Help managing alcoholism?

Question

I am trying to break my addiction to alcohol on my own and fear, from past experience, that I will fail. I can't go to rehab because I am raising three kids. Yes, I do know how awful that is. That's why I'm trying to get help. Are there any supplements that help with cravings and/or withdrawal? I can't go to AA because my husband says I'm just going so I can meet people and cheat on him. He believes in the whole "get over it" ideal when it comes to things like addiction and depression. I feel weak and stupid that I can't. I have continued drinking because it's easier than dealing with everything associated with "recovery" and I hate how irratable and sad I become without alcohol. It's kind of become a friend to me, dumb as that sounds. I need to be well for my kids. my pre teen recently commented on my drinking and it broke my heart. What can I do?

Answer 1

AA is very helpful for many people, and if your husband won't let you go, I see two options:
1. have him accompany you to the meetings (maybe he can wait in the car!) (I think they may have women only meetings, but not that common.)
2. choose between him and the addiction

Maybe his controlling nature and jealous insecurity contributes to your drinking.

Also, speak to your family doctor. Keep trying, and do get some help. Best of luck.

Answer 2

Talking with your family physician is an excellent suggestion. Many times the difficulty people have when they stop drinking for a day or two is that they feel a sense of uneasiness or an overall anxious feeling. Your doctor can prescribe Librium, which is a brand name for an extremely inexpensive medicine(chlordiazepoxide). However, from experience I know that it helps with those feelings so that you can get the alcohol and its effects out of your system (a few days). It is extremely important that you don't trade one addiction for another, which is quite common with substance abuse behaviors. It will help you get through the uneasiness so that you can begin to analyze the elements of your life which may be contributing to your drinking, and then working at them, one by one. It is also important to differentiate between one who is an alcoholic and one who abuses alcohol, because there is a definite difference. One may enjoy the taste and overall calming effect of alcohol so much that they become a habitual abuser which can thus bring problems into one's life. An alcoholic is a person who has a genetic predisposition for addiction, and finds it uncontrollable to drink at all. Again, problems in life come with the territory. In any event, both types of people will find their life more fulfilling and happier if they cease drinking altogether. It's also noteworthy that alcoholism is insideous! It is more of a gradual becoming than an overnight transformation, hence the need to closely examine one's drinking habits. It is always easier to minimize, justify, and shift blame than it is to simply acknowledge and change. There is no need to be discouraged through mental self-abuse or through feelings of being a 'bad person', as you are not. Some of the world's most caring, compassionate, fun-loving, and intelligent people have struggled with alcohol. Many times the same great qualities that a person has can also be their undoing in other areas of life. Positive thinking and determination will help your resolve, as will a supportive spouse or a dear friend. As to AA, it works for some and not for others. You need to find what works for you. The other suggestions given about 'women-only' groups, etc. are good ones. There are some interesting concepts at the site www.quittingforever.org. I stumbled onto the site a month or so ago when searching for information. The ideas may seem a little strange at first, but there is substance to them. I hope some of these suggestions will help and I wish you much success in your new, happier life!

Answer 3

There is no such thing as managing alcoholism. You have a disease called addiction. An addict is a man or woman whose life is controlled by drugs. We are people in the grip of a continuing and progressive illness whose ends are always the same: jails, institutions and death. You have to admit that you are powerless over your addiction, that your life has become unmanageable. If you are an addict, you can find a new way of life through the N.A. Program. (Narcotics Anonymous) alcohol is also a drug. Go to one of the meeting in your area and get a support group. Stand on your own two feet and tell your husband that if he is not willing to support you, then you have no choice but to seek help as soon as possible. Think about your children before it's too late. Good Luck and God Bless.

Answer 4

You can go to AA and not let your husband stop you with any objections. You owe it to yourself and to your kids to be the sober you. It's possible that he doesn't want you to change, because then the dynamics of the family will change, ergo, HE will have to change. That is scary to some people, even if they profess to want YOU to change and be different.
You go to 30 meetings in 30 days, my friend. And if you have to, take the kids with you, as there are some meetings that have supervised care for your children. Call your local chapter of AA and ask them where such meetings are held, and GO. You will wake up one day in 10, or 15 years, and your pre-teen won't BE a pre-teen any longer and you will not have changed a thing about yourself. Don't wait! Sobriety sounds like something you really WANT... don't let fear, or family dynamics stop you from facing life head on. And if hubby insists you go to cheat, would you do that with three kids in tow?

