sunshine003

You are not wrong, it is too big of a burden. The only way to live with an active alcoholic is to not carry the burden, to detach and live your own life while they are drinking. His life, his problem, his mistakes. You also do not clean up his messes when he gets into trouble. Some people here have done just this and remain married. It does put a strain on a marriage and distance you from your partner. I have not learned how to detach because to me, how can you not worry? it's lonely. So I'm with you, I don't know how to stay. But if you want to, lots of people here have great advice. Start your own thread and ask away.

megamysterioso

I think I will ask this question and hopefully get answers from both ends of the spectrum. Thanks for your post.

LeafOnTheWind

Mega,
No, you are not wrong. It's not in our power to 'heal' another person. It's totally in their hands -and for anyone to make you feel responsible for another's problem with alcohol is enabling that person also.

I was where you are now many years ago. After a string of broken promises and relapses, I finally told my husband of 33 years that if he wanted me to stay that he needed to get into a program - either out-patient or in-patient, do the 12-step program and stay sober. He wouldn't do it. We argued about this for a year. Even after I left, he didn't take the responsibility to get help.

He promised to - if I would come back. He cut down on his drinking, but when I told him that I wasn't coming back, he fell back into drinking a lot, and after a big blowout with one of our sons, and under the threat of jail, he checked himself into a treatment facility.

I'm glad for him, but it's too late for us. I also feel that if I were to go back to him, he would relapse, because it's the pattern he's always followed.

Every situation is different and only you can know the dynamics of your relationship. He will only get help when he wants help - not because anyone tells him to.

megamysterioso

Thank you Leaf. I can only begin to imagine what you went through during that 33 years. I really don't want that to happen to me. I am a young woman with a successful career. Everything in my life is good except for this MAJOR part. It is taking time and life away from me. I am so preoccupied with this that I spend every available minute checking posts that I've left everywhere just hoping to find some miracle "answer" as to what I should do. It is becoming all-consuming (and pathetic) and I don't want to waste my life being this person I've become. Thank you so much again and God bless.

IrshIzNotSmilin

Hey Mega, I am feeling the same. Pathetic. Life Sucking Pathetic. I feel and know that I am a provoker , I ice him out. Not helping. I feel lousy. I am making myself feel lousy. I guess I need to learn to detach and I thought I was, I just hide. Run. Threaten to run is my newest. Nice to meet all the newbies. Best Wishes.

megamysterioso

Thanks Irsh. Yep I feel you as I too am slowly sinking here. For about the last week or so- while my AH is in the living room being a "good boy" (not cracking a beer open until 9PM versus 2-3 PM), I've been here in our bedroom secretly posting and trying to read replies to my previous posts. I'm not living in the moment and just feel like I cannot even be around him and enjoy it at this point. My AH is trying to "cut down" drinking and he has done a good job, but it is not enough for me. I don't think anything can be enough as tired and numb as I am. It's kind of sad really. I feel like I'm waiting for the shoe to drop and then I'll run!

IrshIzNotSmilin

Mega we are running to this board. Mine has not been drinking M-F for 2 weeks and moderating on the weekend... reason ..to lose weight LOL really it is so I calm and settle into that nice comfortable but uncomfortable place so that when he kicks in again in the Merry Month of March LOL that I will not NOTICE?????!!!!!#####@@@@ RIIIIIGGHTTT.... and I will get sucked in again.. I allow it , I know it, and I go with it... why? THE DREAM the dream of love, family, reciprocal love....the kind I never got as a child and the kind I never gave to myself. That is the lesson really and I don't really face that. I want it from him. I want him to be the greatest. He is good I will admit that, Kind, Good Hearted, Warm, Caring, Good Father, Listens (while sober), and Puts all the right words together to make me feel like a princess.... and then he drinks and I wake up from the fairy tale. The fairy tale I created because I needed to be loved so badly and he has really really been the only one who gave it back. BANG it is flawed. He drinks. Yeah Yeah I know he doesn't fall down and he is not in jail not in the gutter got a DUI and got a GOOD LAWYER so that he talked it down to RECKLESS DRIVING and now Junior 18 my stepson DUI before Christmas but I think his will stick really bad. BUT on the outside we look model. Sorry this is probably wrong to put here but that is how I feel too mega.

