Anyone ever feel guilty?
 

This could be a strange question. But anyone here ever feel guilty for even thinking of asking their A to not drink? Like you pitied him and felt like he had to drink to get through life? I feel like this was one of my flaws. Probably part of my low-self worth as well. It's as though I viewed it that this poor poor alkie could not spend a weekend without booze...it would be expecting too much on my part. I don't know where that thinking came from and I realize how twisted it is.

Anyone else?

*I* think this kind of thinking
is you showing yourself

... you're progressing.
Learning.
Growing.

Some people say knowledge is power.
I never have.
For me,
AWARENESS ... is the true power.

Some things
you don't even have to have a big plan to conquer
you don't have to study
you just have to be aware...
of it's existance at all.

Not saying this specific thing
is one of those
just giving an example of the power of awareness.

good for you!
:scoregood

I did feel guilty for asking him to not drink for xyz reason. Like a one day thing. I felt guilty because I felt like I would be calling him an alcoholic (OMG NO - I could never do that!), I felt guilty because I didn't want to tell him what to do, I felt guilty because I was insinuating he wasn't good enough, things like that.

I felt guilty asking him to quit drinking forever because I didn't think he'd do it and then I would have to follow through on my threat to leave and then his life would suck and it would be all my fault. Guilty. I can't even comprehend how I was so unconcerned about ruining my own life. I was worried (read guilty because there can never be enough guilt ya know) about how a separation would affect him and didn't spend much time at all thinking about how it might affect me.

I left when I was beginning to unravel and there was nothing left to do but save myself. I may not have without SR.

So I don't think it is a strange question. I can see now how unhealthy that way of thinking was and I'm glad you can too.

I think I also felt guilty because I was asking him not to do something he loved to do. I know it is a depressant and bad, the drinker doesn't obviously see that or get it. Maybe that's part of why I did it.

i did too,when he was in prison my mum used to say to me that i need to give him ultimatums about his drinking or he will just carry on but i justified it by saying that the best thing to do is just let him get on with it and show him that he is not affecting my life! Well he was affecting my life big time but i chose not to see it becasue i wasnt ready to leave him,which is why i was always scared to say 'stop drinking or i will leave you'. i knew i wouldnt folow through with it. Crazy or what!! so god damn glad im free of that. xx

Mine did need to drink, or else he would begin going through severe and possibly life threatening DTs.
He would guilt trip me for not buying, picking up, keeping alcohol, but I would not accept that.
He needed to get help, so I refused to feed his demon. He did what he had to do to get it.
He used to go to other women, stay in scary, weird or otherwise dangerous places so he could drink. He could not work, because he did not have his medicine.
When I would bring up the infidelities, or how his life had become dark and that he was spending his days and nights on the street, staying wherever, he would say it was because I would not allow him to drink at home, where our son lives.

At some point self preservation comes in. When I stopped taking part in that blame game, and absorbing the guilt over his disease, that is when he had his first few touches on bottom. When he hit bottom, it was my fault, also. ..

Now, in recovery, he can accept the responsibility. Now, he is more present and realistic.

i can honestly say that my beginning to even feebly deflect his projections of guilt, spoken or implied, was the start of an opening for my healing, and ultimately him hitting his bottom, and starting to make his way toward recovery.

That's not the first time I've read someone post words like that. Anyone care to elaborate what they mean by that?

Goldengirl, please don't take offense at my answer, just my honest opinion!

I feel guilty about a lot of things I have done, like begging and pleading with my AH to stop drinking for 16 years......like expecting him to listen to me......like staying married to him for 39 years......like expecting him to help take care of me when I came home from the hospital after my stroke! Do I feel guilty for asking him to stop drinking...... H*LL NO!

Am I going to feel guilty leaving him ASAP......fractured neck and everything......H*LL NO! (Or at least I don't plan too)

You wrote "That's not the first time I've read someone post words like that. Anyone care to elaborate what they mean by that?" I'm not sure what you are asking.

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Oh no offense taken.

What does "absorbing the guilt" mean?

I don't want to speak for Buffalo66, but what it means to me is feeling guilty for his choices, his behaviors, his actions. There is "earned" guilt, which is when we feel bad for something we have done, and then there is "unearned" guilt, which is feeling bad because of what someone else does.

The cure for unearned guilt is letting go. You cannot feel guilty for asking him to stop drinking if you do not ask him to stop drinking. Let him make his own choices. And make yours based on what is best for you.

