scrapiron

yeah i think i may just do that i cant believe making that list and reading it back to my self actually helped with that churning stomach knot! but one thing keeps coming to mind is at some point in the day there must be a point like when waking up that they must be thinking to there selves what the fxxk am i doing or do they say oh **** i must stop thinking about my family and quickly go and grab a vodka or something or are the just smashed constantly through out the day morning to night...?

hopeful4

While I am not an addict, my husband always told me he thought he would start w/just one drink, which in his mind would not hurt anything or anyone. That one just turned to two and so on. There is no off switch. I don't think he was purposely trying to hurt anyone, I just think addiction makes the addict selfish in that even though they know you are hurt the addiction still wins. They lie b/c they don't want to disappoint and deep down they know they are wrong, they just don't want to admit it and cause themselves any pain.

That's my take on it from what I have come to understand through conversations with my XAH, therapy, and Celebrate Recovery.

fedup3

My ex told me once it was like being on a wheel the more he drank the more he hated himself so the more he would drink to numb it! Hell for the codies and the alcoholics.

scrapiron

that helps some, i can remember she would start off ok go through a happy silly stage then there would be tears and sorrow talking about mum which would then turn into the cant walk straight or focus stage constantly repeating the same stuff over and over which would soon turn to agression also how do two out of control alcoholics survive in a relationship where theres no one to pick up the pieces or you've got no one to make sure that you paid the electric bill or got food in im not saying i want her back as i know theres no coming back as shes not allowed to be anywhere near the children "as by child services" but i just cant see this relationship shes in "if thats what you call it" working in the long run...?do they.

iSPAZ

scrapiron - She started drinking consistently about 1 year into the marriage about 3 or four months after my daughter was born. She would not come home for several days and years later after some serious counseling I found out she was having multiple affairs. I never really associated the drinking with the behavior until very late in our marriage. After about 10 years things got really bad and she had an affair with my best friend of 18 years I did not know this until post counseling and she was doing much better. He is also an alcoholic. We ended up in marriage counseling and after she fired 3 or 4 counselors one finally called her out and told her she was going to leave a path of destruction miles wide if she did not figure herself out. Told her she would destroy every meaningful relationship and end up being surrounded by dirt bags or people of very low character in the end. She did several years of extensive counseling and did very good for about 5-7 years. She began surrounding herself again with a group of folks I wanted nothing to do with and thing went down hill. Around mid year in our nineteenth year thing became unbearable for me and I literally had nothing else to give. I was mentally, physically and emotionally exhausted. We went back to the same counseling center with separate counselors and I was told she was a NPD/Alcoholic and I needed to go to Al-anon which I had never even heard of before. I knew I needed help so I went. It has been a long tough process but slowly I began to get better. My relationship with my kids is better. I am not on edge all the time. I went from worrying about her 24/7 to maybe 5 hours a day total. Once in Al-anon I simply stopped trying to be the morality police for her. She tried for several month to draw me into the chaos but I just did not bite off. It was tough and that is an understatement. Constantly post pics of her and a bunch of douch-bags and her cancerous friends partying like rock stars. She cleaned up (financially) in the divorce and did all the things she could to capitalize. In other words I got cleaned out including having a large portion of my inheritance stolen. Buying a new Lexus, hiding money, depleting her 401k, cleaning out accounts, running up debt, then filing. She did the look at me I am out of control and you can do nothing about it you stinking control freak thing for about a year. Then as she was running the kids off with the constant parties and strange losers crashed at her house she started to real it in some. I keep my side of the street clean. She is still in the functional realm and maintains a well paying job in sales. I believe she loves the kids but I see them getting tired of the BS. It is sad. I truly thought when she did the counseling for those years that we had made it past the bad part. The kids told me a few months back that she was drinking before she would go to work and I thought her bottom would be soon but again she pealed it back some like she always does. I truly thought prior to her leaving and me going to al-anon that she would imminently die if I was not their to take care of her. She had drank to the point of not breathing on several occasions. I could not sleep because I was in constant fear she would stop breathing. I dated her for several years prior to being married and I would never had thought we would end up where we ended up. She was a sweet, loving, hard working and ethical person prior to the alcoholism. I always wanted that person back but I think she may be gone forever. One thing I have learned going to al-anon and open aa meetings is that this disease if it is one always progresses. It is patience and will strike like a venomous snake. I pray for her many times a day as well as other addicts in my life. That is all I can do. Maybe someday when she has no one left to blame she will find the strength or have enough fight in her to recover. At least that is my hope.

