Scared to move - Alcoholism - Part of my story

During one of my meditations this I saw my ex-husband standing on a large rock in the middle of a river. The sight brought tears to my eyes this really happened. We were on a trip to our engagement party in New York and had stopped to visit my family in North Carolina. I stayed in the car and watched him jump around the rocks I was too scared to get out there in the water and he agreed it was too dangerous for me.

I think about that girl in the car I had so much fear because I loved this man and I felt like at any moment it would end in disaster. I was afraid to move. Life was tough then we had no money at the time of our marriage we had 50 dollars in our account. Our bond was around the sadness we had had in our childhood and our ability to survive. I felt like I would die without him. 

Like me his mother had died when he was 11 she had a brain tumor and left six kids behind. Two in diapers, two in middle school and two in high school. The older kids were shipped off to an uncle and the younger two to an aunt. He and his middle brother were left with his father who drank non - stop for three years leaving the boys to fend for themselves. They did what they could to get by sometimes stealing food to survive.

We were survivors and our connections was so strong that we never spent a night apart in almost eight years. I loved him because he was a mirror of the pain in me and I knew he understood what it was like to be on your own. He had something I did not have he had anger and he wasn't afraid to stand up for himself or for me. This made me feel safe because my own family never stood up for me. He was loyal something I really longed for I have felt alone since ever before my mother got sick. 

My husband's alcoholism increased with every year along with his anger. He was mad a his dad even though he had stopped drinking after meeting a single woman with no children. She was kind and generous and took on all those kids and they had two of there own. My husband couldn't reconcile the anger he had towards his dad. His dad was such a great guy now who was loving how could he be mad at him. The anger got re-directed towards mostly strangers and eventually me. 

The verbal abuse that came out towards the end of our relationship was really scary. Because of the bubble that we had created around our relationship I was isolated with only his drinking friends around us. I felt even more like an alien surrounded people that could drink for days. As the drinking progressed the meaner he was and I believed everything he said about me. My own anger was turned inward and I became depressed and scared to move.

I did feel physically threatened but nothing ever happened. I watched every word I said to make sure not to provoke him. I walked on egg shells but I couldn't imagine my life without him.

I tried many things to get the relationship back on track.  All the things that worked in the early days but things got worse with me being alone all the time just waiting for him to come home. I tried to talk my way back in to make the perfect house to fix the perfect meal. I didn't know about alcoholism back then "cunning baffling and powerful" I thought I could fix it if I just kept trying. Our relationship ended one Thanksgiving when he said he that he didn't love me and wanted a divorce. 

That was probably the most honest thing he ever said to me. He didn't tell me he had a girlfriend I am sure to save himself from being more of a bad guy. Alcoholism knows how to protect itself and how to manipulate the opinions of others. He was the life of the party and I was just dragging him down and this is what I believed because he told me it was true. 

He left and I was no one without him. I am smart and kept my life together financially so that when I wasn't working I could lay on the couch and sleep with all my clothes on sometimes the whole weekend. I lost my identity to alcoholism and didn't even know it.

I remember when I went to counseling and she asked me about the drinking. I said I never saw him drunk but he was always drinking. My only experience with alcoholics was my uncle who would be sober for six months and then binge until he passed out on floor.  My husband had a good job and was very popular. It was me that holding us back and I wanted to fix that. 

He was gone by the time I began to attend Al-Anon. It was the only thing I did besides sleep on the couch and go to work. I had a great sponsor who at first insisted on picking me up every day to go to a meeting if there was one. I had one hour of peace every day and I eventually was able to drive myself.

I was using the slogans because I was dead inside and they were simple. I listened to collections of positive phases in my car even though I didn't believe them. I was a zombie on the inside just doing a list of things I was told to do. Alcoholism had broken me I didn't have any solutions left inside of me. I surrendered my will over to a God of my own understanding.

I don't think I will ever really get over that relationship because it made me feel so safe when I needed that. It also ruined me and made me hate myself because I couldn't fix it. It saved me in the end because I found Al-Anon and I had to work through all the problems created by the death of my mother and the indifference of my family towards me. I had to see that my suffering was cause by the beliefs I had about myself. 

Yes other people planted some of those negative ideas and yes over the years those ideas were re-enforce by being rejected over and over but it was my own self talk that believed this crap. People are messed up and if you rely on what they do or say as proof you are enough then you are never on solid ground. We are all born complete and whole and deserve love and if we don't get it it isn't because we don't deserve it. 

I believe in forgiveness and letting go. You have to learn the lessons life teaches you or your just stuck forever with the same thoughts with the same kind of relationships. I don't really like to go back and tell my story anymore but today I felt it needed to be said. 

I can romanticize those early days watching him standing on those rocks but things were already heading for the rocks but I was young and he saved me momentarily from my own suffering. He made me feel safe and wanted. I have forgiven him and being able to feel that moment of love for him in my meditation made me see that I can love what we had even if it didn't last. This is an old story but one that made me who I am today. Today I am whole and happy most of the time.