Drug Rehab Options Blog

Hello All,

I posted last week explaining that my alcoholic partner had left me after a hard 5 years, we have a baby together and since his alcoholic Father has come into a lot of money (7 weeks ago now) he has stopped contacting me about mine and her wellbeing, left the family home, us, his car, his job and not turned up for several meetings with her (though I wanted to see him too) arranged through his Sister, when we have spoken he's told me several times that it's over, accept it and that he doesn't love me anymore, though this I am finding so very very difficult to accept because before his fathers Money he did really appear to love me and her and I really know that he did despite all the difficulties his lifestyle gave us.

You all gave me tremendous words of support and I had a great weekend with my family and friends really feling one step closer to finding normal again.

Anyhow, felt the need to write becasue today I feel dreadful. My best friend was out in our local pub and then on to a nightclub last night and he was out seemingly having the time of his life, she is very honest with me and simply said that he was drunk (obviously) but quite content and full of fun and didn't even ask her how either of us were (she was always a good family friend so I find this just plain odd).

I now feel a mix of things, 1. All the sadness and missing him has resurfaced and I just want to call his sisters phone to even be able to talk to him though I know he will just want me off the phone and I'll feel even worse at the end. 2.Jealousy I guess that others are still able to spend happy times with him but we are not as he finds it too problematic. 3. Anger, whilst he hasn't contributed a penny to her in 7 weeks - all my household bills are the same and I'm struggling and cold he is able to go to expensive nightclubs without even a thought.

So these are my questions if any of you can help again-

How do I get over all this again? And do you think he really, really doesn't love me so much he can't even bear to see me or speak to me and his baby daughter who he seemed to adore. Does any part of him miss me? and if it does would he even recognise it after 7 weeks of solid heavy drinking?

I know how I'm coming across and I know the answer, that I need to concentrate on me, which I was feeling I was doing but obviously that must have been false because I'm right back where I was 7 weeks ago today, I think the tablets for depression are working and it'd good not to have the angst of living with a drunk but the yearning and emptiness that his leaving has left behind today, feels worse than all of the disaster and chaos we had when he was there.

So sorry for bleating on again, but this has been a lifeline for me, you are all so wise and kind. x

He's not getting better--my alcoholic father--in fact, he is getting worse. Because he used to be a happy drunk, and now he's miserable all the time. I used to be able to talk to him but every conversation turns into a fight either out of his misery or my anger feelings to him. He cut out his coffee in the morning to save money, but he continues to drink a 48 pack unassisted at night. Before, it was easy to say he's not that bad, but he is, and he has no intention of stopping. It was easy to lie to myself, but I'm sick and tired of lying to myself to somehow make myself believe that life isn't what it is. I lie to enough people around me, to send me to hell, just to cover him.

And my mom, I feel so bad for her, because all she's ever done is work hard, she's like an angel, and she won't leave him because my sister's getting married soon, and she doesn't want to ruin her wedding. And she only gets to break away every now and then from him for a night partially to make sure he doesn't do himself in one of these days and to keep me from babysitting. You're supposed to look up to your parents, and I look up to my mom someone who puts others first often but still manages to be solid and not all broken like I've become.

I just pray that God or whoever the higher being is, will take me out of this mess. A teacher once told me to say thank you foreverything that is thrown your way. And it's easier some days than others to do so, but no matter how hard I try I can't say thank you for this. I can't say "Thanks, God, that alocholic father, he was a real bessing in desguise!" I don't see the blessing, I'm not finding the good in it. I keep looking for a little glimmer of something, and I can't find it. I guess I'm not looking hard enough. But I don't know how much harder I can look.