Answer 5

I would talk to your doctor too. Another medication is topamax which is expensive though. It's a mood stabilizer and is prescribed "off-label" by doctors to alcohols. I take it for chronic nerve pain and it is very hard to drink while on this drug. Beer tastes gross and flat. When I first took this medicine, I would go out with my friends to the pub and my beer would sit there on the table and I would try taking sips on it for hours and would leave it half empty by the end of the evening. My friends kept asking me me what was wrong, lol The only downside is that it does slow your mind down in the first couple of weeks. This goes away the longer you are on the drug. I would also go to AA with your husband too.

Answer 6

Don't take this the wrong way, but your husband sounds like an asshole!

People like him don't understand that psychic pain is just as real as physical pain! He's probably really out of touch with his own emotions (a lot of guys are like that, unfortunately)

But enough about him

You CANNOT cure drug addiction (and that's what alcoholism is) by getting addicted to another drug!

Basically, the only way to cure alcoholism is to stop drinking!

And you can't do that without support!

You can't go to rehab due to your family comittments, but you CAN go to Alcoholics Anonymos meetings.

And your a grown woman - there is no reason that you can't go to AA meetings just because your husband says he doesn't want you to go (due to his paranoia about you cheating - is he a cheater, by the way? cheaters are the only ones who think like that!)

Like I said, you're grown, he's not your father so he can't stop you from going, and you need the meetings, so you should go!!!

If he can't handle it, thats HIS problem, not yours!

You might want to consider therapy too - this can be easier if you have insurance, if not, go to a university, they usually have social worker training programs and the students do therapy on real patients as part of the training, it's really cheap (like $ 25 bucks a session, and that's in NEW YORK CITY - it's probably cheaper where you are!)

Again, it doesn't matter that your husband is an idiot (sorry, but I gotta keep it real - he sounds like a judgemental moron) if you need therapy you gotta get it, no matter what.

You have a DISEASE and you need help!!

If you had a broken arm, and your husband said he "didn't believe in doctors" what would you do???

I would HOPE you'd ignore him and take care of your needs!!

If you were on your period and your husband said he "didn't belive in tampons and Midol" what would you do???

Again, I would HOPE you'd ignore him and take care of yourself!!

The same thing applies here.

Be forewarned - your husband is used to dealing with a weak, depressed, codependent and submissive drunk woman (that's you on alcohol) he WANTS TO KEEP YOU SICK.

He does NOT want a wife who is strong, happy, self reliant and independent (that's you sober).

Thats why he doesn't want you in AA.

But who cares about him???

What do YOU want for yourself and your kids??

I'm betting you want to be sober!!!

And you can get there through the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous!!!

Good luck!!!

Answer 7

First of all, your husband is an insecure jackass.

Second of all, if you cannot do it on your own, then you need to seek help. That help means going to AA. If your husband doesn't like it, too damn bad. Tell him to go with you or shut up. He isn't the type of man I would want who isn't able to stand by my side when needed. He's only concerned with his own insecurity.

Now, get a backbone, find out the next AA meeting, tell your husband you're going and he is welcomed to come, then GO..with or without him. Start setting an example for your kids on two issues...one is stop drinking...two is stand up for yourself. You will teach your kids to be cowards if they don't do what's right for them because of some other person's low self esteem.

Get moving.

