I think this is a fair question to ask.
 

After reading some posts in this forum, I have a question: If you know your partner/family members (or whoever else) are bull sh!tting alcoholic/addicts that will come up with every damn excuse in the world to get away with their addict behavior, and put you and your loved ones last, and YOU KNOW THEY ARE BULL CRAPP!NG YOU, why do you stay with them? What is your excuse? Co-dependency?? Parental issues? Abuse? Children? I mean seriously, I am an admitted alcoholic/addict, but it takes two to tango in this kind of f'd up relationship, so please, stop acting all high and mighty, get off your high horses and face your own truths.

And please answer this: WHY DO YOU STAY??? Every one of you have your own issues to deal with here. So face the f*uk up. Us addicts have to, and so should you. I am sick of reading posts by family members/friends that tote all of the blame for their screwed up lives on their addict loved ones, without ever facing the reasons they allow it in the first place. The fact is that most of you are too scared to face your own demons, so you place all of the blame on the addict/s in your life so you don't have to confront your own crap. This could be disputed, but many of you play the victim instead of taking action by removing yourselves from the situation. Why? I have my own theories, but in the end, only you know the truth.

Even so, if you never face your own demons it is virtually guaranteed that even if you leave your addict partner, you will face the same problems over and over again in future relationships, because there is something in YOU that needs to change first. The partners and family members of alcoholics and addicts may not be sick with substance abuse, but most are still sick in many different ways, and need to get their own sh!t worked out in order to have a fulfilled and decent life.

I am sorry if this upsets any of you, but it's the truth. In my own life I feel I've been the scapegoat in my family because I am an addict, when in actuality there are much deeper issues that lie just beneath the surface, yet no one wants to discuss. I am absolutely not making excuses for myself, I am speaking what I deem to be valid and worthy of recognition.

I've been on both sides.

I've used the 'you're no angel' excuse myself and heard it back from loved ones struggling with addiction.

I screwed up. Big. Multiple times.
I had to own that to get better.

I had a lot of bad things happen to me, but there comes a point when you have to admit your response to whatever trauma, however brutal or unfair, was itself dysfunctional.

I did a lot of quacking.

Anything to take the heat off me and avoid looking into my own soul, or taking responsibility for my mistakes.

It didn't work for me, and I don't think that's an approach that's going to get you better either Dragon.

Fix your own backyard - do whats good for you - and leave others to work out their own chores list.
D

That's the thing Dee. I've been looking inward a great deal, and find that a lot of the "friends and family of alcoholics" on this forum don't do a lot of looking inward on their own. They won't get anywhere unless they start to.

Actually I think most FandFers turn themselves inside out blaming themselves for the problem.

Finally getting around to holding the alcoholic or the addict to account for their actions is an end stage not a beginning....at least that's my experience.

I guess we;'ll disagree :)

Anytime a thread is directed at 'you people' it turns out to be a lively one....strap yourself in.

I think you're being being reactive here not reflective Dragon.

D

you can only do something about you and no one else

when you except others for how they are and stop trying to change them then you will find peace with whatever people say or do

i put my hands up to all my wrongs and i dont do them anymore or i try not to that all i can do
if people hate me or blame me like my ex wife does who is an active alcoholic then that is her problems she is the one living in all that hate not me

i will help her is she ever needs it and i would hope one day she to comes into aa and get better, not for me but for the sake of the kids as i am looking after them and have done for the last 9 years, while she carrys on drinking and hating us all, an not doing anything like a mother should towards our kids
they dont get birthday cards or anything from her as she hates it that the kids are with me she feels i have turned them on her and i honeslty never have they had a choice a sober dad or a drunk mum it was no contest and they love there mum but just dont like her, if she sorted her act out she could get it all back with the kids but while she is in the madness there isnt a cat in hells chance

there is nothing i can do about her nor anyone else

i can not change anyone else if there screwed up its up to them to face it themselves and the one thing i know is if someone told me i was screwed up or that i had a drink problem i would tell them were to go and defend myself and my drink

so is there any point ?

just let people be, they can find there own release in a persevered way by passing on there hurts in anger just like i once did and i can still do as well when i get hurt over losing my son

so let it go and let people be is my advice : )

Dear Dragon......just for the sake of argument---lets say that everything that you say about us "friends and family" types is true. Lets say that we are all f****d up, and that we need to look inward or suffer the consequences. Lets just say that is true.
Then, where does that leave you in the scheme of things?

