Support group for those affected by someone else's drinking

[fedup078]

Hi
I haven't seen a dedicated thread for the families or partners of alcoholics / problem drinkers so I thought I'd start one for people to check in for support.

My mother was a problem drinker from when I was 12 until she died when I was 36 2 years ago . I was nc at the time

Currently divorcing a drinker and feeling quite low about it all suddenly. I know there was nothing else I could do but it doesn't make it easier .

Have given al-anon a thought a few times but I'm not sure in person / zoom meetings are for me.

Thank you @Userqrgtyd It has taken a few days to understand that she really was trying.

Having pieced together a few more details and realised that it was a full-scale incident, it's really surprising that she survived. She wouldn't have expected to have been spotted, I think. Not a busy place.

Was it a sober, conscious decision? Or was she so drunk she wasn't thinking straight? I don't know. She can't be trusted to tell the truth on that.

I hope she was very drunk, because it would be worse if she did it sober, consciously. It worries us that she has broken that threshold of making a serious attempt.

Not sure how much she remembers. We haven't asked questions, she is still in shock. Will wait to see what support will entail.

What a mess it all is. Thanks all.

My DH attempted suicide and it was horrifying to know he felt so low, but he was also very drunk at the time so my distress for him was mixed with a lot of anger. It is so hard to deal with the feelings of helplessness, rage, frustration, guilt and sadness. I'd suggest not trying to question her as she will, as you suspect, not tell you the truth and if she was very drunk may not even know. If there is professional support there, let them deal with that aspect. You need to decide now how you are going to cope best moving forward and what boundaries you need to set.

I'm so sorry to hear that @amlie8. I am new to the board, but I also have similar experience (although not with the same alcoholic I have recently posted about, I unfortunately know a few). I hope your partner is taking good care of you.

I am back from my little holiday. I was able to mostly switch off from everything, although my friend did message me on two occasions - I won't say what they are as they're outing, but there was a valid reason. Not asking for anything explicitly, but of course now I am back I can't stop thinking that I should message her. The fear, guilt and obligation is kicking in big time, and I just don't know what to do. The timing and content of the messages would suggest she is still drinking, and I just don't think I can get sucked into that. I don't want to deal with it - and maybe somewhat selfishly, don't see why I should. Then I go around in circles because she has no on else. Ugh.

@OdeToBarney It’s not selfish to prioritise yourself and your family. You told them you were stepping back. You can of course choose to respond, keeping to the matter in hand, or to not respond. Guilt should have no place in this, but does of course. You have been a very good friend. I have received similar messages, that are on the surface, reasonable requests. I’ve chosen not to respond, and that’s not easy, sleepless nights and guilt have followed. But it has helped me understand this is not my problem to fix. And I do so love the peace that has now come into my life. It has helped me to realise that if I ever needed anything from my relative, I would be very unlikely to receive any kind of response, except possibly outrage, because they are always the centre of the story, and my job is to facilitate this. If you think your friend would help you if you asked for help, then of course, it’s a very different thing.

@3dogs2cats it's very difficult to say. Prior to her becoming an alcoholic, I would have said absolutely, she'd be there for absolutely anything I needed. A real, true, friend for life - one I could trust to turn up with a shovel! Now, I'm not so sure. She can barely look after herself and every conversation is about her and her problems (or achievements, like when she was in rehab). The long shared history does it make it difficult to see the wood for the trees though.

Like you, I enjoy (and need) the peace of being no contact. But the guilt is overwhelming. I know from past experiences that brief and seemingly innocuous conversations can quickly spiral and I'm wary of that.

Why not write a short response, explaining your ambivalence and sit on it for a few days, then decide if you want to send? I did this and it really helped to clarify my thoughts. I didn’t send them but I knew why!

That's a great idea @3dogs2cats - thank you. I will do that tomorrow. Thank you for being on hand for my musings!

@OdeToBarney I have pages and pages written to my husband. We are separated, and I am about to start in divorce proceedings. My heart is absolutely shattered by all of this, but I know that I cannot weaken, and my husband is legally prevented from contacting me. This is not how I saw things playing out, I had hope until the last cataclysmic night, and I finally realised I had to stop it all. The scales really dropping from the eyes is horrendous and I am left trying to make sense of how someone who professed (and still does I am told) to love me could give everything up for another bottle of vodka. I still want some way to tell him how I feel and to find out why from him. Of course he will still be in no place to give a rational answer to the why, I doubt he really has any understanding of how much I am hurting, so the writing all stays in my notebook.

