Living with an addict
Discussion
This is a difficult one to put out here given ph and the internet in generals appetite for being absolutely brutal. I considered a burner account but I don't even have the energy for starting one right now. Sorry if this is all a bit rambling and nonsensical as well, it's been a tough few days.
So my wife has a long history of Alcohol abuse (at least 15 years). She was in AA from not long after we met. This was spurred on mostly by her uncle killing himself with drink and her father being well on the way to doing the same. I never really felt she was the typical alcoholic but more a case of her personality just completely changed when she drank (she would become abuse, violent, often hurt herself by just doing silly things, having accidents etc). There have been many ups and downs throughout the years with the usual falls from the wagon. Her longest period of sobriety was 7 years straight. This coincided with my son having cancer and being in treatment for just over 4 of those years. This would have been enough to drive most mothers to drink but instead it gave her the focus to stay sober as his survival was so reliant on her care.
We're 4 years past the point of my sons recovery now. Over this time my wife has struggled to regain her sobriety for any prolonged period of time. Over the last 12 months in particular AA seemed to just not be doing anything for her. We started to find drink stashed in the house on occasion and over the last month things have just got worse and worse, staying up all night, acting strange, not eating and her physical appearance and general health just declining. This all came to a head this week with an incident and the discovery that she's been drinking almost constantly for a while now, hiding it and top put a cherry on the giant s
t cake she's developed a cocaine habit (see up all night, not eating and strange behaviour for the hints).
I suppose we had what can only be called an intervention last week from myself, my parents and her mother. She's currently out the house at her mothers as we needed to protect the kids from seeing her in the state she was in, we needed her away from access to booze and drugs/dealers and she needed supervised. As she's sobered she's going through all the typical stages of anger, blame, remorse and everything that goes with that. We're all concerned for her safety and can't leave her alone, none of us know what to do in this situation, who to talk to about support for drug AND alcohol addiction (AA and NA are like rival gangs that don't tolerate each other for some bizarre reason).
We just have no clue how we can help and what we should do.
So my wife has a long history of Alcohol abuse (at least 15 years). She was in AA from not long after we met. This was spurred on mostly by her uncle killing himself with drink and her father being well on the way to doing the same. I never really felt she was the typical alcoholic but more a case of her personality just completely changed when she drank (she would become abuse, violent, often hurt herself by just doing silly things, having accidents etc). There have been many ups and downs throughout the years with the usual falls from the wagon. Her longest period of sobriety was 7 years straight. This coincided with my son having cancer and being in treatment for just over 4 of those years. This would have been enough to drive most mothers to drink but instead it gave her the focus to stay sober as his survival was so reliant on her care.
We're 4 years past the point of my sons recovery now. Over this time my wife has struggled to regain her sobriety for any prolonged period of time. Over the last 12 months in particular AA seemed to just not be doing anything for her. We started to find drink stashed in the house on occasion and over the last month things have just got worse and worse, staying up all night, acting strange, not eating and her physical appearance and general health just declining. This all came to a head this week with an incident and the discovery that she's been drinking almost constantly for a while now, hiding it and top put a cherry on the giant s
t cake she's developed a cocaine habit (see up all night, not eating and strange behaviour for the hints).I suppose we had what can only be called an intervention last week from myself, my parents and her mother. She's currently out the house at her mothers as we needed to protect the kids from seeing her in the state she was in, we needed her away from access to booze and drugs/dealers and she needed supervised. As she's sobered she's going through all the typical stages of anger, blame, remorse and everything that goes with that. We're all concerned for her safety and can't leave her alone, none of us know what to do in this situation, who to talk to about support for drug AND alcohol addiction (AA and NA are like rival gangs that don't tolerate each other for some bizarre reason).
We just have no clue how we can help and what we should do.
