Time to heal.
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Thread Starter
Join Date: Aug 2016
Posts: 121
Time to heal.
"I feel great! I've never been more sure about anything in my life. I will never ever have another drink. Not even a sip. I'm not craving it and quitting isn't even hard. I genuinely feel that drinking is the dumbest human ritual there is. Emotions are there for a reason and dulling them out doesn't make them go away. It's stupid! And it's such a waste of money. I don't need AA or a support group. I'd only be going for you. I'm telling everyone. The guys at work even laughed at me, but I don't care. They'll see. I'm not a recovering alcoholic. I'm just a guy who doesn't drink."
Our conversation last night had me secretly rolling my eyes into the back of my head.
A week ago he wanted to meet people who were like him. He wanted to go to the doctors and get information on what's available to him.
I know many people have quit without a support group or the help. But I know many people relapse.
Regardless of what he does, I definitely need my own help and support, and I will seek help through counseling and al anon once i line up child care so I can go. The damage has been done, so to speak. He's been in a bad mood all week so I've been anxious. He's been late coming home from work which put me right into a panic attack. He said he was going to the hardware store to shop around and my chest tightened.
I'm sick. I have been so affected by his drinking that I don't know what parts of me are left in here.
I'm also so angry. So resentful...
Oh, you're good now? Just like that... and now I'm the one falling apart and needs to get help. You couldn't have done this when you found out I was pregnant to make my life a little easier and treat me better? Or after our daughter was born and I was recovering and struggling with post-partum depression but still holding everything together... of course, I've never said these words out loud.
But the worst of all, since he's been in recovery all I got was "you know, you weren't all that helpful. The way you responded and dealt with my drinking and binges didn't help me."
I could have responded to that with a thousand statements. They all would have been vengeful, a Instead, I took a deep breath and nodded.
All I want, is the acknowledgement that at all costs, I stood by him. I was loyal to him. The pain, the suffering, the sadness and depression I endured, and I still stood by him... and it cost me greatly.
My sanity and mental health, my friends, my family, my esteem, my image, the respect I had from others, my car, in some ways my professionalism, my body, my money, my dreams... my life. And I hear that I wasn't helpful, when the first day of his sobriety he acknowledged and said- "I don't blame anyone for how they handled me or themselves while I was drinking. No one could have done anything even if they had tried."
Everyone else used him while he drank. For money, to buy them drinks, to get information out of him... for whatever they could get out of him... but I have to hear that I wasn't helpful. I don't get to hear that despite my inability to save him from himself (because no one could), that he appreciates that I loved him enough to try, or that I never turned my back on him. That unlike everyone around him, I tried to be his only solid ground.
I have to accept that this will likely never happen.
That I'll never get a thank you, or an apology.
I can't dwell. All I can do is choose to move forward, get support, and take my life back.
I hope he stays sober and our relationship heals over time, but I don't think it can until I heal.
Our conversation last night had me secretly rolling my eyes into the back of my head.
A week ago he wanted to meet people who were like him. He wanted to go to the doctors and get information on what's available to him.
I know many people have quit without a support group or the help. But I know many people relapse.
Regardless of what he does, I definitely need my own help and support, and I will seek help through counseling and al anon once i line up child care so I can go. The damage has been done, so to speak. He's been in a bad mood all week so I've been anxious. He's been late coming home from work which put me right into a panic attack. He said he was going to the hardware store to shop around and my chest tightened.
I'm sick. I have been so affected by his drinking that I don't know what parts of me are left in here.
I'm also so angry. So resentful...
Oh, you're good now? Just like that... and now I'm the one falling apart and needs to get help. You couldn't have done this when you found out I was pregnant to make my life a little easier and treat me better? Or after our daughter was born and I was recovering and struggling with post-partum depression but still holding everything together... of course, I've never said these words out loud.
But the worst of all, since he's been in recovery all I got was "you know, you weren't all that helpful. The way you responded and dealt with my drinking and binges didn't help me."
I could have responded to that with a thousand statements. They all would have been vengeful, a Instead, I took a deep breath and nodded.
All I want, is the acknowledgement that at all costs, I stood by him. I was loyal to him. The pain, the suffering, the sadness and depression I endured, and I still stood by him... and it cost me greatly.