All I feel around him is anger and resentment.

man as soon as i think im doing good my xah comes back, he called today , and i didnt answer like i have been doing, but he left a voicemail, and lo and behold he was sober, first time ive heard that in 7 months, but hes supposedly going to rehab, which is about 10 minutes if even that away from where i live, the more i try to get him far away from me the closer he gets, supposedly its a rehab you live in, they help you get a job and feed you until your on your feet or something like that, he just asked me to support him, so i call him back, i ask him exactly whats going on and about the rehab, he actually holds a normal converstation for once, says hes sorry for everything, he knows he has to do this hisself but just wants me to be there for him, he asked about the baby finally and actually listened when i told him about him, he wants me to bring the baby over tonight, i told him he was not allowed around the baby if hes drinking, he promised not to be drinking tonight, i held to my boundaries i told him i was not helping him, he has to do this rehab by hisself, i can give you moral support but im not doing it for you or anything to help you, i said i hope you actually do this but i cant let you around the baby with you drinking and he was talking about how he didnt want the baby to turn out like him and he knows if the baby sees him like he is growing up then he will end up the same, he actually talked with some sense but i have to wonder how much of this is quacking

i called and talked to my dad about it since he grew up with an alcoholic father that is bascially just like my xah, my mom just goes off on me about my xah so my dad is easier to talk to about this kinda stuff , he says its just a cycle and it depends on whether he actually wants to do this or feels he has no where else to go

why when i finally get my life going and finally move on does he pop back up, i mean im really proud i can have the strength to stick to my boundaries but now im not so sure i want to be married anymore, its different if hes sober but hes still alot of work to be married to, i dont want to hurt him but i really dont know that i want to stay married and i dont know how to explain that to him, if hes sober i really dont have a reason to keep him away from the baby and i wouldnt be that cruel no way , my baby deserves to know his father if hes sober but then i wonder if he is sober how long will it last, most alcoholics fall off the band wagon anyway, i take marriage vows very seriously but i feel like ive given the marriage all i can and now i want to be free of it
i feel guilty cause hes thinking if he gets sober and picks his life back up then he will have his family and i truly do want a family but i just want to accomplish so many other things that i dont know that i can if im with him, i feel suffocated by his problems and i feel like ive been drowning in alcohol my whole life, first my grandfather then my husband, i was finally getting to where i could breathe again and now this, my dad says to just take it one day at a time
i just dont know if i have the energy to let him back into my life again, i was getting used to it being just me and my son, i was making so many plans and i really wanted to see if i could do everything on my own, i love him and hes the only man i have ever loved but its so suffocating dealing with someone with so many problems , i really wish he would have just left me alone and let me get on with my life, im not a selfish person by any means but right now i only want to focus on my son and myself but ive never had the ability to turn my back on someone i loved no matter what and if hes trying i dont really have an excuse to tell him why i wont be there for him

i sound really bad by saying this but i kinda wish he wouldnt try to get sober right now so i wouldnt have to deal with it right now, i know that sounds so bad i should want the best for him and i do but...

It's funny, I don't know any other childhood so it seems like it wasn't really bad. I figure everybody has some issues from their parents to get over. My dad happened to like drinking a lot, was never angry, didn't hit me or beat me or any other type of abuse and by all accounts was a good dad.

I somehow feel the need to separate myself from the people who had it really bad and maybe I gotta figure out why. As an adult, I had the best childhood of my wife and either parent so I never complained, now I see all the ways I modified my behavior due to the people in my life.

My ex had an extremely abusive childhood, she would sometimes wake up and tell me she had bad dreams and I knew that meant she'd be pretty off for a day or two.

I have set limits for my alcoholic father and the results has been that I'm currently not talking to either parent but now I keep having dreams about this crap.

The one I just woke up from was a typical situation, mom talking about wanting to leave and the timing being wrong, dad sorta flaunting his control and her lack of self esteem needed to make a healthy choice. There was also some of the "dads drunk" will you fill the roll of husband in my life and "mom's mad" will you be my buddy so I'm not lonely until I'm drunk enough to not care.

Anyway, what is the deal with the dreams? I really could do without them. This just started and really puts a foul smell to your mornings!

So, I've been at my new job for 6 months now. I pretty much stay in my office and don't talk too much, but I have made pretty good friends with the attorney in the office next to me.

Anyway, there is another attorney is the office who is obnoxious, loud, and possibly the most negative person I have ever met in my entire life. She is constantly the victim because she has had a hard childhood, and wears the "poor me" badge like a scarlet letter. She is also rude and mean for the most part if she doesn't like you or feels threatened by you. So, guess who she has decided to hate?

