SUPPORT THREAD FOR PARTNERS OF ADDICTS - PART 2

[ginnny]

I thought I'd start us a new thread since the old one was going strong for over a year and I know a lot of people find it helpful.
DP did go on a bender Monday and Tuesday, which although I wasn't happy about, I understood why. He is lost and can't cope with the grief of losing his Mum.
Since then though he's been great, so once the funeral is over I'm hoping we can put it behind us and get back to normal.
I've suggested bereavement counselling, but he's not convinced.

... I've got a tummy ache routine, but as soon as we turned off towards oxford she magically recovered. So as a combination of different professionals saying they are very uncomfortable with the amount of stress she appears to be experiancing, and dd2 beginning to come down with a nasty virus (her playmate here is just getting over it) we have pulled a sickie on contact tomorrow, the older 2 will do their ballet classes. STBXH appears to be keeping a low profile atm...

... tues last week (3rd?) I reported him to the police after he'd tracked down my car while I was visiting a friend in my home town and stuck a letter (hosp, about ds) with ''love you all xxxx'' written on the envelope. I know it doesn't sound like abig deal, until one tinks about the amount of effort it took, and the nasty why won't he leave me alone scarwd knot in my stomach. The plus side it's more evidence for staying in this town.

Gah! This is driving me nuts. I only have my mob, but it is infuriating that I can no longer post a essay in one go!!!

Anyhow, have a good weekend everyone, stay safe, sending peaceful vibes

r4ac xx

Ready - good news on the transfer to a new house. Hopefully by the time you leave there you will have a new place to live.
Melted - welcome. I agree with the others that you need to pull your money out of the joint account and keep it protected.
Secret - I missed that programme but am downloading on iplayer as we speak. Thank God for the internet eh? It does look interesting. Thanks for pointing it out.
Hope everyone else is doing OK and having a stress free weekend.

melted

You need to protect yourself both financially and emotionally.

You are ultimately not responsible for your H.

I would set up a sole account for your own self and transfer the funds from the joint one into that.

Bump!

How is everyone?

Today is another milestone - am off to see DD in her play in an hour.

Was just thinking of the madness this time last year when EH came with me and I spent all my time fretting that he'd cause a scene instead of focussing on the play....

Incidentally, the TV programme 'Brought Up By Booze' is being repeated on BBC3 on Dec. 3rd at 8pm - for those who missed it the first time round.

Hello!

we're doing ok. Finally moved to the 2nd stage house thay have here, really nice and relaxed, just 2 other families here, and ds is the eldest.

I stsrted another thread in relationships tonight, I can't link, as I'M on my mobile, but my head is a mess after doing the sexual controller in the freedom programme today. I've suddenly realised that technically I was raped many many times within that relationship. I am really struggling emotionally tonight trying to come to terms with it all.

Hello!

we're doing ok. Finally moved to the 2nd stage house thay have here, really nice and relaxed, just 2 other families here, and ds is the eldest.

I stsrted another thread in relationships tonight, I can't link, as I'M on my mobile, but my head is a mess after doing the sexual controller in the freedom programme today. I've suddenly realised that technically I was raped many many times within that relationship. I am really struggling emotionally tonight trying to come to terms with it all.

Hi Ready,
I'll go off and look for your other thread.
I watched the Callum Best programme - I definitely recommend it, although it is emotionally hard to watch in places it is so so relevant to anyone related to an alcoholic.
(Callum Best is easy on the eye too!

Hello.

I posted here months ago about my alcoholic DH. Nothing's changed. I'm feeling really low tonight because he just said "new year I'm going to stop" and I felt sick because he says it EVERY YEAR and has done so for the last ... maybe ten years.

And this time, for the first time, I feel there's no hope.

So much more to say but I've got to go just now. Back later.

Hi all just dropping in with an update from me too. I haven't posted for a while but in fact I have been meaning to post a message for a while to say thank you for the various replies I have received on this thread, I always really really appreciate them. I am a sporadic poster, but it's not because I am ignoring messages or don't value the replies, it's just because this whole issue feels so "big" for me to deal with that sometimes I just have to back off. I need time to process things. Anyway thank you so much because this is such a supportive group of people on here and I really hope one day I can offer help to others in the same way.