IrshIzNotSmilin

I am always waiting for the other shoe to drop . Living on Eggshells I don't sleep either I need to take sleeping pills to sleep.

megamysterioso

Yeah Irsh! I know exactly what you're saying about the "comfortable yet uncomfortable place." I'm almost content in the bedroom alone while he is drinking moderately and SILENTLY on the sofa in the other room. Then I get the gnawing feeling that this is NOT what a marriage supposed to be. I've even fantasized about what it would be like if I were single. I am REALLY careful not to go gallavanting too far into that fantasy though. I want to keep a "clear head" and not delude myself with the infamous "grass is greener" mentality. I know that when we "get comfortable", they get comfortable and will be rip-roaring in March! I know the cycle.

Sorry about your stepson getting the DUI. My AH claim to fame is "I've NEVER gone to jail." Makes me sick. Like Chris Rock said, "You low-expection-having MFer- you're NOT SUPPOSED to go to jail!"

LeafOnTheWind

ah, yes..the miracle...

I prayed for too many years that God would fix my AH and show me what to do. Little did I know it that just by my asking that question I was getting the answer I needed.

I couldn't control my AH and praying for him to change just wasn't going to happen.

Unlike you, I didn't have a career or years of college to fall back on. I almost broke away when my oldest was 7, but my AH convinced me that the reason he was drinking so much is because he wanted another baby, and that he'd quit drinking if we had one.

Of course, I had hope. We had another baby - and wouldn't you know it? About 2 months after the birth of our delightful second boy, my AH went on a major bender and was charged with leaving the scene of an accident.

So much for promises - of course, that was my fault, too, for being so preoccupied with taking care of a newborn and not taking care of his needs.

But I was stuck -once again. No family out there willing to help me - I had made my bed, and now I must lie in it.

Well, things were better after that for a while - and we had another son 2 years later. And wouldn't you know it - 2 months after he was born, my AH had another drunken rage and chased me out of the house with a butcher knife.

Was all apologetic the next day - didn't get arrested, but spent the night in jail. Me - 3 boys, no job, no familial support. Stuck again.

I was PATHETIC!

Anyway, things were better for a long while. These incidents did shake him up enough where he would quit drinking for a long while.

Well, we both got older - kids got older - he started lapsing more often and raging, too. I was at the point where I had a decent job, some money saved, the kids were older - one out on his own, and I was just about to make the break.

It was March, 1997 - and guess what? No - not pregnant this time (OMG - I would've died!)

Our middle son was diagnosed with cancer (he was 13). There was no way I could've dealt with getting him well and a divorce without imploding.

It took a couple of years, but he got better and is doing fine now.

And my AH was fine during that period of time, too. But - oh yeah, he started to relapse big time after that. His mom died, his dad was put in a home and he started drinking to handle the stress, he said. He had a million excuses, and once again I was the BAD WIFE.

But now I'm FREE - well, almost - still need to file papers. He went into a facility, as I said, but I'm not going back. HELLO! I'm a slow learner, but I do learn. And I've lost hope that anything is ever going to change with him.

And I'm tired. I want peace. He's what I like to call an energy vampire, and as soon as I can get him to quit calling me everyday, I'll be so much better.

Oh - so sorry for spewing my guts all over the place.

Too bad there weren't places like this 20 some years ago....

megamysterioso

Oh my goodness Leaf. I'm so glad that your son beat the cancer and is fine now. That must have been a devastating time for you. When things like that happen, it puts everything into a bigger perspective. I try not to forget to count my blessings. There is so much suffering in the world and when I get down, I think about all of the great things in my life which are many- great family, great friends, great job, health. My problems seem small in comparison to many.

"So much for promises - of course, that was my fault, too, for being so preoccupied with taking care of a newborn and not taking care of his needs."

When my AH went to the ER about a month ago for alcohol poisoning, it was my "fault" too. "You ought to know better than to let me go off alone in a bar!" I said, "I'm not your babysitter."

Yes, my AH will forever drink. Just as your AH kept going back to that good ole' standby! I have really come to realize this and am about to post a new thread about it. I don't want to get pregnant (altho we rarely have sex these days at my doing) or somehow end up even "more stuck" than I feel now.

