I was affected heavily by my partner of 8 years gambling addiction. I was guilty of enabling him, handing him money back because I was afraid of him, and staying in the crappy relationship because I was so co-dependant.
On the flip side of that I was in a marriage later in my life with a man who enabled my drinking because he was scared for me, of me, to lose me. I recently made amends for the years of pain and anguish I caused him and all the chaos I brought to our lives. I never wanted to hurt him he just got sucked into the abyss of my addiction.
I hope lots of people flock to this thread for the support they need. I know there are lots of people out there trying to stay sober with partners still in active addiction.
My wife is asleep on the couch now. It’s pretty much the norm around here. I always feel at least it is just wine. Today anyway. I’ve really been doing good. No great. Getting over the resentment issue. It was always such a big weight on my neck. Like I wrote earlier. It’s like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die. It’s hard. But I try and find the good. I get the place to myself. The tv. The bed. With all my pets. And I’m grateful for the sober time we do have together. But I do feel sad often. It sucks.
It’s really difficult to talk to an addict or alcoholic. You got to pick a good time. I always find expressing how I feel works best. It doesn’t fix the problem. But it gets my feelings out there.
Denial can very a very strong thing in addiction. I didn’t want to believe my kids were serious drug addicts. There were lots of signs. But I didn’t want my loved ones to be drug addicts. Eventually it gets worse and it hits you. It can hit you hard.
It’s definitely very difficult to talk to an alcoholic about drinking. It’s almost impossible. At least in my experience. I just go with how I feel. I helps me. My dad self medicated with drugs and booze because of back pain and surgeries in the 60’s. So I never really had a dad that played with me or anything like that growing up. But somewhere around his mid 50’s he just stopped, after being in a pain unit rehab place in Boston. I had already moved far away. I at least got to have a nice but long distance relationship with him at the end of his life. Until Alzheimer’s came along.
@Dazercat Eric I want to kiss you I’m so touched you made this thread. You couldn’t have known. I’ve been thinking about making it myself for a long time. Well, a few months. Shame kept me from it. I am going to say it now even though I’m not sure how far I can go sharing experience and how much information I want to divulge. I went public here before on the forum and was shamed so I might withdraw if this happens again. My partner came out to me as a sex addict about 4 months ago. His acting out far exceeds masturbation and porn and that’s all I’m going to say about this. We have been together 14 years. Big big love story. His acting out and lying has spanned the last 4,5 years of that. This has blown up my life. He was everything to me.
I knew we were codependent before. I am now ever more grasping to what extent we were and are still, though clawing my way out of it tooth and nail. Always discovering more of what all was enabled and hidden by this toxic dynamic.
I didn’t continue going to s-anon because the group I went to, it felt the women were doing all the work while their partners didn’t commit to recovery. They weren’t getting any better and the ladies just stayed and “worked on themselves”. I couldn’t bear that. I feel over-responsible, all the fucking time. My partner in active addiction has benefitted from that like any good narcissistic addict bastard. I, without knowing what that meant, took all the blame and guilt for our relationship not feeling as it once did for a long long time. That did me a lot of harm. I want to feel less responsible for what he did. And I’m managing that slowly.
We live apart now. It’ll take time to understand all the aspects of this, and moreover develop healthier and more self-responsible, adult ways of being with each other.
I hate what he did to me. But I still love the man I know he can become and I see in him, underneath all his hurt and deep flaws from childhood trauma and all that, yes, you guessed it. He is just another hurt soul like all of us here. He’s very committed to recovery, does everything by the book, out-reach, connect, meetings service, and does intensive therapy, like me. so, I’m often even glad about his work on himself these days. Still there’s no knowing if I will get back with him. And I need this to be an open process. I’m not just biding my time until we can “go back to normal”. No sir, that ship has burned.
My life today looks very different from what it looked like 2 months ago, 3, 6, a year. I went through a period of very bad depression and regression recently. I thought of suicide. I ate nothing but chocolate and chicken meat I buy for my dogs for over a month. And I was a vegan for ten years before then! I had probably the worst anxiety of my life so far.
I have of late felt a bit more stable again. Progress not perfection. Life is good. Recovery is good. We are the lucky ones. I feel that way.
Thanks for reading and letting me share. Love to you all.
Yeah and like you and me know as addicts you cant make someone stop. They have to want it for themselves. My father was the same way. We have never done anything hardly together from childhood til now. After work was his cool down and drinking period. He never went to any of my baseball games or allstar games nothing. Yeah as my parents age now it’s starting to get to that phase where health problems dimetia , Alzheimers and things are starting in both parents. Atleast im not a complete mess and alot more with it to be able to help them out now. Just before i got clean i was destined to be dead or in jail for a long time for stupid things. My mother said she kinda started to accept that as we have alot more heart to heart talks now that im clean. I also know me getting clean also opened a door that they both could do it too. My mother used to drink and binge every weekend. Now she might drink a handful of times a year. I could only imagine watching my spouse going down that rabbit hole. My last gf is now deceased from using and im kind of glad we seperated ways a few years before she passed. Making any kind of grieving go by much easier as we were no longer close. Atleast doing our part we can be there to take care of things responsibility if needed and care for them.
I have to admit a little of me feels I need to respond to everyone, but I don’t have the answers. I know you don’t expect me to. I just hope as a collective we can all vent, support, and tell each other what works for us. And of course know we are not alone in this. I just know what works for me.
Thank you to all that have shared so far.
I find Al-Anon literature, especially my morning daily devotional helps me a lot. I’ve been reading some form or another for years. I’m back to Courage To Change. I think it is my favorite one. I never miss a reading it it.
