overit263

Welcome Yancy! We've had many discussions on rehab for partners/family members of addicts! It would be great if we go to take a 28 day plus vacation on a tropical island. You've done a great job and even if your family doesn't recognize all you've done...we do!

HopefulinFLA

Welcome to SR Yancy. This is such a great place for understanding, wisdom, and comfort. I hope you'll get as much from the members here as I have.
I agree with the others who have posted before me. Your family may not fully appreciate your efforts, but I do. You've gone well above and beyond. I hope they know how much you must really love them!

Keep posting, we want to hear from you.

OnlyOneProblem

Welcome Yancy! You will find the life changing support you need here at SR. Alanon is great also. It's amazing how transforming these two work together with just a little willingness to participate.

I've been dealing with this crap for 10 years now. It started when my son was 18 y/o. Drugs, jail, rehab, drugs, jail, rehab ........ during that time I met and married my RAH. I didn't know anything about alcoholism, but I sure found out - wish I could say I learned quickly but it has been a process.

I'm not sure exactly what I was searching for on the web when I found the SR forum, but I am eternally grateful for all who take the time to share their story and insight. It's been the best platform to learn about this disease that destroys families.

I have been transforming, little by little over the past 4 years. I had my big aha moment this year and I am so thrilled to take back the power that I have been giving away for so many years (most of my life). I still have much work to do, but the work is for me now - the only person that I can change.

Sounds like you are ready for you! That's great. I'm glad that your family is in recovery. Time for you!

Yes, take that vacation!! It's been quite the year for me and when I found the online deal last week for a 4 day cruise for less than $250 I went for it. Seriously, if my sister had decided not to come I would have paid the single supplement and I would be going by myself!

There is a light at the end of the tunnel!

bluerskies

I feel like I understand every word of your post. I spent six year with an addict - mental hospitals, overdoses, rehabs, jails, lies, stealing, tears upon tears upon tears...I look at the relationship as a moment in life where I changed so drastically that there will never be any going back. It took a long time to be joyful again, to trust, to relax....to not expect the worse. I still react to things in strange ways that only a person who has been in a relationship with an addict could understand. The one thing I learned through all of it is that the only thing I can really do is love myself, walk myself through the hard parts, give myself time to recover from the nightmares but always be kind to my soul. Like an old tree growing ever more spectacular, you spread your arms to the sky in hope and let your roots grow deep to bring nourishment to you. Allow yourself to not be yourself. Allow your spirit to lead you. You need time to heal. and also this:

“…you will not have to remain without a solution if you will…cling to Nature, to the simple in Nature, to the little things that hardly anyone sees, and that can so unexpectedly become big and beyond measuring; if you have this love of inconsiderable things and seek quite simply, as one who serves, to win the confidence of what seems poor: then everything will become easier, more coherent and somehow more conciliatory for you, not in your intellect, perhaps, which lags marveling behind, but in your inmost consciousness, waking and cognizance. “

“…be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them.

“And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you win then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”

~Rainer Maria Rilke from Letters to a Young Poet

Hammer

Sometimes.

Yunno what a T (this realm's short hand for a Therapist) told me when I went Couple Therapists shopping after Mrs. Hammer came back from rehab?

"I cannot work with her. She does not have a problem in the relationship. But maybe I can work with you (me, Hammer), and figure why you have put up with this nonsense for all these years."

He was probably correct. Probably should have signed myself up with him and got the work done promptly and efficiently. Instead, I have been dragging along for 11 months since Mrs. Hammer has been back from rehab.

Just came back from an Alanon meeting. Was chatting about something that may be useful to you. Pain. The A's pain. They say on the A side of the house, that "Pain Drives My Train." A's tend to move away from pain, or sedate with Drugs, Alcohol, etc. Ideally the pain of their A type living would turn them away from being an active A, and towards AA and help.

But what happens is Codies and Alanoner's tend to try to rescue the A from the Pain. That turns bad for both them and us. We get their Pain, and they go on Pain-free in the nonsense.


------------------

Here is my prayer for the day. Might be good for you, too.

Dear God,

Please take the Pain that Mrs. Hammer has given me and kids, double it and put back on her for her own healing.

Amen.

WindyWars

Yancy, Thank you for your post. I have been involved in the chaos addicts cause for decades. I understand the feeling. "Sorry" is not enough and it has never made me feel better. In fact, I just have resentful and spiteful conversations in my head that I feel bad about and guilty over. I honestly dont have any helpful advice on how to make this better. But, you are not alone. And, Thank you for sharing.