bookwyrm

I've been lurking here for a while now (doesn't time fly when you're not having fun?) and I feel I should introduce myself. My AH have been together 18 years - no kids thankfully. He's had a problem with drinking for as long as I have known him, he was a functioning alcoholic until a few months ago. These past few months have been hell and I have lost the kind, gentle and funny man who was my partner to a man who acts like a sullen teenager. He's absent from his work with stress and his doctor has referred him to an alcohol counsellor.

I started reading up on his disease and found this site. I read the sticky posts and thought 'but MY A is different! He'll get sober and we'll make it!'. Hah. I've read 'co-dependant no more' and have tried to break my codie ways. My AH has reacted with bitterness, viciousness and anger.

At this point I switch from being numb, to chocking on my own rage, to weeping uncontrollably. I work full time, which gives me some security and a place to escape (!). Over the years, I've allowed myself to become isolated and have only just started to reach out to others. I have suffered from clinical depression for most of my adult life and I'm trying to make sure he doesn't drag me down again.

I'm actually seeing his manipulation of me - it's as if the scales have dropped from my eyes and I can see clearly. I feel a bit of a fool and my anger gives me strength to resist him.

Everything is so up in the air right now though!!!!

So, enough of the intro. I love this site and the community here and hope I can resist my lurking ways and participate!

SugarLily

Hi again, and welcome.


I can relate to this. Quite often I would look forward to going back to work after the weekends as a distraction from my problems.

I'd also become isolated. I couldn't afford to go out as ex's drinking created financial difficulty. I'd also feel alone and unneeded which has affected my confidence and feelings of self worth.

I'm trying to put me first for once in my life and get the old me back. I don't know where she's gone but I'll drag her out somehow.

I still think I'm new here so apologies for lack of advice but there are some posters here who have really helped me. Certain posts and phrases have stuck with me and made me look at things completely differently.

Stick Around - :ghug3

Chrysalis123

Welcome Bookwyrm- I can relate to your post. I too have been married to AH for 18 years and he acts like a sullen, irresponsible teen. As I am growing he is reacting with bitterness and viciousness. As for me, I too went from numb, depressed, and in complete denial to now swinging wildly from rage to weeping to terrified to calm. I too isolated myself and am now for the first time in a long time being truly honest with a few people. I am learning there are kind and compassionate people that won't hurt me. I am relearning that I am a person with worth and a lot to offer.

My experience felt like awakening in the middle of a horribly bad dream as the scale fell off my eyes. It was a scary time and I wept a lot.

I am so thankful for this site, for Alanon and its literature, and for my new life that I am now working on.

You have made a great step in reaching out to us here and I hope you keep coming back.

Lilyflower

Hello bookwyrm!

Welcome to SR! I'm glad you have read the stickies. When I read them, I literally felt chills up my spine at reading what seemed to be my life on the screen in front of me. Realising the extent of the verbal and emotional abuse I was suffering and inflicting on my then abf was a huge shock to me and helped me wake up.

I think you have experienced first hand how Alcoholism is a progressive disease. From what I have learnt most 'functioning As' loose their ability to function sooner or later and the world crashes in on them. This is a great time for you to have found SR.

I really do hope your A will wake up to his problems and you both make it. In the meantime, while he is working on himself, you can work on you.

I too hid away at work. I put in long hours just because I dreaded going home. The weekends were nothing but misery and each night I would secretly hope he would pass out ASAP so that I could just relax and have a quiet hour or two.

I also have suffered from depression, for me since I was a teenager, over half my life. I have been working hard on me by taking meds and learning about myself, and what healthy relationships are, boundaries, therapy, anxiety management and a whole load of things!

For the A in our life, it is scary when their main enabler and support system begins to change. They fear it, and the possibility they will not be able to manipulate and control situations or you anymore. This happened with my A, although I don't think he ever thought about it that clearly! I just became the emotional 'punching bag' he would hurl abuse at when he wasn't getting 'his way'. Be prepared for more of this as you grow.

Your emotions will settle as you become stronger and the more you become aware of things. As you say, you are beginning to 'see', it really is like waking from a dream and realising that 'life doesn't work this way'.

I hope you stay here and post often. Get doing for you, and find your fun again,

Love and blessings
Lily xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

bookwyrm

Sugarlily - this really struck a chord with me - '

I couldn't afford to go out as ex's drinking created financial difficulty. I'd also feel alone and unneeded which has affected my confidence and feelings of self worth.

AH had me so out and stay sober cause my drinks would cost more than his beer and, since he earned more money than me at the time, he ought to get to drink while I either stay at home or take the car and go sober... Now he shouts about how I'm not a sociable person but he is!!! Grrrrrrr. He makes me sooo angry at times. I'm looking for the old me too!

Lilyflower, thanks! I wept like a baby reading some of the stickies- the worst one was on the chances of relationships working. It really hit me hard. And thank you for the warning that it will get worse before it gets better - I'm begining to see that unfortunately.

