I am not sure why this came up for me today but I thought is might be worth sharing. I think my husband was and maybe still is an alcoholic. I remember one of the last trips we took together to meet my sister and her husband for a long weekend. My family doesn't drink and so he tried to respect that the whole weekend. Since I was in denial and just wanted things to go smoothly it never occurred to me that this would be a problem.
We got there on Friday and by Saturday he was like a caged animal pacing about and overall complaining about everything. This was not his normal state especially when he had an audience other than me. He liked for people to think he was nice and funny and made his best efforts to put on a good face. That weekend none of my instinctual methods to calm him worked.
I have always had the ability to talk people off the ledge something I use to be proud of. I learned early that saying the perfect thing at the right time made people happier. I think this is why I have attracted people who need to be talked off the ledge. It also makes me good in a crisis.
By Sunday for me the trip had be miserable but we were meeting my sister's friend and her husband for dinner before heading home the next morning. They order drinks and he felt comfortable enough to order "a couple of beers". I saw it on his face the relief and then the instant change in his personality he became the nice guy again.
I knew nothing about functioning alcoholism at that time. My experience with alcoholism was my uncle who, when he drank, passed out in the middle of the living room. He didn't work unless he was dry I just thought my husband was a social drinker.
After we split and I went to counselor who suggested Al-Anon and I was confused. Then I started looking at my life with new eyes she showed me a graph of the progression of alcoholism and where infidelity was one of the points. Sort of like the bubble graph they are showing for the virus. Other things like tickets even when not DUI's and problems at work.
I even went as far as to test this theory by meeting him at restaurants that didn't serve alcohol. He went nuts and complained that it was ridiculous to not serve some kind of alcohol. He use to have stains on his pants that he could never explain and later I realized that was from holding beers between his legs. I couldn't believe that I hadn't seen this before. I blamed myself for living in denial.
Addiction and alcoholism is really - Cunning Baffling and Powerful. I believe that we are all a part of the the problem and the solution. Everyone has their own ways to cope with life when it is unacceptable and the earlier the problems that need coping with start than the stronger the addiction.
We all have our go to things when we are afraid. For my husband it was the deaf of his mother at 11 and being left with his little brother in a home where his dad drank for three solid years. They were on their own started smoking pot and drinking too. The escape worked then and it became his choice of escape as an adult. His dad did get sober later on but really had no idea what those boys went through.
Our escape starts out as a good thing giving us relief but when it takes over our life whether that is food or alcohol it can be destructive. Right now we are all finding out what we use to cope with stressful situation. Someone at work told me her brother gave her 300 dollars to by as much liquor as possible.
I imagine that this is going to be hard on people living with alcoholism. Like Thanksgiving going on for weeks. Trapped with addiction. The affects of addiction on the family is so widespread. For me it was an enemy that I refused to see. I thought I could manage on my own and stayed isolated with only the alcoholic for daily feedback. To him I was the problem and I believed that because our once happy relationship had turned to ruin. I couldn't stop it no matter how hard I tried.
The last time I saw him he was about to get remarried and we met for lunch. As he sat and sucked down "a couple of beers" he told me he gave up counseling because he didn't think he needed it. He told me he would never love anyone as much as he loved me. How nice I thought "let's call your soon to be wife and let her know". At the time I did still love the person beneath the alcoholism but that person didn't surface too often anymore.
If you love someone that is addicted it is hard to see what it is doing to you. Try to find some time alone to read something positive even if only for five minutes. Put on head phones and go out to YouTube and type in inspirational and just listen. It won't fix the problem but it will distract you for a moment and the more you do it the better you will feel. You can't fix whats happening now just like you can't fix someone else is addiction. You have to find ways to distract the mind that is healthy.
No comments:
Post a Comment