Welcome to “First Steps to Al-Anon Recovery” from Al-Anon Family Groups. This is a series of podcasts to discuss some common concerns for people who have been affected by someone else’s drinking.
Lorraine, Art, and Eileen are with us today. All are active Al-Anon members who are willing to talk with us about one of the basic principles of the Al-Anon program.
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I recently got married. My husband has struggled with addiction and alcohol abuse since he was only a child. It’s all he has known all of his life. He went to jail and got clean. I got to know the man he can be sober. He has an amazing heart and he is a family man, a hard worker and he knows the word of God front to back. One month after we got married he relapsed on drugs. He had already started drinking and was trying to hide it from his family. Apparently it is his gateway drug, alcohol.… Read more »
Recently I had this incredible awakening of remembering what it was like to feel joyous, the moment of being excited about life. I was in my twenties and now in my late fifties and have been deeply entwined in my adult children’s lives. I want to walk back to that place and time where I felt hope and excitement for my life. It means I have to let go of the harshness of life and live in today. I want to see the beautiful world around me and not carry the burden of the past or the sorrows of yesterday.… Read more »
Reading these comments has really opened my eyes to see how much I am struggling. My boyfriend and I have been seeing each other on and off for about 3 years. When I met him, I instantly fell for him. A few months later I realized his drinking problem and that I could not take the relationship seriously. We continued to see each other casually and he even started AA and got sober, but eventually I ended it a little over a year ago, telling him we were in different places in our lives and I needed someone who could… Read more »
Thank you for all these stories. I am married for 34 years and have five boys all adults. My husband is an alcoholic and three of my boys are heading in the same direction. He is starting to get sick and I have been in N A for awhile years ago. I need support now more then anything.
After living with a dad that’s an alcoholic I see the signs in my husband day to day I try not to let him get to me he pushes my buttons , if he’s not drinking his acting out playing the blame game and I really need help something to read so I don’t fell alone , this helped
I’ll keeping praying for a solution!!
Acceptance after 40 Years? This coming Tuesday will be the 40th anniversary of our first date – and the night I told my wife I was going to marry her. I gave her her engagement ring after she drank ¾’s of a bottle of Vodka because I thought it might make her better. To quote Roberto De Vicenzo, “What a stupid I am.” Then again, I was 20 and didn’t know what alcoholism was. Forty years, 13 in Al-Anon, later, I have a pretty good idea. Last Tuesday was eerily familiar. I called on my way to a meeting a… Read more »
Our stories disclose in a general way . Sure venting feels good and is nessessary And best handled live in alanon with a sponsor. lol I break that principle often! I could go on for pages of venting . But I know that what matters is the program I work , it’s the only way to let god and hope back in on a daily basis. Abuse and hopeleness thrive in isolation. Though we are not in many cases married to intentional bullies. Manipulation and abuse thrive intentionally or unintentionally On closed dynamics. Grab a meeting schedule and pick a… Read more »
I am in AA now for 17 years. My spouse for 7 years. It has been a very emotionally painful ride after relocating to a retirement home with him two years ago. Not what I had hoped or dreamed of at all. He has anger issues off the charts, an explosive kind of anger, like out of nowhere over trivial things. ….and it is not just me that he is verbally abusive to, it is other friends, workers etc. Nevertheless, I feel I have lost sight of who I am since we have moved. The cumulative verbal abuse, judging and… Read more »
Reading Becky G.’s comment about creating a safe space. I find Alanon as safe space too. In one way however, I wish my husband would go. He’s not an alcoholic, although he has so many alcoholic tendencies, and behaviors. He claims that he went to Alanon for 25 years as a result of his first marriage, but I don’t believe him. If he did, then I think he would not be wound so tight. I have been going for four years. I started because my daughter was displaying very inappropriate behavior, and I suspected she was on drugs. As you’ll… Read more »
I didn’t cause it, I can’t control it, I can’t cure it. I can keep the focus on me. My relationship with my Higher Power. Paying attion to what I need to be healthy. Setting my own boundaries. One day at a time, life is getting better, but only if I do my part.
I’ve only just begun going to Al-Anon. My husband is 3 months sober, and I feel like I’m at my wits end with his behavior. My mother was an alcoholic (20 years sober now) and I failed to recognize that my husband was an alcoholic. He was a binge drinker, and did most of his serious drinking after I went to sleep. Now I know I was in complete denial about the alcoholism, I always attached it to external circumstances. (if he liked his job better, he would be happy, etc). Now, after 14 years together, he is obsessed that… Read more »
I am grateful having read these stories and reminded that God is able to care for me and my husband even when it does end in the results I wish for. Thanks again.
So, we are separated by states for over a year. He took me to court for our son and won because I left the state with him. Now he has invited me to Disney with my son and stay at my house. But I’m not allowed to go to his house. He yelled at me and hung up on me and said I need help. I’m getting help. Not sure he even knows how he treats me. I deserve better treatment. Strangers treat me better.
I struggle every day. Our children are grown and we are alone now. I fill my time with positive things. I do love him, but do not respect him. I know that he has to want to change. I have told him if he gets another DUI we are done. I take care of all of the finances and have been working hard to get our credit cleared up. I gave in to him wanting things. No more. He is like a child and cannot have a credit card. He wants no involvement in the finances. Our finances were horrible… Read more »
My first years in Al-Anon were just that, years! Then someone really got me going with the program and the 12 Steps and 12 Traditions! Wow, what a change for my life. I now am studying daily and reading anything and everything that is Conference Approved Literature, and I can honestly say, “Thank you, thank you, thank you for Al-Anon!”
This is one of the scariest and loneliest journeys I’ve ever undertaken. I have lost my husband of 10 years, first to his addiction and now to his recovery, because he cannot live with my daughter’s addiction. So I have lost 2 people I love. However, I now have my 5-year-old granddaughter, since my daughter is not capable of raising her–although most days she thinks she is, even though she makes no sense. The baby is the light of my life, so I try to focus on her instead of the unhealthy areas in my life. We all need to… Read more »
I separated the illness from the person til the devil rose up and said, “You will go insane with him. I won’t let go, I’ll just take two of you.”
My choice. Take care of my own sanity and that of what’s left of my family.
For me Al-Anon is about getting the “beam” out of my own eye, no matter what my spouse does. And the result is so much more serenity, freedom and hopefully a relationship with God that comes first.
Focusing on me, caring for me, caring for someone else rather than my mood swinging, miserable, and emotionally challenging husband. (He is in treatment, but when we get together after a while he starts picking holes in me. I am never good enough, even though I have done everything I can to keep us financially stable and pay for his medical needs. When he came off his Oxycontin 3 years ago he started to drink instead. Some kind of dopamine deficiency, he says. Like that’s an excuse for his behaviour, or that I have to put up with his behaviour).… Read more »
There are many divorced people in the program–and believe it or not, we are happily divorced. Al-Anon does not advocate divorce or not-divorce, but helps a person find support while you do what you need to do. For me, I couldn’t live with someone who was actively drinking and drugging–and raise three kids. Things became violent and dangerous, and I had to take him at his word. If he said, “You never know what might happen to you in your sleep,” I had to take that as a serious threat–drunk or not. I am, today, a much happier person. I… Read more »