For Mamas (or Papas) Affected by a loved one's drug/alcohol addiction - Page 2

[rainy32]

its so nice to read all of your welcoming posts, and to see how much our stories resonate with each other. Its amazing to me that its not the length of the addiction, or the type of addiction -- its merely the fact of the addiction, the fact of the disease -- that causes so much potential turmoil.

buttercup wrote, "there has been 2 situations where DH would use after we had fights." -- I only _wish_ that was my fear! (not really!) my dh tended to relapse when really really good things were happening in my life, or when I had a really big project I was days from completing. He drank our first Christmas together, the weekend I defended my dissertation, etc. And this is a pattern in my life -- I was the "good" one of my six step-siblings, and they would always manage to exhibit attention seeking behavior the night my highschool play opened, or somethign like that. So it was extremely hurtful and scary to me that dh would relapse at those times. That hurt more than the drinking, to tell the truth.

DH's mom does the same thing, though with emotional breakdowns, not booze -- so I really have compassion for dh and his unconscious reasons for using substances in this hurtful way -- its like sayign "look at me" at the same time he says "I'm not worthy of you!" Its hard. I love him so much and feel like he is worthy of happiness.. ... lately, with recovery, he agrees
OK -- gotta run, dh is warming up a yummy soup and I'm starving (so's the baby!)

[Mamabeakley]

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[buttercup]

Originally Posted by Mamabeakley

Hi, folks -

Um. Oh, yeah. Callmemama wrote that she debated about blowing her anonymity here - I surely relate to that. Actually, I was pretty sure I wanted to be able to safely and freely talk about my real life including dh's problem here when I set up my account on MDC and so I kept it pretty anonymous. I work with the public (well, a sort of small segment of the public) and I live in a kind of incestuous area and I wanted someplace to talk about life and parenting etc. w/out wondering who was hearing something I don't want to share publicly right now. I feel okay about this . . . I think . . . but occasionally I mind that I can't just be open and fully out there. I envy those folks with all their kids names and birthdays right out there for the whole world to see. I resent that my dh's illegal choices AND our (IMHO) stupid laws mean I can't be forthright without risking harm to me and mine.
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I think all of us thought long and hard about that before posting on this thread, but if people don't open up then others who feel alone will never realize that they really aren't alone. My DH's addiction is only known by a selected few in my town, but I am able to open up via internet. I have had to lie about it and his various incarcerations (due to relapse - he always gets arrested when he relapses) to those I associate w/ because they do not understand and will pass judgment on him and I. So I actually find more support online versus in person...although recently I have opened up to a few more people because they had children and SOs who were abusing drugs and alcohol.

Someone commented about smoking - my DH smokes and had been trying to do it for years. In fact, that is not his only addiction. He has various addictions - such as to caffine and sugar and ice cream (thanks to me carving it during 2 pregnancies). DH knows he has to quit, but really doesn't want to because he enjoys it. So any advice on that issue would be greatly appreciated.

[JR'smama777]

OK...I have some time to chat a bit. But how can I possibly fit my experience into this small space in any coherent way that really shares the DEEP emotional issues....I'll try.

I married my husband knowing that he drank, but also hearing him clearly tell me that when we are married and/or have kids and/or get seriously down to making his business work, etc. that he'd cut way back on his drinking.

Then, he often told me (and still does) that he likes his life the way it is. Even after 2 broken marriages and 2 sons who don't live with him and thousands of dollars of debt. He is very clear that he is here to enjoy life.

I really made myself think that I was OK with it because I truly did love him. I myself imbibed from time to time, but was brought up in a very stable home and always just knew that would end when I settled down to adulthood, children, etc.

We lived a life of never knowing when he would come home from work or stay out at the bar. I lived a life of hearing him come home drunk and not knowing if he would be in a good mood or bad. My making up ways to improve the situation, reduce my stress, counseling, relying on my own spiritual dedication to a lifelong marriage, etc.

But when my son was born 9 mos after we got married, I immediately started to deal with it head on because I realized I would not allow my child to grow up in a situation like that. I told my husband that he clearly had a choice. He continued to drink.

I left on our 1st wedding anniversary. It is the hardest thing I've ever had to go through. But it is entirely the right choice for me, as I drive by his car parked in front of the bar on my way to work after snuggling with my very well-adjusted ds.

I can't speak for anyone else, and I believe in giving people second chances. But I chose to give my son a first chance at a solid, secure life. And I can't tell you how WONDERFUL our family life is.

[rainy32]

JRsmommy -- your strength is inspiring. It sounds like you made the best decision for you and for your son, and that you did it in a really clear and respectful way. Hugs to you.

