involved

His deciding not to go was a blow because he said, "I promise. I will not let you down this time". That's the thing - he used to be a man of his word. And he is, unless alcohol is in the picture.

His recovery is his responsibility. He let himself down. You cant have expectations like that with an active A...

m1k3

Xenia, Al-anon is full of little sayings that you will hear over and over again. One that might be appropriate right now is:

Alcoholics don't have relationships, they take hostages.

You are not in a relationship anymore. This is a hostage situation. As lillamy put it, he is trying to manipulate and control you, to make you feel less than you are. It is a type of abuse.

Your friend,

NYCDoglvr

It's important that your husband deal with his alcoholism on his own. I've been sober 23 years and I'll always remember my first meeting. I called a sober friend and he offered to go to the meetings with me. At the door of the meeting he stopped and said "you have to go in here alone." Thank God. I kept the focus on my own recovery and not on someone else.

xenia

I just came back here, of course, here it is another day-long tournament and it's been almost 12 hours now. When he left, he said he's be home by 5. I had the chance to see my sister and her kids and he said that he'd be home early and we'd hang out.

I texted him around 7 to ask should I just eat dinner and go to bed when I need to (I am sick, I have pneumonia), and at 8:40 he texted me "leaving soon". Now it's 11:30. I had to turn my phone off bc waiting for him to text me back makes me feel like a dog begging for scraps. I am worth more than that, and I told him he is being very unfair in asking me to wait and then not show up. He just keeps texting "I love you" which is usually code for "I'm too drunk to actually have a human conversation so I'll pacify you."

Please, God, help me. All this adrenaline is all built up now, and I feel another sleepless night coming on. It's really hard to mentally recover when this happens, because like I said, I have a progressive illness and when the body is weak, it's more difficult for the brain to work right.

I don't want this to be where I complain, but when I'm in the throes of such turmoil, I can't see straight.

I need to try some new coping mechanisms. I need to just go ahead and do my own thing because I can't count on him being home by a certain time. It's just very hard because of my health - there's been a few times he couldn't contact me right away because I was sick, or in the ER, and he got really freaked out not knowing if I was safe. That is how precarious my health can SOMETIMES get. So you can imagine the challenges of having that independence I used to have.

And so it begins...I have to stick to my promises of worrying about myself first. I hope I can physically get to an AlAnon meeting. I know it will help. We'll see.

Thanks again. Keep swimming, keep swimming.