Families & Friends Of Addicts Support Group
Addiction affects more than just the individual. This community is dedicated to the families and friends of individuals suffering from any form of addiction. Mental health professionals are increasingly considering alcoholism and addiction as diseases that flourish in and are enabled by family systems. Family members react to the addicted person with particular behavioral...
Hello all. it's beeeeeen a long while since my last visit and post.
I'm still glad to see people caring for and helping each other here in DS.
Praying for strength, peace and courage for everyone.
I have questions to those who can relate:
1) Can a relationship be worked out with an addict in recovery, one that
seems to follow a program?
2) How much asking do you do with your recovering partner? Sometimes i feel like they feel violated with all the questions. So sometimes I just avoid asking and pretend to be uninterested... to mind my own business. But for things to work out, partners need to talk it out and clarify right?
3) what boundaries did you particularly set in renewing a relationship with a recovering addict partner?and how did you communicate that
4) How did you personally work on yourself? I truly find it very difficult to divert my attention and not focus on the shortcomings of the addict... and just keep busy with my own affairs.
Thanks.
I'm still glad to see people caring for and helping each other here in DS.
Praying for strength, peace and courage for everyone.
I have questions to those who can relate:
1) Can a relationship be worked out with an addict in recovery, one that
seems to follow a program?
2) How much asking do you do with your recovering partner? Sometimes i feel like they feel violated with all the questions. So sometimes I just avoid asking and pretend to be uninterested... to mind my own business. But for things to work out, partners need to talk it out and clarify right?
3) what boundaries did you particularly set in renewing a relationship with a recovering addict partner?and how did you communicate that
4) How did you personally work on yourself? I truly find it very difficult to divert my attention and not focus on the shortcomings of the addict... and just keep busy with my own affairs.
Thanks.
years (like 2 1/2) later, he stopped going to meetings...and I got scared. He explained to me that he needed balance, and sometimes that was sleep, sometimes it was eat, sometimes it was to see his girlfriend...and that he would go to meetings if he felt he needed them, but they were the same things over and over...and he no longer wanted to sponsor...he wanted to just get to living a healthy life. EVERY alarm bell went off, I really had to step back. I had a very hard time...guess what? he is still sober.
I don't know if there is a right answer...in the beginning I had to tell him to stop with all the war stories, i lived through enough bad SHT and I didn't need to hear about more of it.
I think it is normal for us to protect ourselves, especially early on, after so many scares and disappointments.
IF it takes them as long to recover as it did to use, (they say, not sure it is true) than we need that much time to....so what happens until we are all all better? Limbo.
6 years out, he is fine, and we have a normal (where I think is normal) relationship...And that was without it being a spouse, which to me, would be a whole lot more complicated.
we never did this before, how can we know? just try communicating and not being accusatory, just asking...and not too often.
and most of all, take care of yourself.
thanks for taking time to help people.
sharing with everyone about an article i read today and it may be related to what blueviolet just shared about allowing ourselves time to learn new ways of relating...
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/healthy-connections/201507/what-codependency-is-and-what-it-isnt
I am currently struggling with after years of him being an addict, I am not sure what we have in common anymore. I have a full life of friends, working, volunteer work, raising the kids that he hasn't been a part of for so long. We went to dinner the other night, just the two of us for my birthday and it was nice. But, just nice....