[jstar]

i hesitated before posting in this thread. its hard to admit you have a partner with issues

its like you have this life that is 95 percent great but then 5 percent of it is really bad. and you wonder if the 5% has more bearing than the rest of it.

dh went to bed at dinner time last night after drinking all afternoon and evening. this is after he was saying 'no more drinking beer during the week' earlier in the day i feel like chewing him out tonight. loser. it sounds really stupid when i write it down

we are in the process of making an offer on a bigger house and putting our house on the market. its a wonderful house and i love it. it would be a great house for raising kids. part of me knows this is bad though because i can't afford the mortgage payment on my own. i could with our current house and that's always been in the back of my mind. so i'm setting myself up to have to sell and move if we get a divorce. i think i might mention that tonight. this thread is sort of giving me courage to be a lot more forthright with him about his drinking. i've been making a lot of comments and talking about it lately. saying 'you don't need to drink everyday' 'if we have a bigger mortgage payment you can't buy beer everyday' its such a money suck. he admits it. but can't control it

[Scoodlebug]

My hubbie and I have been together for ten years. We met when we were 18 and started dating at 19. When we met he was a substance abuser. I don't know if I could call him a true addict but I believe at that time he was. About the only thing he hasn't done is shoot heroin. By the time we started dating he was clean. He occasionally smoked marijuana on and off for a few years after that but he hasn't in about 6 years. He knows he can't do it again, because it would be too easy to keep doing it. Thankfully he hasn't.

My brother is an alcoholic. We to call him a high functioning alcoholic. His accomplisments are amazing. We're just not sure how many were done sober. He's a teacher for special needs children. He works with cognitive disorders. He is currently working with three of the top specialists in his field to write a book that they hope will revolutionize therapy for cognitive disorders. Then he goes home and drinks a case of beer. He got his masters suma cum laude (spelling?) and I'm pretty sure he didn't do any of it sober. He works like a horse sober, goes home and gets drunk. He can drink a case of beer and look you in the face and you'd never know he'd had a single drop.

My brother-in-law is currently a homeless crack addict. That has been one of the most heartbreaking things I've ever seen. I've watched this man go from owning his own business, get married, plan a family to have his wife leave (they didn't have children) and he lose everything as he descended further and further into addiction. It started with marijuana and now he's onto crack and heroin. He's currently in jail and we as a family are hoping against hope that he will be sentenced to some sort of rehab be it mental or drug related. He has been diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic. The stories I could share here would keep me posting for the next three days solid.

Many of my husbands family members are regular drug users. His nieces and nephews etc.

It is very hard and very sad to know what to do. I do not allow them around my daughter (she's 3) when they are anything but sober. You get to the point where you can look and then and KNOW. My brother in law we finally had to cut off completely. He began making threats, stealing, etc from us and all other family members. Seeing him stand on my doorstep asking for food while he had lost most of his teeth and 40% of his body weight and have to tell him to leave was the hardest thing I've ever done. But the time before when we had said yes, he had stolen 3 or 4 things while we were cooking him food, letting him shower and finding clothes for him to wear. We went to his court hearing to plead with the judge to get him help and he screamed obscenities at us and said we were ruining his life.

I can't be anything but honest with my daughter about our family members illnesses. I do truly see this as an illness. I think it eats away at the brain the same way cancer eats away at the body. I just want to be able to walk the fine line between being honest and making it okay to her. It is very worrisome to me to how I will relate to her and any future children I may have, that this is not okay. Does that make sense? It's very hard to see how much she loves my brother but have to make sure he's sober before we go out on his boat. It's hard to have to call him when we're visiting and ask if he's had anything to drink before bringing her around him. When she's old enough to understand then maybe I will so she can see the difference.

I'd like to post more but I have to check on dinner! I hope that made sense and I certainly am not trying to offend anyone I was just trying to express what I feel inside about the whole thing.

[Maggie Mae]

Thanks for this thread everyone - I skimmed it a while back and now have a chance to sit down and write... (and yea, I worried about my anonymity too, but I think this is too important a community to pass up)

So by way of introduction, here's the brief overview of my story. My daughter's father is an alcoholic and addict - he was using when we met and all along the way, but I didn't know until I was 6+ months preggers and we were living together. As my due date approached he drank and used more and more and more and started getting violent. Due to the violence and substance abuse my daughter and I left when she was 2.5 months. Our relationship was over the minute I walked out the door. He's struggled in and out of AA since then, and has been in and out of her life. Currently he's disappeared... I get updates from a friend every once in a while, and the news is never good.

Fast forward to Sept 2002 - I met a wonderfully smart, funny, articulate, *functional*, goregous man, who told me, on DATE 2, "I believe in *rigorous honesty* and there are some things I need to tell you..." (and GEEZ! the things he told me...! : ) He's been sober 7 years now, and we got married Aug 2003 and had a baby this past May.

As time goes by I have been able to acknowledge so many other alcoholics in my family and see how the disease has been affecting me for a very long time...

