Codepency Blues

Okay.

So it's been a while since I've posted.  A while being almost a month.  I'm sorry.

I say I'm sorry because you know, I do feel quite guilty when it's been so long, because I think of all of you out there who need recovery any place you can find it, and from the comments and e-mails I receive I am humbled to know that in some small way I am helping some of you.  So when I'm absent my guilt bubbles up that I am then in some small way abandoning you - and myself - but I have to remind myself it is actually a completely self-imposed "obligation".  Because believe me, this is so not coming from some deluded, grandiose place of "These people need ME and my experience or else...?!"  It's really an automatic instinct on my part to feel obligated and guilty when I don't show up.  But nonetheless, I can't help myself.

Which is a perfect segue into this post about codependency.

Codependency: I feel overly responsible for the decisions, choices and behaviors of others, and the consequences of their decisions, choices and behaviors.

This is completely me, and a lot of us involved with anyone suffering from addiction.  It's not just about their drinking or using.  I have tried to assert my will over my husband's a number of times on the smallest of things, because I think "No, this is better, if I just explain it he'll see that."  It's not that I think he is stupid, incapable of taking care of himself or make the right decisions, it's that my brain is wired to aggressively help and assist those around me without their request, and often (in the past) against their will.  I should point out that the codependency flares the most with those I'm closest to but since it's part of who I am, at my worst self I was this way with everyone.  Okay, am still sometimes occasionally every now and then this way - I'm working on it.  Progress not perfection!

Symptoms of codependency include the following:

1. Low self-esteem.
2. People-pleasing.
3. Poor boundaries.
4. Reactivity.
5. Caretaking.
6. Control.
7. Dysfunctional communication.
8. Obsessions.
9. Dependency.
10. Denial.
11. Problems with intimacy.
12. Painful emotions.

Check, check, check the rest.  Each of these could be their own post.  Reactivity and dysfunctional communication are huge ones for me.  One of the primary symptoms of my disease is that when my husband appears upset, I go into "fix it" mode, stopping at almost nothing to see what is wrong and how I can "help".  You see, crazy person that I am, when he's in a bad mood, my thinking goes like this:

Oh no.

*sick feeling*
What's wrong?

Wait a minute.
What did I do?

Ugh not again.
What just happened between then and now?
Maybe it's this...
...It could be that.

Did I say something...?
Oh no.

I absolutely, completely, totally cannot stand when my husband is in a bad mood - especially if it is anger directed at me for something I didn't do, that in no way is related to me or has anything to do with me.  I just can't take it.  If you're not happy, it's my fault.  That's my disease.

Growing up without direct, assertive communication with one of my parents, I learned how to play the guessing game of "What's Wrong?"  How you play is you have to ask just the right questions to crack the code and get the answer.  When that parent wasn't happy with me, they did play the silent game, and this parent didn't communicate their issues with my behavior so I was left in the dark to wonder and worry.  Sometimes they would lay there silent, watching television, while I stood there and asked question after question, until something sparked a slight nod, their eyes moving toward my direction, anything to sound off the bell.

*Ding ding* You win!

Fast forward to today.  If someone's quiet I think "Shit, what did I do?"  It must be me, and it's now my job to simultaneously fix it and find out what's wrong, in no particular order.  Now I make more of an effort to remember that we're all adults here, and if someone is possibly upset with me or for some other reason, they can choose to bring it up with me and communicate assertively - it's not my job to be hyper-vigilant and do their communicating for them.  This doesn't mean I ignore my own behavior or cut off my friends or loved ones, it just means I'm trying to move to a healthier state with them, which is to stop pestering them any time there's been a lag or a period of "silence." (Also - it's not always about me!  Something else I have to deprogram in myself).

Codependency is also a great way we stay in denial.  If I remain convinced that my behavior, thoughts, and actions drive someone else to behave, think or act in a certain way, then I remain in denial that my loved one has an addiction that has nothing to do with me.  It's the great illusion (sometimes shared between the codie and addict) that the only thing that can change their behavior is our behavior.  So in that way we prevent our loved ones from experiencing any consequences of their own actions, and as a result we enable their addiction.

A friend of mine was speaking with her therapist recently, and she expressed her concern that if she didn't speak up, certain things could happen. 

"He could (X)"
"Yes.  That's true", the therapist said.

"Well if he doesn't do X, then Y will happen."
"That could, yes," the therapist agreed.
"Well..."

The therapist was trying to point out that the consequences of her husband's behavior are the consequences of her husband's behavior.  