"splain yourself Lucy"

dandylion

Personally, I think you are doing a lot of selective reading. When I read here I see a lot of brave men and women who are trying to figure things out and break the cycle of dysfunction.

Me personally, I have a background of abuse and neglect. Those two things go a long way toward screwing up my thinking. I am trying to get better. To figure out and own what is mine and to give back what isnt. It took me 42 years to get here I am not going to fix it all in a day.

What is your story? What do you think is the core problem with these friends and family members?

Dear Dragon....on another note...I find myself staring at your astonishingly beautiful cat.
What is his/her backstory? Do you have any more pictures you can show us?

cat lover,
dandylion

Hi dragon, I don't think you're reading the F&F posts very carefully if you can't see posters talking about their own recovery from being codies. I see it all the time. I also see other posters calling them on their own behaviour.

But the 'why don't they just leave' part is one I want to address. Putting aside that many take their marriage vows very seriously, and feel they should stay and try to help their ASpouse, not everyone is in a position to move out of home. There are children involved, often financial barriers caused by the AS spending, real and implied threats, lack of support, lack of transport, fear and destroyed confidence and many other impediments.
It's easy for you and others to sit back and criticise the (often abused) spouse who is working very hard to look after children and house, often working full time. They need support, not criticism.
There are many stories here that have stretched over years, where the sober spouse has gradually used the support of SR to move on, but it doesn't happen overnight.

Dear Dragon....sorry for so many individual posts....but, I keep having more afterthoughts about your post!

About your own family experience....actually, as far as I understand it...it is straight out of the family systems theory. Basically, that the one who acts out (usuallly the scapegoat) is really the most sensitive one to the family pathology and is acting it out for everyone else. And that the pathology is under the surface for the others and is not openly talked about or dealt with. That the whole family is intertwined and there is a force that acts to keep the family together even if there is a sacrifice of one or some to accomplish this. (this is a crude explanation off the top of my head--so please don't attack too much).

I get your personal point...very clearly.

This is what I am trying to get to, here..... I suspect that your very real pain, coming from your own family dysfunction (understandably)...is being generalized toward the F&F group...as a Whole. If so, your thinking makes logical sense to me--as I view it through your filter.

The sticky wicket...as I see it...is that this kind of broad generalization keeps us from looking at others as individuals. Too much black and white thinking.......
I think our life just goes better when we deal with people as individuals---and vise-versa.

dandylion

***by the way---I do recognize that a theory is a theory---not law.)

Dragon, I actually agree with the general message of your post, being responsible for ourselves but I also think your delivery is harsh. You telling us to wake up and leave our loved one is like telling the A to wake up and stop drinking. Healthy minds will come in time once we have hit our wall like As find recovery and sobriety when they hit theirs. It is not for us to judge each other and the tempos at which we learn things.

Wow - great question, Dragon. There is no doubt that there are a fair number of people who struggle to confront their own issues - throwing an addict into their world is not a recipe for bliss. I understand your scorpion/frog point. However, it is somewhat simplistic. I would never choose to be with an addict, but sometimes these situations develop around us, and with crappy timing.

You seem to be saying everyone should just give up and move on, get over it, as if moving on is the only viable answer, and anyone who doesn't do this is somehow dysfunctional?

Sometimes the onset of addiction is over many years, a slow descent into the abyss. Some of us have a hard time understanding how the kind, caring, and loving person we once knew has turned into this self-absorbed, manipulative, and self-destructive shell of their former self. We cling to hope that the person we knew can return. And as you are no doubt quite aware, addicts are willing to exploit that hope for their own benefit.

