impact of Alcoholics Anonymous on marriage?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
My husband nearly died after an alcohol poisoning incident. That was nearly 2 years ago. When he first joined AA, I stopped drinking too. I thought he would be grateful that I was trying to help him be successful in his struggle. He never thanked me & it has caused a serious rift between us. Also, I attended 2 meetings with him as a show of support, but soon realized it just wasn’t right for me. Now I’m feeling like his sponsor has influenced him to the extent that he is condescending & critical toward me. It’s making me miserable.

Let me get this straight: your drinking is important enough to you that you expect to be thanked for giving it up even briefly and you’re mad that you weren’t?

But you were able to decide after only two meetings that “it just wasn’t right for” you?

You might want to reevaluate that at some different meetings you go to without him. You might try Al-anon too.

You have a point that people can get overly dependent on sponsors. If he’s actually being condescending and critical you can remind him that he’s not your sponsor, that he needs to take his own inventory not yours, and work his own program. But you might benefit from a step back and asking yourself if your emotional responses have anything to do with your drinking or other status quo aspects being threatened. “What is my part in this?”

Try to look at the good side of things. If he’s not drinking that’s an improvement.

[Anonymous]

Recently the Biden administration sounded the alarm on the drinking habits of women. In fact shockingly women are neck and neck with men when it comes to alcohol consumption. And the ways they consume alcohol goes beyond couple of glasses we are talking multiple shots and binge drinking. The DHs should pay attention. My DW thinks she is fine and I am overreacting. She is drunk every Friday and Saturday. To me that's alcoholism. But in this country we have made alcohol the central piece of social events that people who don't drink will find themselves out of place at many social gatherings.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Recently the Biden administration sounded the alarm on the drinking habits of women. In fact shockingly women are neck and neck with men when it comes to alcohol consumption. And the ways they consume alcohol goes beyond couple of glasses we are talking multiple shots and binge drinking. The DHs should pay attention. My DW thinks she is fine and I am overreacting. She is drunk every Friday and Saturday. To me that's alcoholism. But in this country we have made alcohol the central piece of social events that people who don't drink will find themselves out of place at many social gatherings.

I'm sorry this is not true. Women are not even close to the amount of alcohol men consume. Women don't enjoy getting trashed and drunk like men do. You are just an incel who hates women.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Recently the Biden administration sounded the alarm on the drinking habits of women. In fact shockingly women are neck and neck with men when it comes to alcohol consumption. And the ways they consume alcohol goes beyond couple of glasses we are talking multiple shots and binge drinking. The DHs should pay attention. My DW thinks she is fine and I am overreacting. She is drunk every Friday and Saturday. To me that's alcoholism. But in this country we have made alcohol the central piece of social events that people who don't drink will find themselves out of place at many social gatherings.

I'm sorry this is not true. Women are not even close to the amount of alcohol men consume. Women don't enjoy getting trashed and drunk like men do. You are just an incel who hates women.

DP. Women and drinking is being normalized and it's not good. Alcohol is being increasingly linked to cancer—and breast cancer!—and it just kinda sucks for everyone. The reasons men drank more heavily in the past were sexist and stupid, or rather the reasons women were discouraged from it, but it's very bad that women are increasingly getting into it. The world would be a MUCH better place if people didn't drink.

[Anonymous]

Loving someone in recovery means you want them to succeed.
And that, has to be more important than the success of the relationship.

-This is my salvation.
This is our salvation.

[Anonymous]

I am the same wife. Why do I hate that he goes to meetings. Why didn’t I know he needed them. We are not the same anymore and I resent him admitting he needs aa!!! He relates with the people there… wait what about me. It’s ruining us quickly! Only been 2 months in aa. He just decided to quit cold turkey 500+ days ago and I never knew he had a problem. Is this just an attention thing for him? I’m at a loss for us… he talks to me like he’s the counselor and I want to throat punch him. I seriously blame our “new” problems on AA. His new friends. Not mine. His need to go and without me.

[Anonymous]

I'm grateful for the changes AA made on my life but there are other ways to sobriety. I honestly have no clue how people attend so many meetings without getting bored out of their minds hearing the same people talk over and over. There are lots of people there that have absolutely nothing to say about life unless it's about alcohol or their alcoholism.

Maybe he can drop the 1 out or 2 meetings on any particular day and see if there's anything else out there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm grateful for the changes AA made on my life but there are other ways to sobriety. I honestly have no clue how people attend so many meetings without getting bored out of their minds hearing the same people talk over and over. There are lots of people there that have absolutely nothing to say about life unless it's about alcohol or their alcoholism.

Maybe he can drop the 1 out or 2 meetings on any particular day and see if there's anything else out there.

well that's because sharing in meetings is to talk about alcohol and alcoholism. but I also hear a lot of talk about step work and how they apply to daily life, not just drinking/using. As someone who tried every path to sobriety through the years, except for AA, I'm sticking with AA. Works for me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm grateful for the changes AA made on my life but there are other ways to sobriety. I honestly have no clue how people attend so many meetings without getting bored out of their minds hearing the same people talk over and over. There are lots of people there that have absolutely nothing to say about life unless it's about alcohol or their alcoholism.

Maybe he can drop the 1 out or 2 meetings on any particular day and see if there's anything else out there.

well that's because sharing in meetings is to talk about alcohol and alcoholism. but I also hear a lot of talk about step work and how they apply to daily life, not just drinking/using. As someone who tried every path to sobriety through the years, except for AA, I'm sticking with AA. Works for me.

Wasn't suggesting abandoning AA, just that the guy should probably diversify given his wife's needs and not spend 2 hours a day doing it. He's avoiding living life by ruminating on it instead.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Effing hell, I wish DCUM would NOT let people resurrect old threads like this without there being some kind of automatic tag you can see plainly that "this thread is TEN YEARS OLD." I just wasted time writing a long reply to someone who is long since either doing OK by now or divorced. Sure, sure, it's on me to check the date of a first post every single time, I guess. Pain in the a$$ to do that when one's trying to be helpful, dammit.

