Skymitchg

Made it to Alanon meeting #2. So I am trying to learn about Codependence and Boundries. I am trying to find my happy. But now he seems to be following me around, and it's driving me crazy. I don't want to be around him when he has been drinking, should I tell him that. If you have been drinking stay away from us?
Yesterday he said he was only buying 6 beer. I told him I dont care, I cant stop him, that is his decision. He said he didnt want me to be cold and mad at him. But then bought 12 and drank 5 within 1 hour. Was hanging out with some people out back, in particular the woman that he told me two weeks ago there was a rumor going around that they had slept together.
So I figured I dont want to be around so I gathered son and went to my adult daughters and we all went with grandkids to the park........after being there for a bit he shows up, rode his bike because I dont think he could walk straight, yelled at some other kid because he thought it was our son.
Then we all went home, and I stopped at daughters house .....and after a bit...here he is again. ughhh.
Usually he would have just stayed wherever he was drinking. Seems like now though because I am not just sitting at home he is tracking me down.
Hard to find my happy place when he keeps disrupting it.

SparkleKitty

Boundaries are for us, not for them. You can tell him, "If you've been drinking, stay away from us," but he is under no obligation to comply with your boundary, and it is likely to cause an argument or some other form of drama. So if you don't want to be around him when he is drinking, then you need to find a way to not be around him when he is drinking. Which...from your story, sounds like all the time. I am sorry.

Our A's get frustrated when we start changing. It makes them very uncomfortable when the status quo is disrupted.

Boundaries were tough to wrap my head around at first. It's important to understand that they are in no way effective tools for controlling the addict's behavior, only for defining what we can and cannot live with -- and making decisions based upon that, not whatever the A is doing.

Sending you strength and patience -- sounds like you will especially need the patience!

wiscsober

Thanks for OP and this post.

Well worth reading over and again.

I must remember not to cross the boundaries I have set....for myself!!!

Wavy

To turn "If you've been drinking, stay away from us" into a boundary you need to turn the focus off of him and back onto yourself, so it would become something like "I will not be around someone who is drunk". But what that also does it put the onus for action on you, since you can't change what he choses to do. In your case it sounds like its going to be a tough boundary to maintain if he keeps showing up wherever you've removed yourself to, I'm sorry about that. My A does that too and I have still not worked out what to do about it, short of a restraining order, eight years on!

atalose

You don’t have to announce your boundaries to them you just do them. If you don’t want to be around him when he’s been drinking then just don’t be. Get busy doing things you want to do. Go walk around a mall, go to the library – go some place that he won’t come and intrude on your wanting to be away from him. If the only place you go is to your daughters then you can expect he’ll show up like he did so find some new places to explore that you can get some peace and away from him for a bit.

There is always a flip side to boundaries – enforcing them for yourself because you can always bank on them stepping all over your boundaries. Once you set a boundary then you need to set a plan on what do you if and when they cross that boundary. You need to prepare yourself with a plan of action.

Skymitchg

Thank you everyone.
I was trying to make the boundary about me and our son, and just removing myself. I was not trying to control him, I didnt even go and tell him where we were going, just left him with his drinking pals, and normally he would stay there until whenever he decided to stumble home. But now it seems he is seeking me out. And when we are in the house he is following me from room to room.
And then he left this morning and didnt do his morning ritual of giving me a kiss and saying goodbye...just left. Which is fine, but seems he is mad at me. Which is fine too.
I am finding this very hard. Wishing I could speed up my program. I hear there are a few little things that may help.
He is an Active A. Not seeming to be any plans of quitting.
Slowed down last week....but never lasts long.

Recovering2

When I first started learning to set boundaries for myself, and learned to detach from my A's behaviors, it drove him crazy for awhile! I didn't announce my boundary, but decided if I came home from work and he was drunk I would leave. So I did. I would call a friend, or go window shop, go the the gym, get a bite to eat. Anything to stay away. I would go home and get ready for bed. I wasn't vocal, wasn't rude, didn't look for a confrontation. He ramped up the behaviors, tried really hard to push my buttons and get me to argue with him. Texting and calling to look for me. AlAnon and my counselor helped me stay on my path. My counselor had warned me once I changed the status quo there would be a reaction, and that was okay, it didn't need to change my plan.

Hang in there. Stick with the boundaries you set. Eventually he'll figure out that you are not tolerating the behavior anymore.

atalose

I think one of the best little things to remember is.......he's not doing it to you....he's just doing it because that's what alcoholics/addicts do.

Here is a great sticky/post that has helped me a great deal to understand better.

What Addicts Do

My name's Jon. I'm an addict. And this is what addicts do. You cannot nor will not change my behavior. You cannot make me treat you better, let alone with any respect. All I care about, all I think about, is my needs and how to go about fufilling them. You are a tool to me, something to use. When I say I love you I am lying through my teeth, because love is impossible for someone in active addiction. I wouldn't be using if I loved myself, and since I don't, I cannot love you.

My feelings are so pushed down and numbed by my drugs that I could be considered sociopathic. I have no empathy for you or anyone else. It doesn't faze me that I hurt you, leave you hungry, lie to you, cheat on you and steal from you.

My behavior cannot and will not change until i make a decison to stop using/drinking and then follow it up with a plan of action.

And until I make that decsion, I will hurt you again and again and again.

Stop being surprised.

I am an addict. And that's what addicts do.
__________________

Carol Star

Boundaries are for us- to feel safe, secure and serene......3 s's

Skymitchg

Thank you for your post. Doesn't defining what we can and cannot live with
have a lot to do with what the A is doing? If he weren't drinking I wouldnt chose to act because a boundary had been broken. If he werent drinking I wouldnt have to have boundaries. I understand not to try to make him stop, because I get that that wont work anyways. I am definatley having a hard time wrapping my head around everything.

SparkleKitty

It's very difficult. Living with an A can help us define our boundaries, sure, because they can be very good examples of unacceptable behavior.

I would suggest that we have many boundaries that we don't even think about and that are not often tested (or rather that we don't think about them UNTIL they are tested). It's natural to create boundaries. I am very rarely invited into cars by strange men, but I definitely have a boundary against being trapped alone with strangers. Not a great example, but maybe you know what I mean?

What defining a boundary did for me was to help me keep my focus on what I was doing (in my control), rather than what my XABF was doing all the time (not in my control). When I finally came to the conclusion that I absolutely did not want to live with someone who passed out on the couch every night (usually with a lit cigarette in his hand), then my course of action became clear. He knew exactly how I felt about the behavior because I begged, pleaded, cried, screamed about for weeks. It was his choice to continue the behavior. It was my choice to throw him out of house.

Now, to get to the point of defining that boundary, I had to come to terms with what the consequences of enforcing that boundary might be. Not surprisingly, our relationship did not survive me throwing him out of my house. But ultimately, making the boundary had only a passing glance to do with him at all. It was Me, Deciding What I Wanted My Life to Look Like. As it happened, that meant XABF could not be a part of it.

So despite not living with an A anymore, I maintain that boundary. I just don't have to enforce it. And I'm still living the life I want to live.