of it. I'm sad that I made that decision because it damaged me and the people around me. But I am not making that decision now and the marriage is still intolerable.

I hope he leaves today. We'll see.
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