I disagree. I think this thread should be resurrected every few years. Fantastic discussion. I never read it before today even though I have been on DCUM since the time the thread was started. Most of the comments on this thread have been heartfelt and insightful even though people have had very different reactions to AA.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am the same wife. Why do I hate that he goes to meetings. Why didn’t I know he needed them. We are not the same anymore and I resent him admitting he needs aa!!! He relates with the people there… wait what about me. It’s ruining us quickly! Only been 2 months in aa. He just decided to quit cold turkey 500+ days ago and I never knew he had a problem. Is this just an attention thing for him? I’m at a loss for us… he talks to me like he’s the counselor and I want to throat punch him. I seriously blame our “new” problems on AA. His new friends. Not mine. His need to go and without me.

I'm sorry.

Obviously I don't know what is going on with your DH. But I can tell you I decided to leave instead of marry a guy who spent too much time at AA meetings and hanging out with AA people -- and I believe he did this in large part because he liked the attention and the status he had there (he had a lot of years sober relatively young). Attention and status he wasn't going to get anywhere else. In that crowd he seemed to be successful and really have it together. In real life, not at all. Everything is relative, I guess.

I finally called it quits after I got a job that started early in the morning and he was constantly coming home around 2am or so because he had been out with his AA friends. In any normal relationship, you could have a normal conversation about this being an issue; but I just got constant blowback about how "This is the fellowship! I need this, I'm not just 'out'!" But you are just out until 2am, dude, even if none of you are drinking anything but soda water.

He married the woman he dated after me. They were divorced within 5 years, two little kids in the mix. Thanks to SM, I know he's had failed ltr after ltr. It doesn't surprise me at all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Effing hell, I wish DCUM would NOT let people resurrect old threads like this without there being some kind of automatic tag you can see plainly that "this thread is TEN YEARS OLD." I just wasted time writing a long reply to someone who is long since either doing OK by now or divorced. Sure, sure, it's on me to check the date of a first post every single time, I guess. Pain in the a$$ to do that when one's trying to be helpful, dammit.

I disagree. I think this thread should be resurrected every few years. Fantastic discussion. I never read it before today even though I have been on DCUM since the time the thread was started. Most of the comments on this thread have been heartfelt and insightful even though people have had very different reactions to AA.

+1

[Anonymous]

I've been sober 31 years. The truth is that most marriages don't survive a spouse's alcoholism, even if they get sober. You married one person. Now they are getting sober and their personality and focus and habits HAVE to change for that to happen. It's best for your spouse and best for your kids, but it's usually not best for the marriage. This isn't what you signed up for. This isn't the person that you married. There's lots of tension around things are changing now that the spouse is sober and is trying to be a better person and better parent. You've been carrying the burden a long time and you're bound to resent that. Your newly sober spouse has new friends and you're not included in that, and you're bound to resent THAT. Your newly sober spouse is taking up a lot of time going to meetings, which is absolutely necessary, but you're left alone while they do that, and maybe you're parenting alone a lot of the time, and you resent THAT.

It usually doesn't work out. If you're going to divorce, try to do as gracefully and low conflict as you can for your kids' sake.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am the same wife. Why do I hate that he goes to meetings. Why didn’t I know he needed them. We are not the same anymore and I resent him admitting he needs aa!!! He relates with the people there… wait what about me. It’s ruining us quickly! Only been 2 months in aa. He just decided to quit cold turkey 500+ days ago and I never knew he had a problem. Is this just an attention thing for him? I’m at a loss for us… he talks to me like he’s the counselor and I want to throat punch him. I seriously blame our “new” problems on AA. His new friends. Not mine. His need to go and without me.

I'm sorry.

Obviously I don't know what is going on with your DH. But I can tell you I decided to leave instead of marry a guy who spent too much time at AA meetings and hanging out with AA people -- and I believe he did this in large part because he liked the attention and the status he had there (he had a lot of years sober relatively young). Attention and status he wasn't going to get anywhere else. In that crowd he seemed to be successful and really have it together. In real life, not at all. Everything is relative, I guess.

I finally called it quits after I got a job that started early in the morning and he was constantly coming home around 2am or so because he had been out with his AA friends. In any normal relationship, you could have a normal conversation about this being an issue; but I just got constant blowback about how "This is the fellowship! I need this, I'm not just 'out'!" But you are just out until 2am, dude, even if none of you are drinking anything but soda water.

He married the woman he dated after me. They were divorced within 5 years, two little kids in the mix. Thanks to SM, I know he's had failed ltr after ltr. It doesn't surprise me at all.

AA member here. He needs a good sponsor to kick his butt. Lots of alcoholics are selfish people who don't think of others. Lots of alcoholics have personality disorders. Getting sober doesn't fix that. Therapy and lots of work fixes that. When you sober up a drunk horse thief what you get is a sober horse thief. Real behavior changes also need to happen and that takes a lot of work.

I's sorry that happened to you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm grateful for the changes AA made on my life but there are other ways to sobriety. I honestly have no clue how people attend so many meetings without getting bored out of their minds hearing the same people talk over and over. There are lots of people there that have absolutely nothing to say about life unless it's about alcohol or their alcoholism.

Maybe he can drop the 1 out or 2 meetings on any particular day and see if there's anything else out there.

Yes, at 18 months, this guy should be cutting back on some meetings and paying attention to his responsibilities at home. 90 in 90 is great for newcomers, but the point of AA is being able to live your life and take care of your responsibilities and being happy. If you're spending that time in meetings, you're not living your life.