Posted on 07/04/2014 9:02:19 PM PDT by proud American in Canada
Hi all,
I never, NEVER, thought I'd post this here. But at this point, I have no one to turn to.
I'm a 51 year-old housewife/reporter and photographer who tries to make money doing proofreading, editing, writing,taking pictures, and oh, yes, selling ads for a phone book belonging to a dear friend of mine who was on Gatineau's city council (that's how I met him; we broke a lot of stories here).
I need to make a profile on FR; it would save a lot of time. :)
Long story short. I grew up in Des Plaines, IL, met my French Canadian husband about 20 + years ago; we moved to Denver and had a son and daughter there. Thank God they were born on American soil! :)
About 15 years ago, my husband got a job offer and we had to move north. I felt like he'd punched me in the stomach; I couldn't breathe. I fell into a depression after moving the kids, by myself, driving all those miles (my husband had already bought a home and begun work with the government up here).
A year after we moved, 9/11 happened...and even though I was far away, I felt even more depressed, probably because I was separated from the country I love and knew was hurting, but I couldn't do anything. Thanks to FR, I sent care packages to the troops...
Anyway. Fast forward to today. I began drinking hard, and now, it seriously imperiled my health. I have to stop, and I do, for periods of time, but then... something happens and I fall back into old habits.
Example. I`ve never had a D.U.I. (I never drink and drive), but I lost my drivers license at the hospital because my brain chemicals were out of whack (too much ammonia?). I'm on lactylose.
Last weekend, a long weekend here because of Canada Day, I had a lot of errands to do with the car, so I needed hubby to drive me around.
Things were okay... until at some point, he kept being so sarcastic, so .... fake ... he kept saying, "where should we go right now? Please, let me help you!" (fake, fake, fake). I started to cry in the car. He'd beaten me down after two days of me asking him to drive me here and there to help my (Gatineau city) councillor friend make money...
I cried and gave up, and bought some booze at the grocery store, while he bought "make your own pizza" fixings...I had said, "we can get all of that at Walmart.." (where they don't sell alcohol). Instead, he chose a grocery where they sell alcohol…the one thing I didn’t want him to do).
Long story short, I feel like I'm pushing up the proverbial rock while my husband is kicking it, hard, back into my face.... all while doing that in front of our kids so that they have no respect for me. btw, when I don`t drink, we have the same fights... just not as emotional on my side. What do I do? How do you deal with trying to fix yourself when everyone seems to be aligned against you? Any advice would be appreciated. And I feel so embarrassed to reach out like this, but I’m at my wit’s end. My husband seems closer to our daughter than he does to me, and it hurts. Julie
My hubby told me I could tell you he was a drunk for many years.
I nagged and nagged and tried hard to tolerate it, but it was ruining our lives. I love the guy, but I was tired of making excuses and watching him stumbling and bumbling around. He couldn’t do anything without being drunk. He was twig thin because he couldn’t eat, was argumentative and spent his weekends mostly passed out. he mentioned that when he awoke he saw purple haze. His health was deteriorating.
One night I was at the end of my rope and sat down and wrote him a letter. I won’t say what was in that letter, but it was not an ultimatum delivered.
He read it, we talked, he pondered. I was not encouraged.
After that I noticed he quit the drinking. has not been drunk since then.
Our life has become good again. I asked him what he was doing, how are you doing it?
He said you have to really look to yourself. YOU can stop, but you have to corral the WILLPOWER to do it. Only YOU can make it happen. Nobody else can help you. Decide if you want to die a drunk or if you want to enjoy a good life.
It can happen for you.
Bless you and I hope you can get a hold of yourself. You sound like a really good person, but you have to want that person back.
My personal life is so much better now. I love this and I love him.
By the grace of God, I’m in my eleventh year of sobriety. Get thee to AA.
Great posting, fwdude!
I had a DWI in the mid-70s and was required to go to two months of AA meetings. I was in my mid-30s then and could barely sit through the twice-weekly meetings listening to the BS.
I understand that AA has helped many, but it seems to me to be a program that requires a person to be/become religious to “succeed” in kicking the habit of drinking alcohol.
Just drinking alcohol doesn’t make a person an alcoholic. It’s the dependence on the euphoria derived from drinking alcohol to forget or ignore other problems that causes people to become alcoholics. ...It’s NOT a disease and it’s NOT genetic; it occurs through personal behavior and choice.
Looks like you have proven you don’t have the will power to quit bowing to king alcohol. Good luck doing what you are doing.
I was lucky in that I went to AA and discovered God. I asked Jesus to take over my life and remove the obsession to drink over 21 years ago. Something welled up inside of me at that moment and I have not desired a drink since.
First, a broken person cannot fix themselves. No matter how hard you try, how sincere you are, how much you mean it during the hard times, that's just the reality. You need guidance, someone to talk to, and a good dose of faith.
Not sure Alcoholics Anonymous has the same name up in Canada -- but I highly recommend you find them and get the guidance and emotional support you need from them.
I think you know the path you're currently on is the wrong one -- and you're right to want to correct the path you're on! You should listen to the little voice within that's crying out for help and wanting to stop drinking. That little voice is important. It is your guide back to sanity and sobriety and dare I say -- likely the Holy Spirit calling out to you.
Listen to it. Make the call to your closest Alcoholics Anonymous and get to a meeting. It's a small step in the right direction -- one at a time. Don't look too far down the road, just look at your first, second and third step. Take them. It gets easier as you go along. Listen to what the Holy Spirit is trying to tell you. You already know, let it be confirmation. A sponsor in AA is also a great emotional support.
I suspect you already knew what to do, if the words above are confirmation then make the first step and call AA.