First, you're awesome. Congrats on still being there for your family. It sounds like you've done the right thing this time, but the coke is bad (had an ex do exactly the same thing) - a proper stay in rehab & therapy must be her best option - there will be more underlying things influencing this behavior. Yes, it's going to be expensive, but coke aint exactly cheap
Can't really offer much meaningful help, but just make sure you look after yourself as well. Have you got someone you can talk to and let things out, and give yourself a chance to have some time to yourself. I know it might be tough but in order to support your wife you need to be in as good a place as reasonably possible given the situation.
A friend (no really a friend not a "PH style friend") went through something similar, he mentioned that there were some really helpful addiction forums out there who help and offer advice for addicts and those impacted by addiction, I had a look at the time and the stories on there where harrowing. It might be worth searching one or two of these out, they offer great support from behind a keyboard which really helps with the whole anonymity thing.
I wish you and your O/H the best OP.
I wish you and your O/H the best OP.
I’m reluctant to post as I don’t want to be unhelpful but.. I lived with an alcoholic for years and I didn’t realise at the time just how miserable they made my life.
The changing moods, the jealousy, the irrational behaviour, the depression, the arguments, the walking on eggshells, the lies, the disappointments, playing the victim all the time and never taking responsibility.
Could never be happy as it would be rubbed in my face how happy I was and how miserable she was.
I’m not exaggerating when I say I got a new lease of life when I left.
I wish you all the best.
The changing moods, the jealousy, the irrational behaviour, the depression, the arguments, the walking on eggshells, the lies, the disappointments, playing the victim all the time and never taking responsibility.
Could never be happy as it would be rubbed in my face how happy I was and how miserable she was.
I’m not exaggerating when I say I got a new lease of life when I left.
I wish you all the best.
This sounds like a very difficult situation. No one ever really recovers from addiction and they just go through periods of dealing with it better or worse. It sounds like right now she is in a worse stage. I have absolutely no idea how I would handle something like this. I have a friend who once told me he is an alcoholic, another who can't seem to spend an evening at home without drinking a bottle of wine and another I don't speak to anymore who used to like the Charlie on a school night. Most of these people I could walk away from without losing any sleep but clearly you can not. I also have a cousin who drinks way more than is good for a person and who I have tried to help in the past but gave up eventually. So what's my point here. I can not spend time with people who drag me down because it drains my energy and makes me negative. Remember that whatever happens here no one is looking out for you while you look out for them. Try to focus some of your energy on making sure you are OK. You cant make everyone else ok if you are not.
nunpuncher said:
Pixelpeep 135 said:
Hi OP,
How old is your other half if you don't mind me asking, and has she had any health scares of her own?
She's 41. She has endometriosis but no life threatening health scares.How old is your other half if you don't mind me asking, and has she had any health scares of her own?
This is all going to sound idealistic, and she prob won't respond well (if at all) to this in the early days, but keep plugging away, and keep supporting.
i will say, regardless of what she says or does - she absolutely needs you and loves you. Without you and the family, she'd have properly checked out by now.
The guilt she'll feel about getting wasted all the time will now be part of the motivation to get wasted. It's a horrible feeling knowing you're letting others and yourself down.
Cutting off links to supply and/or money won't work - she'll just turn to other methods which is a road you don't want to go down.
I would recommend first of all taking a holiday away from all the triggers and easy access - take her out of her normal surroundings for a few weeks. talk to her, ask her as many questions as you can about when she feels like she needs a drink.
Don't talk about stopping, just talk about when she feels the need to. talk about what you could do to help her.
Your goal here is to find out the triggers and try to fix those, so she naturally doesn't feel the need to do as much escaping.
If you haven't already get in touch with her GP. They will want to refer her for support, and given the circumstances it should happen quickly i.e. days rather than months.
You might have to make some difficult choices such as allowing your wife to have a short stay as an outpatient in a hospital ward. This might include some medicine being prescribed so having her closely monitored is beneficial. It sounds like you have a good support network with parents etc being involved, but it sounds like you've done all you can so far. Professional help is available, you need to ask for it.
