aliciagr

Thanks

I dont really like Al-Anon because I dont much prescribe to the AA view of addiction. Much more into therapeutic and holistic approaches. So its hard to sit through in many ways. The only part I'm interested in is he personal connection part. I had met one woman my age and it was nice to talk to her. She quit going and I thought Is check to see if anyone new has started going. I like the online forum here, the idea s the same because you can get your feelings out and say what you might not feel up to saying to other people in your life. Since moving I havent had time to work on friends or activities in the area. I met a couple nice people at my work but Lord knows I dont feel like just meeting people and saying My husband is in rehab after crazy behavior on drugs and stealing from his parents. Its not an ideal icebreaker.

I think therapy and time will help me, and can only pray he gets real and hopefully in the new rehab he will begin to calm down and reflect.we both need to do that and badly.

firebolt

I am glad you are in therapy and have some time to reflect while he is in rehab.

Yeah - I totally agree.

And in your defense - we minimize unacceptable behavior because that is the only way we know how to get through it without going into shock or having a breakdown. MOST of us have done this, and we don't totally realize we are doing it until we've done some work on ourselves, or until we're out of the chaos.

I saw my XABF a few weeks ago - and my body went into a panic and I felt SO crappy for a while after. I was flung back to all the awful ways he made me feel because of his verbal abuse and rages (10 months prior!). ...yet while I was there, living with him, i was just soooo in love.

I wanted to take a crying game shower after seeing him. I could not believe how much I minimized and stuffed away.

It helped me at one point to write down ALL of the horrible things he said and did. And then ask myself if my friend, or my sister told me her partner, the one who loves her so much did these things to her, how would I feel and react? What would I want for her and her future? What would I be willing to do to help her get away from such a man?

Take care of yourself, and hoping you get some peace and clarity during this break while he is in rehab. You deserve so much more from a partner than you have received.

timetohealguy

Hi Dandylion,

Wow - your post is such wise advice and raises some very important points.

I'll add what I have learned from my experience in terms of that stuff ...


That is exactly what the therapist who I organised for my ex said to me about my ex's drinking.

In my ex's case, her drinking had reached the point where her life was absolutely at immediate risk. Despite that, she continued to drink.

So my ex's therapist actually encouraged me to go along with a destructive demand from my ex which would create consequences for my ex.

My ex's thinking behind that demand was incredibly blaming and destructive towards me, but my ex's therapist told me to do what my ex was asking, as it would create a massive consequence for her drinking.

My ex's therapist wanted my ex to feel the consequences of her drinking, as months of trying to reason with my ex had failed to break her denial about her drinking.


Oh this, this, this !!!

After a very serious incident caused by my ex's drinking, my ex ended up moving out of our home temporarily to her parents house for an attempt at so-called "at home rehab". Neither of her parents are doctors, psychologists, psychiatrists, therapists etc, and neither of them have ever worked in medicine or healthcare.

In her mind, she framed this move to her parents house in her mind as being due to "relationship problems" between her and I, not because of her alcohol abuse.

One of her parents sat her down with me and told my ex in crystal clear terms that she could only stay with her parents if there was zero drinking while she was staying with her parents ... and that if she did drink, she agreed to go straight to inpatient rehab, immediately.

This was not some casual conversation. It was a very formal, very serious sit down conversation, which went on for over an hour.

So the boundaries were set, and were very very clear. This stint at her parents' house was a last chance to attempt to get sober at home, before the next step of inpatient rehab.


How did it go ? ...

She was dry for a few weeks, then started drinking again (on multiple occasions).

So at that point, the consequence would be inpatient rehab right ? Right ?

Wrong !

With me (and multiple medical experts) stating very calmly and clearly "the next step is now inpatient rehab", my ex then told me that she did not remember ever agreeing to go to inpatient rehab if she drank while staying at her parents' house. And she claimed that her parent who that conversation was with, where the conditions of "at home rehab" were so clearly laid out, said they did not remember that either.

