Threatened by Al-Anon?
 

Hi all! I've posted before about my RAH making Al-Anon jokes. Well, in the midst of the "discussion" about taxes last week, he started in on Al-Anon again...saying things like "I don't know what those people are telling you" and "I don't know what kind of recovery you think you're in" and such...really snide comments. I stopped him right away and said, "What is with you and your negativity toward Al-Anon? Do you understand you have not had one positive thing to say about my recovery in that program?" It really caught him off guard...he mumbled something about mocking what he doesn't understand and said a very non-humble sorry.

He never acknowledges me when I go to meetings at his location - even though I have to walk by his room to get to mine. No request to meet his sponsor. No introductions to anyone there, "hey folks, this is my wife..." The one time he acknowledged me there was out in the dark parking lot. I also invited him to join me in a meeting - there are spouses who come down the hall from AA to join our meetings on occasion. Their gratefulness toward Al-Anon is very comforting.

Anyway else experience this kind of animosity toward Al-Anon from their A?

Yes, and I think it might have to do with the idea they find it threatening. Or do not understand the purpose of it. If you stay isolated in your own world of denial then you are less likely to be strong and call them out on things. Just my guess though.

Yup, he nailed it, mocking what he doesn't understand.

See, if he were SMART, he'd be threatened by SR a whole lot more. I suspect he suspect that Al-Anon is just a place where people gripe about their alcoholics and plot against them. Little does he know that's OUR job, HERE. :)

Ah is threatened by anyone I socialize with. Be it Al Anon, friends, family, etc.

He doesn't know about SR, I type the site in by hand every time, and have my browser settings set so that there's no trace of my history when I close the browser.

I know, right?! I rarely talk about him there...that's all about me. Here, though, totally different story. Good thing he doesn't know about this...here I can say he's an a-hole and no one looks at me funny!

Thanks LexieCat for the laugh tonight!

Yep..Got the same thing here...

He saw my book laying on the counter before he moved.."Learning to let go"
OH...So they are teaching you, how to kick me out? NICE!

We had a discussion about how I seem cold & distant from him. I told him
it was part of detaching from his behaviors and setting my boundarys.
OH..I see, your alanon is teaching you this? I would like to meet these people!
Maybe you should find a new group. Sounds pretty negative to me!!

And his group says what???.......NOTHING...Because he aint doing jack sh-t!!! lol

This might need to be added to the list of QUACKING!!! LOL

Gonna get me some of those duck pants, and show off my QUACK!! LoL

Same here. My password here is hidden away and I sign in and out of here every time. Same goes for FaceBook and my email.

As for Al-Anon-ABF has been threatened since he first found out about me going. I have endured insults, snide remarks, comments that because we have not been together long, I don't need it, it's a cult ( he refuses to go to AA-it's a cult as well), that they stole everything from AA, and on and on and on. One memorable evening when he was drinking saw him interrogate me about what goes on in a meeting and when I refused to get into it, started in saying that "We" have to know what is being said about them behind closed doors.

My friends in Al-Anon are a threat, my co-workers at the bookstore where I volunteer are a threat, everyone that is out of his comfort zone is a threat to him - in one word: CONTROL.

Now that I have taken it upon myself to pick up some computerized accounting courses at a local Business college along with on-line courses for my CGA designation, he has got all bent out of shape and started drinking again. Told me I was a quitter (I left our local university because I could not get the courses I wanted and would be waitlisted until the Fall of 2011)and according to him, there was no sense of me wasting my money on this endeavor. Again, I'm out in the real world which is a threat.

When we go out of their parallel universe, out of their comfort zone, when we venture into the world of "normies" or others in recovery, it rocks their world because that all important control vanishes; we see them for who they are, can call them on it and are no longer totally enveloped in their parallel universe.


..or as a sticky.......

