Welcome to First Steps to Al-Anon Recovery. This is a series of podcasts to discuss some common concerns for people who have been affected by someone else’s drinking.
Today Candace, Roger, and Carol will tell us if they ever felt like a failure because they couldn’t control their loved one’s drinking.
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I have not attended an Al-Anon meeting in years. All my choices of partners have been alcoholics. I am also an alcoholic in recovery. Yesterday I had 11 years clean and sober. At 10 years I married an active, using alcoholic. I had thought we were getting along just great, but his controlled drinking became a problem really fast. He began drinking anything and everything. I have held a job for 20 years and presently still working and going to school. I also travel for school twice a year for a week at a time and every time I leave,… Read more »
I have attended a few meetings and have not found any real help as a mother of three, and I have one daughter who is an alcoholic. Neither her father nor I have drinking problems, nor do her sisters–all are adults. She is a middle-aged adult, beautiful, intelligent and very talented. She can also be a very mean drunk. She burns bridges and makes enemies of people who care about her. I often fear for her well-being and safety. My meetings seem to focus on hard-core religion. I don’t know what they call themselves, but this is not a belief… Read more »
I have not been to an Al-Anon meeting and am not sure I can. I work two jobs and it is hard for me to find the time to go, and also my husband gets upset if I am gone too much, which is based entirely on his perception. He did not drink when we got married (20 years ago and a second marriage for both). But he did tell me he thought he was an alcoholic but I did not pay any attention to that because he quit drinking beer and smoking at the same time. We used to… Read more »
My mother was an alcoholic and drug user for many years, maybe before I even noticed. I also have three younger brothers and it has impacted our lives for sure. I always hoped for the day that I no longer lived with her. It’s been five years that my brother was murdered, and quickly after we all parted ways. It seemed that after my brother’s passing she stopped drinking or using. Although that has changed and I don’t live with her, I feel that I haven’t been able to have a relationship with her. When I’m around her I get… Read more »
Wow, I am new to Al-Anon. Haven’t been to my first meeting yet and feel already so much better in a sense by reading some comments here online. I am a mother of a drug addict and alcoholic. When he was in recovery they labeled him a disrespectful, inconsiderate mama’s boy. And that he is, all of those things. I feel like I have failed him in so many ways. Recovery was tough. He didn’t finish. They made him leave because he was jeopardizing others’ recovery, although he was there for 4 months. He made huge changes and progress. They… Read more »
God, grant me the serenity,
To accept the things I cannot change,
The courage to change the things I can
And the wisdom to know the difference.
Keep comin back it works IF YOU WORK IT
AND…..YOU’RE worth it.
I love you Al-Anon family group
I am the child of an alcoholic and have been in relationships with alcoholics, never a straight man have I found. I felt like a failure because I could not get them to stop alcohol or drugs. I was never enough. But I am learning to change via Al-Anon and my Higher Power. I am beginning to feel better and to rely more fully on my HP. I have accomplished much in life and my children have their own set of problems. They too are recovering and growing to love and accept themselves. I am beginning to see that I… Read more »
I am fighting feeling like a failure, not because I believe I haven’t tried my hardest to be supportive, but because my girlfriend has expressed so. Early on, when my girlfriend entered an out-patient program, she and her therapist communicated that it was best for me to focus on taking care of myself while being supportive. In other words, because she was growing, it was important for me to grow as well. I moved forward with the advice, because I’m aware of the dangers of co-dependency. And I wanted to grow with her. The last thing I wanted was for… Read more »
My boyfriend of 4-and-half years has been an addict on and off the whole entire time we were dating. This past year has probably been the craziest it ever was with jail, 2 different rehabs and wrecking my car, but in all that time and these years I have stayed with him and supported him through all his issues. Well, after 4 months of staying clean and things looking hopeful and we were finally getting happy, he goes and dumps me. You have no idea how angry I am at this point. I started attending Al-Anon meetings and they have… Read more »
I feel the same way, only I have been in this marriage for 35 years. My husband has had a drinking problem from the beginning. He did not have an ideal life growing up and I thought I could love him enough. He has never really wanted to touch me and he doesn’t communicate. When we had our last argument, I was extremely upset about his drinking. He simply said that maybe I should just leave. I am so lonely. I have held the severity of his drinking in for so long. I have isolated myself, losing all my friends.… Read more »
Yes, I very much feel like a failure. I was/am a single parent raising two teenage boys without any help from their father or the court system, so I was doing the best I could to keep me and the boys off of welfare. Unfortunately working multiple jobs took me away from what my boys needed most and that was “my time.” I feel I should have forced them in Boy Scouts, to play sports, been a PTA mom, but I didn’t and now I wonder why my boys have turned to drugs for what they say is “happiness.” Tell… Read more »
I am the daughter, sister, and for 22 years have been the wife of an alcoholic. Everything I ran from as a child, teen, and young woman, became my reality. I have raised three children, stayed strong by the grace and mercy of God, and become a shadow of the woman I was at one time and meant to be. My youngest child will be moving and I feel like my sentence in this marriage has been lifted. I find myself fearful for the what-ifs in my near future. I constantly dream of starting my life over. My kids are… Read more »
I feel like a failure because I have not been able to help my elderly father stop drinking. He has fallen multiple times as a result and not one of us kids wants to help him anymore. But I am the oldest and female so I feel guilty if I don’t. It has reached the breaking point now and I need to find help for me.