When one commits in a marriage for better, for worse, sickness an health, yadda yadda, and takes that commitment seriously, it ain't easy to know when letting go is the right and noble thing, there are often immense pressures to soldier on. Many, like me, hang on for far longer than what is healthy, and pay that price in the currency of our own sanity. If the addict is a parent or child, the entanglements are even more complex, and your simplistic give-up-and-walk-away answer is hard to accept, much less implement.

Most of us are taught and are wired to care for each other - the detachment needed to deal with an addict is not instinctive, and doesn't develop overnight, or even without coaching, hence Alanon, this forum, etc.

You can get on a high horse if you want, but many of us are here because we have yet to learn your truth about addiction, or still struggling to integrate and accept it. Yes, the addict in our life might be a hopeless case, no matter what they are telling us, what delusions we cling to, and yes, we might need to let them go. And, maybe, some of us have issues that have nothing to do with the thoughtless, self-absorbed, parasite that is bringing us a world of pain on top of what we are already dealing with. And yet you seem to suggest that somehow, this too, is our failing? :c029:

If THAT'S a fair question, then so is this:

Why don't you & every other addict just STOP USING and then there's nothing for any of us to deal with at all? Isn't that the same kind of black & white mentality you are asking in your question?

As an ACoA I would also like to know at what age I should have known better & stood up & left my FOO & supported myself. I did so at age 17 because as far as I could tell that was the earliest that I had individual resources available to me.

As to this:

I will put my recovery/reflective time up against yours any day, Sir. I am actually celebrating 3 years officially in Recovery. Feel free to search my personal posting history; I'll wager 80%+ deal specifically with my OWN recovery growing pains & offering support to others & about 20% overall complaining about RAH.

According to YOUR post history, you have.... days sober?

I too think you are being selective about your reading here & that perhaps what you ARE reading is being filtered/interpreted through the pain of your own early recovery. I would invite you to come back to this thread after you have more than 1 yr sober & working a recovery program & see if YOU still feel the same as your OP.

I wish you luck in your journey, I hope you find peace. :hug:

Dragon - Part of why us "friends and family" of alcoholics/addicts are here on this forum are so we can figure out ourselves, our problems. Most of us are aware that if we don't face our OWN issues then we will keep having this happen to us over and over again. We aren't here to necessarily bash the addict, we are here to get support, understanding.

Asking us why don't we leave is like asking the addict/alcoholic why don't you just stop drinking/using. Its an addiction. We are addicted to being a caretaker/codependent.


Most of us want to leave. I know I do. But fear, financial situations and children often stop us, slow us down.

Dragon, I've just finished reading some other threads started by you and I see that you were announcing your departure from the forum back in mid-July, as you were feeling frustrated by the "hypocrisy" of other posters over in the Alcoholism section of the forum. Your posts seem to focus mostly on the shortcomings of others on the forum and how they're really not sober or not in recovery or not qualified to talk about recovery b/c they don't meet your standards. It seems that now you've come to F&F to do the same thing.

There's a thread we often reference here that may or may not apply to your situation, but I'll post the link just in case any of it resonates w/you. http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...-reposted.html

From where I stand, I'd agree w/those who've said that asking why we "don't just leave" our A's is akin to asking the A why he/she "doesn't just quit drinking." Both are deep-rooted problems and take time, effort and insight to solve. You've gotten a lot of sincere, thoughtful responses here and I hope you find them useful.

Edited to add: Clearly you're still here after posting that the site "wasn't for you", so you must be finding something worthwhile here. As they say in Alanon, "take what you like and leave the rest." As I progress in recovery, it seems there's more and more I like and less and less I leave. Hope it works that way for you also.

Dragon-

When I first got into recovery on this sight it was after dealing with my own eating disorder recovery for many years.

For me there has been a big difference in how to deal with my own addiction, and that of someone else.....but often for me the root causes of both have been similar.

The hardest challenge for me has been to come to understand what is mine, and in my case the harder part, what is not.

I appreciate that you brought that kind of question to us on this side.....

Gently, what is it about our posts that are so triggering for you? I think we on this side of things have so much to learn from you, each other, and our own recovery.

