PeacefulWater12

Hello all

Bit of background, I am a recovering A. Just over ten years sober, working my 12 step programs. I am in several as I have multi issues.

AH and I tried to quit together many times, maybe got a few days or weeks then we both went back to drinking. We enabled each other in the thought patterns as to why it was "ok" for us to drink again. We kind of took it in turns to enable this to happen.

Each time one paved the path to drinking, the other was grateful they had done it. Whichever one of us did pave the path got the "blame" from the other. Like the other got a free pass to drink. Guilt free.

Anyways so all of that insanity was just over ten years when I somehow made my quit stick. AH got to where he wanted to carry on drinking so he has.

Ten years later, he has a laundry list of medical conditions because, as we sadly know, alcohol wrecks every part of our bodies. Mind and body.

So now I am actually getting to the point of my posting today.

AH was taken by ambulance to hospital and has been in there for a couple weeks. He is getting better and will be home in a few days.

Now here is the meat of this post.

I (that's I I I I I I I I I I I) thought and completely believed that if only AH wasn't in my life doing what he does, that I would be happy!!

Now he has been away a fortnight I can SEE how completely and utterly wrong my perception was.

I feel exactly the same.

AND.

Even more painful (and therefore needed), I can now SEE how I was enabling my husband to do all the things I was complaining about and truly believing were affecting my life so badly.

ME, I was doing it. ME, I was inviting his behaviours towards me with my martyr like, crappy holier than thou attitude. Me trying to "fix" or "save" him. The sheer arrogance I was showing seems unreal now. Judging myself so much better than him.

I felt absolutely gut wrenched for a couple days. Floored. Then I picked myself back up. I feel grateful now. That I have seen this and have already started making the changes to ME and MY outlook.

My job is to keep my side of the street clean. Pay attention to me and my thoughts and behaviour patterns. Me having my focus on someone elses is just another sick distraction I am using to dodge running my own life in a healthy way.

It is like I am using AH like drink, overeating etc. An obsession to numb out my own reality.

Thank you for reading.

mylifeismine

That is truly wonderful PeacefulWater!!
I hope your husband will decide to make his quit stick, but regardless
of what he chooses to do you are "unstuck" and your life will change
for the better. It takes courage, self-compassion, and an unrelenting search
for truth to have an awakening as you have had. Congratulations to you.

SmallButMighty

AAAhhhhhhh, ouch, those growing pains can be miserable can't they? Sorry for your discomfort PW, but glad to see you've come out the other side of your epiphany as a better version of an already wonderful you. If we aren't learning and growing we're dying, so chin up my friend. That's a beautiful new leaf you've turned over.

I hope your husband is on the mend, I hope better things are in store for him as well.

PeacefulWater12

Thank you, MyLifeIsMine and SmallButMighty for your kind and supportive posts. It certainly felt like a kick in the gut but what a gift.

I have been doing further work with my sponsor this morning. I am so thankful my denial fell away.

I have been in phone touch with hubby while he is in hospital. No visiting at present due to Covid, of course.

When he was in hospital about a year ago, he did his usual manipulating and I spent the whole of his hospital stay running around doing things for him. Most of them, looking back now, were crazy!

This time I have done none! He has done the same manipulating but I have not responded.

I think this was why I was able to suddenly see things clearly. I was sat quietly with myself and my thoughts and not using running around for him to distract me. Not being annoyed that poor me(!) was "having" to do all these things for him. Reality being that I didn't have to do any of them.

My husband plans to drink as soon as he comes home. He has not had any booze in hospital, of course. There is a large amount in our home. He said to me that he is going to cut down and just have a couple a day. Speaking as a recovering A myself, I know this will not happen. We cannot moderate. Once alcohol is in our bodies, off we go!

I am not bothered whether he drinks or not. I now know my way forward and I know my boundaries. I have plenty of work to do on myself.

Nd819

I can so relate to this! When he gets better then I can go about living my life the way I want to, until then I just focus on him and wallowing in self-pity. I needed to read this today.

PeacefulWater12

Hello Nd819

I am pleased me sharing about my life has helped you.

In this big old muddle with addicts and codies, it is all such a crazy mess we have to unpick. This dance we do together.

