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Wife of an Alcoholic

Part One

By Laurie SummerfieldPublished 6 years ago 4 min read
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Alcoholism is a family disease. One person may drink, but everyone in the family suffers.

Do you ever sit up all night waiting for the person you love to come home after a day/night out drinking? Do you keep calling and texting them because you're worried? Do you go to bars or their hangouts in search for them? Do you feel alone, exhausted, anxious, depressed and crazy? Are you affected by someone else's drinking? This is for you!

I cannot tell you how many times I have done the above things and more, searching our home for bottles and confronting him about his drinking. I could write a list but I would be here all day. I thought I could stop his drinking — that it was my job as the dutiful wife, that it was my responsibility. That if I could only get him to acknowledge he had a problem, that he would stop.

I have nagged, bitched, manipulated, begged, cried, and threatened him with ultimatums in the hope of changing him. It never worked. He still continued to drink. I felt like a failure. With everything that I tried, he would still drink.

What I later realised was that I believed that when I was in a relationship, that two people became one. What was his was mine and this meant that his problems became mine. I had become glued to his hip. I had stopped living my life and started to try to live his. Two people in a relationship are always two people. They may have a journey together but they also have separate journeys. It's in these separate journeys that each person is able to grow. It gives space for each to enjoy themselves and their interests. I had invested myself so much into my husband and his drinking that there was no separateness. I had not only taken the role of his wife, but also his mother and babysitter.

I had become a mere shell of myself and although I couldn't see it at the time, I was just existing.

I was once asked, "What do you enjoy doing with you time? Where is your favourite place to relax? When was the last time you treated yourself?When was the last time you had fun?" "If what you have been doing has never changed him, why are you still trying to change him?" Good questions! I could not answer one of them because I had never really thought about myself this whole time. More to the point, why was I still doing the same things over and over expecting different results? That, to me, is the definition of insanity.

I joined a group for support where I learned about alcoholism, codependency, and how I could progress in my life despite what others were doing or not doing. I stopped trying to change people. I learned that the change began with me. I learned that my behaviours and attitudes were contributing to his addiction. I was not helping him, I was feeding his addiction by my reactions to his drinking. Trying to force solutions only affected me and made the alcoholic not want to return to our home. He stayed out all night after drinking because he knew when he came home, armageddon would start. He didn't answer his phone and quite often turned it off because he knew from my previous behaviours and attitudes, that he would only get nagged and bitched at. Most of all, I was keeping myself physically, emotionally, and mentally unwell.

I cannot fight wars that are not mine to fight. I cannot carry the weight of someone else's addictions. It's too heavy.

I started to change little things in my life that over time became big things. I started to write a journal of events and what my reaction to them were, so I could see how I worked, and how a simple change of responding instead of reacting could make a positive change. I read daily affirmations to give me a kick start. I learned to have a relationship with myself and to focus on myself. The alcoholic was already focusing on himself. He didn't need two people doing it. I started a routine of beginning and ending my days with a gratitude list. I started to push myself out of my comfort zone by trying new things. I gained self-esteem and confidence. I put action into living my life and enjoying it because I am important, I have a right to be happy. I matter. And so do you.

I couldn't change the alcoholic but that's okay because it's not my responsibility to change people. I am my responsibility. It is my job to learn to take care of myself, to not depend on irresponsible, unpredictable people, and to love myself and show myself some compassion.

Three years on, life is not perfect but it doesn't have to be. I live one day at a time. I am happy and choose to be despite life on life's terms. It can throw at me what it likes but I will get up and keep moving forward. I will keep trying to become a better person than I was yesterday. I have problems just like everyone else but I don't allow them to stop me from enjoying my life!

So, what about the alcoholic?... That's his story, not mine!

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About the Creator

Laurie Summerfield

I am a single mother of one daughter. I support people affected by someone else's addiction(s). I am currently studying psychology, with the view of it assisting me with life coaching.

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