hope70

Hi my loved one has just been discovered to have fallen off the wagon for the 3/4th time during our 8 short years together. This time it slipped by unnoticed for 14 months. How do you all cope and re forgive and move on with your life together without the constant fear and also pulling away from your other halves ?

Dee74

Hi and welcome Hope

you posed in our chat admin forum which is not the chatroom.

the actual chatroom portal is here:
https://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/achat.php

I'll also move your post to our Family and Friends of Alcoholics forum.
You'll find more response there.

https://www.soberrecovery.com/forums...ly-alcoholics/

Dee
Administrator
SR

D

SparkleKitty

Hi Hope. I am so glad you found us, though very sorry you have the need.

Not all of us *did* stay and cope. For many of us, we only found peace by detangling our lives from the addict's and moving on to find healthier relationships--mostly with ourselves, and very often with others.

Detachment is a common coping mechanism for living with active addiction, though I would caution against planning to use it as a long-term strategy. Accepting you have no control over the addict or anything they do is a good strong first step on the right to finding your way forward, whatever that might look like.

trailmix

Hi hope. The constant fear, well really is it a baseless fear or a fact? He has been drinking under the radar for 14 months. I think calling it what it is, is important. He is an active alcoholic.

Only you can decide if this is the life you want, where you don't know when the next drink will happen. That's not going to go away, apparently as this is a pattern. You either choose to live with that and find ways to cope with it, or you move along.

How can you forgive something that hasn't stopped? I know of no way to do that. What you can do is accept that it has happened and might again and decide what your boundaries are with that. If this is not acceptable, what is your plan? If you plan on staying regardless, what does that look like?

Facing this will help alleviate the fear, have a plan. If he drinks again you will do X (like leave, for instance). This is a boundary, for you, it puts you in control. You can share your boundary with him or not, as you choose, it puts you back in the driver's seat. This is different to a rule, like - if he drinks again he must leave until he has been sober for 1 year - that puts him in the driver's seat as you are then making a rule about what he has to do (which he doesn't have to follow). I hope that makes sense.

As SK mentioned, detachment is a common coping skill. If you think about it, why wouldn't you detach? That is a normal reaction to being hurt and afraid. To do otherwise would be harming yourself (more).

trailmix

Also just wanted to mention that you might want to look at this thread:

https://www.soberrecovery.com/forums...ost-today.html (Confused and lost today)

Such wisdom in the replies from SK and Dandylion and I'm sure there will be more. I think the responses could apply to your situation as well.

hope70

Its my mother who is an Alcoholic and my husband has substance abuse (coke). I appreciate all that you have said so far and I appreciated the link to another chat topic.
I know I would be ok on my own without my husband but he is a good man who treats me well, we are great friends and he is a very caring guy. The reasons I choose to stay are these. He's never been violent and for this I am grateful. For me choosing to leave would cause me great pain. So I guess where I am at is learning to accept the fact he might mess up again and how do I do that. Is it as simple as saying I accept it, I can live with it and will deal with it when it happens? I would leave the relationship immediately if he ever became aggressive or put us in danger. However just typing that sentance makes me ask am I making excuses for him.

trailmix

Does that sound a bit odd to you? You are grateful because your Husband isn't violent. Hmm. In a "normal" relationship, this isn't really a thought that would cross your mind, unless you heard of a friend or neighbour who was living in a violent situation.

I guess my point is, just because he is an addict doesn't necessarily make him violent, so I'm not sure where that gratitude comes from?

It is that simple and also complicated. Accepting it means really detaching from the whole fact that he is an addict. You don't watch his consumption, you don't worry about what he's doing when he's high, you don't talk about it, you basically ignore it, like it was any other thing he was doing, like he likes to ride a bike.

Where the complication comes in is, can you actually do that? Some people can, some cannot. Which kind of person are you? If you think you will be resentful, you probably will be, If you feel this hurts you, then you will probably be hurt again and again unless you detach your feelings from it (and a bit from him too of course). Then you have to decide if you can live that way.

What is there to deal with? If you are going to truly detach that means acceptance that he is an addict and going to use. You didn't Cause it, can't Control it and can't Cure it (the 3 c's), so there is nothing to be "done".

You said - if he ever became aggressive or put us in danger - who is "us"? Do you have children? Also the lifestyle of an addict isn't necessarily the most "safe". Coke is expensive, how does he fund his habit? I assume his usage increases? Addiction is progressive, how he is now and how he might be a year from now may be different.

I wasn't surprised when you said your Mother is an alcoholic. Children of alcoholics/addicts (and my Father was one for the record) tend to have immense coping skills, this is a broad generalization. You probably put up with things most wouldn't? You accept some abnormal behaviours as normal? Anyway just food for thought. There is a lot of material out there for children of alcoholics, that might be worth reading.

You mention it would cause you great pain to leave, that is why, often, people stay in dysfunctional relationships. Leaving can sometimes be short term pain for the long term gain though, especially if there are children involved.

SmallButMighty

Hi Hope, I was married to an alcohol addict for a long time. I understand exactly what you are going through. We often make excuses for our qualifiers without even realizing we do that. I did it for decades.I stayed much longer than I should of because of the FOG (fear, obligation, guilt) I did love him and he loved me, but that wasn't enough to save our marriage.

For a while I managed to detatch, somewhat, in that I quit snooping, spying, asking, accusing, or arguing about it... but I was still anxious and unhappy because even when he was sober I was always waiting for the next fall off the wagon, the next lie, the next manipulation or deflection. I didn't trust him anymore. I'd forgiven him and given him a million "last chances" and I always ended up with a broken heart because of that. Each time it happened, my own mental and emotional health got worse. He obviously wasn't going to change, so I decided if I was going to get healthy and happy, I was going to have to change MY behavior. It started with me setting boundaries and sticking to them, and in the end, knowing that I could never, ever truly trust him again, I decided our marriage had to end. I couldn't spend the second half of my life in a constant state of anxiety because I had a spouse I could not trust. It is my personal opinion that in any decent relationship, of any kind, there should be trust. Leaving my high school sweetheart after 26 years together was the hardest, most painful thing I have ever experienced, but in the end it was worth it. My life is peaceful and joyous again.

Of course only you can decide what's best for your life. Living with an addict is very challenging and usually stressful if they aren't deep into recovery. I'd suggest reading "Codependent No More", by Melody Beattie. It really helped me when I was still living with my alcoholic ex husband. Plus the things I learned from reading that book, and hanging out here, have been such blessings in my life as I move forward.

Wishing for you strength and peace as you take the next right steps on your journey.