ladyscribbler

The same way one out of control alcoholic survives on their own. My ex was barely functioning when I left, and a lot of that "function" was just an illusion maintained by me enabling him and basically propping him up.
I left ten months ago. He has survived just fine as far as I know. He is still alive and drinking. That's apparently enough for him.
He receives disability from the VA and that is enough for him to survive. As far as getting bills paid and buying groceries, etc.? That is his problem, not mine. I pay my bills on time and buy groceries for my home because that is my responsibility. He is an adult (chronologically at least).
Alcoholics and addicts will surprise you with their resourcefulness when left to their own devices. Worrying about how they will get by without you to take care of them is a massive waste of time and energy. Especially when you are more worried about them than they are about themselves.
Think of her departure as a strangely wrapped gift. If you play your cards right you can build a whole new healthy, happy, serene life for you and your children. Take care.

fedup3

Take care of you and your children, check out Al Anon and get as healthy as you can it will be the best gift you can give your children!

hopeful4

LS....did we live with the same man LOL?!

scrapiron

wow ispaz thats also quite a moving story in some ways the same as me especially the infidelity side of things that i dont understand as ive read on here that alcoholism is quite a solitary ilness but not the case for me, you said your ahw was able to pull it all back and switch it on and of when the need arose so was she a functioning ah as my ah was more out of control type that would verbally abuse you if you was walking down the street and you wasnt a lowlife! if you was she could single them out like she was like a magnet to these type of people but when sober she would say things like look at the state of him but could then end up bingeing with that very same person...i can see this is going to take some figuring out, but like you i hope my exahw will hit her rock bottom one day and see the mess she has left behind her before its to late my biggest fear is i will get that dredded knock on the door.. thanks for sharing youre story with me,and i wish you well and happiness.

scrapiron

thanks lady scribbler you cleared that up nicely for me straight to the point aswell also made me laugh a little with your "chronologically" very good! i was told that if they start abusing alcohol at a young age they brain more or less stays there could this explain her childish behaviour at times when drunk..!

iSPAZ

scrapiron - best of luck in your journey. I hope things start getting better for you and the kids. Don't be afraid to reach out when or if you need help. Unless you have been through this it is hard to understand. There are a bunch of folks here with a wealth of support and knowledge. Keep us posted.

littlefish

One of the things I don't hear in your story is if she ever indicated a real desire to stay sober. There must be some desire there to stay sober because of her roller coaster ride of sober/drunk periods. But, it just doesn't sound like there is enough of a desire.

Being a recovered alcoholic (wife) myself my reaction is the same I have to newcomers who come into AA: if there is not a real, powerful and genuine desire to stop drinking, there will never be sobriety. Half-hearted attempts, attempts to please others: never work.

It sounds like you are ready to move on and are coming to the realization that despite the occasional sober periods, she has become a different person. It's probably the case that when you say you love her so much, you are loving someone who existed in the past. She is not that girl anymore.

There is no point in worrying about how or if she is going to take care of herself with no one to "pick up the pieces". A raging and chronic active alcoholic doesn't care about pieces being picked up or anything being taken care of. They don't care. Nothing matters after a certain point. Nothing has any importance.

