Lazyboy

you know today we had a spat and she called me a drunk who couldnt controll mydrinking........man im just about done in..........I went 3 weeks one time and didnt tell anyone........you know who noticed..no one not one person I know.......this is a bitch.
Lazyboy

SomeoneSomwhere

Why be with someone who

A. Does not support you in your recovery...
B. Buys alcohol when she knows you're trying to quit
C. Uses your alcoholism against you in fights
And D. Makes you feel badly about yourself.

You need to to surround yourself with people who treat you well. And you mean you went three weeks sober without anyone noticing? Well it's not for them. It's for you. So it shouldn't matter if other people know or don't know. You're getting sober for you, not her.

Kmber2010

Lazy.....here is something I have found through sobriety. Once we lift that veil of alcohol we see people for what they really are. I think counseling is definitely in order with your spouse. Recovery is a life long journey and those close to us need to understand that. She may be bitter as I know my ex was that I had a problem but I chose me first. Only until that dark period with him was over was I able to start the repair process and build my self confidence.

I found that some people I held close to me as an alcoholic were not people who really cared one bit about me. Only sober have I been able to see this and say no more. I have done a lot of "cleaning out my closet."

She needs to get with the program as sobriety is on you but having a constant negative force daily in your life makes the journey much more harder.

Best thing I could've done to get sober was to rid myself of my ex-husband and focus on myself. I lost it all but I gained a wonderful partner and only now am I sober and living my life the way I should have for years.

I gave up the thinking that drove me for years - that line in the film I am Legend where the main character keeps saying I can fix this....I can fix this.

We can only fix ourselves. Keep us posted Lazy.

Dee74

It's tough I know lazyboy - we're tying ourselves in knots and noone notices or downplays it if they do, or throws old stuff in our face....

I had a lot of resentment over stuff like that.
Eventually I realised 'you're doing this for you, man. Noone else'....

It's not for kudos or awards or whatever - it's about making the kind of life we deserve.

I hope your wife will come around, but til then - you have us, LB

D

Rev

I know my wife was hoping to go out for a beer with me on Cinco de Mayo, even though I told her I was an alcoholic. I don't think she wants to believe it. Maybe because now I can't drink with her, so she has to either abstain, or drink alone, when we're together. I think whenever we change, even for the better, there is often the fear in our partners that the change might mean we're moving away from them. When I became vegetarian, my wife had a similar reaction.

Rev

yeahgr8

Interesting Dee!

Coincidentally or not this was the first time that i had ever got help to stop the drinking and the madness for me!

All previous attempts came with a condition, a condition i placed on myself i hasten to add under the disguise of doing it for partner, job, family etc

SomeoneSomwhere

I am actually curious as to how this applies to someone who cares more about others than they do about themselves. I mean I feel like your kids or your husband or whatever can serve as a serious motivator for getting sober because none of us like to hurt the people we love. I think when we are in the grasp of alcoholism we don't care very much about ourselves, considering what we're doing to our own bodies. And I know they say if you can't care about yourself then you can't care about another person but I honestly don't think that's true. I might not love myself but there are people in this world I love and would take a bullet or do anything for. Slash sorry to the OP I didn't mean to hijack your thread I was just curious about what people thought because honestly, I don't know that I care about my own well being enough to just get sober for myself. And I feel like there may be a lot of people out there like that. I think the people we care about serve as huge motivators for getting sober...but maybe I am wrong

Dee74

Well - I was rock bottom self esteem wise too...I started this simply because I didn't want to die...but eventually I came to find some worth in my life, and what I was doing with it sober.

My sobriety today is not dependent on my partner or anyone else. It's the way I want to live my life now.

D

Mark75

Sure, there are plenty of motivators to get us into sobriety initially... courts, spouses, employers, what or whomever... And I agree, I never stopped loving or caring about those close to me... and... I knew I was alcoholic for quite some time, but didn't seem to care.

My experience with this idea of getting sober for myself... once the going got tough, once the rubber hit the road, rigorous honesty and all of that... nothing else but the quest for a true and happy recovery... happy, joyous and free... well, that had to be for me.

Being sober for someone else with out doing the work of real recovery and realizing the miracle.... it seems hardly worth it.

Toronto68

Someone, that is something that used to be a mystery to me too, or maybe it is less of a mystery now. I remember talking about this a week or two ago, and at that point I said I had a better idea, for some reason, what self-love involves.

I suppose it's not so much that you can't love someone when you are not being good to yourself, but that you see you can do more or better for someone else when you are maintaining something good for yourself. You might have more to say about this after you go through your program.

I think that when people stop using, they allow themselves the chance to get a view of the things they value in themselves, almost like actually appreciating oneself. There are others who talk here about how they split themselves into two people and coach themselves, particularly when they feel their thinking needs to be monitored. I think the ability to reach this kind of self-concern can ADD to your ability to do someone else some good. It doesn't mean you become Mother Theresa, and in fact I would suggest it should take some time to gain practice at working on oneself and being selfish at that. But I suspect the results for some people is having a more controlled compassion.

By "using" we might still be wonderful people when it comes to caring about others, but we are busy with choking ourselves while using. Once the substance is out of range and we are not using it, we are giving ourselves a better fighting chance at being good for others - but it has to start with us first.

That's what I get out of caring for yourself.