I was in utter disbelief at this nonsense.

So what was the consequence of her breaking the terms under which she was staying at her parents' house ?

(sound of crickets)

At that point, a therapist told me that because the consequence of drinking of inpatient rehab was not put immediately into place, that my ex now saw her parents' house as a safe haven where she could drink and avoid going to rehab, and that my ex then saw her parents' house as a place where the consequence of inpatient rehab could be avoided.

And in my ex's mind, that was "safer" than her and my home, where I would not allow continued drinking without consequences and accountability for that drinking.

So with me in utter disbelief saying "she has repeatedly broken the terms she agreed to, she is drinking again and the only option now is inpatient rehab, which is what she agreed to if she broke those terms", my ex and her family of origin simply acted as if the condition of "no drinking or it's inpatient rehab" never ever existed.

And at that point, the finger of blame was swung around and pointed at me, as if I was driving her to drink, when in reality I was doing more than any other person to try to stop her drinking.

I have no doubt she did not like me trying to make sure she fully felt the consequences of her drinking. But at that point, my only concern was saving her life, and if I had that time over, I would do exactly the same thing again. That is what you do if you love someone, you do whatever it takes to save their life.


It took me almost 2 years to get that.

I learnt that lesson the hard way - by constantly banging my head against a brick wall and getting nowhere with it. I tried EVERYTHING to try to get my ex to see the truth.

I finally realised why so many addiction experts say that there is very little that a loved one can do to "convince" a drinker, once the drinking progresses to a certain point.

Once the brain is truly hijacked, it is virtually impossible to get through to them with logic, words, tears or anything else.

At this point, alcohol OWNS them. It owns their brain, it owns their decisions, it absolutely is in charge.


That is the voice of experience speaking right there.

Dandylion is absolutely correct about that.

2 years ago I could not see that. I can see that very very clearly now though.

My ex had a great career and a great life before she started abusing alcohol. She ended up unemployed, separated from me, and living with her parents.

Her drinking left our relationship in absolute tatters.

I was blamed for her drinking (as if arguments between her and I had driven her to drink, when in reality the vast majority of those arguments were sparked by me trying everything I could to get her to think about the damage her drinking was doing and to accept treatment) and she refused to speak to me for almost 2 years.


Having gone through the consequences for me and my ex of her being shielded from the consequences of her drinking, if I could do that time over again, I would want the most serious treatment and the most consequences for her drinking rightaway.

To take a soft approach when a brain is truly hijacked can in fact be very dangerous. Because while the drinker will make the right noises to convince their family that the soft approach is working, in reality the addiction is simply using that time to keep drinking, hide the drinking and allow the addiction to progress even more.

And when the family finally realizes what has happened, and how their own denial and wish to try the soft approach has enabled the addiction to progress, guess what ? ...

You are then left trying to fix what has become an even more serious, more entrenched, more life threatening addiction, with alcohol even more in control of their brain than it was when the first opportunity to treat it came up.


My theory from what I experienced with my ex is this ...

Untreated alcoholism is like a ticking clock. I believe that there is a window of time in which a drinker can be pulled back from the brink, before the hijacking of the brain reaches the point that it becomes exponentially more difficult to reverse.

It is like a race between getting a drinker into treatment, and the addiction getting a tighter and tighter hold on their thinking.

Each day they are not in treatment, the addiction progresses and gets a tighter grip on them. Tick, tick, tick.

And if it is allowed to progress unchecked, it eventually reaches a point at which a tipping point is reached, and it very quickly becomes harder and harder to get through to them with logic or words of any kind.

At that point, I believe the only thing that has any hope of pulling them back is deeply feeling the consequences of their actions. You can call that "rock bottom", but for some there is no bottom, what you think is the bottom is just the latest stop on a downward spiral.


So if I had the chance to do over the last few years again with my ex, this is what I would do ...


