daisyjen

Just have some questions about your experiences with A's recovery process. My husband is entering his 5th week sober and it almost seems he is picking up new addictions in the process. He has been drinking coffee all day long and into the evening and he was only an occasional coffee drinker before. He is also wanting sex very often now, morning and night, and on weekends noon too! When I tell him sometimes that I am not interested he gets all offended and twice we have ended up in an argument over it. He acts as if he hasnt "seen" me in the last 15 years of marriage. He was too busy picking at my faults then and now cant seem to get enough of me. Am I supposed to be patient with this and hope it goes away? Sometimes I feel as if he is suffocating me with all of the attention he is giving....

newenglandgirl

Hi there Daisyjen!
I don't have any personal experience with what you are going through, but I have read many posts here on SR that report very similar behavior from newly-sober alcoholics. He's got a lot of nerve giving you a hard time about not wanting sex 24/7. PUH-leeease. He should just be thankful that you stuck around. I'm no expert, but most likely he is trying to run away from his feelings still, and just using the substances he's allowed (caffeine, sex, etc).
There are many posts here about what you are dealing with...so you might want to spend some time reading. What are you doing for you?
Keep posting! I look forward to hearing about how it's going for you.

daisyjen

Thanks! I am reading some of the posts on here. Many are helpful. For me, I am going to my first al-anon meeting monday night. A little scared though....

alison30

hi daisyjen, my exah would always drink loads of coffee when he had come out of rehab and as for the sex thing .....ive been through that too . I asked him why he needed more when he was sober and he explained that the release of adreneline help to eleviate his cravings ,it was also a distraction.......I dont know how true this is but it was definetly a pattern that he followed .Needless to say being a distraction didn't lead to forfilling sex on my part . Its amazing what lengths I would go to ,to ensure he stayed sober .......I wouldn't do it nowadays.

xxxxalison30xxxxxx

embraced2000

my xh would also drink lots and lots of coffee and want lots of sex when he was sober. i could tell when he was about to start a drinking binge, because his coffee, sex, and cigarette needs would go off the charts.

he was very high strung anyway, and the coffee made him so much worse. he took anti-depressants, anti-anxiety meds, and then jacked himself up with so much coffee it would make his skin crawl.

and he would only drink two or three cups out of a whole pot of coffee. then he would make a fresh pot. it was so crazy. i would ask him to just make a partial pot, instead of throwing out all that coffee......but nooooooooo......

then, he would go to the local gas stations and buy cups of coffee bout 5 times a day.

and during the day, the sex, the sex, the sex......and i know what you are saying about the distraction. although our sex life was always intense, i now realize that his intentions were not to give to me, but to fulfill something in himself.

LizzyP

Hi, DJ,

four years ago my AH had pancreatitus as a result of the drinking. The docs told him if he drank again, it would kill him. When he came home from the hospital, his next addiction was buying. He discovered E-Bay, and started going through hundreds of dollars a month. He got very interested in funeral stuff and hospital stuff, so he was buying ambulance cots, sirens, sirens, more sirens, oxygen tanks. He bought all kinds of stuff to start up his own little hospital and funeral shop.

The debit card was stolen, and that put an end to the spending.

He didn't want sex with me, but his next addiction was porn.

When I started setting limits about the pornography, his next addiction was prescription meds.

The man was in a lot of pain and despair. Take away the alcohol, and that hole was still in his soul. He had to fill it with something, so he filled it with every compulsion he could think of. At that time, he was not willing to seek sobriety.

nocellphone

It sounds like the anesthesia (drug-of-choice) is gone, and the feelings are coming back, hence the "need" to find new ways to distract himself from those feelings...

It's common in early recovery for there to be a lack of balance. If he works on what he needs to work on now--dealing with life on life's terms--the balance will come...

I'm glad to hear you're going to your first Al-Anon meeting. There's really nothing scary in those rooms, at least not for me. It's just a group of people drawn together by a common problem, a loved one's alcoholism, and seeking (and finding!) solutions and healing.

I wish you peace...

Nuudawn

I'm an alcoholic in early recovery and yep, my caffeine consumption has gone up dramatically. I'm also a smoker so I like a liquid to go with the smoke as it's very drying on the throat. Your husband is going through a pretty tough process and as long as he is not picking up a drink his day is a success. I'd try to concern yourself more with your recovery than his. I realize the changes to your relationship and in him are difficult..so Al-anon/SR is the place to go.

daisyjen

Thank you all. Nuudawan, I am trying to concentrate on me, and when I do that or just want space, he says things like I want him to fail. Its like he already knows he is going to fail and wants to place the blame on me and give e a guilt trip. The other day, his christian 12 step leader asked me to come with him to the meetings. I feel like I shouldnt because isnt that concentrating on him??

angelonmyshould

I get alot out of going to open AA meetings. It helps in my recovery from Codependent. So, I don't think it is turning the focus back on him.

He wants you to feel guilty for not caring about him like you used to. We can enable and when we stop they look and say "Wait! You used to care about every little thing I did. You put yourself last to please me." Now that we stopped they can't understand it.

My AH went from drinking - to coffee - to candy and cakes - to Pokerstars. But, at least the new addictions are not as bad as the drinking. Or at least that is what I've been told.

Nuudawn

Hi Daisy,
I think that the rationale behind spouses of alcoholics going to AA is to further the spouse's understanding of the "dis-ease"...so in essence, still for you. I have tremendous empathy for you girl....I am actually fortunate that my relationship ended when I entered AA. I'm a basket case and my perpective and emotions are a roller coaster. I don't know my proverbial arse from my elbow. I can't imagine what I might do to a significant other if he were still in the picture...especially since I know how my emotions about our breakup swing from one extreme to the other. Last week I wanted to settle down and marry him (provided he too quit drinking)...this week I am just eternally grateful he is not in my life and that I have a chance to eventually be with an "unbroken" human being.

So many people falsely assume that when the drinking stops, the problems should be over. Uh Uh..no way...recovery is hard, hard, hard emotional work. You were affected by his drinking and you will be affected by his recovery. That is why it is so important you get support and understanding for yourself.

Blessings to ya,
T.

parentrecovers

i know my daughter has trouble "balancing" her life at almost 5 months sober. it all just takes time i think. blessings, k