The other day my 10 year old and his friend completely tried played out both myself and his freinds parents so they could have a play date.... when I realized it I said to AH
"They just completely manipulated us"

His response "is that your new favorite big girls word? learned from all these books and meetings?!? You seem to be using that alot!"

He completely ignored the fact that our son and his friend were getting by us.... of course the friends father called my house 5 seconds later and spoke to AH about the kids little game of manipulation.... to which AH laughed about with him. Needless to say the kids got caught trying to play thier little game and they both ended up without a sleepover!

But AH was so interested in my new big girl word, that he ignored the situation.

You all seem like intelligent women. What does it say about the men you have chosen as significant others that they are threatened by Alanon and you have to hide your participation on SR?

If, after answering this question you continue to stay with these men, what does it say about your decision-making process in this regard? In what world is this even nominally normal? I may not know either, but I know healthy people don't put up with this **** for one damn second.

I know it's not easy. Take care,

Cyranoak

So true, Lexiecat, so true.

In the beginning, my rabf thought that Al-anon was a place where I would learn how to help him stop drinking. Truth is, I guess I thought the same thing.

Now he thinks it should be to help us learn how to understand and support our As through what they are dealing with in recovery. I was sure to clarify that al-anon has absolutely nothing to do with our As and everything to do with us.

Without the tools I have gained in Al-anon and here, I would not be with him; I could not be. As it is, we are happy, living apart now, enjoying time together, no plans or promises for anything else.

Ouch! Damn, that was brutal, Cyranoak. From what I experience and what I read here, most of us didn't know what we were choosing when we chose it. I can honestly say my RAH treated me very, very well until I encroached on his freedom to drink.

Is this normal? First of all, define normal. I thought I knew normal. I thought I was a healthy person. I thought I was relationship material. Then I got involved with an alcoholic. And it has shaken me to the very core.

Intelligent? Yes, I am - highly educated to boot. But I was naive to a con artist addict. I didn't see it coming. I actually believed he would not screw me on the tax return. I actually believed he was supportive of my participation in Al-Anon. I believed he was smart enough to go to the damn internet and look Al-Anon up. What I know today is that he is smart enough, but not interested. Because he can't let go of the blame and denial and take some personal responsibility like big boys do.

Many people here have families, children with these people. And many of us are confused about the disease concept versus expecting to be treated well concept. And many of us are torn between vows we took and meant in front of our God, and running far far away from the craziness that is addiction.

I am lucky; I did leave and can afford to support myself and my kids. I am 17 days away from closing on my own house. I have divorce papers drawn and ready for filing.

But underneath that is a girl, who just loved a boy, and got my heart broken. And that just bites.

You are very right Cyrano..

reminds me to go check my voicemail, I put in a bunch of applications online in the last 2 weeks, and I got a call today while I was at the clinic with my middle son(strep)

Less than 2 months until school is over, I have half my attic cleaned out, and I will bring more in on Thursday when I go into town. My sister's basement has become my "move as much as possible out before the actual move date".

It took me a long time to figure out that he got upset when I talked about work(or hung out after work for 10 minutes talking to my manager) or talked to my family on the phone BECAUSE he was threatened by it.

Oh, and he didn't drink when I married him, he started drinking a few years into the marriage.

Very well said, Tuffgirl.

Damn. Isn't that the truth.

One small thing, I don't know that it is OK with all AA members to introduce outsiders to them at meeting sites. It is supposed to be anonymous after all. Same goes the other way round.

Cyranoak,

We were socialized differently than you were. We were taught to behave, to please our partners, to keep the peace. Some of us have reason to fear violence from our alcoholics. It's simply a different situation to be a woman in a relationship with an alcoholic man than it is to be a man in a relationship with an alcoholic woman.

We share some of the same pain and frustration and desire to help. But the bottom line is, it's not as easy or as practicable to fearlessly do what you want to do from where we sit as it would be for you.