The girl I have made friends with pretty much keeps her distance from her as much as possible because the girl is so negative and just a drain and the other girl has noticed. So she is making more of an effort to be friends with my friend. My friend says she feels sorry for her and wants to try to help her. My friend also grew up with an alcoholic father, so I get that.

Tuesday we made plans to go shopping after work tonight. She said she had a doctors appointment at 6, then was coming back to the office and we would go from there. The nasty girl went running after her when she was leaving. I get a text from my friend saying she wanted to go have a drink and asked if we could go a different night. I said I had to return something so I would go alone. She comes back to the office with the nasty girl and ignores me. Um, ok. I'm not sure what that was about. Then they go round up the troops to all go have a drink. They never asked if I wanted to join them. I wouldn't have gone anyway, but it would have been nice not to have been blown off like that. So I left the office. She saw me leave and didn't say a word.

When I got there I didn't expect to really be friends with anyone. Now I think it was a mistake to do that. I'm hurt by what she did. I think the fact that she blew me off for a drink probably makes it worse. I don't think this girl is an alcoholic by any means, but still.

I don't know whether I should say anything or not. I think it would be pointless, but I don't want work to be weird either.

I wish I had not put myself out to make friends with anyone. UGH!!!!

Any suggestions?

Ive recently have quit drinking and all drugs, ive been almost an entire month sober so far. I was addicted to alcohol for about 2 years, and marijuana for about 4 years. Ive also done several other drugs in the past such as cocaine, ecstasy, and salvia as well, but never developed an addiction. However, ive given all of that up now as well as, my previous self-destructive lifestyle, but there's this one thing that i just cant get over.

I began seeing a good friend of mine that i have been friends with for over a year and we were in the beginning of developing a good relationship. she knew that i drank a fair bit, and smoked pot, but never to the extent that i did and i purposely told her very little about my past because i come from a bad neighborhood and because of that many of the things that i have had to do or put up with were out of my control and i also grew up with an alcoholic father and a well i wouldn't say i had the most dysfunctional family there ever was but it definitely wasn't functional....

However, this summer i went to visit her and her parents that i have never met before and at this point i was smoking pot everyday and just up until recently began drinking everyday after work. I stopped doing all of this when i went to go visit her and was fine for the first day, but the second day i was completely paranoid from drinking everyday and after smoking pot for so long it kind of flips on you when you have smoked for so long. You no longer get paranoid when your high, but you are when you are sober. I knew this already and was able to dismiss the paranoia from the pot cause i have stopped from time to time before, but the combination of the two i didn't expect and it was way worse than i thought it would be.

needless to say i pretty much freaked out. i even had some pot in my car and considered sneaking out and smoking it to level my head out a bit, but decided not to... to make a long story short it was a very bad visit and ended with me freaking everyone out and making a complete fool of myself. now we just began talking again, but very little and i just don't know what to do, she knows i've stopped drinking and smoking up. i would like to be able to fix the situation but i can't.

its just frustration because i had such good intentions and i really do have strong feelings for this girl, and she had them for me too. Lmao it sucks cause i can't explain all of this to her and her family it would be way too much and i don't think they would be very impressed anyways even though i've stopped all of those things now. I'm still the same person that she liked before, my personality or feelings for her have never changed i'm just not sure if she knows that.

This is the first time I've really acknowledged that I have an alcoholic father whose drinking has caused me damage. This is also the first time I have set limits for myself.

I want to start with I have never had a drop in my life! Never even been tipsy and over the last 18 months I have removed everybody from my life that drinks excessively, smokes weed or anything else along those lines in an effort to become a better and healthier person. I also deal with sexual addiction and I have attacked and faced that head on without going back to any of my old ways. Even with all of that forward progress and growth this is different, this is my father!

The issues that I need help with is the roll my mother plays in this and the INSANE amount of guilt I'm feeling.

I will start with saying I never really looked at his drinking like a problem, he's been a good father, he's never hit me or sexually abused me and he would give me the shirt off his back. He has never been a mean drunk and goes to work and is very functional. The drinking has always been, I figured him drinking 6-20 beers a night was just his way of dealing with life. I didn't notice we don't have a relationship, that I expect nothing from him, that broken promises are normal or that I have to tell him the same story 5 times as well as hear the same damn story from him 5 times. I have just accepted that when my mom is pissed with my dad he wants to be my best friend, when he's tired of her she wants me to be the surrogate husband. I totally lost site that I'm now the father of my dad and he's had nothing to offer me in the roll of a father for many many years.

