I've just abandoned my very drunk/high dh in central London in favour of getting ds home

[HoldingPatternDone]

Namechanged yet again as all this is so, so identifying. Dh has struggled with addictions and after a peaceful few months it came to a head today when we saw his family.

He was being aggressive to everyone and when our bus arrived he wouldn't get on so I've just taken myself and ds home. Now he won't answer his phone and I feel awful I've abandoned him but our son is only 3 and I've got to get him home. I can't help feeling so guilty and bad and am both dreading and wishing him home. What do I do?

I've got D&A counseling later. It's only my second one to one session so it's all quite new.

It does look like I'm defending my Dad but I just wanted to get the point across that I didn't have some sort of fucked up childhood that's left me unable to be a parent. However I've been guilty of minimising when I was a kid. They split when I was a teenager. I remember being about 14 sitting on the bed watching my Dad getting ready for his first aa meeting asking me 'you don't think I'm an alcoholic do you '? I answered no of course not but I think I did. Just saying what I thought he wanted to hear. I've carried on doing that with my H. So many times he's been seething and confiding in me looking for reassurance saying 'this colleague or that family member said I need to take it easy or I'm harming myself' and everytime I've agreed with him they're overreacting or killjoys when actually secretly I believed them. I don't know why I do it. My own issues are fairly new. I've always had an unstable relationship with drink and was always the one who was that bit worse at parties from early teens onwards. I remember throwing up regularly at events from about 13 onwards and it would just like 'oh look J is fucked again' without any repercussions. My poor mum.

Then me and H got together and I had a partner in crime. This all stopped when I got pregnant. Afterwards everyone remarked how I'd grown up and how well I was doing. When H started to fuck about functions and parties and stuff I realised I was obligated to be the parent and didn't want to drink/smoke etc. Then bad habits started resurfacing but in private.

As everyone said I could look at H and think I'm not so bad he's made himself Ill he's having to tackle his issues not me. but that's slowly getting broken down now.

I have not read the whole thread yet.
Have you looked into Adult Children of Alcoholics ? It may help you untangle the dynamics you are coming to recognize. Basically, having been brought up in the alcoholic environment things are not just normalized as mentioned above, but, for children, the distortion of thought processes to cope has an effect on behavior patterns in the non-drinker that may mimic the alcoholic. This applies to drug addictions as well.

You are doing so well to set the boundaries to protect yourself and son. You changed but your dh has not. You simply are not compatible anymore.

I can understand your struggles to make your change stick, so to speak...do not give up on yourself (and thus your son). Get some help for yourself through counselling if possible. It helps to live in the moment today-stay in the present- to keep making the great decisions to stay clean, public and private.

Good luck.

Holding - I just wanted to wish you good luck for your couselling session. Remember you can tell your counsellor anything , nothing will shock them and they won't judge you .

You are doing really well at being more honest with yourself , I know it's very hard . But it's the only way you will be able to see a way forward and make good decisions for you and your LO.

What self awareness, OP.

You're doing so well Holding, it shows a great deal of insight to write that last post.

You can see the pattern you learnt as a child, and when we learn this kind of thing as a young child, it embeds itself deep in our brain and takes hard work it get it out again. But it's completely possible, you just have to keep on trying and keep up that questioning brain - to notice when you're doing it and then redo it with a new pattern of thinking and behavior. You're basically trying to get a new habit going in your head - a good habit though!

One more thought:

Minimizing is obviously causing you problems now, as you need to face up to the reality of your situation for the sake of your son. You can't change if you can't identify what is unacceptable.

But is just say, don't blame yourself too much for this - as long as you continue to address it of course. You do it because it's a coping mechanism, it was the way you made sense of your fathers addiction, and your need to have a loving, responsible, normal dad. And then the way you and everyone around you swept away the drinking problem you then had as a young teenager.

Minimizing is a coping strategy that has its place, it helped you get through some tough times. But now, you need some new coping mechanisms, now you need to take control of your life and change it to get your little boy out of really damaging experiences that are happening now. Minimizing has out lived it's usefulness, it's a way of getting through bad times when you're not able to change what's happening... But now you need to stop it, but that's hard as your brain has learnt this technique and our brains don't like change once it thinks it's found a winning streak.

Bloody bang on post Misc

I am rooting for you, holding. Despite my harsh words you sound like a good person and a good mother. Keep going this way, for your son's sake. You don't want him repeating the patterns you learned at your own parents feet. Your mum might be a nice person but she is/was an enabler and she has taught you well unfortunately.

What fucker said.....

Your post at 13:22 is incredible Holding. You are stronger than you realise.

Thanks everyone. counselling went well (feel like I had a head start posting on here yesterday)!
Really interesting posts miscellaneous

It's great to hear such positive words from you given where you where when this thread started. Onwards and upwards.

On a side note, inspired by the tramadol discussion I finally got around to taking all my old meds to the chemist to be responsibly disposed of (a big bag of tramadol, dihyrocodeine, naproxen etc) and they didn't bat an eyelid, just asked if there were any sharps and then got me to tip them into a big tray. So if you did want to get rid of it from my experience you can just hand it over without having to face any questions as to why. I'm absolutely not lecturing or telling you what to do, I just thought the information may be useful to you.

HoldingPatternDone Wed 04-May-16 13:22:54 This post shows incredible insight. I hope you realize how much work and self examination went into it!

I'm glad counseling went well. I agree you had a head start, one that you took yourself. We were just there to listen, YOU were the one thinking and doing.

You are at the beginning of a great new life.

You're doing really well

I'm glad you found my posts interesting :)

Of course they're just my thoughts and if you decide you don't quite agree with them but there's something else going on instead, then that's good too - just getting you being able to think about the patterns that make up your normal ways of thinking and doing, and challenge some of it... That's all to the good.

Thanks Hissy, I've changed names a few times but you gave me amazing advice back in the day, when I was trying to work on my relationship 'problems': otherwise known as ... the shock discovery that I was in a horribly abusive relationship and nothing I did would ever make it ok, for me or my baby.

So OP, I've not experienced addiction first hand, unless you count my addiction to my STBXH, but he was a gambler amongst other substance addictions and it was horrible. He neglected DS and I was always on high alert to step in to save DS. I lived like that because of an upbringing which was bad but more subtle than the terribleness of my marriage, but prepared me for it.

It seems like a bad dream now, living like that. The freedom now is incredible. It's something I take for granted now, but when I think back, the release I felt after was exhilarating.

I hope you feel that same feeling one day. It's amazing.