Chrysalis123 - it really spooks me seeing just how many people out there are going through/have been through the same thing! On the plus side, it has helped me feel that I just might belong here even though my AH isn't physically abusive. I have been to one AlAnon meeting and it kinda put me off them. It was just too church-like for me. I'm hoping my reading and counselling sessions will help me instead.

What started the changes for me was going to counselling a year ago for my depression. My counsellor (who is a wonderful woman I am on a waiting list to see again!) gave me so much food for though then and started me on the path that has led me here. I started to try and regain control of my life, making my own decisions based on my needs - in my own codie way.

This weekend my AH again started on me about how we are so different with nothing in common, I'm the reason he drinks (!!!!!) and that our marriage was over (this is the third time in as many weeks). So I agreed. Its done. We now need to get the house fixed up to sell and move on. We can live as roomies for now and split the bills between us. Yesterday he started back tracking - he wants us to go get couple counselling, something I suggested 2 months ago. He isn't listening when I say its over. And a part of me wants to just agree and try some counselling. Sigh....

Rella927

Welcome to SR bookwyrm! Glad that you found us

Check out some of the stickies at the top of this forum-

There is also a book that I know "pick-a-name" and others have often recommended called "Getting them sober" by Toby Rice Drews. It was a great read and it helped me a lot to see this disease more clear.

Al-Anon also is a great source of knowledge for me on how to live a happy life for ME today! When I went to my first meeting I also felt it church like-and I went back and I kept going back-I sat and listiened. The more I went and the more I listened I came to realize there were a lot of people in this room going through what I was going through and WOW the feelings the felt that I never shared but rather kept bottled up inside all these years! It was as if this little girl inside of me wanted OUT! And the little girl is growing up! The more I attend, the more I come to SR, the more I read and the more I remember that this journey is my journey and it will be the best journey of my life!

Please keep posting!

tejay92630

Hello bookwyrm,

I too am a fellow newbie to this site - my thread is "Time to Confront My AH". I too lurked, all the while realizing I wasn't alone and eventually posted a thread and I'm SO glad I did. So many things in your posts are like reading something I very well could have posted, the similarities are SCARY. Therefore, I am so very sorry you are having to go through this. But if it's any comfort, you're not alone.

I find myself shying away from alanon meetings and many support books because of potential religious aspects or undertones. Unnecessary background: Being raised in the Bible Belt and having Southern Baptist ways and beliefs dictated and crammed down my throat from childhood until I was 19 years old, I now have an unnatural aversion to all things remotely religious.

Nonetheless, this site and the support offered is AWESOME. I hope you are finding it as useful, comforting and encouraging as I am. I look forward to reading your future posts.

Hang in there and GOOD LUCK!

Bernadette

Hiya Bookwyrm--
welcome-
Your post and something tejay said made me want to share something about AlAnon.

I was raised Catholic and - well I left that pretty far behind (do I even need to say all the reasons that I cannot be a practicing Catholic anymore?!! LOL)

When I first went to AlAnon I was also put off by my sense of it as "religious" in tone. But I was in so much pain at the time I just did what I wished the alkies in my life would do and I followed directions. I was able to "take what I could use and leave the rest." And wow - when I stopped judging it based on my religious aversions, or based on how weird I found some of the people, or based on how uncomfortable the whole thing made me feel (at first!) I found there was so much wisdom in the program of AlAnon and I was able to seriously change my life by working that program.

It is growth that is required if we want to change and we can start changing by stopping our old co-dependent habits and learning new ways to handle life. This growth is spiritual. Not religious, but it is a growth in whatever you want to call that part of yourself (only you know what it is!) that yearns, that loves, that feels, that connects to humanity. And I found AlAnon - when I just used the tools it offered me, was like nothing else in the world for learning to deal with the effects of alcoholism on my family's life.

I hated the whole higher power (GOD!!!) thing - until someone told me at a meeting - "Look, your HP can be your cat for god's sake - but are you UNDERSTANDING this concept?" I was letting the LITERAL meanings of things stop me from embracing what is an extremely logical and useful program.

I learned so much good stuff in AlAnon and i am forever grateful to all those anonymous people who I found so strange at first but who helped me change my life forever for the better!

Just my 2 cents!
Good luck with whatever help you find - keep seeking, and accepting help - it has a sneaky way of changing our lives!!

Peace,
B.

Kindeyes

Welcome to SR.

It sounds like you have begun your journey. Recovery for those of us who have been affected by an alcoholic/addict can be painful, eye opening, joyful......an awakening.

Stick around. The folks here on SR are full of experience, insight, hope, and wisdom.

gentle hugs

SugarLily

Heh! I had a similar experience, I felt like joining my ex one night, I spent ages getting ready and called to say I'd come and join him. He told me "You better have some money on you". You see - he only had enough money for him to get as suitably drunk as he wanted and heaven forbid he needed to buy me something. I felt like I'd been punched. The alcohol always comes first.

I'm trying to put me first now.

Wishing you all the best.