The effects of alcoholism had really worn me down after 15 years of marriage to an alcoholic. I was tired, discouraged, insecure, and discontent. He’d gone to treatment centers and AA off and on, and yet our home and marriage were unhappy. I held on to hope that things would be okay because I loved him, we had good jobs, and went to church. When my husband went through one more crisis, my family and friends said horrible things to me. It seemed everyone blamed me for my circumstances, and pressured me to leave my husband. They loved me, and… Read more »
I feel like a failure because my husband is always telling me his drinking is my fault. I am a pretty strong person, but after 14 years of this sometimes it really gets to me. He drinks a case a day, easy, on his off days. Maybe about 4 before work. He works at night. I want to go to a meeting, but I am afraid. And not sure if it is for me. He has a terrible temper whether he is drunk or not. He would not like me going anyway. Anyway I will keep trying to read books… Read more »
I am not a failure. We only fail when we quit trying! When our oldest son had a bag of pot, and the scales to weigh and sell it, in his truck one night, was passed out in his friend’s house who lived on our property, and my husband was nearly two thousand miles away working, I felt like a failure, but I had to take action. I had to operate on tough love! I did not fail because I did not quit! When our middle son went off the deep end over his divorce and ended up on drugs,… Read more »
Survivor, I used to think of myself as. I made it through a 10-year marriage with an alcoholic who was a 2-tour Vietnam vet who suffered with PTSD. I thought I was a survivor until our daughter, 32, just was charged with her 2nd DUI. As she got closer to her court date, she met someone 2 weeks ago, declared she was in love. She left everything–her toothbrush, clothes, everything, and went off with this person. My heart is breaking. I am searching for ways to cope. You see, the cold, hard reality is my daughter is an alcoholic and… Read more »
Soy hijo de un alcoholico seco y hermano de un alcoholico seco. Mi problema ahora es la depresion. Ahora admito que soy incapaz ante la depresion y que mi vida se ha vuelto ingobernable.
Yo no puedo solo hoy. Necesito la ayuda de una reunion de Al Anon. escribir aqui es una gran herramienta porque creo que es una reunion virtual. Y es muy eficaz.
solo por hoy sere feliz.
gracias por leerme.
I didn’t feel like a failure–I knew I was a failure. My husband was gone all the time drinking, and he would be at home if I made him happy. So I was a failure as a wife. I tried to lie to cover up his drinking, but I wasn’t good at it and folks knew, so again I failed. My kids were having problems in school and I couldn’t help them, so I was a failure as a mother. I now know I did the best that I could for the situation I was in and my kids are… Read more »
Every day I cry because I know my son deserved a better mom. He’s doin’ pretty good in recovery at a sober living environment. He has been there a year. Yet I am still paying for his stay there. He has been unable to find employment. I believe he has some cognitive impairment from the alcohol and I know he gets stubborn around doing things that I might approve of, yet he is 28 years old and I can’t understand his behavior–unless I just babied him too much. Why can’t he make better progress in looking after his financial and… Read more »