It looks like you're in Glasgow according to your profile. Some info here might help, plus they have some contact numbers. Pick up the phone and give them a call mate.
https://www.nhsggc.scot/your-health/right-care-rig...
You might have to make some difficult choices such as allowing your wife to have a short stay as an outpatient in a hospital ward. This might include some medicine being prescribed so having her closely monitored is beneficial. It sounds like you have a good support network with parents etc being involved, but it sounds like you've done all you can so far. Professional help is available, you need to ask for it.
It looks like you're in Glasgow according to your profile. Some info here might help, plus they have some contact numbers. Pick up the phone and give them a call mate.
https://www.nhsggc.scot/your-health/right-care-rig...
I remember there being a very good thread on here that ran for a while, lots of ups and downs and twists and turns, I cant remember the thread title.
I am a child of an alcoholic mother. I was her carer for many years as she was also a type 1 diabetic. my advice would be to keep her well away from your kids if there are any signs of drink or drug use. I got to see the worst of my mum a lot, our relationship is very strained now. It doesn't help that the rest of my family didn't really intervene as they didn't know what to do and my dad buggered off and left us to it. If I knew what I do now I would have walked into social services myself and gotten us taken into care.
The behaviour of a parent with addictions issues will affect their children forever. Do whatever you can to protect your kids, then protect yourself, then if you have anything left you can help your wife.
I am a child of an alcoholic mother. I was her carer for many years as she was also a type 1 diabetic. my advice would be to keep her well away from your kids if there are any signs of drink or drug use. I got to see the worst of my mum a lot, our relationship is very strained now. It doesn't help that the rest of my family didn't really intervene as they didn't know what to do and my dad buggered off and left us to it. If I knew what I do now I would have walked into social services myself and gotten us taken into care.
The behaviour of a parent with addictions issues will affect their children forever. Do whatever you can to protect your kids, then protect yourself, then if you have anything left you can help your wife.
Sorry for the delay in replying, it's been a busy few days holding down a full time job, dealing with 2 kids and also this. Thank you for all the replies and in particular for the shared experiences, particularly from the other perspectives of an addict who clearly knows what helped them and from someone who was the child of an addict. The effect on my kids is one of my biggest concerns.
My daughter is like me and a pretty resilient little thing although like me she's not really good at putting feelings in to words or sharing how she feels until she's got to a point where she can't really force the feelings down any more. My son on the other hand is much more like my wife (which in itself is a concern). Over the last few days I've discovered that he's been exposed to her drink and drug abuse and was told not to tell me. He's been through so much in his short life already and now this. My focus is just to give them as normal a life as possible at the moment, care for them, ensure their normal routines are not disrupted, try to make fun for them and give them as much love as possible.
We got my wife to the GP yesterday and had a good talk with him. He knows her history so knows all the routes that have failed and says there isn't that many other options left in our local area. He said that he basically can't help her until she's clean and since she was "rattling from the inside out" he prescribed a course of sedatives to last 1 week being steadily reduced across the week. I was apprehensive about this at first as she had similar before and just ended up abusing them (surprise surprise). I've taken all the medication she had and am just administering these as per his instructions. We have another appointment with him in 2 weeks (1 week to fully sober up, 1 week to stay clean and sober) then we'll see what's next. The doc reiterated a lot of what I've been saying to my wife about finding positive obsessions our addictions and finding a reason and focus in life so hopefully she'll listen to him.
As for me, amazingly I'm doing fine. Not struggling to focus at work, dealing with the kids more than usual is actually no bothered we've got into a little habit of the 3 of sitting at the table having dinner and talking every night. It's been lovely actually. The downside is that I'm really starting to wonder if I want my wife in my life any more. I would never abandon her in her current state and although we've been through smaller versions of this episode before there's something that just feels different this time. The account above from the child of an addict also had me thinking.