I have listened to him tell me why he drinks for so long I've started to buy into the reasons and accept them as valid. I have watched him for many years push me and my mother to our limits for him to back off just long enough to get us to accept his drinking again. He's told me flat out that's what he does and he won't ever stop drinking. Well this cycle has all changed with yet another broken promise and me digging my heals in and facing this because I'm no longer willing to feel that level of disappointment and no longer willing to accept a relationship where I expect so little I'm numb to it.

The hard thing is that my mother and him rent the house I have next to me and falling outs are compounded by the closeness.

With them living next store and that not going to work in this situation, with these limits I have told my father that I'm making a choice to not have people in my life that drink and if he wants to choose to drink that I need him to move in 30 days. This of course causes an issue with my mother so I will give you some history on her.

She is the daughter of an alcoholic who thinks she has gotten past her relationship with her father but from what she's said that very clearly isn't true. She has been with my father since she was 13 so they have been together for roughly 40 years. He has been very unsuportive of her in setting limits, having healthy boundaries, business ideas and the list goes on. He has gotten drunk and had sex with hookers without condoms clearly risking her life and in this case causing stds including HPV so she's had to have a hysterectomy. She has tried to set limits like last year trying to get away from his influence going as far as calling the sheriff so he would leave but once things get that far he pushes harder on those limits because he knows what choice she will make so he doesn't give her any space and she folds. He'll clean up his act for a couple weeks. Cut back to 1-2 beers a night, stop spending 2-3 hours a day looking at porn but when he doesn't get his daily prais for being a healthy person he finds a reason to start drinking more again.

In this situation it's the worlds fault, my fault, her fault and everybody else is wrong and she's been with this man so long she just follows. Now she's having to find a place to live while he sits idol and blames me. She went as far as to tell me today that "she's not going to be without a roof over her head because of me". She fails to see I'm making a healthy choice and setting a limit, my fathers making an unhealthy choice and she's making another choice be it healthy or not to follow him. She has totally overlooked his roll in this trying to either overtly or backhandedly place blame on me.

I have told her I'm open to talking this out but I want it to be with a family counselor, all three of us and nobody able to manipulate the situation or place blame/skirt their rolls. She's of course fine with that but my father would never go for it. He's telling her I'm brainwashing her, manipulate her and on and on. I've told her she doesn't have to follow him, she's making a choice to and she belittles me for thinking that way. Saying "did you really think I would choose to stay her over going with dad". And of course I didn't expect that but that isn't the point, the point is she has a choice, he has a choice and I have a choice here and I'm the only one making a healthy choice and setting good limits for myself. Taking the hit I am for that really SUCKS! Taking blame for that really SUCKS!

She of course says she isn't ready to leave or make a stand and she's willing to yet again follow him off another cliff and accept the hit at the bottom. I'm starting to have hard feelings with her now as well because I'm having to accept that I have a father that will choose to drink over having a relationship with his son. She's adding guilt and I'm having a very hard time respecting her choices and the excuses she's using are as weak as his. She looks like a VERY scared and weak woman now and I truly have never seen that before. Until this last situation I was blind to the dysfunction and now there's a huge spotlight on it.

I'm clearly emotional from typing this, don't know that I've said what I wanted to say but you have the general idea. My mother will also read this and could really use some support as I see her trying as if she's on the edge but having a tough time jumping. I have told her we're holding up this mans bottom and now I'm gone so she's taking a lot of that weight and he's never going to hit bottom and decide if he wants to make changes with her down there enabling him.

For me, I'm okay, hurt, frustrated and upset but in a positive frame of mind and proud of myself for sticking to these limits. I accept the guilt is part of this and I have a good support system to keep things in check and balanced for me however I feel like I'm leaving the other victim, my mother, behind. I know she's making this choice but it's still hard for me to accept she's willing to be with a man she knows would choose drinking over a healthy relationship with his son, she knows would choose it over her and she just keeps helping him cause this damage.

I'm typing this to get it off my chest but also because much of what I've read in this forum helped confirm that I'm making a good choice and the closer a story fit mine the more reassuring it was. While I hate to say this I hope my story hits home with somebody else as well and gives them some of the confirmation they need to make changes in their life. I think the main thing for me was overlooking all the issues because I wasn't beaten or physically abused. I just failed the see the huge and unhealthy roll this has played in my life for a very very long time.

Comments to put me in check if needed or support me are both welcome.

For those of you who have watched the death of your marriage, and made it through to stronger, healthier places, I would like to know how you dealt with your grief in the midst of it? I think my marriage has been on a downhill slope for quite a while, but bringing that out of denial has been tough. Now that I am aware and have acknowledged it to the rest of the world I can't just sit on it any longer. I know the feelings I have are "normal stages of grief"....vacilating between anger, bargaining, and sadness. But what I'd like to hear are stories from those of you that have been in the trenches. I'd like to know that this will pass.....and some affirmation that I'm not so different from the rest of you all. I have 4 kids that are depending on me, and they don't deserve an alcoholic father AND depressed, emotionally unavailable mom.

“You must understand…” these are words that I have heard most of my life. These words have been like a prison to me, which I have always tried to escape. My mother was a clinically depressed person and my father was emotionally unavailable. When my mother wouldn’t get up for days and I would try to do almost anything that I could to get her up…I was told, that she was sad, and “you must understand….” When my father left my mother for another woman, I called at age 12 and begged him not to leave me with a woman who I didn’t trust to take care of me…he told me that his place was with his new girlfriend and her daughter, and mine was with my mother, “you must understand….” When my mother began to party and leave my sister and I for nights on end to be with her boyfriends, I would get angry that some stranger meant more to her than we did, but she would ask me whether I wanted her to be alone the rest of her life, “you must understand….” So all my life I was told that putting my feelings last, or smiling when I didn’t want to, or stuffing my anger, or holding back my tears, or being “strong” in order to make others happy was my duty, my lot….I must understand….All that I ever wanted was to get away from these word…for me to special and me to be what matter…for someone else to understand.

Then I met my husband…he too was from a broken home…abused by his alcoholic father and by his father’s alcoholic wives. Then at 15 he was made a ward of the state and at 18 lived on the streets of Boston until 22. When we professed our love for each other, we swore it was forever. He loved me and I loved him. He was going to save me. I wasn’t going to be out there again. For once, I thought I was safe and that I would finally have the stability I longed for. We talked about babies who would have two parents at home...we laughed about growing old together, sitting in rocking chairs on a porch. For once, I really thought that I came first. We both knew each others backgrounds, our problems, our fears, and we were going to cure those things…I would finally escape my prison of “understanding.”

Instead, I went from one cell to another. Alcoholism was the prison and codependency held the keys. I laughed when I wanted to cry. Begged, pleaded, manipulated, conjoled, excused, worried, and enabled. I picked up the piece, held it together, made it “work.” I hid my heartbreaks, disappointments, and fears. I put my desires on hold. All in the hopes that I would get a scrap of love in return. My childhood taught me well…I could restart the cycle. “You are my everything,” he would say… “I couldn’t live without you.” I really mattered, I thought. I was number one for once. But I fooled myself…I never asked for real change, real challenges, real partnership because I knew where I stood. I would be out in the cold again, and I would have to understand.

Today, after eight yearsÂ…my husband moved outÂ…broke, jobless, homeless. I finally asked to be number one, and I got my answer. I begged for our love and our dreams to be first for once, and alcoholism laughed in my face. He cried this morning as he called to say goodbyeÂ…I felt numb. But when my friend came by to feed the cats for me, she said that his keys were on the counter. He really left. Now I sit here cryingÂ…crying for this man, this marriage, and for me. I cry because he doesnÂ’t want sobriety even though it costs our marriage, our home, our loveÂ…the bottle and the drugs will come first. He is gone and he made his choicesÂ…He has chosen his path, and me, well, I am left behind, and once again, I am told I must understand.