You're a good guy--but a lot of the guys the women here are dealing with are not. And it also isn't as easy to walk away for many of the women here for a lot of reasons, including economic dependency, responsibility for young children where there may be limited ability to get childcare, lack of confidence, the very realistic fear of what the alcoholic might do if they try to leave.

So cut us some slack, here--we are all doing the best we can and are working on getting stronger every day.

No, it's not easy to walk away from a relationship that by all accounts was broken before it began.

I'm just finally coming to terms with that after a three year relationship with an alcoholic - one fraught with highs and lows, good and bad and the inevitible chaos. In spite of the chaos, I still love him.

Why did I keep going back to him? In spite of Al-Anon and SR, I kept thinking that he would stop drinking and see how special our relationship was.

We had hopes and dreams like other couples but the spectre of his alcoholism kept coming back to haunt us. I moved cross country to be with him, to a city where I knew no one, wanting us to start a life together.

Since then, he has been through rehab, therapy, psychotherapy, group therapy, we have been to couples therapy, he has tried antabuse, Baclofen, Topamax, all manner of anti-depressants, white knuckling it and AA-all brought him back to the same beginning line. Every single time, there was an excuse than a relapse.

Each and every time, we got back together because I still harboured that faint hope that this would be "the" time when he would be sober.

Things changed for me at Christmas when yet again, he was drinking-he came to my house on Christmas Eve, spaced out on Ativan after another drinking binge, wrapping Christmas presents at 5am, wondering why I wasn't happier, after all, it was Christmas.

I spoke my mind to him but it didn't register. I kept telling myself that it was my high expectations for the holidays that upset me so much-what I was upset about, truly pissed about was that he was drunk, he was still drinking and had not stopped. Well, the inevitible happened-aother psychiatrist, another promise that this would help, but there was an excuse why he didn't go back. He didn't like her or what she told him about his drinking.

It's now March and last week, drinking yet again, in the midst of a heated, drunken conversation, he called me a quitter - said I wouldn't finish my accounting courses.

He then went on and told me to quit smoking to save our relationship, that his sex drive had taken a tumble because of my smoking. He kind of left out the fact that he is taking anti depressants, meds for high blood pressure, borderline diabetes. Those tend to kill somebody's sex drive, plus 30 years of non-stop drinking does not help.

Everything came flooding back to me as he said this and I knew this time around that what it boiled down to was that for him, for us, there was no more next time. For me, the realization that he will never stop drinking because he is an alcoholic finally hit me like a ton of bricks.

I haven't talked to him since Friday and have no desire to. No urges to pick up the phone, email him or anything. Yeah, it takes a few tries and it's not easy to walk away. I wish it was that simple but it's not.

Luckily, I have friends here to support me, I have enough money to get me by as I go to school to get my accounting diploma (BTW, I'm 53 yrs young) and like TuffGirl, I'm intelligent, witty, have a good sense of humor and live for blues music. I used to feel the same way, that if someone is in a relationship that was bad for them, walk away. Found out the hard way that that just does not happen because I also got conned and fell in love with a charming, handsome guy who was a sweet as the day was long, but was an alcoholic.......

Damn, Tuff! You said it.

I feel the SAME way!
My AH didn't handle stress well, but his junk wasn't aimed at me.
When I got near the DO NOT GO THERE box, holy schmolie! Who is this guy? Who is this angry, bitter, sarcastic, depressive, denying, confusing man? Where did the man I married go? How do I get him back?

He was always, obviously, all the good AND yuck. I participated in the denial of the depressed, snotty, in-denial side.

I avoided pushing those buttons. I chose to push them, eventually. I am dealing with the consequences of MY choices. And yet...I do feel SHOCKED at this other side. I still feel SHOCKED at his inability to OWN responsibility. His inability to address things. His inability to stop defending. His inability to be open or tell the full truth. His inability to stop protecting.

I'm a smart girl, too. And, I agree that a healthier woman would not tolerate his shananigans.
I'm working on that while I soothe my broken heart.

fp