Personally I have found recovering from my codie issues far harder than my drinking issues.

FallenAngelina

More and more recovering alcoholics are finding their way to AlAnon and saying the same.

PeacefulWater12

Hello Fallen Angel

I found Al-anon an enormous help. As codies we do insane things and we are not even drunk!

velma929

Ohhh, yeah. I was in therapy and my therapist finally asked me what the payoff was to staying with my husband, because as he put it, "There has to be one." I think for me, it was mostly fear about my financial situation and unwillingness to admit the whirlwind romance was a mistake, but yes, maybe a tiny bit of being superior.

Nd819

Yes! If we feel superior then we never have to look at our own shortcomings.

PeacefulWater12

A big YESSSS from me, Velma & Nd. The feeling of being superior is intoxicating!

I can now see that by having someone for me to look down on all the time meant I didn't have to get off my arse and look at and address my own insane and crappy behaviours and ways of acting!

Basically any lowlife thing I decided to do, I could justify by pointing my finger at AH and feeling superior to him!

PeacefulWater12

AH is still away in hospital. What a wonderful opportunity this has been for me. So much has been surfacing in me. I can so clearly see the things I was doing that so badly damaged our marriage. My sick control and manipulations. Really me responding to his manipulations is sick of me.

Normal, well balanced people don't respond to others manipulations.

Funnily enough my hubby has not had his head explode or anything bad happen with me NOT dancing about doing stuff for him. I am not indispensable after all!! Haha!

Feeling indispensable is another sick codie trait. We aren't. The other person can manage without us!

I need to develop more hobbies. Running round after a drinker does not count as a hobby!

I am also blessed as a friend of mine is going through similar and as she chats about her situation of her chasing after and trying to control an addict relative of hers, it allows me to see more of my insane behaviour. It is easier to see it from a distance.

I am determined to get well and be "normal".

Libby06

This was so good PW. Your enlightened level of self awareness has opened my eyes. My husband and I also got sober together, and have stayed sober together for 5 years, but did the blame drinking dance for a few years before it stuck. I admire you for staying sober married to a drinker.

I feel like I have been doing this to him with the cigarettes, and didn't recognize its full extent, until reading your post. I quit smoking a year and a half ago while he still smokes away with COPD. Ive been pretty hard on him, and I think I have been acting in a pretty embarrassing and holier than thou way. I need to knock it off.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart for your post. You held up a mirror for me to see myself, not just the smoking, but a lot of other codie behaviors that are running my life. You helped me today.

I hope your husband gets well soon.

PeacefulWater12

Hello Libby

Many thanks for sharing this. Plenty in there for me to think about.

I can now see, I made the decision to stay married to an active drinker because it suited ME! I had hidden that from myself for many years. It does SUIT ME though. The reasons it suits me are all sick and dysfunctional but it does suit me!

We could have quite easily parted, finances would not have stopped us, we have no children together. I always knew though that if I parted from this man, I would quickly find another with exactly the same traits so I could continue the sick dynamic. I have done this in the past. Several times.

Interesting that you mention smoking. When I drank, AH and I used to smoke together. We both quit smoking about 11 years ago, a few months before my alcohol quit. Now in the smoking quit, AH was an awesome support to me. He lead that quit, he kept me going, I would have returned to smoking without his strength. When we quit, I didn't even want to at that stage, his determination pulled me into his quit and I was able to do it. Neither of us have smoked since.

Had he not helped me so strongly with that, I might well have COPD, health problems now.

I never gave him credit for this, I was too busy feeling superior about me having quit drinking and him not.

What a selective memory I have!

PeacefulWater12

Been sitting with all of this. More has been revealed to me about my dysfunctional thinking and behaviours.

I can see now that my marriage is set up based pretty much on MY need to control. That I manipulate and bully to get what I want. So I can take the lead. As if I know best. I do not. Our marriage is a mess.

An Al-anon saying keeps coming into my head about how when we point a finger of blame at another person, the rest of our fingers are pointing back at ourselves.

I can also now see that not only have I created a lot of the insanity in my marriage, also because I did not have boundaries and say no to things, this caused more too.

So two angles, my actual actions and then my non-action.

I am grateful to see this, am sure is more to be revealed. I feel excited at the changes I will now to be able to make.