My sanity and mental health, my friends, my family, my esteem, my image, the respect I had from others, my car, in some ways my professionalism, my body, my money, my dreams... my life. And I hear that I wasn't helpful, when the first day of his sobriety he acknowledged and said- "I don't blame anyone for how they handled me or themselves while I was drinking. No one could have done anything even if they had tried."
Everyone else used him while he drank. For money, to buy them drinks, to get information out of him... for whatever they could get out of him... but I have to hear that I wasn't helpful. I don't get to hear that despite my inability to save him from himself (because no one could), that he appreciates that I loved him enough to try, or that I never turned my back on him. That unlike everyone around him, I tried to be his only solid ground.
I have to accept that this will likely never happen.
That I'll never get a thank you, or an apology.
I can't dwell. All I can do is choose to move forward, get support, and take my life back.
I hope he stays sober and our relationship heals over time, but I don't think it can until I heal.
Member
Join Date: Jun 2016
Posts: 773
Glad you are taking care of yourself. I read the following the other day "Life becomes easier if you learn to accept apology you never got". That is what I am doing, I am all about easy these days
As for being a solid ground, I am glad that no rehab will assign me a title of "his sober system".
As for being a solid ground, I am glad that no rehab will assign me a title of "his sober system".
Guest
Join Date: Jan 2016
Location: Northwest
Posts: 4,215
All those absolute statements are a big red flag to me. He seems to be underestimating the opponent, which leaves you with no plan when a big craving bites you in the nether regions.
But that's not yours to fix. Getting support for YOU is great.
Sending you a hug...
But that's not yours to fix. Getting support for YOU is great.
Sending you a hug...
Member
Join Date: May 2016
Location: east coast
Posts: 532
((((((hugs)))))). After leaving a marriage of 33 years and him fighting paying me alimony, I also feel angry that I gave up so much of my life and did not get appreciated. I understand how you feel. My STBXAH is very good at being selfish and self-centered.
Member
Join Date: Mar 2013
Location: Midwest
Posts: 11,481
KBF, I doubt very much your A will continue long in his "recovery." Have you heard the saying "Failing to plan is planning to fail"? As another poster mentioned, those absolute statements of his are going to leave him w/no emergency assistance lifeline when (not if) he gets the urge to drink. You'll need your own plan, too.
XAH did this same thing any number of times w/cigarettes. He'd announce he was going to quit, and I would try to "help" (this was before my own recovery began), suggesting web sites, books, things that had worked for me when I quit for good--but he never wanted to have any kind of backup plan. "Nope, I'm just going to QUIT. I don't need to have any support system, any way to distract or motivate myself, anything at all. I'm just going to QUIT."
It worked about as well as you'd imagine. And on each new attempt (which would happen only after he'd been caught, like a naughty high schooler--it's not like he'd ever tell me he was struggling or even tell me that he wasn't going to quit or didn't want to quit, he'd just lead me to believe that he had, indeed, quit), the song would be the same.
Not surprisingly, that was the approach to sobriety, too. "I'm just going to get sober." Just before we divorced, he confessed he'd never asked for help, never made a call to sponsor or AA fellow, not even once, when he felt like drinking. He just drank.
So I guess it's important to have the tools, but even if you have them, you need to use them in order to get any good out of them...
I think looking out for yourself is going to be well worth the effort, either soon or late.
XAH did this same thing any number of times w/cigarettes. He'd announce he was going to quit, and I would try to "help" (this was before my own recovery began), suggesting web sites, books, things that had worked for me when I quit for good--but he never wanted to have any kind of backup plan. "Nope, I'm just going to QUIT. I don't need to have any support system, any way to distract or motivate myself, anything at all. I'm just going to QUIT."
It worked about as well as you'd imagine. And on each new attempt (which would happen only after he'd been caught, like a naughty high schooler--it's not like he'd ever tell me he was struggling or even tell me that he wasn't going to quit or didn't want to quit, he'd just lead me to believe that he had, indeed, quit), the song would be the same.
Not surprisingly, that was the approach to sobriety, too. "I'm just going to get sober." Just before we divorced, he confessed he'd never asked for help, never made a call to sponsor or AA fellow, not even once, when he felt like drinking. He just drank.
So I guess it's important to have the tools, but even if you have them, you need to use them in order to get any good out of them...
I think looking out for yourself is going to be well worth the effort, either soon or late.
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