Avalon393

I really have no desire to drink. I've never been a big fan of it. I don't like being intoxicated or making a fool of myself or feeling embarrassed and sick the next day. In fact I spent about 9 months sober in the beginning of our relationship just because he was sober, and I didn't mind it. When he first relapsed I didn't drink at all, I wanted to set a good example and then kind of came to the conclusion that it wouldn't make a difference. I have been drinking very excessively (for me) since this conclusion of mine. Not daily but when I do it's a drink or two more than the usual and I cant figure out where it stems from. Am I just acting out? Trying to get on his level? Has anyone gone through a phase like this?

firebolt

Once in a while, I think I have a few drinks or a toke sometimes....just so his drinking doesn't bother me so much I actually detest alcohol now (something I used to enjoy from time to time) because I can see with all too much clarity what it is doing to him.

I can see how this could lead to problem use after a long time of using to mask the pain of his addiction. Detachment does the same thing in a much more healthy way. The healthy road isn't the easy one in this case.

MsPINKAcres

Maybe it is a way of trying to understand his point of view
Maybe it is a way to get back at him
Maybe Maybe Maybe

but a reading form ODAT in Al-Anon says . . .
"Never let me imagine that my satisfaction with life depends on what someone else may do" pg 234

I had to look at what I really want to do and what do I want for my life rather than setting a good example for others or how my drinking or not drinking affected my loved ones ??

I'm sure you have already figured out - he is going to do whatever he decides he wants to do regardless of whether you drink or not ~ so you might as well make decisions on what is healthiest and what makes your world most peaceful

Just my e, s, & h ~ please take what you like and leave the rest

pink hugs

Avalon393

Thanks that makes more sense I have been trying to detatch and having a hard time because I think I am still waiting for some miracle to happen when I do. I think I need to work a program or read these much talked about books before it does turn into a problem.

AnvilheadII

it's the ole if ya can't beat em, join em mindset. a coping mechanism, albeit a less than optimal one. and caution, it can set a dependency and problem that is then very hard to overcome.

i think i would step way back and ask, is this really what i want for MY life? here i am stating how much i want HIM to quit drinking and yet here i am doing the very same thing.

PippiLngstockng

I have only had a glass of wine or two on the rare occasion with a friend.

But I am experiencing the buzz differently now that I have been dealing intensely with the question of STBX's alcoholism.

I wonder if that's what he likes, this sensation or that. It's like a little experiment. But I am not a drinker and just cannot relate. Pot, that would be different, but I haven't run in those circles since having children.

I completely did not drink for 5 or 10 years - no, more even. Because of AH. So having a glass of wine feels like taking back my life a teense. But I will never seen drink as a casual substance after all of this. And I so dislike all the people posting photos of their stupid margaritas on Facebook! Sorry to rant but it seems dark ages to me. Like people might have once done that with cigarettes if FB had been around in the twenties, say.

Anyway, good that you are posting about the increased drinking you are doing. I have lots of not so constructive things I feel like doing since AH has gone nutty. But what works, and leaves me feeling sexy and strong? Working out. A lot. Highly recommend it when you need a change of outlook!

thislonelygirl

Avalon- I did yhis once to get to his level so I could tolerate or enjoy being with him.
I thought if I drank in response to his drinking I would feel closer to him and have a nice time with him.
I think we as in family of alcoholics go through steps to make our lives manageable and make things work ie ok.
We just want a to fix the mess /rut but what hapoens is we end up being drug into their chaos.
Its a process and knowing what to do in our situations doesnt hapoen over night. We learn.

LexieCat

I did the same thing when my second husband went back to drinking, and I wound up crossing that line into alcoholism. I think I always had the tendency there, but when I decided I just didn't give a sh*t any more, it didn't take me that long to slide into it.

Just keep your eyes open, and if you find you have crossed that line, you know what you gotta do. I waited WAY too long struggling to "control" it.

RocketQueen

My situation was similar, but I knew exactly why I was drinking to excess.

Drinking became a problem for me when I first got together with my alcoholic ex. At first it was drinking with him occasionally to have fun and to be more outgoing. After all, I was an extremely shy person and he was HOT! Lol.

However the longer we were together, the more abusive he became when he drank. It then got to the point that I started drinking before he got home from work so that I could "cope" with his behaviour. It kind of made me feel like I had gotten back some of the control that he had taken away from me. Thinking back, it did no such thing, but I guess that's the mind of an addict.

RQ

LifeRecovery

I have never drank to excess or been "drunk." Even during those typical days in college.

I did find myself in the mist to dealing with the stress turning toward drinking as a "coping mechanism" a bit. Sharing it with my therapist and doing some problem solving around it (and bringing it up as a topic at an Al-Anon meeting) all really helped me to get some real world perspective on it, why I was doing it.

For me the naming of it and some parameters that were not hard for me to follow helped.

Eddiebuckle

This reminds me of the parable about the two wolves that fight inside us: one of anger, regret, cynicism, and ego; the other being love, hope and humility. The one that wins is the one we feed.

In the years I drank it seems I gradually came to believe that life was little more than a fools errand, that nothing I could do would make a difference, nor would it matter. The afternoon I made the decision to quit I was more afraid that I would survive that way for years than the prospect of leaving behind the only thing that mattered to me: alcohol and the escape it offered.