This journey does not happen overnight, for anyone. As I have gotten more adept at figuring out what is mine and what is not I use this site differently. It has taken one great healing piece for me to get here....time to get to those nuances that you address in your first post understood and more importantly internalized. I imagine that is similar to the time factor that it take to stop using a drug of choice and working an active recovery.

I appreciate the time you took.

I think there was a long time where I simply had no idea that I was part of the problem. I grew up in an alcoholic home. It was my example of adult behavior. Either you were an alcoholic or a codependent. I didn't understand at the time what those roles were or what that meant, I adopted what I saw modeled and did the best I could with the tools I had at the time. A big part of our disease is scapegoating, self pity, indecisiveness, playing the victim and feeling superior. Those things eventually drove my alcoholic ex crazy, though they were probably also the things that had attracted him to me in the first place. These attractions are not accidental. Alcoholics and codependents don't "just happen" to find one another. It is like a subconscious radar. If I was in a room with 100 men I would probably still be able to pick the ONE who was an addict, though hopefully my mad Alanon skills would allow me to spot the red flags and steer clear.
Now that I know better, I do better. I work my own recovery in the Alanon program and I mostly manage to stay on my side of the street. My ex (I am one who has left, which meant rebuilding my life from the ground floor. That was not an easy task or a decision I could make on impulse. It actually went against all my childhood training to take the steps that I have.) is still drinking and deteriorating I feel compassion for his disease, but I no longer engage with his blustering nonsense or worry about shielding him from reality.
I do still sometimes wonder about the "why" and "how" of alcoholism. Why do some choose drink over everything else in their lives, and some eventually over life itself? How can a human being be so heartless as to abandon their children and families for a bottle? I know the answer is, alcoholism is a disease, but I still wonder.
Understand, I do not blame my childhood for my choices, but it has helped me to clearly see the deep seated reasons for my behavior so that I am not condemned to repeat these same cycles throughout my life.
In the course of my reading yesterday I found a quote that seems to apply to everyone, no matter what "side of the street" they happen to be on.
"Labor not as one who is wretched, nor yet as one who would be pitied or admired. Direct yourself to one thing only, to put yourself in motion and to check yourself at all times."
-Marcus Aurelius Meditations
From ODAT in Alanon pg. 21

While I agree with this totally, I really dislike your delivery.

Most of us ended up in dysfunctional relationships with addicts because our own families of origin were jacked up and dysfunctional, and taught us to accept less from our loved ones than we deserved. Telling other folks to lift themselves up by their bootstraps is fine and cute. But if you don't have bootstraps -- or shoes -- to begin with, where does one begin? How are your bootstraps? Are they worn? Have they always served you well? Was your addiction as simple as just putting down your DOC, or do you struggle? I know from experience that my qualifier was only willing to be accountable for the crazy and abusive things he did to me if I was willing to get in the mud with him. Did I do some things I wasn't proud of? Say things I didn't mean? Sure. But I never stole from him, lied to him, used him, misled him, or undermined him. At the end of the day, I had my integrity and was willing to make major changes in my life to rid myself of the chaos and give my kids a healthier place to grow up.

I have a lot of compassion for addicts, but not for finger-pointing. Everybody has problems. My problems -- and my accountability for dealing with them -- are not contingent on other people also having equally dirty and shameful problems, or having problems at all.

Something we often focus on in this section of the forum is keeping our own side of the street clean, and learning to mind our own business. So, thanks for solving F&F's problems for us, glad it was so easy for you, but that's really not part of the program. What we think of you is none of your business, and what you think of me is none of mine. Et cetera.

I would never go to the alcoholics forum and state things so rudely. It's fine to ask the questions you ask, but unless you have walked in my shoes there is no need to be rude.

Why did I stay?? First off, I did stay for 18 years. My divorce was final this week, and I am free. However, I stayed for a couple of reasons. Just because my XAH is an alcoholic, I did not feel it defined him. In that I still cared about him, and frankly I worried he would commit suicide if he left. No one wants that, including me.

