NMSweetie

Well, the ABF just got done w/ his 30day inpatient rehab stay yesterday. We have had a few short phone conversations and I will be visiting him this weekend but I have some concerns regarding communicating w/ him.

I tend to have to extract information from him and have a 'shoot from the hip' style of communicating---if I am thinking something and feel it should be said, I will say it. With that being said, I don't think that is the best approach for communicating w/ him right now. Especially because he speaks w/ no affect and just seems very 'vanilla' right now (where I am a million miles a minute because life has not paused for me). As he says he is 'fine', his first real, non-institutional meal was 'fine', everything is just FINE! Where I am smiling, laughing, crying, frustrates, etc.

I was never able to attend a family session but know they did focus on communicating w/ someone in recovery. I keep trying to ask what advice they gave but once again I become a dentist extracting away, trying to pull information out of him.

Does anyone have any insight? Thanks in advance!

LexieCat

Alcoholics in early recovery have a tendency to not know, half the time, what they are feeling. So "fine" may be the best he can do for right now. They also have a lot of STUFF they are processing (not that their partners don't), so they may be distracted. In addition, I know that the first several months I was sober, I would get "foggy"--unable to concentrate, easily distracted at work, felt like everything was a huge effort (even simple stuff). That was my brain recovering from all the damage I had done. It was a good two years before I felt my cognitive abilities were close to "normal"--what they had been before.

So I would just keep expectations low. Communicate about what needs to be communicated, and if you need emotional support or just plain good company and conversation, try to get it from friends, from fellow Al-Anon members, from us. IF he continues with his recovery (and we will all hope that he does), he will get better.

Some of it, too, may be his underlying personality. The drunk I fell in love with in college was sociable, very outgoing, very talkative. In sobriety, he became quieter and more reserved. He's still that way today (and still sober after 33 years).

I think if you try not to have any particular expectations you will be less frustrated and resentful.

FireSprite

When RAH was in early recovery I eventually figured out that my best bet was to try to listen as much as possible & not try to over-analyze or interpret too much of what he said. He just wasn't capable of expressing things he didn't yet understand himself & my pushing for more or better answers didn't help either of us do anything but get more frustrated.

I started to understand better why it's so hard for A's to maintain relationships in early recovery; even what I perceived to be fairly simple & straight-forward conversation or decision making became difficult for him.

NYCDoglvr

Give him emotional space right now. If he wants to talk, he'll do so, if not, let it go. I'd let him set the tone of the weekend. Don't try to understand him because you can't get inside the head of someone else.