My favorite reading that I’ve posted on TS in one thread or another is:
Please don’t feel a need to respond to each share here, because no one expects that of you. Plus, we already stretch ourselves too thin some days. We none have all the answers, but you’ve created a space for us to learn from each other and from ourselves. Oftentimes, I deeply resonate with someone else’s share, but all I can do is feel love for them. I have no words to offer, but I am intensely aware of their struggles, and I focus on sending that love towards them. Sometimes that’s all we can do. Just love.
I’m glad your here. I feel your pain and blessing that your son is still alive. I can’t wait to see mine after almost 2 years. We were blessed to have a dual diagnosis of addiction and bipolar with my second miracle of recovery. That’s when I really found God.
Argh shit………I’m crying again…… twice in one morning. Like you, TS is my only support and it works. Reading and knowledge combined and sharing with your open heart and tears is what’s worked for me. And the love of THE BIG GUY upstairs. 🥲
Maybe. Not today.
Suppose she sees it?
Suppose she gets mad?
Suppose it wakes her up?
Suppose it helps me?
Suppose it has the answers I’m looking for?
Suppose God is trying to give me exactly what I need?
Crying is good, and I’ve been doing a lot of that lately. I had a relationship with God and with Nature before I ever knew what a god was. I needed someone to talk to, and I could always feel someone was listening.
My son’s last detox wasn’t as bad as this recent one. With meds, I took care of him here at home. Guess when that was… the first week of August this year. I had my last drunk day on August 11. I know that his drinking problem brought me to sobriety. My kids have always been my world, and how was I ever going to be there for him, when I couldn’t even be there for myself? I felt like a hypocrite for even thinking I could. But I didn’t quit trying, and look where it’s gotten us.
So I really like your question, “What if it wakes her up?”
Thanks for your share. I’ve changed the topic heading. It’s funny after all these years My mind goes right to drugs and booze for addiction. There’s so many fucking addictions out there. I want this to be a safe place for anyone to share about being affected by any addiction. I’m glad you joined in.
I think for me being a binge addict, I think to myself “who am I to judge?” and find myself brushing my own feelings about it all under the rug. I don’t want for my boyfriend to ever feel like I love him with conditions or anything, because I do not. He is incredibly good to me, and he has been a godsend as far as relationships go. I just wish he didn’t drink like he did because I really worry about his health more than anything. And I just wish he could really see and experience life through truly sober eyes. You aren’t truly seeing through sober eyes if you are only taking a day or two away from drinking because that addiction still has its grasp on you and you continuously are thinking about when you can get that next drink… so it still keeps your mind distracted and as a result you are not fully present in the moment. At least that was my experience when mine was really bad. And I see it in his eyes too the day or two he might take a break here and there. But he had been an everyday drinker for almost 20 years.
Thinking about this makes me sad. Wherever I watch, people are glued to their screens. You don’t know a certain popular meme? People wonder what the fuck is wrong with you. You don’t game? If I weren’t very open to people about my addiction, they’d be asking me what the fuck is wrong with me. I have friends who take selfies mid-conversation to quickly send them on Snapchat. All I see is people dependent on technology. It scares. I fear the future. What’s to come of my generation if all they give a fuck about is keeping their snap streaks going or if their win rate is high enough. All people who were held back this year at my school have an unhealthy relationship with technology and in all cases, technology abuse is the cause of being held back. There are 6-year olds just casually saying “what the fuck”. I see 6-year olds walking around with an iPhone 12 that’s way too big for their pockets and hands. Children nowadays need stimuli constantly as they don’t know different. I don’t think many of them ever really feel peace. And I see people here on TS who are on here so much it seems like an addiction. I fear they might be replacing addictions.
And then there’s my brother. PMO-, nicotine-, screen and food addict. He’s not aware though. He is killing himself with his lifestyle. But he’s got so many mental illnesses, you can only blame him a little. Sometimes I sit on the couch, studying for school, and he’ll just turn on the TV right in front of me, knowing I want to quit watching TV. Numerous times I relapsed because of my inability to walk away. He doesn’t care, he just needs his dopamine. I have little hope for the future… but hey, at least I’m trying to get a healthy relationship with technology. That’s more than 0 people.
Thank you for starting this thread Eric the fine line (I’m sure it’s a very thick line to the outside observer) is hard to tread, where you’re not sure if you’re enabling or not, or you know your help is pointless but you can’t handle the personal guilt you’ll feel if the addict in your life suffers and you could have “helped”. Ugh. So much to say on this topic but I’m sorry you’re struggling. I know how easy it is for people on the outside to give tough love in this area or feel a certain way because “you should know better”… but it’s complicated caring for an addict. Inevitably I do feel it’s the addicts responsibility to create a better outcome by making better decisions.
After last week she said that you had valid feelings about her drinking. You could ask her how you could help her not have a repeat of last weekend. Tell her you’re concerned that she might fall and hurt herself. If liquor escalates the problem, maybe a talk about how she should just stick to wine. In other words keep the conversation open and let her know your feelings. Being nice, concerned. In a way that she won’t just lash out. Y’all are not in the drinking thing together anymore. That’s a good thing on your part. Not so good on her part, because now she is the drinker alone and without you. It may be that she may need counseling and that’s something that you can deal with when you get back home. For now just concentrate on the time that you’re going to be gone. Tell her you love her and that you will help her anyway that you can to keep her drinking to a point where she’s not stumbling around or embarrassing herself.
Drinking has affected my life very very very much. Not me drinking. I quit when I was 27. I have never regretted it.
I am not as well versed on this as many.
I will say prayers.
shit………I’m crying again…… twice in one morning. Like you, TS is my only support and it works. Reading and knowledge combined and sharing with your open heart and tears is what’s worked for me. And the love of THE BIG GUY upstairs.