A rather self indulgent rant, but writing things down really does help.

Thank you for sharing @Userqrgtyd - it sounds like it is therapeutic for you. I am going to give it a go now. I'm on my own for the first time in about 10 days (well, ignoring all the other people with me on this train!) so I can finally have some head space. Deep breath and here I go!

Part of the problem with dealing with an alcoholic partner/parent is that you want explanations and apologies that never come. If you're anything like me you spent a lot of time planning conversations that you hoped would make everything clear. And those conversations NEVER go the way you planned, because while the alcoholic might be well aware that their drinking is causing massive issues, their need for the next drink trumps everything. So, they deflect, blame or get aggressive and the planned conversation goes totally awry. Writing it all down instead is probably as close as you can get to some kind of closure. You won't get what you want, but you'll get what you need, the ability in future to read over what you wrote then and think "This is what happened. This is how it made me feel. It was terrible and I am glad the nightmare is over."

@CharlotteByrde you are so right. I found something I wrote a year ago, and it shocked me how raw and upset I was. I had almost completely forgotten the events that prompted me to write. Somehow at the time I carried on carrying on. I’m not yet at the glad stage to be honest, but I can see the progress I am making.

Writing it down is incredibly therapeutic. When my husband was in his (failed) rehab, I was asked to write an impact statement detailing how his alcohol use had affected all of us. It ended up being 4 pages typed, and getting it all down just really made sense of it all. It helped me clarify what I knew I had to do if that rehab failed and he lapsed back into his old ways - not the drinking, I expected relapses there, but the deceitful behaviour and the emotional abuse. Rereading that statement gave me the strength to stay strong and go through with divorcing him, asking him to leave the house, calling the police on him when he threatened to kill me. Getting it all down is powerful, I'd recommend anyone to do it if they feel the need. Several people in my group do it too.

Hi All. I have written here some time ago about my husband and his issues with alcohol. Basically, he is an alcoholic who pours himself a drink as soon as he wakes up. On the days that he works, he seems to control his urge the drink until he comes home, but he only works part time and he is home all day for part of the week, when I either work from home or go to office / meetings and he drinks all day. These are the days I dread, as he can then snap at small things with me and the kids. Today I had to be out of the house all day and he was of course drinking again. His behaviour, although not as aggressive as some of the past examples, was unpleasant. Now he is asleep next to me stinking of alcohol and I am just thinking how much I hate his addiction, not him, but what alcohol does to him. I feel guilty that my kids are having to see their dad drunk - whether they understand this is what it is I am not sure. I thought about separating from him so many times. But I feel sorry for him - this is an illness. And if I was to leave him, I fear he will hit rock bottom, perhaps become jobless and even homeless. I don’t know why I am writing this, as I can guess some of you will say I need to think of my children first and leave him. And you wouldn’t be wrong. But I just can’t get myself to do it 😔

Part of the problem with dealing with an alcoholic partner/parent is that you want explanations and apologies that never come. If you're anything like me you spent a lot of time planning conversations that you hoped would make everything clear.

@CharlotteByrde that's exactly it. Surely I can just find the perfect words, to cut through and make her really understand? Uhhh no.

I find the lack of explanation/apology the very hardest bit, I think. I've never had a 'sorry'. Not in 30 years. It makes you think it is your fault. I mean, I think that's the aim. Think she actually believes that now.

It is the drink talking too, but it makes me think 'wow, can't believe my own mother hates me that much!' To make it worse, she likes to slur that she has 'only ever loved me unconditionally'.

When I pull myself together and am strong, I can say to myself, well, some people are fucking arseholes, best avoided, best not thought of. Bad luck that my mother had to be a fucking arsehole but I have plenty more good, kind people in my life.

@MonaRosa I will wait for others wiser than me to respond, but just wanted you to remember it is his responsibility to fix himself and his his responsibility if he sinks further. I am now in the position where I have separated from my alcoholic, and he has sunk fast, he might be making steps to recover, but he wasn’t able to do anything when we were together and I was frantically trying to sort things. It is horrible, but you and your children deserve a life without walking on eggshells. Keep on here, maybe think about Al-anon, if you have a real life person you can talk to call them, and put you and your children first. Hugs 🌷

@MonaRosa you're echoing all the things I felt before I acted. The guilt is overwhelming, you feel that you 'ought to' be able to help him and not being able to must therefore make it your fault somehow.

So focus on your children instead. Children of alcoholics are at high risk of becoming addicted themselves. Make that your reason for leaving. They can't protect themselves, that's up to you.

Do try to find some real life support, talking about it is vital.

@amlie8 it is the drink talking. Try not to be distressed by the terrible things that come out your alcoholic’s mouth. Their only aim is their next drink and if they feel you’re getting in the way of that, they’ll lash out verbally or physically.. Eventually, I moved beyond anger about my husband’s horrible behaviour and the awful things he’d said, and reached a kind of emotional distance. I accepted that he did love me and our children but that he wasn’t strong enough to overcome his addiction. It beat him but I truly believe he’d be happy we’re moving on with our lives.

@MonaRosa If he was a heroin addict, whose behaviour damaged your children, finances, relationship, wtc etc would you feel guilty about saying ' I can't have this in my children's lives and my life' ?

@MonaRosa you can feel sorry for him, but you can't save him and by protecting him from consequences you are really only prolonging the agony. If you think about it, you'd be doing him a favour by letting him face the reality of the impact drinking is having his life. If hitting rock bottom -losing his wife, his family, his job and his home- isn't enough to stop him drinking himself to death, what will? Most importantly of all, @pointythings is right. Living with an alcoholic is damaging your children. Your responsibility is to them, not him.

Hello, thought I would check in to see how everyone is. I hope for those who are maintaining no/low contact are staying strong, and those who are in the thick of it are finding peace where they can.

I cleared our garage with some friends over the weekend and only found one empty bottle. More of his stuff has been packed away, out of sight and mind. Which of course is still only an interim fix. As I unravel so much of the last 10 years in my mind I realise quite how much mind space it took to try to be normal amidst the chaos. 🪴

You may well find there are lots of blanks in your memories of the last ten years. When I try and unravel what happened to me in those years, I can't remember quite a lot of it. Of course, some of the particularly horrible events are etched there forever and can't be erased, no matter how hard I try to consign them to the bin.

Just posting for a bit of support. I broke up with my partner who i’ve been with for a year. He is a drinker, we would go out and he would order shots at the bar for him to top him up etc. We had numerous conversations in text mostly about his drinking and he mentioned that we wants to change because he wants to be happy with me, i am his motivation. This however didn’t sit right with me and it made me feel sort of a scapegoat and responsible for him, e.g. what if i express that im unhappy and trigger him. I believe if pol want to change they have to do it for themselves not tie sobriety to another human being and their words/actions. Anyways, in 6 months or so since i started talking about it little has changed. So we broke up.
Numerous times i felt guilt and nearly texted him but i’ve been reading al anon forums and nobody, literally nobody said that it is worth staying in this situation. This thread also confirms that. So im sitting on my hands and letting guilt feelings wash over me and waiting for them to go away.

Also, apart from guilt, i feel relieved because i stopped thinking e.g. is he drinking tonight? what our future might look like?

Im talking his stuff back to him tomorrow and just need a little push and handhold to stay away and to cut this unhealthy cord.

Edit- there are more things in our relationship that don’t sot right with me but im leaving them out as im almost there with being free from it all. Almost.

@BumblebeeAndPoppy your future self will thank you. It is not your job to be his motivation. He has to do it for himself. I spent 10 years trying to mend an alcoholic, and the way out is so messy after that time. Be resolute x

@BumblebeeAndPoppy you are 100% doing the right thing. Nobody has the right to place the responsibility for their recovery from addiction on someone else, which is what your exP did. Your instincts are sound, hang on to that. And if you want to talk, vent or actually add the wisdom you have learned, keep posting on this thread.

Thank you @pointythings and @Userqrgtyd.
You saying im 100% right gives me
comfort as i know you speak from bitter experience. I tell myself i don’t have to go down that hellhole to find out for myself, at this point i have a choice.
We already been through a few rounds of me voicing my concerns and then him promising to change and then getting angry with me if i follow things up a week later as apparently i don’t give him time. He’s had enough time. And in my mind, that’s how it’s going to be, im just going to be a scapegoat for him to direct his anger. In his eyes im not supporting him.

I thought it would be nice to help and see another person turn his life around and be the best version of himself. He’s not a bad guy. Sweet and sensitive. But that is not enough is it. He’s been drinking well before he met me and i probably won’t be able to make a difference. There’s too many situations in life that can be used as a reason to drink, happy or stressful. And i can see myself becomming just a venting ground and a scapegoat. I worry about his mental health but that is not in my power to fix. And he is not making any moves to address that. It’s sad really.