[B][FONT=Arial][SIZE=1][COLOR=purple] My husband is an alcoholic/addict and for the past 23 years we have had 4 wonderful children, been married 9 years this December, and did our best to be a close family. Three weeks ago, after months of steady drinking and crack use, my husband walked out, went to stay with a close friend to sober up, and learn to love himself again. I know it's a good thing, he was getting really bad again, and he needed this. Things have been hard, I miss him, the kids miss him, and I thought he was going to do the right thing and help himself, but instead, he is going out all the time, meeting women, and going to parties, and this weekend, I just found out last night, he went to Jersey with a woman for the weekend. There are no words to express how hurt and betrayed I feel, I thought when your trying to go through recovery, you were supposed to concentrate on yourself, and not other women and going out with his friends who like to party and have fun by drinking and getting high. How do I get through this? I feel like I am on an emotional rollercoaster, crying one minute, and angry the next. I should have known, trhee mornings ago, our 8 yr old work up with chest pains, I called my husband to let him know I was bringing Josh to the e.r., and he said he already had plans before work, and couldnt cancel, but to call him at work later to let him know how Josh was. It turned outto be reflux and stress, thank God he is doing better now. I just need to know how to get over this, how to deal with my feelings in a healthy way, lets face it, for years I have neglected myself to care for this family, and now I dont know how to get myself back. My children are my life, I love them with all my heart, and want to be strong for them, but how do I do that when I feel so hurt, angry, alone and confused? Please, if anyone has any advice to get me through this, let me know, I need help!!! Thanks

It seems the Alanon mail meeting here is a busy place and with lots of help. You cna subscribe to it, just go to
http://www.onlinealano.org/html/meetings.html

Also Alanon meetings face to face would be a great help, besides the forums and email meetings.

NOw, women talking ok? If he is going out with other women, it is not your problems, it is his problem. Forget the bastart. And do not use your children to force or atract him back. You deserve more. Your children deserve more. He is not the only man on earth and life can be great without them anyway. Love yourself and please take good care of you. You are more than a mom. You are a full woman. And to be there to your kids, you have to first be there to yourself. Or the anger will grow and will be trowed towards what you love the most: your children. You gonna start blame them too. So be nice to yourself, love yourself and do not degrade yourself for a man there is already gone. Cry is good and part of the process of healing. Cry him out. Cry to let him go. Then look around and see all the goods that are there for you. Make a gratitude list and go from there.

You are starting a new life. and there is a guide: the 12 steps of alanon program.

big hugs

i am a wife and a mothe r my husband is an addict/alcoholic. i have only been married for 3 yrs but we are together 4 and a half. my husband has been disappearing for 4 days at a time since april i hid it from everyone i covered his butt so many times misssing work. he lost one job. he would call i would meet him at any time of the day or night and bring him to a motel, clean him up and bring him back home. he also went to away, to stay with his mom. he had no choice .he was great the first week but then when he got paid on fridays he would go nuts. eveything was great he told me he loved me and he hated being away from me
and he really wanted to work things out. we mapped out all of the aa meetings he was going to go to. he would call before he went in & after he came out. he would go to sleep we spoke 3x a day. this friday he worked late went to a meeting so he said. i last spoke to him at midnight he said can we do something as a family i said ok. he said ill call to see. what time i should get you. he never called and destroyed me & my daughter she is his stepdaughter she loves him and calls him daddy. i was so pissed at myself for trusting him and letting her get hurt again. its now 12.26 am and still no word. he went through all of his pay check and he turns his phone off. he will only put it on when he needs a fix. i have left several messages for him and nothing. he probably lost this job too, and now he has hit the bank account again.i paid our car insurance and he pulled out the money i had to do a stop payment or he would had us be overdrawn again. i already had to get a cash advance on my charge card. i am so screwed. i don't know if i want him back. i love him. i don't know if he has cheated on me he tells me no are you crazy. but you don't know . if he comes back i will make him take every disease test there is before i go near him. but i know this if he ever cheated on me he would be gone. i already had one cheater and it took along time to get over it and now he wants me back.he is married he just wants fun. he said i am the only one he can't resist PLEASE! he needs to grow up too. i may be vulnerable but im not stupid . as far as your situation. you have to do whats in your heart. can you ever trust him again. can you live with what he has done. he broke your heart. thats one thing i can't forgive. i could have been with my ex yesterday but i told him no i am married and he still called me today because i rejected him.he is nuts. you have to think of you and your children because he isn't he is only thinking of himself. YOU & YOUR CHILDREN ARE IMPORTANT DON'T EVER FORGET THAT! do what makes you happy i know its hard i know it sucks i am on the same rollercoaster. they are having their fun & we are slowly dying.
we have to take back our lives and live again. i still cry every night, night time is the hardest. do you have someone you can talk to. i talk to my deacon he is wonderful. find someone close you can trust. and know that you are not alone.
take care
ang

Wow, I'm so excited that I figured out how to post!! [COLOR=blue]
Reading your posts I feel sad. Hard stuff. Like all of us, you will do fine if you start getting to alanon meetings and sharing. It ust starts getting better... one day at a time.

I came here tonite needing an alanon meeting!! Very hard to get to one in the daytime. But there is nothing like it! I find that just going, the next step seems clearer to me. Somehow, I have more insight into my situations and feel more confident that a higher power really exists and has relevance to any situation that involves fear in my life. Somehow I'm able to take the right healthy risks to better my life, rather than the unhealthy risks and wrong choices.

I was excited to see your post! Someone here in October! Couldn't find anything more current... and was starting to seem like a ghost town til finding yours!

I think that what alanon suggests over and over to me ... is that when we start taking care of ourselves, and our non-addict/alcoholic loved ones, and keeping the focus on the next healthy thing to do... we end up in the right place. When we focus on pleasing, or taking care of the addict or alcoholic, we end up in the wrong place... so we have to go where our wisdom/spirit/higher power guides us, and where healthy choices direct us... then, whoever is willing to come along will be there by our sides, and others... will be wherever they need to be right now.

Its hard to let go and grieve the losses sometimes... and yet, there is a good place on the other side of letting go and trusting the process or universe, or great mystery.

Thanks for being there and sharing your struggles and reminding me of where I've journeyed (sp?) too.

I had an interesting HP thing happen... as it does so often. I've been wondering and thinking lately about a young girl I once worked, cared for greatly, and who I used to take to visit her father in prison... havent been in contact for many many years. Lately, I've been wondering very intently for some reason, about how they are and how they've fared... and was contacted out of the blue by an attorney who is dealing with one of them... how the atty found me is beyond me. An amazing coincidence? How many there have been. And so I get to find out how they are.

Wishing all of my alanon family members out here, that you get or recall that wonderful feeling of seeing the coincidences, and connections that come, facilitated by the great mystery that turn misery, current or old, into something gold... something worth having had.

I once read a poem written by a young Russian woman who was imprisoned for her poetry as it was faith inspired at a time when this was forbidden. One imagines her gazing out her lonely cell on a cold nite where she wrote from her cell something like: "Stars cascade from the zenith, and cold fills the heavens dominion! Hold on without loosening your grip! In the circumspection of weary vision I see a skater, inscribing his rings with draftsman's precision".

In recovery we learn that all experience, surrendered, becomes meaningful... and somehow valuable. Sweet dreams and thanks for being there!