I've been in Al-Anon since Dec 2002 and it has been the single most positive thing I have ever done. It amazes me how seriously insane I used to be!

So yea, I'm swimming in a vast ocean of alkies - recovered and not - and alcoholism is something I deal with every single day. Most days are ok around here, but we all gotta keep taking action to keep ourselves in check.

I want to quick chime in on the question of how much the kids will or won't be told about a parent's addictions. My daughter is 6 now, and has always been SUPER inquisitive, so naturally she wanted to know where DH was going all the time - "Why does he always have to go to MEETINGS?" So we told her, in kid-friendly language. We were really careful to describe alcoholism as a disease, and not to make any judgements about still-using people, or to name names. Now we take her to Open AA mtgs and she hangs out in the childcare. Recovery is a vital part of our lives and there is no way I'd be able to keep it from her. She benefits from our programs as much as we do!

So anyhow, this is getting rambly... but I'm glad to have found you mama's and look forward to more time here. Living with alcoholism and addiction is one of the most challenging things I've ever done, and the one thing that I've found that makes this road a little easier is having other people to walk it with.

Love and hugs to you all!

[Mamabeakley]

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[rainy32]

good morning!

I wanted to weigh in on anonymity (can't spell it!). I didnt' hesitate about breaking it here, and I don't hesitate about breaking it in appropriate situations in public, either. The way I see it, dh has a disease. Its his perogative to be open about it, or not -- I would never break his anonymity. BUT, I also won't lie for him -- when he was incarcerated, 3 years ago, and I was frantic because I couldn't find him, I told some friends and I told my parents. I regret that my parents know, because they aren't in recovery and don't understand recovery, and try to micromanage dh's recovery -- but I don't regret that I was honest about my needs during dh's being messed up.

sometimes, his dad will call and ask "where's [dh]?" and I'll say, "he's out with some friends." its dh's responsibility to tell his dad he's in recovery, and not my job to tell him ... but I'm also not gonna lie. and "he's out with some friends" is pretty darn close to reality about his saturday aa meeting!

so much more to say .... dh's little sister was dosed with heroin and roofies at a bar over the weekend and she's not alerting the police. thank goodness she wasn't raped. her friends noticed that she was near passing out, and took her to a safe home. she was so sick when she woke up, and bruised from losing control of her body, that she took herself to the hospital. they did a rape exam and could find no sign of assault; but they found herion adn rofoies in her blood. Who would do that to someone????? It makes me so mad! Heroin! argh.

[Mamabeakley]

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[jstar]

i work to not be 'beholden to anyone' i work because my anxiety would be so high if i had to rely on dh for the income. BUT when my dh went through a period of thinking i was his sugarmama and he didn't really NEEd to work i freaked. i don't think you should have to mind your own financial business in a relationship mamableakly. we almost split up when i had massive resentment to dh for not contributing as equally to our relationship. i make a lot more per hour than him and its never been an equal monetary contribution i was expecting. but i do expect an equal 'effort' to the whole program and relationship.

i was at the point where i figured i could do better financially on my own rather than having a mooch. we had a huge confrontation over it. and dh has really turned around in that department. he went back to his old job (which he had quit) and has been there for 2 years now.

his turnaround on the job maturity front is what gives me hope he'll turn around on the partying maturity front.

he went out last night to a bar with his friend. he asked first and i said sure. he hasn't gone out (except when we went out together twice) since isaac was born. he went out a LOT when i was pregnant.

my mom is coming up this weekend. he never gets crazy when family is around. one sign of the 'functioning' alcoholic i guess.

rainy32-dosed on heroin?? that's scary. glad she wasn't raped too

maggie may i'm so glad you found someone honest and it sounds like he is great

scoodlebug i know a few people who are high functioning alcholics. they can (and have) accomplished a lot. my dh is a functioning alcholic but i think he could accomplish so much more if he was stoned and drunk every weekend!

[rainy32]

hello.

ahh ... money. Boy was it a problem for us for a really long time. Both dh and I grew up really poor; before I got together with him, I was in an abusive relationship with an extremely rich guy ... a big part of being able to leave him was taking out huge studnet loans to finance my education in NYC and finance living separately from him. So we have lots of student loan debt. but thats OK debt.

the harder debt is the credit card debt we have from when dh was an active alcoholic. he always worked during this time (except the final year ... see below : ), but he also spent more money than I realized on booze. good booze in nice NYC bars

well, we moved to california 3 1/2 years ago for my job. its a great job. we looked only in places where dh could work, though, and he was an actor. a working actor! so we moved to southern california and the transition from nyc theatre actor to LA type screen actor just didn't work for him. He hated the audition process, he needed a new agent, he didn't like theatre out here ... he threatened several times in the first 6 months to leave me to go back to NYC. he also quit several (lost count!) day jobs that would have really helped us with the bills.

then he had an epiphany, truly a spiritual awakening a la step one. And he quit acting. Volunatarily, happily. And went back to school (he already had a BA) to be a GARDENER!! He is 2 credits shy of finishing his certificate program. That first year that he went back to school (our second year here), I completley supported us financially, and paid for his schooling. He won several scholarships, which really helped.