I stayed for my children. I think divorce is sad. I still think that. It makes me sad that last night and tonight my children are staying with their dad in another home. I can be free of him, but they don't have that choice. I stayed to PROTECT them. I stayed long enough to be confident they are old enough to know whats going on .

I also stayed due to lack of information on my part. I did not realize alcoholism is progressive and takes over your life. Don't tell me not to blame the alcoholic when it has cost ME serious financial, mental, and overall personal loss. I have been lied to to the point of making me feel crazy. I don't blame the alcohol for that, but for a really long time I did. I had to further MY OWN personal growth and knowledge about alcoholism to understand.

So there you go. That is why I stayed. I hope this has given you some information. Be clear on one thing, alcoholics destroy their own lives and the lives of those who care about them. Accept that, or don't.

And man, this question is a rude one, a reactionary attack.

Agreed. It's still hard for me to grasp this sometimes, and it's something I grappled with with my XAH. How could he do this to himself? To us? To his family? To the kids? To his future? How could he flush everything good in his life down the toilet and never look at himself with the critical eye he trained on me?

But he did. I had to stop wondering about it and fighting with it and start moving towards other things. But it did take me awhile -- years -- to get to the point where I completely and fully understood that my actions and words had little to no effect on his sobriety or lack thereof. Hell, it took me a long time -- years -- to realize that he was drinking 24/7 right under my nose.

I stayed because I didn't ******* know or understand. When I did, I made better choices.

Lol FireSprite, I was tempted to say this same thing. BUT, having grown up with a mother who "got rid of her problem", as she likes to say, by leaving my alcoholic father, I know it's not that simple. She simply turned her codependent energy to other areas of her life. Mostly on my brother and me, but also to her other relationships as well (work, family, friends). She also suffers from paranoid schizophrenia, which makes it extra fun.
For anyone on either side who is not truly working a recovery I think that scapegoating and lack of self-reflection will always be weapons which are used to bludgeon others.
Anyone who comes from a toxic family of origin can make that choice not to spend time with people who verbally or emotionally abuse them.

I stayed because of dysfunctional coping mechanisms and thought patterns, lack of boundaries and/or no skills to identify and uphold boundaries, emotional enmeshment, fear, love, desire for family, pity, stubbornness, obligation, and I was raised in a family just like the one I helped create so it is all I knew.

I could write pages of why I stayed. It is kind of like asking why are you an addict. There are a lot of complex factors.

Yup. That is kind of why we hang out here.

Actually everyone is going to decide for themselves what they face up to. Many alcoholics die drunk and many co-dependents die bitter and broken. What are you going to do? All I can do is determine which direction I'm going to go.

There is a solution to that you know. Here and in real life. Just like we (F&F) have the power to get away from people that are damaging us - so do you. Do you find it ironic that you are all fired up and frustrated about other people? You come here complaining about how much this forum and your family annoy you because they complain about other people instead of staying in their own hula hoop. Because I have to tell you - it is very familiar.


Yup. That is why we are here and in al-anon etc. It is a messy difficult process and if it annoys you, look away.

Coming here to bitch at us doesn't look like looking inward. It looks a lot like looking at and worrying about someone else's problems. I recognize that because I've invested a lot of time in it over the years but now that I am learning a new way to live - I realize what a colossal waste of life that was.

And I stayed for 16 years - and then I left. We all reach our bottom eventually - of whatever particular hole we are in.

Thumper, wonderful post!

Dragoninthesky is a troll. This poster trolled the alcoholics forum, then announced he/she was quitting the forum and left. Now he/she is trying to get everyone here agitated. Don't let yourselves get worked up by someone who has no intention of engaging in a dialogue but is just here to insult and demean.

A year ago Dragoninthesky's post would have absolutely infuriated me. Now, I often find myself asking the same questions when I read people's shares here. Many us on the friends and family board DO have very unhealthy attachments to people who have shown over and over that they are not trustworthy, healthy partners. We think we can change them, we think we can fix them. And oh, the pain we put ourselves through before we finally accept that we can't. I think you hit the nail right on the head, Dragoninthesky.