Ghost is not being unsympathetic in post #8. He is being factual. He is telling you that explanations of your drinking to excess—living in Canada, 9-11, having an impatient husband—are not acceptable—they are justifications, and they are the first thing that will be kicked to the curb when you go to AA. You will learn that explanations and justifications are ways alcoholics have of excusing their drinking. Those excuses need to stop. This is not being cold or heartless or unsympathetic; it’s the wake-up call you need. It’s the most sympathetic and helpful thing anyone could possibly say to you.
You need to go to AA. You want help? That’s where it is. If you don’t go now, you will just have to go in the future, when your life is even worse. So go now.
Stop defining love as a noun and start defining it as a verb.
Love is something you do. Ask him about his life, hopes, dreams, disappointments and really listen to him. Tell him you appreciate him when he is supportive. In other words treat him the way you would like for him to treat you.
After you do these things then you can ask him for his help and support for fixing your problems.
I believe in the direct approach.
Confront your husband straight on.
Ask him:
“Why do you insist on pushing the alcohol in my face?”
“Why won’t you support me in my efforts to stay sober?”
“Playing the game of someone trying to quit, is a path to repeatedly finding reasons to fall off the wagon.”
Agree.
If you want to quit, YOU have to quit. No one can quit it for you. If you do something wrong, you have to own it.
No one drove me to drink. I drove there myself.
A couple of points...
Alcoholism is a combination of the desire to drink, and the addiction to alcohol. While you may never completely lose the desire to drink, you MUST break the addiction if you ever hope to stay sober. AA is a good place to start. An outpatient rehab facility, or maybe even an inpatient rehab facility, may be a better place to go to break the addiction.
Breaking the addiction is not the end of your recovery. You are not “fixed” at that point. Alcoholism often masks underlying problems... depression, anger, physical problems, marital troubles. You can not deal with those underlying issues until you have broken the addiction. You will, however, need to face those problems once you are sober.
Many people are unable to stop drinking until they’ve hit “bottom”. They have reached a point where they are powerless to help themselves. They have to turn it over to someone else. Hitting “bottom”, for many, means alcohol has destroyed their lives to the point that they are left with only two choices in life...either get help, or die.
You have taken a step in the right direction by reaching out here. Don’t stop reaching out. Get help. You can ask your husband and other family members to attend AlAnon while you seek help. They may or may not agree to do that. It would be great if they did, but YOU are the only one YOU should be worrying about. You are the only one that can seek the help that you need. Please, seek that help.
Thank you!
I have known two individuals who changed their lives almost over night by turning to God and spiritual sources for help. It was not just the alcohol at fault, but a general perversion of enjoying the feeling of being injured and wanting sympathy. For a host of reasons. Other alcoholics died earlier or lived their last years in rotten health and still looking for sympathy from the few people who any longer cared.
There are many good posts offering help for the Canadian poster and I sincerely hope she makes a real effort to consider all of them. People do care about another persons misery. I also hope that she is honest about the part she seems to blame on a husband who appears to be royally fed up with the hell she is putting him through and the better life the whole family is foregoing because of her addiction to personal escape from responsibility.
It is not uncharitable to have a non sympathetic response to addictive behavior. Many of us have been there and done that. We too have to separate ourselves from those who would make our lives as messy as theirs. Prayers yes. That is it for me.
I always thought if there was a pill that an alcoholic could take that would cause this reaction that it would be great for those who wanted to quit.
If that’s the best you can offer, don’t bother posting.
I am sorry if I was not clear in my post. Being hypoglycemic is not the reason. I only mentioned it because I found that to be true for some and, in discussing the issue with others, it seemed to be true in their lives.
The alcohol triggers a craving in the brain that, once started, becomes so overwhelming that is almost impossible to arrest.
Before I even read the thread, here’s a forum you might want to have look at
http://www.e-aa.org/forum/index.php
.....”he claims to want me to be healthy, yet he criticizes me and makes me feel small at every opportunity”....
You may very well have exhausted his limits....family members and spouses struggle as much if not more than those with an alcoholic problem. The alcoholic tends to return to the bottle to ease his issues, family members and spouses don’t. Rather ‘they endure’ and ‘suffer’, time and again, the next round of conflicts, or the woe is me moments, and all that entails that which alcoholics bring to the family unit thru their behavior....and you never know what you’re going to get.
I don’t think it’s fair to blame family for they generally are doing what they know to help...including being tough at times....until they are simply exhausted of the entire situation. They listen lovingly only to find what’s said is never carried out....and the massive excuses why the drinking began again...wash and repeat becomes the norm.
It’s an interesting thing to sit in a meeting with alcoholics discussing their issues of life. It’s not long before you recognize they don’t deal with anything more than most people have to face and deal with in life. For whatever their reasoning is they handle it through drinking....and sometimes rather than do the hard work to get past what leads them to drink, as most people do, ‘they escape’ that by drinking until at one point or another their body demands it.
Family members see this happening...see the steps...and eventually realize no matter what form their “support” takes it’s not working to help the individual.
At this point the alcholic needs to seek help outside the family....when it’s straining everyone. Better before this but that usually isn’t the case.
I don’t believe there’s much your husband can do at this point, and you shouldn’t expect more. The ball is in your court to change your behavior, not his.
Do what you must to straighten yourself out...and then make decisions on your marriage. But IMO he’s stayed with you thus far...and that speaks volumes of his commitment to the marriage itself. ....even if it might be hard for him to show you his love...and I’m not so sure you’d identify it if he did.
Well if your husband is that bad dump him and go to AA. Maybe he’s tired of living with an alchoholic. I did it for 6 years and I had to retire from it. Its exhausting.
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