SheManagedJustOneDay

Old 10-23-2009, 03:32 AM
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Unhappy SheManagedJustOneDay

Well, I guess one day is better than no days... :-(

Wednesday I know she was not drinking. At least up until about 4pm.
This was following my landing a small bombshell on her on Monday night. She fell apart, tears, etc etc BUT...the interesting thing (because she said that had given her a "kick up the butt" ) was that she waited until Tuesday night to quit!!!
I ought to have been suspicious already.
But I thought, Ok she is managing one day. A day at a time. Even an hour at a time.

Thursday, I was going to meet her for a coffee for an hour. At the last minute she changed the arrangement and wanted to meet me at the coffee shop not at her house.
Again I should have been suspicious.
She was her old self on Wednesday. I felt it and saw it. The person she had been for the 6 months I knew her that she was not drinking.

Yesterday morning she was 90% like that but there was something I couldn't put my finger on...
I should again have been suspicious.

Last night - very very long phone call from the mutual friend who has known her for 5 years and at least two or three such "cycles".
Amongst other things, this friend had seen her walking down the road "swaying, although not as much as normal".

This morning, my friend tells me she is "doing ok". I look her in the eyes but can glean nothing from that alone.

Hindsight is a great teacher. Unfortunately I wish I could always learn to spot these signs long before instead of long after :-( - I guess that comes with practice.

So now I am back to Square One. One day is good; but it is not good enough.
This friend cares for my dog while I work my 12-hour shifts. I have no worries over stuff like whether my dog is being walked or whatever...she is a little healer (she also visits Alzheimers patients in a Care Facility) and she will lie indefinitely with this friend whilst she sleeps off her excesses...

But there are other issues coming into play here. This friend was a wonderful carer whilst she was off the drink; but she cannot put the dogs first when she is not 100% with it. There are the issues of Insurance. Her Insurance is currently not worth the paper it's written on, and whilst I have no control over any other customers who dayboard or board their dogs with her, I am going to have to set my boundary now as far as my own dog is concerned.

I don't know what it will take to make her sit up and decide to quit. She is in denial; she accepts that she has this disease but what she cannot accept is that she is NOT "ok" day by day.

She has not spoken with her AA sponsor for nearly 2 weeks. Excuses there too: "She will leave me alone until I contact her".
So - why DOESN'T she contact her??!!
Because she is in denial...thinks she can beat this herself. I can see that she cannot. But what the hell does it take???

So I am coming to terms with the fact that I have to take drastic action. I have to accept that I need to walk...I am not abandoning HER but I am abandoning her ILLNESS. Of course, she won't see it that way. She is not able to reason, 90% of the time.

I am not looking for answers...I know that I hold the answers, if there indeed are any, in my own hands. I just need to vent.

Wednesday we had a very long talk. She was actually very ok then because she had not had a drink since Tuesday evening. And she accepted certain "ground rules" that I laid down. However, the ultimate ground rule is going to have to be that my dog does not go to her again until she can prove to me beyond any doubt that she is not using alcohol.

I believe the alcohol means more to her than anything, right now. I believe also that it means more to her than her own life. This is a hard one...because I do care very much about this friend. But I am also very fortunate in that I CAN walk out...so I guess I am back to asking myself, why then DON'T I??!! :-(

I have seen mistakes this other friend has been making for 5 years. She has told me a lot of what she did, and the poor girl has been enabling for pretty much all that time. She has never been to Al-Anon...never found out much about true alcoholism...and had no idea until very recently that she was making things worse by constantly bailing out the friend; covering up for her with other people; even fixing her meals and cleaning up for her.

I somehow need the courage to ACCEPT that I am bailing out on the demon illness and not on my friend. That's actually the hardest thing in all this. I am not a quitter. But there is something way stronger than I, in all this.