At the very first opportunity, I would push for inpatient rehab, rightaway, and refuse to take no for an answer. I would do whatever it took to get them to inpatient rehab - hire an interventionist, get friends and family involved, argue with any members of the family of origin who are denial and resisting inpatient rehab, the whole 9 yards.

A drinking problem may need multiple trips to inpatient rehab, and the sooner you get started with that treatment, the greater the chance of success.

Families of origin have a tendency to not want to accept that their family member needs inpatient rehab, but remember that in many cases, the drinking you see is just the tip of the iceberg - the problem is often much much worse than you realise.

If your drinker hides their drinking, then ALL you are seeing is their slip ups where their hiding did not work.

It is natural for people to want to try to shield their loved one from consequences that seem "too severe" or "destructive", but honestly, what is more severe and destructive than the addiction itself ?

The addiction, because it will eventually kill a person given a chance, and destroy their family and everything that is good in their life and the lives of their loved ones, is already "too severe" and "too destructive". That may not yet be obvious to the family, but every day the addiction marches on. Tick, tick, tick.

So the risk is not "is this consequence too severe", but the risk we should really be thinking of is "given that the addiction may be far more extreme and far more destructive than the drinker wants us to know it is, and the addiction is getting worse every day that they drink, are the consequences severe enough that the pain of the consequences outweighs the pleasure of the drinking and outweighs the pain of stopping drinking ?"

Tony Robbins has spoken about how people will not make a change in their lives until the pain of not changing outweighs the pain of making the change. I think that he is spot on about that.

In terms of a "carrot and stick" approach, with alcoholism, positive reinforcement, the "carrot" seems to have little affect. If it did, it would not be a difficult problem to treat, and forums like this would not even exist.

So unfortunately, that leave the "stick".

No one wants to use a "stick" approach on their loved one's drinking, but think about this ... when was the last time you heard someone say "my spouse was an alcoholic so I sat him / her down and had a conversation with them about how much happier our lives would be without alcohol, and he / she immediately got it and stopped drinking that day, forever".


My ex is back in contact with me now after almost 2 years of silence from her.

She seems to have has stopped drinking, but there is still so much denial there of what caused the problems (alcohol was THE problem).

This is what can happen if a family of origin gets in the way of the treatment an alcoholic really needs.

Inpatient rehab is not about simply isolating the drinker from alcohol, physically stopping them from getting alcohol - it is also about treating the alcoholic thinking.

As far as I can see, what I am seeing from my ex now is sobriety, not recovery.

This article explains the difference ...

Why Sobriety is Nothing Like Recovery

timetohealguy

Hi Alicia,

Everyone here has been through feelings of disbelief, as you are.

This is a place for you to talk to people who have been through the insanity of a loved one's addiction themselves. We get it in a way that only people who have been through it themselves can.

I have not been a member of the forum for long, but I dealt with my ex's drinking for years. It was a big step for me to join the forum and talk about, and I wasn't sure if it would help me or not when I first joined, but it really does.

Everyone has their own unique situation with their drinker. But there are commonalities which many of us experience, so I see the forum as a great place to discuss those commonalities, and then you take that info and apply it to your own situation and make decisions based on your own situation.

No two situations are exactly alike and no one ever knows the full story from just a short post.

I have found people to be very kind on here.

timetohealguy

Haha - so true !

aliciagr

Thank you for taking such time to tell me your experience. I read his earlier and have not had time do reply but I appreciate your comments.

I saw my therapist today and updated on what's been going on and the new rehab. She reviewed their material and thinks he place offers a lot and he should get better core treatment there. Shes worried about my plan to drive him but with short notice flying is going to be expensive and much cheaper to drive. She had lots of what its to project and no I dont have all the answers but now I will think thru her questions. And I think I made some progress on realizing why I need some space without his current drama to work on my feelings and to the explore how I felt when he forced himself on me. She asked me go try to journal what I recall and the feelings I felt. She said not to go further. But shes concered I shouldnt start if I'm going go be travelling with him because it may color my feelings and silence my inner voice.

Tomorrow I see him.