Best wishes to you and I admire your strength.

iloveheralot

That number one was told to me just last sunday night before I went to work..

tiggerg65

hello this is my first post so here goes i have been living with an alcoholic for 8 yrs now. i love him dearly he is such a great guy when he's sober. i was reading the enabler post. and found out that i am the provoker, boy when he gets drunk i ride his butt so hard which only makes me feel bad, never helps so i am going to try and be quite maybe this wwill help i hope anyway. linda

tiggerg65

ok folks i tried it my bf got drunk tonight i said nothing i acted as though it was any other day [ sober day ] guess what it worked i feel so good right now and he is so confused he dont know what hit him. thanks for the help i will be here for the long haul GOD BLESS US ALL

megamysterioso

Hi tigger. I'm glad that you feel better and I'm sure that your bf is confused. They really get used to us reacting in certain ways and when we don't, the "reality" that they've constructed (with our help of course) just falls out from underneath them!

Please start posting a bit in the "Friends and Family" forum. You will get a lot more responses from people that can offer you more great advice there. Welcome to SR and we are here for you. Hugs your way.

megamysterioso

Ok- DUH--- -- I just woke up!!! You ARE in the "Friends and Family" section.

Start your own thread here any time if you need advice in further dealing with your situation.

xmksx

Hi,

I joined this board a little while ago and have read alot of the stories of people being in relationships with alcoholics. I myself was in a relationship a couple years ago for a year and a half with a man who was an admitted alcoholic and did alot of drugs in his younger years. Basically this man was drunk when I met him. I ended up giving him a ride home as he had also just lost his license because of a repeat drunken driving offense. He ended up on house arrest because of this. Basically I drove him to AA meetings, even attended one with him once, drove him to meetings with the corrections people for his house arrest, sat with him just about every night while he was on house arrest, helped him find a new job, and did alot of worrying about him. I had a really strong suspicion that he had some liver problems. He did admit to having some varicose veins on his esophagus that had ruptured nearly killing him a couple years before I met him. Basically, I totally abstained from drinking around him not to tempt him. He slipped once while we were visiting a friend of his right after he got off house arrest. His friend dragged out some weed and he did some of it. We we left I had a sturn lecture with him and told him that if he did anymore drugs or got drunk again I would leave him. It was at this time that I offered to go to an AA meeting with him as moral support. This worked for about another 6 months or so. Then things started to go downhill. We would make a date and he would show up late or not at all and then call me and apologise. On one occasion I went over to his place and there were a whole bunch of beer cans in his garbage and he was all hungover and didn't want to do anything. The last incident which was the straw that broke the camels back was when I went over and his place was a mess and he was laying in bed all hung over again. I just told him that I had enough and was not going to babysit him anymore. I gave him several chances to clean up his act and he didn't. I know I did the right thing as there was one pretty serious thing that he never told me the truth about and I found out through a source close to him. It hurt alot at first, but I was happy to have the heavy burden of constantly worrying about this man off my chest.

megamysterioso

Good for you and yes, you did the right thing. That is what is SOOO horrifying to me is that it is very common for the addict to relapse and continue to do so throughout his/her life. I've read stories where after 16 years sober, people begin again. I just cannot live with that uncertainty.

minou

ANYONE OUT THERE WHO HAS LIVED WITH A RECOVER"ED" A FOR YEARS AND IT'S GOING OK????
is it almost always the nightmare scenario???

justdon't care

Is this a normal react or thought? I am at a point with my husband...I just wish he would die. I do not have any emotions any more. I just do not care about this bloke. When I look at him all I see is scum or a droddy old man. He doesn't take care of himself. He won't even buy clothes or get a hair cut. Taking a bath or shower is a monthly event for him. He does work,but takes many Mondays off. Don't understand why they don't fire him. At least he has a job.
So with my feelings am I enabling this bloke? I have been in this for over 7 years. I have nagged,cried and all of the mentioned. But when the feelings are gone. So when does the enabling stop and one is just emotional dead? Has the alcoholic won? Emotional dead people don't interfer with their drinking.