Case in point for me:  This past Mother's Day, my husband was traveling for work, so of course I did what any good codependent wife would do and made sure to buy his mom's gifts, have them wrapped, spent a thoughtful amount of time to pick out her card - all this after he said she may not get anything this year.  Of course, he could have planned ahead, but planning ahead is not one of his strong suits and knowing this, I insisted that I shop for her - without his asking me to - and then reported to him what I purchased and even took photos.  He could have not gotten her anything, and she - I can only assume - would have been hurt and confused, and inevitably I would be left thinking it was somehow my fault.

Now, this is after a good year in Al Anon.  And after I knew better.  And after I told myself, "I probably don't need to do this."  But I still did it.  Maybe the healthy difference is that afterwards it didn't feel like the "success" that it used to, even though he thanked me.

One of the results of all this codependency has been this: maybe, just maybe, I focus on how to fix it so much so that I won't see that damn, this is just bullshit.  It's not how I deserve to be treated, not how I want my marriage to be.  But if I keep focusing on the fixing it - on the details - then maybe I can put off dealing with The Big Picture a little longer.  Maybe I can avoid looking at me, what I could change to empower myself, how I really view myself, what makes me happy.  Because when I contemplate those questions, I tell ya.  Scares the hell out of me.  I'm getting a little panicky just writing about it.

So when there is unacceptable behavior, I question my own contribution to see where things went wrong.  I think, "Well maybe if I hadn't said this" or "Dammit, I shouldn't have said anything."  Still, after really truly knowing better, it isn't my first instinct to pull back and see someone else's choices as their choices.

As ever, something to work on in myself.  Hope you are all hanging in wherever you are, and I'm sending a crap ton of love and strength your way.

Secret Drinking

Most evenings I greet my husband at the door when he returns home from work, hug and kiss him hello, smell it on his breath, and just continue to pretend I don't notice.  Quite a few times I've caught myself sniffing, and he noticed ("What?") and still I said nothing.  The times he comes home and there doesn't happen to be an odor, sooner or later throughout the evening it will usually appear.

Sometimes it feels like I am playing a little game called "I Know You Secretly Drink But I'll Pretend I Don't Know So We Can Try To Be Happy Together", and even though I am playing by the made-up rules (and the rules I made up myself, mind you!) I'm still losing.  Part of being in Al Anon is understanding that we don't talk about the alcoholic's drinking with the alcoholic.  Actually, I'm pretty sure this hasn't even been suggested but it's what I gather from the program.  Indeed, the times I have discussed my husband's drinking with him, things did not go well.

Part of being a "functioning alcoholic" is that my husband is able to keep up his professional life and remain successful in his field while being a good provider to us.  The "alcoholic" part is that he drinks, he hides his drinking and also, he is drinking alone.  And, I suspect, everyday.  So he drinks everyday, alone, sometimes in his car before coming in the door so I can't see it (I prefer to think it's this instead of drinking while he drives home), and sometimes upstairs in our side room where I also can't see it.  He hides the bottles so that if and when I go inside, I'm none the wiser.

From what I have learned, there are a few reasons alcoholics hide their drinking:

1. To increase their intake unnoticed.

To clarify, though most of my husband's drinking is in secret, not all of it is - on weekends he puts on the show for me called "See, I Bought This Six Pack And Only Drank One And Didn't Even Finish It."  (I hate that show, it's always reruns).  In his mind, he's showing me he can control himself.  And for a while I believed it was true.

But one night, reality smacked me across the face.  He had a glass of red wine downstairs that he was nursing.  He took a sip and went upstairs.  I needed something from our bedroom and when I went up, our dog followed me - when he saw her (but not me) he told her to go downtairs.  Turning around, I saw his mini-wine bottle up in the air as he downed the last drops of the white wine inside.  When he came down from his sip he saw me seeing him; I said nothing and walked back downstairs.

My first thought was "But - he has his...glass of red...wine...downstairs...?"  Well gee golly gosh.


2. The alcoholic knows their relationship with alcohol has become unhealthy.

At some point last year, my husband mentioned to me that he was working later and later at work because he figured the less time he was at home, the less time he had to drink.  He has made other comments to me that leads me to believe he may be grappling with the idea that he has a problem:

"I know I do, and I don't care.  And if you don't like my drinking you can leave."
"Well, I know I have, you know - whatever - but it's not a problem until it becomes a problem."

When I caught my husband making a drink upstairs in another room:  "You moved the bar upstairs?"  I couldn't help myself.  "Yeah well I know it bothers you so I don't do it around you."

Recently my husband told me some facts about how alcohol affects dopamine in addicts.  "How do you know this?" I asked him.

"I looked it up online."  Genuinely, I gave him a quizzical look.  "Because I thought I might be an alcoholic!" he said.