My daughter is like me and a pretty resilient little thing although like me she's not really good at putting feelings in to words or sharing how she feels until she's got to a point where she can't really force the feelings down any more. My son on the other hand is much more like my wife (which in itself is a concern). Over the last few days I've discovered that he's been exposed to her drink and drug abuse and was told not to tell me. He's been through so much in his short life already and now this. My focus is just to give them as normal a life as possible at the moment, care for them, ensure their normal routines are not disrupted, try to make fun for them and give them as much love as possible.
We got my wife to the GP yesterday and had a good talk with him. He knows her history so knows all the routes that have failed and says there isn't that many other options left in our local area. He said that he basically can't help her until she's clean and since she was "rattling from the inside out" he prescribed a course of sedatives to last 1 week being steadily reduced across the week. I was apprehensive about this at first as she had similar before and just ended up abusing them (surprise surprise). I've taken all the medication she had and am just administering these as per his instructions. We have another appointment with him in 2 weeks (1 week to fully sober up, 1 week to stay clean and sober) then we'll see what's next. The doc reiterated a lot of what I've been saying to my wife about finding positive obsessions our addictions and finding a reason and focus in life so hopefully she'll listen to him.
As for me, amazingly I'm doing fine. Not struggling to focus at work, dealing with the kids more than usual is actually no bothered we've got into a little habit of the 3 of sitting at the table having dinner and talking every night. It's been lovely actually. The downside is that I'm really starting to wonder if I want my wife in my life any more. I would never abandon her in her current state and although we've been through smaller versions of this episode before there's something that just feels different this time. The account above from the child of an addict also had me thinking.
nunpuncher said:
Sorry for the delay in replying, it's been a busy few days holding down a full time job, dealing with 2 kids and also this. Thank you for all the replies and in particular for the shared experiences, particularly from the other perspectives of an addict who clearly knows what helped them and from someone who was the child of an addict. The effect on my kids is one of my biggest concerns.
My daughter is like me and a pretty resilient little thing although like me she's not really good at putting feelings in to words or sharing how she feels until she's got to a point where she can't really force the feelings down any more. My son on the other hand is much more like my wife (which in itself is a concern). Over the last few days I've discovered that he's been exposed to her drink and drug abuse and was told not to tell me. He's been through so much in his short life already and now this. My focus is just to give them as normal a life as possible at the moment, care for them, ensure their normal routines are not disrupted, try to make fun for them and give them as much love as possible.
We got my wife to the GP yesterday and had a good talk with him. He knows her history so knows all the routes that have failed and says there isn't that many other options left in our local area. He said that he basically can't help her until she's clean and since she was "rattling from the inside out" he prescribed a course of sedatives to last 1 week being steadily reduced across the week. I was apprehensive about this at first as she had similar before and just ended up abusing them (surprise surprise). I've taken all the medication she had and am just administering these as per his instructions. We have another appointment with him in 2 weeks (1 week to fully sober up, 1 week to stay clean and sober) then we'll see what's next. The doc reiterated a lot of what I've been saying to my wife about finding positive obsessions our addictions and finding a reason and focus in life so hopefully she'll listen to him.
As for me, amazingly I'm doing fine. Not struggling to focus at work, dealing with the kids more than usual is actually no bothered we've got into a little habit of the 3 of sitting at the table having dinner and talking every night. It's been lovely actually. The downside is that I'm really starting to wonder if I want my wife in my life any more. I would never abandon her in her current state and although we've been through smaller versions of this episode before there's something that just feels different this time. The account above from the child of an addict also had me thinking.
Your daughter may come across as resilient, but that isn't always the case. Girls often deal with emotional issues differently to boys and bury things away. They can be hiding allsorts of things such as guilt, anger and deep sadness. They are very good at looking ok on the outside. It can become a ticking time bomb. I really do feel for you, I had an awful time as a child of an addict, but as time has gone on I understand that time better, and understand the affects it has had on me. Although it did take a breakdown followed by 4 weeks in the Priory mental health hospital with a lot of therapy afterwards to kick me into action. It will affect me physically and mentally until the day I die, and still has a knock on affect to those around me.My daughter is like me and a pretty resilient little thing although like me she's not really good at putting feelings in to words or sharing how she feels until she's got to a point where she can't really force the feelings down any more. My son on the other hand is much more like my wife (which in itself is a concern). Over the last few days I've discovered that he's been exposed to her drink and drug abuse and was told not to tell me. He's been through so much in his short life already and now this. My focus is just to give them as normal a life as possible at the moment, care for them, ensure their normal routines are not disrupted, try to make fun for them and give them as much love as possible.