I spent years in denial, trying to make things work, trying to fix my partner, doing everything I could to rewrite the simple fact that I had chosen badly when I chose my partner. But the truth is, you cannot rewrite reality. And trying to do so is called DENIAL. The past few months have been the best of my life because I have chosen to live in reality rather than in Denial Land. I finally broke up with my partner and started putting myself first.

Yes, Dragoninthesky's delivery could have been a bit more gentle, but speaking as someone who has been the codie in a relationship with an addict, I think sometimes we need to be shaken up a bit in order to wake up and see what's really happening in our lives. Think about this if you feel angry while you read his message. In my opinion as a recovering codie who has stepped away from the madness, he is absolutely 100% right.

And just to be clear, I am not better than anyone else -- I spent years, YEARS in an unhappy relationship before I finally understood that I could only change myself.

While I do not care for the tone of the OP's post and I think that the answers have been wonderful, I have to admit that I do not know who I am more frustrated with, my alcoholic mother or my codie father. I have nicknamed them in my head, Sick One and Sick Two. I have come to the point of giving up hope fo either one of them. I just offer this as insight for those of you who are parents and are thinking that your kids are only angry with the alcoholic. I should say that I would be proud and thrilled and supportive of either one of them if they were to honestly admit that they have problems and work on getting real help.

In answer to "why do we stay," in my case, my therapist once told me that I was "in thrall" with my AH. So, frankly, I had heard that in the context of mythology and fairy tales, but I had to look up the definition:


Definition of THRALL

1a : a servant slave : bondman; also : serf
1b : a person in moral or mental servitude
2a : a state of servitude or submission <in thrall to his emotions>
2b : a state of complete absorption <mountains could hold me in thrall with a subtle attraction of their own — Elyne Mitchell>

I suppose that explains it to a degree. I have asked your question to myself a million times and have not yet figured out an answer.

Last week, I attended my uncle's funeral. It was SO GREAT to be with my family, because we are part of a mutual admiration society, and being with them just makes me happy. So in spite of sad circumstances, I did have some great conversations with my cousins and aunts.

They know of my situation, even though I hardly get to see them. One cousin said to me after she asked how AH was doing (subtext: how's the drinking going), "Boy, you took til death do us part literally!"

Then, when I went to say goodbye to my aunt who was leaving (it was her husband who had died), she literally grabbed my hands and said, "do you regret staying?" I mean, it kind of came out of nowhere, and I had no answer, and I still don't.

I love my husband. He's a huge jerk when he's drunk, but a fun and loving and wonderful guy when he's not. And my family represents the principle of math that two negatives = a positive, because my children are absolutely wonderful, responsible, caring, with-it human beings. So I'm not backtracking on that. Maybe if I regret anything it's my own lack of gumption with regard to behavior that could have actually helped the situation instead of just going along with it.

Feel free not to. Nobody dragged you to the friends and family forum. If I went to the alcoholics' forum (which I don't and never will), I wouldn't post that I'm sick of what they're saying over there.

Very interesting question despite the vitriol.

The reasons I staid were and not in any particular order:

1. I grew up in an alcoholic home, to a large degree what I experienced was normal.
2. I was in denial. I was sure there was some other reason for her behavior.
3. I thought I could save her. There had to be something I could do, I just didn't know what.
4. I loved her so much. I couldn't imagine not being with her
5. I loved me so little. I never realized how small my self esteem was until I started recovery.
6. Guilt, how would she survive without me.
7. Fear, how would I survive without her.
8. There was so much I didn't know about her disease and mine.

I left 3 years ago and am in the middle of a divorce at this point. I have a strong recovery program and have achieved a measure of serenity. I continue to post to let others know recovery works and there is hope, if not for their qualifier at least for them.

When I came to this forum I too was full of hate and anger. My world had just fallen apart and i was lost. Most newcomers to here are in the same boat. We are all at different points in our recoveries and many are struggling with all the issues that in a large degree were thrust on them by loving an alcoholic.

I have found that compassion for the plight of others often helps me put my perspectives back in place.

Your friend,