I hope you find the support you need for you and your kids to make it through this difficult time. Put the kids needs first, and making choices will be a little clearer -

scrapiron

thanks for you post littlefish yeah she battled with sobriety for years and like i said earlier in this thread the last time she remained sober for about a year and when sober is a completly different person but in the end i think it was her mental health that was pushing her back to the drink she is a bpd alcoholic with mental and physical ocd so basically she was obsesively thinking about the same things over and over again and physically repeating the same compolsive actions her biggest thing was brushing of the teeth which consisted of 4 tooth brushes 2 different types of tooth paste and a certain regime of brushing them so if it didnt feel right she would have to start the whole process over again can you imagine how that must feel sometimes she would be in the bathroom for an hour or more and her gums would bleed quite bad sometimes also the constant cleaning over and over all these things get in your normal way of living but she has had more help and support than most over the years propberbly coming to hundreds and hundreds of thousands of pounds i just think she has gone to far now and decided whilst she was "sobe"r to make her choice! shes gone to the point of know return it just feels so weired with out her around like its quite surreal like a dream im actually sitting here writing this and feel quite numb but then something triggers my deep thoughts of her and it comes flooding back its like the micheal mcdonald song "i keep forgetting we're not in love anymore" i keep forgetting things will never be the same" hopefully for the better, but i will always love her i think these type of people leave a massive emotional scar that you will never truly get rid off but only learn to live with.!

killerinstinct

Scrapiron,

Oh I have a list that could definitely compete with yours.. I will only mention one point though... I was ill, dying in my apartment with our baby, he refused to call the ambulance .. he then left me in the emergency ward, half dead and on my way heaven with a two week old baby to go on a three days bender and switched his phone off.. when I finally recovered and he came back down to earth he told me I made the entire story up!

killerinstinct

Thank you Scrapiron, for reminding me why it will never work with him! I really needed that reminder!

scrapiron

Sorry to hear that story ki that really is quite bad I hope you and your child are ok now, I know why do they like to mess with your head so much it really is a crazy illness and I bet you do have a pretty bad list by the sounds of that story if you ever want to do a list your self I love to hear some of it and you know what! It really helped me doing that,it sort of put things into perspective for me give it a go if you already haven't anyway pleased to hear that someway or another I helped you unknowingly. .lol.

hopeful4

The thing is, no matter if it is mental illness or addiction or any other disease, unless a person recognizes it and actually wants to get well, they won't.

There is someone on here recently (forgive me to this person, I cannot remember who it was) that said they have Bipolar. They don't drink and they don't have some horrible chaotic life. That is because this person is aware of the disease, knows and recognizes it, and does all the things they need to so that they control the disease, the disease does not control them.

When it controls you, it spirals out of control, no matter what it is.

You cannot make her well, you cannot make her control her diseases.

Good Luck and God Bless. Take good care of YOU.

ResignedToWait

That's not always true. The only reason that my AW is ever sober is because she is physically unable to drink any more...she becomes bed-ridden, and isn't able to obtain any more alcohol once it runs out. She then goes through a cold-turkey detox, until she scares herself enough to call 911 to go to the hospital and finish the detox, medically supervised, or she somehow goes through it on her own.
She's then sober for an arbitrary amount of time, be it a few days, a week, rarely a month, and the drinking starts again because she feels healthy again, and has seemingly forgot all the previous times this has happened. This cycle has repeated 20...30 times? I'm just estimating, conservatively.

So, she does the classic roller coaster of sobriety/addiction, and has no desire to be sober, whatsoever.

scrapiron

ok i think with my exahw when she's back on the drink her ocd's somehow get locked up and put away but i also think apart from her bpd ocd there are also other underlying mental health issues i can remember back in 2009 we was living in london and she was having a real bad time with alcohol i dont know if it was the drink or some kind of other undiagnosed mental health issue but she would hullucinate animals once she was so drunk she was asking where that f....ing dog came from under the table and i was saying there isnt a dog there this in return freaked her out even more also she would see faces in the walls, so what im asking is can alcohol do that to some people or someway enhance there underlying undiagnosed mental health as this never happened when she was sober...?
i dont want to turn this into a discussion about mental health but was just curious..?

Refiner

No, Scrapiron... that's all part of the alcohol poisening the brain. An ABF of a friend of mine once poured a dish of milk and was feeding all his "kittens". There were no kittens, he didn't even have a cat!