Support group for those affected by someone else's drinking - thread 4

[pointythings]

I'm about to head out for the morning routine and given how active our thread has been I felt I had better provide a new one.

Link to the previous thread: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/alcohol_support/5418536-support-group-for-those-affecteed-by-someone-elses-drinking-thread-3

@zeroclucksgiven Echo all you say!

OMG @zeroclucksgiven I don’t have words for your therapist.

I also got the - he adores you, he can’t do it without you. Let me see…you want me to set myself on fire and live a life of chaos and abuse? Nope, no thanks, if you want to step into my gap you know where he lives! No, not interested? Thought not.

Get to f**k indeed! No one is going to put us first - not the addict or their support services or their friends and family. We have to choose us.

100% this that they want the person off their hands with a ‘problem solved’ stamp on the file.

What???? But alcoholics are well known for not actually taking responsibility for anything - and suddenly it’s hand if all over to you. I am angry just reading your post.

I stopped listening to professionals when I realised despite their lecturing they were not offering to take my friend in or taking him in off the street so frankly they had no right to tell me that I should ‘trust him to taper’ (five minutes after that comment he had downed 3/4 bottle of whiskey on top of diazepam).

Honestly I am fuming on your behalf. I’ll read the rest of the thread now!

God it gets worse. Where is this therapist from? I meet with a therapist experienced in addiction and she is constantly supporting me to not take on responsibilities.

I agree with a pp - this will be feeding the ‘oh I’m so special I need special treatment’ narrative. Sod that frankly

I'd say that therapist better watch out. We have torches and pitchforks and we're not afraid to use them!!!!

@wouldratgerbeunknown , we've got your back!!!

@wouldratgerbeunknown I'd have been tempted to yell "Yes, I'm f@@@king raging"!! in her face. How dare she. Of course you're furious with him. You've every right to be. And his sobriety is not your responsibility. Believe me. People will keep telling you this 'he can't do it without you' stuff and you've just got to ignore it. After my Dh died his family were all insistent it was my fault because I'd left him. But they were wrong. And that therapist is wrong. They've got to be strong enough to find sobriety themselves and if they're not, we cannot save them.

That’s shit @CharlotteByrde that his family blames you. Where were they helping him ? Did he live with any of them - I doubt it

Where were they helping him ? Did he live with any of them - I doubt it

Exactly. I think some of them want us to do the scut work so the alcoholic doesn't land up on their doorstep asking them to do it. Because they don't want to come off as the 'meanie'. Others, like a friend of DH, make suggestions and I think they mean well, they just doesn't get it. Mostly DH's friend's suggestions involve spending large sums of money. I'm not throwing my money out the window and I don't control DH's money. He never says anything but I think he thinks 'less of me' for not following his suggestions. I've stopped short of saying "If you think that will work, then you pay for it. I'm sure he'll pay you back when he's living a sober life".

Oh totally. It’s easy for those not living with the pissed person to give ‘helpful’ comments

or use their own money

I’m pretty short with all the comments now, including the ‘you’ve saved him’ ones. Nope. I’m giving him somewhere to live while he sorts himself out, nothing more. And that is the aim - although tbf i don’t always manage it and for the first couple of years i had no idea and was incredibly enabling. I definitely recommend therapy and SMART etc

Now I know more it’s why i am constantly handing back responsibility. I had to get hard arse about the ‘sorting yourself out’ bit - and make progress a requirement of being here (whilst also knowing setbacks happen). It’s just asking for a forward looking attitude rather than wallowing in it really.

After reading some of these posts I sat my DS down last night and told him categorically I am not responsible for his recovery, among other things. In my friends and families defence I have never been blamed for his situation. I think I would have lambasted them good and proper! They are all solely responsible for their recoveries whatever brought them to that situation in the first place. Nobody should ever be responsible for another adult, obviously discounting vulnerable people (elderly/frail/disabilities etc).

@wouldratgerbeunknown your ‘therapist’ is really not working for you.

@Edithcantaloupe The SMART has been a lifesaver for me. Their attitude and approach is what is needed. I’m certainly a bit more hard lined and it’s made me see the light, I don’t always get it ‘right’ though.

I really need to look after myself because nobody else is looking after me, and I’ve been slowly dying inside. I can only do what I can do and I won’t beat myself up about letting myself down, I’ll just pick myself up and get on with it, really what ‘they’ should be doing.

I think it’s impossible to always get it right @Isthisit2025 After all we’re dealing with people we care about who often have two extremely different sides to them. And we know the lovely side as well.

Indeed @Edithcantaloupe I think ‘right’ isn’t the correct word. Maybe it should be ‘best’ doing my best. My DS is a beautiful young man, and it kills me not to rescue him but it kills me when I am too. The hope is that they work all this out themselves🙏🏼

It’s the only way they can recover. We can’t unfortunately do it for them. xx

It must be hard with a child. I can’t imagine walking away from dd yet I have from dh

We all know the '3 Cs', but we often forget the 4th

I CAN take care of myself.

Hey, @Isthisit2025, we're all taking care of each other here. None of us is alone in this. 🤝

@AcrossthePond55 thank you yes we are all supporting each other here (which I am forever grateful for❤️) my comment was IRL.

@Penguinsandspaniels his mother and siblings took him in for brief periods after we split up but they found it impossible. They found him a flat, and tried to 'help' in all kinds of ways by shopping for him so he couldn't buy alcohol and trying to control his movement/access to cash. He continued to drink himself to death but that was because he was so devastated by me leaving him.

@CharlotteByrde who the hell thinks it’s because you left him??? Outrageous that anyone should even think it!
I’m preparing myself for some heavy guilt tripping and blame coming my way from his family and also maybe some mutual‘friends’ … and I shall be telling them all to fuck off!
NONE of them have been anywhere near to witness his behaviour towards me or the shit he’s caused let alone help him, they’ve happily left it all to me, so frankly I don’t want their opinions and I won’t be behind the door telling them where they can stick them!
I really hope you are not believing that you are in any way whatsobloominever the cause of anything that happened to him, please tell me you’re not x

It's an interesting one... When I started the divorce process and then later (after the threats to kill, police, yadayada) made him leave the family home, I really started opening up about what had happened.

What I got, including from his actual family, was understanding and support. Because they had known all along. It was the same with my friends and my colleagues. There were two people who were not supportive: my uncle, whose first question was 'can the marriage be saved?', and my mother (not uncle's sibling) who was an alcoholic herself.

When it comes to people in the family, they will either blame you as the parent/partner (because that conveniently excuses them from doing anything!) or they will support you because they already knew and were too afraid to mention it.

@Penguinsandspaniels no I don't believe it at all. I tried my best to help him and it made no difference. They can choose to think it was my fault if they wish. I can't change or control them either! All I can do is make the best of the life I have now.

These comments have been very relevant today. It was my mother in law’s funeral yesterday , and I have been blessed that my husband’s family have counted me as family. It does feel strange, but they all in some way knew how he was, and tell me that they know I did everything I could. I don’t know that I fully believe that yet, but I’m accepting that there was no other decision I could have made but to say enough.

I also strangely feel I am a lucky one, in that he is gone, and I don’t have to manage a relationship with an ex who is also alcoholic, and my heart goes out to those of you in that position. It must be so hard.

It’s not your fault

same as not my fault over my dh and all the posters on here it’s not their fault

we all tried so hard to help , to support and eventually for our own /or in my case my young daughter sake , that we have had enough and say no more