I was really stressed about money, though, and so was he.

I then asked him to please get a part-time job, and he did! He also applied for full time jobs, and within a couple of months had one! With benefits, vacation, retirement, good pay, etc. For the first time in our lives we were both earning an income. He has been fully employed and part time in school now for 1 1/2 years. Having a good job that he enjoys is key to his recovery, I really believe it. When he was acting, he never felt good enough, or like he was doing enough to help us out, or stable enough to plan ahead (or have a kid!). I thank my stars for the fact that he is employed. I can't imagine the stress of wondering if we could pay our bills. And, we can start paying down our debt ... slowly.

[Mamabeakley]

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[amanda2b2]

I am so glad I found this

Hi everyone,
I was just cruising through, I was actually looking at the cloth board and happened on this. I don't have a lot of time to post right now but i just want to say that I have tears in my eyes because I am so happy to have found this thread. I read almost the whole thread, I thought I was the only one who stayed even after I knew how bad it could and does get. I want to say thank you for starting this thread and I will be back to post my story.

[Mamabeakley]

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[buttercup]

[QUOTE=Mamabeakley]:
I am so sorry you are under a lot of stress and forced to deal w/ this issue. I feel you made the right decision. Your DH is blowing your intent out of proportion because of his inadequacies of being a good father..he made a stupid mistake. Smoking pot around a child may not be as dangerous as the stuff he has done before, but it still places your ds in a risky situation. Who is to say that your DH gets zone out on a deep thought while smoking pot and doesn't watch ds for just 2 min. A lot can happen in two min. A child needs to be watched EVERY SECOND.

You put your foot down and I hope stick w/ your decision because it is the right choice. The concern I have is that if you just move that foot back a little and let DH do it every once in a while, he may try to get you to step back in the future w/ other related issues. Just give him some time, hopefully he will verbally agree. Can you trust him to keep his word when he says he won't smoke pot around ds?

[Scoodlebug]

Oh wow. I feel badly for you. But you do have to protect your son first. There comes a time where you just need to be cold inside. Does that make sense? I agree with your sponsor. It doesn't matter if it irritates your husband each time you post that question to him, maybe if you ask him enough he'll realize you're dead serious and will cease doing it or just leave your son in your care. There will come a day where he will have to make his choice as to what his priority is. I think it's really well done of you to call your sponsor. I don't see why you should feel shame. You are struggling to do the right thing for your son. If that's what it takes then that's what it takes. Never feel shame for standing up for your child even if it is at your own expense or that of your husbands.

We had an incident here on Monday night. My brother in law showed up at our house. It was a shocker to say the least. He had been in jail for battery and our family had been consulting with the lawyers to try and get him into some sort of rehabilitation program. Be it mental or drug related we didn't care we're just trying to get him help. He was under court ordered psychiatric evaluation but somehow the lady who pressed charges against him was able to bail him out. We've been so hopeful for the past 3 months and this was such a huge setback. He showed up demanding his belongings from his father (conveniently forgetting that he had hocked 90% of them) and wanted us to act as the go between. It turned really ugly really fast. Mostly because he started saying things about their mother (who died when my husband was 11 and my BIL was 20) and my husband finally cracked. It was pretty Jerry Springer for a while.

Oh my daughter's having some trouble I'll be back later to post more.

[Mamabeakley]

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[elmama]

Skimming (it's late) through this thread has been so wonderful and therapeutic for me! My dh got a DUI about two years ago. Of course it was a real low for our whole family... I could go on and on about this. But a good thing was it started him into quitting drinking and going to AA to look into this whole problem. He quit going to AA thought, supposedly because he felt hypocritical about going and still being a major potsmoker. He is also occasionally having a drink lately. I was really upset about this at first but now I'm not sso sure how I feel. Dh is a great dad, as many of you said about your partners and is extremely hard working and commited to our family. Sometimes I get sick of hearing myself say that though! My main issue with him at this point is that he NEVER deals with the real issues in his life. Little things either get him grumpy and withdrawn or they occasionally blow up into this stream of consciousness, mean-spirited complaint...usually directed at me. I used to cry and fawn over him and generally feed the cycle...but now I just get angry and refuse to accept any of his attacks on me. It's not that I don't consider his requests of me, but usually he is so unable to ask for what he needs in a loving and respectful way. I stay with this man because I love our family and because I have seen progress, but I am wondering, how do I do this without letting my resentment build up. What do yall think?