Not much changed here, DH still drinking in his usual pattern, he still thinks nothing is wrong and even quotes "research" he has read in the paper that a bottle of wine a night (or two bottles of wine a night) is actually good for you. Hmmm. So I still end up spending most of my weekend evenings watching him snoozing on the sofa, he usually comes to bed around 4am after sleeping it off. Doesn't feel very positive. I am stressed and overeating, so I feel fat and unhealthy too. I must try and find a way to break out of that as I don't think it's good for my self esteem, vicious circle really.

I think comparatively speaking he is not actually drinking so much at the moment, but still more than is healthy. However he is also stressed about some stuff going on at work and depressed as well, partly because a close friend of his has just moved away and I think he is missing his "drinking" chum. So his overall demeanor is not good. He's not much fun to be with right now.

I just feel lost and sad. However I am still struggling to see how a life as a single parent would be any better than this life. All I can see is less money and even more loneliness. Can't see how that would be good for the girls. I am so unfamiliar with divorce type scenarios, none of my friends or family have been separated or divorced so I have no idea how it all works. Both DD's absolutely love him to pieces they would be devastated if he wasn't around, I can't even begin to imagine how I would tell them that Daddy was moving out. And I just know he would be a bastard about money too which is also a scary prospect.

AnywaY I guess I am just going round and round in circles NOW. Thanks for listening, I am just thinking aloud really, sometimes I read back over my old posts, it's a bit like an online diary, DH doesn't know my posting name so it feels like a safe place to vent.

INALL, i feel for you, I remember the hope everytime my STBXH said the same. Wishing you strength

Ginny, thank you, I just fee so alone, i thought i was dealing with all the baggage and this has popped up. I tried to arrange counselling, am waiting for an appt through my gp. The freedom prog is a group thing, small groups. I have a support meeting tomorrow with my support worker, i just have to get through tonight.

Hi all..I'm a newbie to this board. Hope you don't mind me intruding.

My dh is an addict..but he has been clean for 20 years. I have come to learn a lot about addiction through him. He's the first to admit that giving up is the hardest thing he's ever had to do. And every day he struggles with addiction. So he is 'in recovery' but will never be 'recovered'.

The most important thing (if you don't know this already) is to realise you cannot change him/her behaviour. You've got to look after number one, and that's you.

Ginny - I watched the Calum Best doco..amazing. So brave of him. And so sad too..

Thanks Ready4. You will get through tonight. It's good that you're dealing with all this stuff now (although very painful) because if you didn't face it now it would manifest itself in some way or other in the future. This way at least you have the chance to lay it all bare now and then move on with your life, whole again.

As for my situation - I just know that by saying he'll stop drinking on jan 1st he's just giving himself carte blanche to drink his way through December. (Merry fucking Christmas) And come january, he might stop for a day, maybe even 2, but it won't last. I know that now. God why am I so thick? How has it taken me all this time to realise his promises mean nothing?

He refuses to seek help for his problem because he knows he'll be told to go teetotal. He wants to be able to 'control' his drinking, not give it up completely. Yet he knows this is impossible. He's been trying to control it for years. He can't control it.

He's not violent but he has been known to be emotionally abusive when drunk. He never remembers when this happens and I have to tell him what he said or did the next morning.

One horrid incident I remember was waking up to the sound of him taking a piss on my handbag, on the floor by the side of my bed. He didn't realise what he was doing. When he did realise and saw how appalled and upset I was, he got very shirty, telling me I was over reacting and I ought to see the funny side and why did I always make everything into a massive issue. A few months later, while I was pregnant with our first DC, he almost did the same thing again but this time into the Moses basket waiting on the corner of our bedroom. If I hadn't managed to stop him doing it that time, I think I could have happily killed him that night. Again, he thought it was just funny. Actually, could someone tell me if I'm wrong to have been so disgusted by these incidents? Because I still doubt myself, because he took it so lightly - usually when he's been nasty to me (not that often btw) and I tell him what's happened, he is hugely apologetic. Not so with these two occurences, he never seemed to understand the depth of my disgust and despair those nights.

I have so much I want to say but I can't manage it all in one go. It will have to come in bits and pieces.