3.  Denial (They're hiding it from themselves).

I would imagine that drinking out in the open - and in front of me, especially - causes my husband to feel judged and ashamed.  He knows very well how I feel about his drinking, especially because I find it so damn hard not to make my little comments to let him know that I don't approve.  This in turn probably has a few effects, one of which is to really look at his drinking and at himself.  And seeing as he is still trying to control his drinking and further the idea that he doesn't have a problem, any introspective place probably isn't a very comfortable place for him to be.

So, let's just hide the drinking and I can pretend my wife doesn't know - because if she doesn't have proof I can say I'm not drinking as much as she thinks I am, or anything at all even.  And then I can also pretend that this isn't a huge problem, and I'm just hiding it because my wife is a controlling, judgmental wench of a woman who hates me and doesn't see that after all my hard work and providing for her, I deserve some booze right?  This last part is something he has told me in his own words - "I mean, I don't have kids, I don't have a house - can't I at least have this?"

Also regarding denial - after my husband let me know that he had searched online for information on alcoholism after thinking he possibly is one, he proceeded to tell me the difference between himself and an addict.  "Addicts say that they have no control over it, they can't control it.  But for me, every time I drink I'm choosing to drink, it's a choice."


Like discovering squirrel plantings out in the garden,  I've found bottles buried in the nooks and crannies of our home.

Hiding places are found by me accidentally, typically during cleaning up (and in my early recovery, during remedial Step 1 moments of searching).  Pushing a chair out of the way to vaccuum and I find empty pints underneath.  Looking for the cat under the bed in our other room and there are empty tall cans and mini wine bottles.  Checking the side closet for moving boxes I see that on the top shelf was his top shelf Seagrams VO, mostly empty.  Also:

In between the mattress and box spring of a spare bed.

In his work bag.
Stuffed in the couch between cushions.
In his jacket after a road trip.

In the trash he takes out.
Behind his computer monitor where I couldn't see.
On our bar, but behind a bottle of a kind of liquor he doesn't or won't drink.
Under the front seat.
In his luggage.
In the trunk.

Sometimes the bottles never surface, and the scent is just lingering in the air, on his breath, or in an empty can of soda.

The times I've ever delicately mentioned finding bottles (definitely in the context of a drinking discussion, and not a random topic of conversation) my husband maintains that the found bottles are old and have been there for "who knows how long."

Before we moved some of our things this past weekend, we got the oil changed on my husband's car.  It had been a nice weekend for the most part, and a nice day in particular.  But wouldn't you know, when I got in and saw some empty mini-wine bottles on the floor of the passenger side and coming out from under the seat, my husband's mood shifted pretty quickly.  He clammed up, his eyes were wide, and before I knew it he was driving, nay, speeding to the oil change place.  A little too roughly I may add - taking turns fast and flying into driveways.  Surely, he was pissed.  But why?  I hadn't even said anything and did my best to pretend I didn't even notice - which was probably ridiculous considering how obvious the bottles were.

A friend of mine who is a "double winner" (in both Al Anon and AA recovery programs) explained to me that he wasn't angry at me - he's angry that I had found one of his hiding places.  He had been "found out."  That alcoholics are filled with shame and that that shame is exacerbated by someone who discovers their secrets, whether through discovering hiding places or anything else that supports or is related to their addiction.  "His way of life is threatened."

His way of life.  Drinking alone, drinking in secret, drinking period.

So how am I getting through this?  It is a struggle, but I have accepted that my husband is an adult - he has the right to drink.  I also have a right to not accept his drinking or the consequences to our relationship, and I recognize that unacceptable behavior is unacceptable.  To that end one of my options would be to tell him my concerns and be prepared to take any following steps for me and make my choices - this is not my strong suit.  Though it's taken me a while, I have learned that I can control the message but not the outcome (typically my past behavior was to tell him my message over and over again, for hours, essentially begging or pleading him to stop doing x and please do y, etc. until we were both exhausted.  Never worked).

Lastly, as ever I try to keep the focus on myself.  His drinking habits can easily become an obsession of my own, and so I tell myself to stop thinking of where he may be hiding his bottles tonight, to stop calculating how much I think he's had, and so on.  The only way to get through something like this isn't to ignore it, but to accept it, and to also accept that I'm powerless over the alcoholism.  I am powerless over my husband's own opinion of whether or not he has a problem, and I am powerless over his decision or lack thereof to enter recovery.

And so I continue attending meetings, talking to my sponsor and program friends, reading the literature, working on my business, and posting here.  This may be my secret from my husband, but it is a secret that I hope is maybe helping someone out there gain some perspective and realize that they aren't alone.