I know I cannot change others but I can change myself and then this leads to everything around me changing. I can change my responses. I am finding in my situation that usually the best response is none! Then there is nothing for the insanity to hook onto and build from.

My husband is due home today. I have already changed my responses to him on the phone. I noticed more peace already.

He has discharged himself early, the hospital has wanted him there for another week. That is his choice. My feeling is if he is taken ill again, I will simply phone the emergency services. Hand him over, is not my problem to "fix".

Saying this in a light way, I think for a while I will be sitting on my hands, keeping an invisible zip on my mouth!! Stop me falling back into my default of codie controlling words and actions!! Also using the tried and tested Al-anon technique of casually leaving the room when my brain starts telling me what a great idea it is to offer my husband my "brilliant advice".

This sick behaviour is on both sides. My sickness is giving this "advice" and trying to run everything, my husbands side is trying to get me to do it as he wants zero responsibility in life and also to have me to blame when things don't go right. Time to stop this sick dance. If I stop my 50%, his will naturally change too.

Wishing us all a peaceful day.

FallenAngelina

This is how I say the Serenity Prayer so that I keep my mind specifically focused:


God, grant me the serenity to accept the people I cannot change,
Courage to change the person I can,
And the wisdom to know that person is me.

PeacefulWater12

Amen, Fallen Angel. Thank you

PeacefulWater12

A little update. Only a couple days along but what a difference in my home. Without me doing my insane codie stuff, it is so much better here already.

Now, I just need to keep doing what I am doing. Keep my side of the street clean.

Hubby is drinking very heavily. I am just letting him be and minding my own business. I don't sit with him when he drinks, of course. He is doing his manipulating thing but I am not getting involved.

Hawkeye13

Peaceful, I have found this thread both timely and very helpful in my dynamics with my own spouse, especially the control, judgement issues and the “free pass” for relapse blame-game. I’m also a former alcohol abuser who has struggled with serial relapses when I have made poor choices to drink with, or “because” my husband continued to drink.

He decided to quit himself a week or so ago and has been doing well, and as far as I know this the longest he has gone sober in at least a decade. But I had to leave for an overnight trip yesterday and usually he drinks more when I am gone since I am not there to “control” the situation as the “sober police” or drink with him and blame him for “our” failure. So now I am sitting here this morning wondering if my spouse has relapsed after he didn’t answer the phone last evening which is the typical sign of him drinking while I am gone.

But I agree that the codie dance has to stop for good between us, and I need to focus on my own side of the street, cut the judgement, and respect his choices. I often offer this suggestion to people posting on this list, but your post resonates with me in that I have not been walking the walk myself emotionally, even if I sometimes look like I am.

Holding myself accountable, but kindly so. Addiction has hurt me (and all of us) enough.

Thank you!

PeacefulWater12

Good morning Hawkeye

I am glad my sharing has helped you. It is sooooo easy to point self-righteously at another to make ourselves feel virtuous!!

I very much hear you on what you say about being the "Sober Police". Making it "our" responsibility instead of reality which is that it is 100% responsibility of the drinker.

My husband has tried to put me in that role now and then, I refute it and do not get involved. I have a stock reply to him - His alcohol consumption is up to him.

Various of his medical teams have tried to make me "manage" his alcohol consumption too. Again I refuse. If I ever took on that extremely codie role, it would turn into a battle ground in my home.

An alkie likes nothing better than having an enemy to fight! It also lifts responsibility from them which is a great gift to help the drinking continue.

I write this from both my own perspective as a recovering alcoholic and as spouse of an active alcoholic.

Same with my hubby's meds. He does not take them as prescribed but if the codie part of me waded in as "Meds Police" again a battle would ensue. No thanks.

I am enjoying keeping my side of the road clean. I can feel I have stepped up my behaviours and therefore my self respect already. I can see there are certain things I can no longer do. Lowlife things that I had been hiding under me feeling superior to my husband. Now exposed to myself, I cannot do them.

I find it amazing that once we see the "codie dance" we can stop it. Stone dead. The other person in the dance may well not be pleased but that is how the cookie crumbles. They will have to adjust.

For me, the hard part was SEEING it!

Sending best wishes to you, Hawkeye.