Thanks for listening.
I am learning a very important Life Lesson here...and am trying to grasp all the spiritual help out there, in order to do so.
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Old 10-23-2009, 06:19 AM
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hi-

from what i understand, you feel your friend is not sober enough to take proper care of your dog.

can you hire someone else to care for your dog?

alcoholics are full of promises and in my experience, many times mean to keep them. however, the alcohol is their first love and despite their perhaps good intentions, they fail to keep their promise.

i would imagine you will have some peace of mind knowing your dog is properly cared for if you switch to another service.

as for your friend, i imagine she'll be upset but who could blame your for making sure your dog is safe? you don't do her any favors by protecting her from the consequences of her drinking.

have you spoken to her about perhaps attending AA? or giving it a try at least?
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Old 10-23-2009, 07:16 AM
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you don't do her any favors by protecting her from the consequences of her drinking.

...this is where I am reaching now. Reluctantly admitting - but it is indeed true. :-(


have you spoken to her about perhaps attending AA? or giving it a try at least?

...she's been going to AA for 4 years. She has recently stopped going. Said it wasn't helping her. Gives the excuse that she hasn't spoken to her sponsor for two weeks now because the sponsor 'waits to be contacted' - well, that in itself speaks volumes because all it means is that she is not yet ready to contact her again, ie seek help.

Unfortunately I am struggling with this mainly because I knew this friend first of all when she was not drinking. So I have the issue of a kind of bereavement here...the loss of the person I knew.
But I need to take that next step and completely step back and out now, because at the moment this is getting to be one step forwards and several steps back, for her.

Grieving, ironically, is an issue I hadn't expected to be tied in with all this when I first found myself involved in it :-(
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Old 10-23-2009, 12:56 PM
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Grieving, ironically, is an issue I hadn't expected to be tied in with all this when I first found myself involved in it :-(

I know! Not part of my life's plan either.

I remember a girlfriend (social worker) giving me advise about my grieving. She told me to reach out for help if I got stuck in the sadness part of grieving and I had to laugh through my sobbing at that! I said: "You're right, I don't want to get stuck in sadness when I have anger and denial to look forward too!"

But I'm thankful for the strength to face my grief, fears, denial, and anger. I want to be the whole package and experience my life to the best of my ability!

Peace and hugs!
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Old 10-24-2009, 01:28 AM
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Well I have read that you should not bargain...but I have made a condition: that my friend comes to the next AA Open Meeting with me that I am able to go to. Which might be this Tuesday evening or might be later in the week or early next week.
She says she is trying a different way this time and can do it alone. I cannot fully believe her whilst she has care of my dog for 12 hours a day...it's not just my dog, who would be fine with her in a drunken stupor, but I cannot control what other dogs she has on the premises...it only needs two of them to get into a fight and mine be in the middle...

The other thing that I feel I want to do - and I read about this very early on and now cannot recall where I found it - is have a discussion with her, her hubby and possibly also her son. I am unwilling to go behind her back and talk to him; I don't remember what this type of meeting is called? but would that maybe be a good idea to instigate?
I know her hubby loves her very much but if I am to carry on being a friend to her I feel I need to work with the family, not separately from them.

Of course I could just walk out. Like so many others have done. I do have that choice, and am very fortunate to have it in fact...and it may yet come to that. But that would be too easy, and just at this point probably wouldn't do her any good even.

Btw my friend agreed readily to coming to the AA meeting with me. She kind of looked at me as if to say, what on earth for?? but she did agree.
If she changes her mind, that will tell me that she really isn't serious about this and really doesn't want to use my support at this moment in time...because the one thing she has always complained about too is that her hubby and son have never gone to any meeting with her and that hubby tried Al-Anon once and said that it "wasn't for him" - yet seems to think she ought to go as many times as there are meetings. And I think she has reached the stage where she is having a kick-back against the "do as I say, not as I do".

At the end of the day I realise I am sooo lucky to have an easy route out of this. I can just walk away.
But I care about my friend and would rather be in there somewhere as some kind of support, rather than not. Even, if it is only to get her back on track to go to AA meetings.
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Old 10-24-2009, 02:34 AM
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:codiepolice

What happened to stepping back? It isn't an 'easy way' out since you're planning on continuing to try and cure her and enlisting the help of her family to do so.

What are your motives for doing this? You realise that you're not being supportive - you're trying to control and manipulate her! You didn't cause it, can't control it nor can you cure her alcoholism - only she can do that for herself. Your well meaning interference may seen as an intrusion - you may well cause more harm than help. Please read through all of the sticky posts and I recommend reading Melody Beattie's Co-dependant No More.
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