Teeny, i find i am now better off financially, my money is mine *o spend how i need. Not give to him to spend in the offie. Not making sure i have no money in my purse to be taken. My life is less lonely, not just because of where i physically am atm, but because my friends can ring, and would visit if i were closer. Before they felt too uncomfortable. I found it incrediably lonely listening to him snoring 6reading the beery fumes when he finally crawled up the stairs to bed. Dreading the drunken pawings...

Even more (ut that's another thread. What I'm trying to say is once you get past the whole stigma of single parenthood, there are so many positives for us. I don't regret it at all.

INALL, how bloody dare he think it funny to piss on things, that's dreadful. Please don't let him make you doubt yourself. Deep down you know that you've normalised his behaviour and actually it's totally unacceptable. You rang so many bells when you said that he's given himself carte blanche to drink himself stupid until jan 1st. If i was still there, my STBXH would be doing the same. That's no way to live. The thing is 't takes us all time to realise the situation is unacceptable,

Then we can begin building up the strength and a plan to move forwards, be that with them or without. Everyones breaking point is different. Keep strong, rant here, (and get the fecker a catheter )

Hi can I join?
My DH is a cannabis addict. He becomes a zombie from about 7pm onwards. I'm so undecided about what I do, but I'm pretty much at my wits end. Itsespecially hard when friends come over with kids during the day and there's a strong smell of dope in the house.I try and light a joss stick to cover it up, but I know what they're thinking.
Its nowhere near what most of you guys have to go through from reading this thread, but I feel so lonely. After he's smoked he just lies on the sofa and watches tv...
He knows he's got a problem but does nothing about it. Any suggestions? i'm based in Sydney at the moment..

Hey BG, your dh sounds no different to most of ours tbh. Just a different substance. How seriously is cannabis regarded over there? Would he consider somewhere like narcotics anon? Or is your gp/hv any help? You may ultimatly find that he chooses the weed over his family.
keep posting here though, it's good to have a healthy rant.

Just thought:

Attila's 3 C's
you did not cause this
you cannot control it
you cannot cure it

Hi Ready
Thanks!
Just wish I could help with the 3 c's. Life would seem so much easier...
He keeps saying he needs help, but unless I do all the work he won't follow it through. Problem he works in the music industry where people abuse drugs all the time ,so its seen at the "norm". However he can't cope without it and can be pretty nasty (though NEVER violent) if I hide his stash.
It makes it so much harder that i'm over here when I really need my buddies and family at the moment.

brightongirl

That's no life for you is it?.

You will never get him to seek help because he at heart does not think he has a problem. It is not though actually down to you to do the work for him. All you're doing there now is just enabling him to continue, you are enabling him which is damaging you as well.

Make a decision re him asap, you really don't want to be there in say three to five years time writing what you are writing now. You need to leave him (show him there is a consequence for his actions) and I do not say that at all lightly. He has chosen the cannabis over you all, his primary relationship is now with that substance.

Hiding his stash won't work either, its a waste of your time doing that. You cannot control this by hiding his stash. Not all people in the music industry use either, its just his justification and or excuse to continue. These people have a myriad of excuses for using and they are often in denial of their problem.

You are NOT repeat NOT responsible for him.
You're all being dragged down by him, you feel both ashamed and embarrassed by his behaviour. You light josh sticks to try and hide the smell.

Find real life support for your own self from drug counselling services for partners of addicts. You're in Sydney; it may be on the other side of the world but there will be such services in place. Find them!!.

You cannot change him but you can change how you react to him. Would you now consider leaving him?. He won't change for you nor anyone around him. The only one who can actually help him is him, you as his wife are actually the last person who can help him and I do not mean that unkindly.

Children growing up too in a household like this actually does them no favours at all. If you have children you need to consider them as well.

Attilla, I've told him I'm coming home next year. I can't take it any more. He's not working to his full potential and the reason for us leaving family, friends and my lovely Brighton was for him to feel more "fulfilled" in his career.
Whenever he has a gig in another part of Aus, I know he texts the promoter and asks for some "jazz cigarettes".
You're right hiding the stash does nothing.
We have a gorgeous little girl and I don't want her growing up recognising the smell on dad's breath. I know we all try it, especially when we're students, but addiction to dope is totally different.
Thanks for reminding me he's chosen cannabis over me - I haven't really thought about it in that context before, jesus, I'm such a dumbo. I've had 13 years of this crap - he feels its fine to constantly criticise me but now its my turn.
Letting this out has really helped. Thanks guys.