In other words, you hand his "stuff" over to him. You stop dealing with it. You deal with your own "stuff." That's what this smiley is all about:

:codiepolice

L

To me guilt is a self imposed emotion. It alows us an escape route, it justifies why we make the same bad decisions over and over again.

I did it because I felt guilty, no, I did it because I made a bad decision and now I must face the concequences of my decision. No escape route.

I agree with LaTeeda, let him deal with his stuff, you need to deal with yours.

I can elaborate on what LateeDa said.

When I said that my stopping absorbing his guilt was the first step for me toward health, which lead him to his first taste of bottom,
I meant that:

Addicts, have a matrix of codependency that they weave around them. People hold things in place for them by enabling them to drink, or accepting the impact of pain that is rightfully theirs to feel as a consequence for their out of control lives.

One way we feel their pain for them is to accept projections of blame for things we cannot control, or that are not even our own actions;
They want to drink, we dont buy it, they make you feel bad because they need it. Its not our responsibility, or our addiction, but they project that blame, and if you take that blame on or "absorb" it, you really rob the A of their rightful pain, which would lead them to feel bad, then worse, then hopefully ultimately, if left to feel all their own consequences and pains and results of their addictions and actions they will hit "bottom".
A bottom is a term used to describe when the alcoholic figures out there is no lower to go. They bottom out, and choose to take action to make a change. They seek help, they quit, etc.

If an addict is heavily enabled, by one or many people,
-- Mothers bailing them out of jail,
--brothers cleaning up vomit,
--wives lying to their kids to cover up their lies and behaviors,
--girlfriends forgiving them for unforgiveable abuse, because they were drunk, dont remember, promise it wont happen again, etc

If people allow things to devolve this way without standing up against it and walking away from it,...the addict is robbed of the pain that they ought to rightfully feel about their own choices. They do not come to their bottom, since someone keeps cushioning the blow, ie-feeling their pain for them.

One way that I used to cushion the blow was to make sure he could see our son no matter what. I also "absorbed" all the financial responsiblity for our child, not holding him responsible.

One thing that really helped lead him to his bottom, and to burst his bubble of "Im not hurting anyone" was that I submitted him to the child support system. Up until then, he could ignore. It just woke him up, mad him see, on paper that he was not providing for his own child.

The court threatened him with action, he had to get a job, and when he could not work the job because he was so sick with alcoholism, that was a shock to him.

Without forcing his hand to have to work, he could have floated along.

I WAS FEELING HIS FINANCIAL PAIN, in that situation. When I stopped feeling that financial pain, he had to work, but he couldnt and felt shame for his state of affairs and his addiction, AND felt fear about being thrown in jail. This helped lead him to his bottom. He had to seek help, he tried a lot of other people out for enabling, and people to cushion his blow, feel his pain, but ultimately he saw he was alone without his child, and since he could not see him when he was drunk, and he was unable to provide for him, he finally got scared enough or whatever to change//, but everyone has a bottom. One addict may just look in the morror one day and not know who they see-that is one persons bottom, others have had to find themselves without their home, family, maybe doing things for money they cannot believe, then they feel they have hit bottom.

the idea is, stop absorbing the guilt, stop solving the problems for him, emotionally and otherwise. It is NORMAL for you to ask him not to drink, because he has a problem. If you edit yourself and just suck it all up, and dont make boundaries then you have a LOUSY time, and he is glowing with a buzz, but you have begun feeling his pain for him. How often does that happen to us partners, where the A is having a blast numbed up, maybe even blacked out, and we are on edge, worried, angry. Not fair. It is his pain. He will not feel it if you absorb it. If he is going to ruin your day or night by drinking, then you ought to make a boundary. You dont even have to share it with him.Just do something else, start staying away from him when he drinks. He will find himself alone.. Preserve yourself.

Stop dancing the dance. Dont pick up the ball. Dont help him keep up the juggling act, and when all the balls fall st his own feet, and he is standing there alone having dropped all the balls, he is the only one there to blame and he can feel his rightful pain. That way he may find his way to his bottom, and MAYBE he will decide he doesnt want that pain, that shame that guilt, or even that physical sickness anymore. '

I hope this was clearer. Feel free to ask more.

Oh God please no more codie lectures.

I deal with my stuff. Everyone please stop jumping to conclusions like that. I'm just asking questions here.

Buffalo66 - yes please! I have more questions. I'm trying to understand. I have a hard time understanding my role in enabling because I didn't do classic things. I didn't clean up vomit or bail him out of jail.

I did forgive abuse that I shouldn't have even though he would deny it.

So has my presence alone been enabling? (in the past...we have been apart for a while and I have him blocked.)