Answer 8

As my feet slap down against the cold wet pavement, and my face drips rain from the storm, an unrelenting need to drink pushes me further. Exact final destination appears unknown , but it's inevitable that the evil inside will again return me to the source of my nightmare. No control, no will of my own, no power had I found that might evict this hell that had infected my body and mind. Self-identity, and all that was once me, had been buried under countless layers of drunkenness, so deep, that any calls for help were merely an echo inside my head.
This living liquid curse, cunning and without conscience, had been absorbed into a body which at one time eagerly welcomed it's unyielding influence. But now, as the onslaught of alcohol turned viciously against the world around me, it was only I being held responsible for it's drunken destruction carried out during my imprisonment.
Those intense fear ridden mornings, when I awoke to find yet another nightmare of alcohol's creation, devilishly constructed from it's own personality the night before. Whether it was the sight of dried blood crusted over both hands, or the unfamiliar surroundings of a place where I shouldn't have been, alcohol knew how to render me frozen with crippling insecurity. Too frightened to reason out a healthy answer as to what was happening to me, a deliberate terror of conscience always reached out and tightly gripped my soul. This devil, disguised and hidden behind my own recently drunken face, knew exactly where I'd run to for help. This was much more then an accident through drink. Alcohol's intent was to survive at all costs, to live and breath it's own existence using me as it's host of choice.
But, now, unaware of this developing transformation, all I wanted to do was calm the terror inside my head. There would be only one place, one exit, one chance to escape into a feeling of normality. Alcohol left nothing to chance, and as it waited patiently for me to return a bottle to my lips, I could almost hear a deep sullen laughter quicken my mobility. I desperately needed to lock myself away into the only security I knew, and to experience that precious freedom, I once again had to ingest my enslaver.
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Answer 9

Well Molly, I hate to say it hon,but you will fail.No one can do it on their own, no matter how bad they want it.There is nothing out here that will help with cravings, nothing but AA. I'm so sorry your husband feels that way about AA.God, he sounds like my ex.Hell, I had to get permission to take a ****.(smile).I remember when the only friend I thought I had was booze.I use to hold up my miller bottle all drunk an say........."this is the only friend I have!!"Until my old friend turned out to be the devil himself!In AA they say when your ready to do anything to get sober, your ready. I hate to say this also, but there is no way, NO,WAY you can do this by yourself. Hon, if your husband feels this way you may have to leave him for awhile.You may need rehab. and you damn sure need AA.I read some of your old questions, and I read the one about your son.You say he is having trouble in school?Hes lashing out??If you look deep down inside, I think you know whats wrong with him.You see, when you suffer from your drinking the whole family suffers.So when you get the help you need your going to have to get your children into some counsling. I"m sure they saw and heard alot of things that hurt them or that they didnt understand.I drank for 26 yrs.You know what? I tried so many times to quit, because I had three little girls that needed their mother.I went to rehab, I went to AA.I did everything I was suppose to do, except one thing, want to.I had to want to stop. I know damn good and well I had to stop or I was going to loose my children.I turned around one day and there they was, here to take my three beautiful girls from me.I got in a serious argument one day (this is all I am going to say or damn I could go on and write a book!!) with my sister.She said "You did"nt love those kids!" How could she say that to me? I told her she was crazy, I did love my girls.She said "no you did"nt, You loved that alcohol more than you did them."I sat down. You know what , I had to agree, I chose alcohol over them. If I didnt I would still have my girls. Thse people told me over and over to get help or they take my kids. Oh, I went to rehab to keep them happy, but I just could"nt stop.The people in AA say You have to want it. I dont know if what I am saying is making any sense, But please, dont do what I did.Dont loose anything or ANYONE before you get help...Molly, you will surely be in my prayers every night!! God Bless you and your children.

Answer 10

talk with your medical doctor - I believe there is a medicine you can take that will make you sick (vomit) if you drink alcohol

get rid of all the alcohol in your house - don't buy anymore
when you feel like you want a drink, go for a walk - if the kids are home, take them with you

try to identify one friend who will be understanding and supportive to talk to - call her (I'm saying her as it sounds like if you call a guy that will be a problem for your husband) when you feel like you can't control the urge to drink

take up a new hobby - learn to knit, sew, garden, etc - or volunteer at the school, church, soup kitchen, etc

if there are serious issues - from your childhood, marriage, whatever - start the work of figuring out how those issues are affecting your life now - keep a journal

when are your 'hot spots'? - the time of day you're most likely to drink? try to plan alternate activities at those times (at dinner? make special drinks for the whole family - pink lemonade with sparkling water, flavored tea, etc)

be kind to yourself - especially when others aren't - remember that being kind to yourself includes taking care of yourself

need to splurge? buy your favorite kind of fruit, a new book, or go get your hair shampooed and styled at one of those cheap chains like Fantastic Sams

Good luck - I'm cheering for you!