how do i DO detachment with dh and his drinking?

[highwaster]

been on the binge for 11 days now.
anyone any advice about doing detachment.
have looked quite a bit up on websites.

am trying not to be an enabler

am not giving him money, am not letting him have my bus pass, etc.,

am not throwing away or lookign for drink

[AttilaTheMeerkat]

highwaster,

Al-anon would certainly be of benefit to you and you can talk to them today (not knocking work counselling at all but this may take some time to organise. You need real life help and support today).

I would certainly echo what livinginazoo has said in her post; you need to take heed.

Your posts are still mainly about him and by being there you are still enabling him. Sorry to write that but you are. He says he is "too embarrassed" to seek help indeed - snort. It is an excuse and a poor one at that.

You are still not responsible for him and you really do not want to sacrifice your own mental health and wellbeing because of him.

[livinginazoo]

You need to shout it out from the rooftops. Alcoholism thrives on secrecy. You need to tell anyone who will listen, his GP, parents, friends, siblings, aunts, uncles, neighbours. Hiding it is part of enabling helping the addict hide and lie.

You also need to stop ignoring your feelings, they are important. By ignoring them you are not helping him or yourself, you need to confide in people, get support, look after yourself, stop enabling him by pretending it will go away if you don't think about it. Enabling is doing anything that allows him to keep on drinking and that includes ignoring the situation and hiding your feelings.

I was having a look through the book codependent no more by melodie beattie yesterday and it has some good advice, if you are feeling receptive enough to hear what it says. Also, try googling 'codependent', there are a lot of very good web pages out there. Easy to digest. You do not want to keep going down that road, it leads to the deterioration of your own mental health and will destroy you. I have been diagnosed by a psychiatrist as having acute anxiety (that is a skip hop and jump from depressed and suicidal) and being codependent. It took that to get it into my very thick head. Denial and all that. One of the questions she asked me to diagnose me was whether I ever have fun or enjoy myself. Do you know, codependents don't, not when they are deep down that road. You live life as if it were groundhog day and it is beige and cloudy and exhausting. Everything is about the alcoholic and you basically sacrifice yourself. You sound like you are heading that way. Believe me you can't be good to yourself or children if you keep struggling along like this. You are not Jesus, you should not hang yourself out on a crucifix and sacrifice yourself for what... so he can have beer? It sounds so ridiculous doesn't it. That is what someone living with an alcoholic is doing. By staying with him you are enabling him, it is allowing him to continue.

If you do nothing else, talk to someone. Talk to your GP if no one else. At least they can support you. Or go along to an Al Anon or CODA meeting.

[bejeezus]

if he is too embarrassed to get help then he is not in that much pain

he is definitely not in enough pain for you to call 999

bit worried about you- think you should try hard to remember to get counselling at work

Ignoring what you are feeling is part of being co-dependant and starting to not ignore your feelings (as very painful as it may be) is part of detaching

[highwaster]

he said he is too embarrased to get help.
i would rather ignore what i am feeling as i would cry, apart from angry.
i go to work and forget all about him, i plan to get counselling at work but once i am there i forget about it.
logging off, am tired.
thanks

[bejeezus]

why dont you want to tell your family the details? are you close with them/ are they supportive people? do you want to but feel you cant? you dont have to talk about him so much- you dont have to go into details about what he is doing but can you tell them how YOU are feeling?

[bejeezus]

what pain? you said he was in pain yesterday--he would have gone to GP today if he had needed to, if the pain was that bad

[highwaster]

and my family, um, not gone into details, said i dont want to talk or think about Him.

[highwaster]

erm, not looked for evidence, not thrown away bottles. tried not to think about it.
repeated the mantra, i cannot cure it.
i came on mn initially to ask how to detach, as this is how i was struggling.
but dont know if this was the right thing as he is in pain and i am worried i should be calling 999 for e.g

[bejeezus]

what have you done in terms of detachment?

[bejeezus]

what did your family say?

[highwaster]

all advice welcome

within limits of course

[highwaster]

thats kind perfume.

[perfumedlife]

highwaster I apologise to you if my statement was tough to take, it wasn't my intention to come across that you should do as I (think I) would do. Who can say for sure how they would feel or react?. I think you are doing great just by asking this question and would hate for some adivice I have proferred to set you back.

