Is it Alcoholism? Trapped with addiction

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.

Passion - trapped

I have been watching a lot of documentaries on Netflix. I am not that interested in fiction anymore. Maybe because I have been living in the fantasy inside my head  for so long I not sure I want to spend time in another persons fantasy.

The ones I have been watching are about passion to do complete something and the drive or creative process behind that.  I watched the story of Elmo and his creator and then last night the Indie Games the story behind some of the geeks that are creating top independent video games.

Both stories were similar in that they were passionate and it never occurred to them to do something else instead. The Elmo creator and puppeteer made his first puppet out of his dad's coat lining after watching Sesame Street.  Luckily his dad was supportive and told him to ask next time. His story was what you imagine it would be like if you were born to do something specific.

The geeks were a little different for sure obsessed but because they were pressured to release their games at a certain time their lives were full of stress.  One person coding day and night for years. Some worked in pairs but others were totally isolated for years without money and even without a car. The movie was about the successful ones that have now made millions who are now working on new games.

I could relate to their suffering it reminded me of the time I spent during the recession without customers feeling stressed and trapped wondering whether I should just quit and go back to my previous profession. I had invested so much time and money at that point but with the lack of success I wasn't sure what to do.  I was there alone in the office waiting for customers to come in and at that point the were coming in maybe once a week.

Sometimes you are at a crossroad but sometimes you are way past that crossroad and in a space of complete emotional exhaustion.  In my case when I looked at the jobs out there in my old profession it made me feel physically sick. Mentally I don't think I would have been able to pretend to be excited about a new position during an interview.

I had left that part of me behind and I couldn't go back. Those were some of the worst years of my life and I do feel grateful at this moment that I am busy and happy where I am. It was the right move for me to leave my old profession and it was the right move for me leave that small shop and work for a larger company.

Both decisions were forced on me for different reasons.  They made me have to re-invent myself and accept that the plan I had for my life was going to be different. It didn't make it easier that I was having to do that with my personal life too.

The good news is that I made it and feel like a success.  Even though didn't have millions waiting for me like the game developers did. It all worked out even though I couldn't imagine how it was going to at the time.

In the big picture passion can seem clamorous but in the day to day it can be a grind to stick with something when you can't imagine it will ever end.  The thing you once loved stops being fun but you just have to get up and do it anyway. You have gone too far to turn back.

I love design and I love anything creative.  I am happy that I made through both transitions and work in a field makes good living and allows me to be creative.  Happy to be no longer stuck.

Elevators Crashing - Who is on your elevator?

Just before I woke up this morning I had a very vivid dream. I dreamed that my ex-husband and I were visiting friends in a high rise building at the beach. We were traveling up in the elevator in silence, both up against opposite walls. The elevator broke and we started falling. We were both very calm and knew we were about to die. My last words before waking up were, you know when we hit our heads will be crushed against the ceiling.

I have felt kind of hung over from this dream all day. Some say dreams don't mean anything and others say they tell us secrets about our inner desires or fears.

First I haven't seen my ex in 15 years. He did come up in some healing work I was doing a few nights ago. I was surprised that I had anythings left to forgive or be forgiven for with him. It is part a series of healing proclamations. You say out loud __________ stands before me and I ask them to forgive me as I have forgiven them. You use the first person that comes up and there he was.

As for the dream I could say we both stood there without emotion while our relationship plummeted to the ground. With me already thinking about how this would affect my head. We were helpless at the time facing alcoholism and both knew we were going down. Close as two people could be trapped in an elevator but still not able to comfort each other. Outside forces in control of our lives, we thought.

I am in a place of acceptance in my life. The choices that I have made have brought me to the place I am today. Not necessarily bad just not where I thought I might be. I know I am not alone in those thoughts but occasionally I have to look at the journey that led me here. I can do that with detachment without blaming myself or others and accepting what is not what I dreamed it would be.

A quote from Syd's blog still on my wall. "Did you ever wonder what your life would be like? Well, this is it. The fantasy is over. Now get to living."

I did feel trapped in that relationship and this is a re-occurring theme for me and now I realize I don't have to wait for it to hit bottom to get out. I can choose not to get on the elevator in the first place or take the steps instead.