We got my wife to the GP yesterday and had a good talk with him. He knows her history so knows all the routes that have failed and says there isn't that many other options left in our local area. He said that he basically can't help her until she's clean and since she was "rattling from the inside out" he prescribed a course of sedatives to last 1 week being steadily reduced across the week. I was apprehensive about this at first as she had similar before and just ended up abusing them (surprise surprise). I've taken all the medication she had and am just administering these as per his instructions. We have another appointment with him in 2 weeks (1 week to fully sober up, 1 week to stay clean and sober) then we'll see what's next. The doc reiterated a lot of what I've been saying to my wife about finding positive obsessions our addictions and finding a reason and focus in life so hopefully she'll listen to him.
As for me, amazingly I'm doing fine. Not struggling to focus at work, dealing with the kids more than usual is actually no bothered we've got into a little habit of the 3 of sitting at the table having dinner and talking every night. It's been lovely actually. The downside is that I'm really starting to wonder if I want my wife in my life any more. I would never abandon her in her current state and although we've been through smaller versions of this episode before there's something that just feels different this time. The account above from the child of an addict also had me thinking.
Someone I know is going through something very similar.
She has gone from being an attractive respectable lady to a cocaine and alcohol addict who is now dealing drugs herself to pay off drug debts.
She has been in and out of rehab, and nothing seems to have worked.
I can only imagine how difficult this is for you and hope there is a workable solution.
She has gone from being an attractive respectable lady to a cocaine and alcohol addict who is now dealing drugs herself to pay off drug debts.
She has been in and out of rehab, and nothing seems to have worked.
I can only imagine how difficult this is for you and hope there is a workable solution.
Olivera said:
Do you actually love your wife and see a future for the marriage? If not, and given the long term nature of these problems, then perhaps extrication from the problem should be considered.
Probably very good, if not slightly upsetting advice. In these situations its children fist, then you (you are no use to yourself or anyone else if you end up in a bad way), then the addict.Olivera said:
Do you actually love your wife and see a future for the marriage? If not, and given the long term nature of these problems, then perhaps extrication from the problem should be considered.
I don't think I do anymore. When I look at her I just feel anger and disgust. I feel terrible saying that as I understand it's a disease but I just can't understand how it's not a choice. I think the only thing that's been stopping me is the financial aspect and complications and my fears of the kids being given to her.nunpuncher said:
Olivera said:
Do you actually love your wife and see a future for the marriage? If not, and given the long term nature of these problems, then perhaps extrication from the problem should be considered.
I don't think I do anymore. When I look at her I just feel anger and disgust. I feel terrible saying that as I understand it's a disease but I just can't understand how it's not a choice. I think the only thing that's been stopping me is the financial aspect and complications and my fears of the kids being given to her.t in order as it could get messy.Does she work or have any friends or is she just sat home all the time spiralling? Not going into details but everything I've ever dabbled in has made me feel that st I don't want to touch it again for a while, plus having a life/job etc means you need to be able to function and think clearly. She needs support but she also needs other stuff to keep her mind busy. Is she or has she been on any meds to try and counter what's making her turn to booze and drugs, assume she's got some depression and anxiety going on?
t I don't want to touch it again for a while, plus having a life/job etc means you need to be able to function and think clearly. She needs support but she also needs other stuff to keep her mind busy. Is she or has she been on any meds to try and counter what's making her turn to booze and drugs, assume she's got some depression and anxiety going on?Gassing Station | Health Matters | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff