Grief versus guilt ... how do I keep my perspective???
 

I had to pick up a lot of my husband's belongings today. Mostly photos of us together on vacations, and a few other very personal belongings I wanted to keep for myself.

On the long drive home, I felt such profound loss. Not only loss of his life and his willingness to give into the addiction, but the loss of the life we could have had. I don't know if it's right to say I'm angry at his willingness to give into the addiction but an inability to pull himself out of it. I don't know, because I'm not an addict.

I simply cannot comprehend the process. When I realized I was going into that realm, I kept repeating the Serenity Prayer.

But I need experienced voices to help me along this path. I miss him. I loved/love him. My heart is broken. I think that is normal grief.

Please help me to keep myself from wandering into the realm of self-pity or making him into something like a hapless victim.

He was loved by family and friends and was a genuinely kind man. But, a part of me is very angry that he chose such a selfish, and what I consider a cowardly way to check out of life's problems.

And, what makes this sound like an oxymoron, my husband was NOT a cowardly man. He was brave in many ways. But he was so lost and confused about what was going on in his life.

He died never realizing his life was a mess due to his alcoholism. I don't even think he realized he WAS an alcoholic.

Damn this disease.

I don't have the answer, but sending hugs.

Erin, my second husband is somehow still alive, but I have no idea how. I would have expected him to come to a similar end a good ten or more years ago. He's still drinking.

I came to peace with it when I left--I don't know what I'd feel, at this point, if I learned that he died. I suppose I did most of my grieving when we split up.

It IS a waste. He had many good qualities, but they were all buried under the alcohol. I don't think it's a matter of "choosing" to check out that way. When you're in it, you can't see another, viable way to live. I was fortunate that I was able to escape, but there was a time when I thought I was doomed to the same fate. I don't consider myself any braver, or smarter than many who never make it out. I don't know why it goes one way for some and another way for others. In a way, it's like many other diseases, where some people make it and others don't. And it isn't always a matter of free will or choice.

Let yourself feel what you feel, right now. It's a loss, and a waste. He's free from suffering now, and your own pain will ease with time.

I am new here but just had to comment on your post. My husband died last March and I feel everything you are feeling. I love him and always will. He was my best friend and I am sorry the he chose the path he did and we lost the happy life we had. He was a wonderful guy and became a horrible monster that only lived for getting drunk and high. His drinking buddies even quit hanging around him because they told me he was too out there. He gave up a loving wife and children for nothing. I am sorry that you are going through this too.

Hello Erin,

I think grief is to be expected - for what was good and for the lost potential in your relationship as well as him as a human. I don't see you slipping into self pity or rewriting his addiction past.

Do you attend local Al Anon? I personally would like to know you have wise and empathetic face to face support. Do you go to a counselor? There are some who work in grief counseling and perhaps that would reassure you.

Peace,

I do completely understand where you are coming from. I think it is fair and reasonable to have a mixture of feelings and it is okay to feel all of them.

Let me tell you a little story, which many have heard before so apologies in advance. My Dad went through a period of about four years when he was an active alcoholic. I was an adolescent at the time. He did all kinds of stuff during that period which we blamed on alcohol. He spent wild amounts of money. He moved our family across the country. He had wild personality ups and down. He got angry at the drop of a hat. We blamed it on alcohol. He quit drinking cold turkey. We thought life was great. No more wild spending, he was kind and loving. Two and a half months later we found him dead of a self inflicted gunshot wound. I was sixteen. I've spent over thirty years grappling with the emotions. Anger for the financial wreckage he left behind. In educating myself, lots and lots of therapy, and finding out more about his past it is crystal clear that he had untreated bi-polar disorder. I feel sorry for him. I've learned to live and accept that he had many pieces to him some of which I did not like. Others though simply make me grieve for somebody who was deeply hurting. I feel badly sometimes that our family spent sooo much time looking at the addiction rather than what he was trying to self medicate. That said it is what it is.

I hope in time you will find your own peace.

Dear Erin
It sounds like you are doing absolutely great under the circumstances.

So much of what you describes sounds "normal." Some people lose our mates to a different disease than alcoholism. Looking at old photos and grieving is normal for them too.
The hard part of this disease, is that choice was involved in our mates' cases. Maybe they lost the power to choose later, but it always started with a choice to take that first drink.

This is all so new for you. Cut yourself some slack, as we say in the US!!! Keep coming back.

I think that maybe your grief is... more than one grief, if that makes sense? You kind of say that in your post: You're not just grieving his death, you're also grieving what could have been.

I grieved my dreams for my marriage-and-perfect-family before I left AXH. But I think you're not just grieving the life you could have had together, but also the life he could have had free from addiction.

To some extent, your post reminds me of how my extended family reacted when a young person in my family (who was also an addict) committed suicide. There was the grief and the loss, there was the guilt (could I have done more? what did I do that made him not reach out for help?) but there was also anger. How could he be so [stupid, uncaring, unloving to his family]?

What I learned about grief when my father died is that all those "stages of grief" things are largely theoretical constructs that sort-of-kind-of try to approximate what someone might be feeling. In reality, grief is a whirlwind of "I should have" and "I wonder if he knew" and "I wonder if I could have done more/acted differently/changed something."

The day I hear that AXH has died, I will probably come to you for help. Because regardless of the fact that we're not in contact, that he was abusive, that I lived in fear of him for years, there is still such a deep, horrid tragedy when a person chooses a route that takes them to living a hell on earth, and refuses any and all help. When you've loved a person who makes that choice, I don't think you can do anything other than feel whatever you're feeling about that choice, and the outcome. (((hugs)))

I am so sorry for your loss. It doesn't make sense because alcoholism doesn't make sense

Darn this disease says it all. We are good loving intelligent people who are willing to sacrifice anything including our lives to support our drinking.

Alcoholism is the only illness that convinces us we are not sick

Yes, I've gotten back into Al-Anon. It helps a great deal. I have to learn to go with the flow and just accept what I feel. But I must admit, I'm getting worn out from so many feelings, especially when I wake up in the middle of the night and experience such a heaviness or an unease (somewhat like anxiety). I feel physically tired from all the mental "activity."

I look forward to a time when I can have relative peace and acceptance about my husband's death. And the guilt crops up when I think I should have told him one last time I loved him. Would it have gotten him sober? No, I don't think so. He was too far gone. It's as if I never really knew him because he held in so much.

I don't regret leaving when I did. I was getting too crazy and sick from all the lunacy of the addiction. My husband was losing his humanness and turning into nothing more than a drinking machine.

I think that is why my moods swing back and forth. I loved the good man and grieve for him, but I hated the drunk man who I didn't recognize. It's hard to grieve any death, but if he had succumbed to cancer or diabetes or heart disease, I could have kept it in perspective. But at some point in time, he could no longer choose not to drink. But he did have a choice before that occurred. And he simply chose to continue down the wrong path.

I know he was self-medicating, but I was never sure from what. He had his demons and he couldn't divulge them to me.

I was not able to tell my AH that I loved him either and it would not have changed anything for him, but it would have helped me. I loved my husband but I hated the monster that it turned him into. We had a great marriage for 8 wonderful years and then he made a choice to drink and drug again and the disease took over. Once our oldest sons were diagnosed with a fatal disease I knew he would blame his drinking on it and, of course, me. I can see the only way AH was ever going to get well was to die. I miss the good guy and I will always love him. My best wishes to you -- you will have good and bad days. I still cry about AH and what we had that he threw away every so often and I probably always will. He was a great guy that had a horrible disease he was unwilling to overcome. He worked AA on the outside but never the inside where the hard work was.