However, my responses to your heading 'how do I do detachment' will always be coloured by my deeply held conviction that you cannot do it whilst staying together so I won't post further on your thread but wish you all the very best. You deserve a break.

[highwaster]

and thanks livinginazoo and others.
i get entirely what you are saying.

[highwaster]

still trying to detach.
he is in pain.
and says he is drinking less, as advised by Drinkwise, to drink less and sleep.
i did tell him to ring gp,
he said he neary rang aa

i am trying not to get involved.

[highwaster]

no, my friends do not know.
i am so close to saying so.
his family know and mine too. but my family is a recent thing, because i needed help with childcare.

[bejeezus]

In fact your OP is the first step

It will be the second step

[bejeezus]

Regarding what AF and Zoo discussed;

Before I detached from my STBXH I felt very very deeply ashamed of myself for letting myself get into the situation I was in. It is quite a crippling feeling and it was what stopped me looking for help earlier than I did.

Add to that, feelings of; complete confusion, incredible sadness, heartbroken, depression, continuing love for dh, pity

It was a MASSIVE step to reach out for help and I was only able to do it at MY rock bottom. If I had been greeted by tough-love statements like these;

Until then, I would be gone. I wouldn't be witness to it, and my children would not be witness to it

If I were in your shoes, he would be either at a meeting/hospital/gp/counseller or he would be out the door today, unfed, unwashed and all packed

I would have felt that people WERE judging me as I had feared, I was right to be ashamed. I AM stupid, I AM weak. This would definitely have hindered my recovery.

Someone said up thread that alcoholism thrives on secrecey. This is so true. OP it is very important that you tell people about your situation. Do friends and family know what is going on for you? Please be reassured that people will not judge you and it will be the first step you take to recovery

[livinginazoo]

Thank you x

[AnyFucker]

I wish you all the best too, livinginazoo

as I do the Op

[PenelopeKeith]

Good luck

[AttilaTheMeerkat]

livinginazoo

Good luck to you, I hope you get the help and support you need.

[livinginazoo]

[AnyF]

I am neither ignoring you nor shouting back, livinginazoo

and neither of us should apologise for having an opinion

[livinginazoo]

AF because you wouldn't tell a depressed person to snap out of it, in fact it is quite the opposite of what psychiatrists advise, you also wouldn't tell an anorexic to finish their 3 course dinner, so telling someone in a codependent relationship, living with an alcoholic that you yourself wouldn't put up with it and to just leave makes just as little emotional sense to them. You get heavily caught up in the denial and think that because you love this person you can help or change them or that it is just in your head and not real, and this becomes an obsession that takes over. Similar also to a DV/abuse situation I think. That is why alcoholism destroys families, the partner is just as affected and frankly traumatised by what is happening, and that is why you need to detach and need proper help to do that. If detaching was easy, there wouldn't be support groups like al anon and coda and a long 12 step programme, because like snowiebear said you 'sink deeper and deeper into a circle of lies and despair' until your own health suffers. And getting out of that is very hard and can take a long time to do properly.

So yes we are 'saying the same things', but sometimes your (often correct, often very good) advice can feel like a hard painful (not needed) smack to the head because it is so to-the-point and personal with all the "I would's & would nots".

And I am saying this as someone who is in a similar situation as highwaster, although possibly a little bit further down the line. A year ago Attila gave me similar advice on a post I had made, and even her direct (and non-personal, oft repeated) approach made me want to scream and shout out that she was wrong, she didn't understand, my situation was different. tbh it made me nearly hate her. So I ignored it, it was far too hard to take. Or too hard to do anything about. And I read lots of posts about alcoholism and thought not like my situation...

And now I have reached that 'own health suffering' stage. Or my breaking point perhaps. So I am going to finally get the help I need and have taken the necessary steps. But the way you personalise and preach even now makes me want to run straight back into denial. It is too difficult to hear how I could have messed up and someone else would have dealt with it easily. People who become codependent, as I understand it, are often susceptible because of background/upbringing issues, so yes in your situation you wouldn't put up with it. Good for you. And I am not going to apologise for being frank and you can ignore me or shout back if you prefer. But when someone reaches that stage of absolute desperation, support and a gentle approach might be more suitable, instead of multiple posts of I could do it better.