Take a long hard look at why you choose to drink. It likely has very little to do with his drinking, and a whole lot more about "it doesn't matter." I'm here to tell you, it absolutely does - don't let the disease take you because you are unable to get him to quit: that is cynicism at its worst.

Good luck.

LadySage

Since leaving my STBXAH two weeks ago I've drank more than I had been (which was about 1 drink a week). On two occasions I did get pretty dang toasty, after long hurtful text exchanges about our divorce. Not trying to excuse that behavior but it really triggered me right back to my good old college days.

I feel like my overindulges have been partly a unhealthy attempt to self-medicate and partly sheer rebellion from being in a sober house (well, not really sober but trying to be). Neither is really productive so I've been trying to focus more on me and less on him. When I focus on my issues and where I want to be in the future, I get out of self-destructive self-medication zone and into the "how the h#!! am I going to thrive" zone.

Audrey1

This is exactly the way I have always felt about alcohol. In fact, I have gone many times for a year at a time without a single drink. I just had no interest. To be honest, I am probably the biggest drinker in my family, only because I might have two glasses of wine at a particular occasion, rather than my family members’ strict limits of one each or none at all. I just don't come from a family of drinkers.

I noticed when I met my partner that my drinking increased. In the beginning it was just because we would go out for dinners etc and these were always accompanied by wine. I didn't think anything of it, just that we were in our honeymoon period. But my body just can't take a lot of alcohol (must be in the genes!), so I found myself always trying to avoid the next round. When that didn't deter my partner from just going ahead and buying the next round anyway, I would tip my glass out when he wasn't looking. I just put it down to me being not much of a drinker.

Around the time I was starting to think he may have a problem, I started to try to (covertly) limit both of our drinking. Again, that didn't work. Out of sheer desperation, I went through a brief stage where I would (again, covertly) try to drink the majority of the alcohol he had bought for the two of us for a particular dinner in an effort to limit his consumption. This was a particularly difficult thing for me to do as I simply can't drink that much, but I thought me "taking the bullet" and promptly passing out was the lesser of two evils as he was starting to get nasty when he drank. Very silly thing for me to do, and this also didn’t work.

Even sillier was the "if you can't beat ‘em join ‘em" mentality I adopted for a short while after that. The gravity of his problem was starting to really hit home and I couldn’t bear being around him when he was drunk. Having tried everything else I resigned myself to drinking along with him in an effort to stop caring about his drinking, or, better yet, to blur my memories of his behaviour the next day. Like you, the amount I was drinking was not really all that much, but it was a lot for me and therefore too much. However, this lasted only briefly as I realised how masochistic and stupid it was to do this. It’s somewhat easy to get dragged down into the darkness when you feel surrounded by it. I envisioned a rather desolate future for the two of us where we had both become highly dysfunction screaming alcoholics and it wasn’t pretty. So I stopped that nonsense and instead tried to look after me.

You need to accept that nothing you do will alter his drinking, but you can control what you do and how you live your life. Do you really want to disappear into the same black hole he lives in? If he has any chance if recovery, the best you can do is provide a good example for him.

Cyranoak

...done that, didn't work.

Going to Alanon instead worked far, far better. For me anyway, her drinking is hers whether I'm drinking or not.

Take care,

Cyranoak

P.s. I'm allowed to drink when i want to. While plenty flawed, alcoholism sin't one of my things and her alcoholism doesn't get to dictate, in ANY way, my drinking.

OhBoy

I remember at one point with my XAW I said F it & joined her. I got sick of arguing about it, sick of it being the one problem in our marriage, and for the most part it was the only problem. Most all other problems stemmed from it, like my reactions to it. That was my big problem, my reaction. It went on for years and at first things were a lot better but then her drinking started to escalate. There was always something different about the way she drank. Sure I liked to get a buzz and occasionally I would get drunk, but I always had an off switch, she didn't. She would pass out, wake up & in a barely conscious state reach for her drink & guzzle it. The sight of that always made me sick. I could never understand why she would do that, well until I realized she had a problem. Now I really don't drink that much & when I do it usually just makes me sleepy, but every drink I have I question whether I have a problem. Normal people are allowed to have a couple drinks & not feel guilty, enjoy the drink. Sometimes for me it's torture. I would like to enjoy a drink and feel like a normal person, ignore the scars, but I always remember how her drinking affected me. Sometimes I get so confused, do I have a drinking problem? The way I drink wouldn't dictate it, but I still feel the scars from her drinking, even when I want to pretend it hasn't scarred me.

inpieces314

Be very very careful. I was there once, and it got to the point where I almost became an alcoholic myself. I actually attend meetings now, just to make sure. Because guess what. Bad things can happen when you are drunk, whether you are an alcoholic or not, and I am the poster child for bad things happening while drunk. And those things have not happened to me since I got sober.

It's been almost 6 months. I don't really miss it, I don't crave it at all, and I am really just doing it to prove a point that you can be sober and still have a life. But you know what, the friends I have gained since going to these meetings, it's amazing, I never would have gotten that if I continued to drink, simply because he was drinking.