impact of Alcoholics Anonymous on marriage?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s stilled sealed. He bought it for me.

Oh, yikes. Yeah, no. This is a bad sign. Unless, of course, you had a conversation about wanting a drink, etc.

Regift and make sure he's still on the wagon. Maybe suggest he take a few more meetings for a week or two.

Good luck!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Imagine this . Your partner has been in AA for 18 months is going to meetings on a regular bases. Then brings home a bottle of alcohol for you. Saying I thought you might enjoy having a few drinks. I can’t drink but you can drink. I’m baffled !!!

I would say this person is close to slipping.

100%. when I relapsed I started doing stuff like this. You need to encourage him to tell his sponsor and go to more meetings. It's good you noticed that this was a bit strange. Call him out on it. "You should not be going in liquor stores. Would you consider going to more meetings right now? Your sobriety is really important and you have worked really hard on it."

[Anonymous]

I would never ask an alcoholic to purchase alcohol for me. That would be cruel. If I wanted to purchase alcohol I could do it on my own. So it’s all very upsetting.

[Anonymous]

AA got both my wife of 16 years and myself sober, there is no doubt about it. However she believes to be on a spiritual path of self-discovery on which there is categorically no place for me. The mutual love is still there very much, but her perceived need for complete independence is stronger and this is what her Higher Power wants for her, so she says. Now it is divorce time. Not AA's fault, but not every story has a happy ending. There will have to be a new beginning however. XXX

[Anonymous]

My alcoholic husband, while in prison, found God and buckled down on AA (alcohol landed him there). He even started a group and lead it for a while. When he got out, he attended AA twice, sometimes 3 times a day for several months and would not stop talking about it and God to the point I was getting anxiety over it. It's been 8 years and he is still attending AA, at least 4 times a week in the mornings and at least 2-3 at night weekly. He meets with his sponsees and sponsor consistently and is constantly on the phone with his AA people. Whenever I call, he always sends me an automatic text of "I'll call you back" and sometimes he does and sometimes he forgets. I can't recall how many times he's ignored my calls for his AA people. I always tell my friends/family that I will call them back whenever I see my husband's number pop up because I don't know if it's something important, but also because he is my spouse. I frequently feel that AA is so much more important to him than me or our marriage. Every time he gets a call about any AA related things, he runs off (ie giving someone a ride to doctor/dentist appointments, meetings, church services, etc) and whatever we're doing gets pushed to the side. This has been happening with increasing frequency.

I've supported him by attending AA with him the first year or so but had to back down because it was just too much for me. We've tried marriage counseling, but it hasn't helped because his priority is so different and our marriage/me are not in his top 3 at all. For him, it's God and then AA and he did not even mention me/marriage as the third. I don't know who he is anymore, like other spouses, he appears, to me, over the top about God and AA and associated practices. I am glad that he is sober, but it's severely impacted our marriage and home life. He has replaced God and AA for alcohol to the point that it's almost unhealthy. There needs to be a balance and I don't see it. We used to go out to dinners, movies, travel, explore the areas around us, not so much now. Now we're roommates who share a home.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My alcoholic husband, while in prison, found God and buckled down on AA (alcohol landed him there). He even started a group and lead it for a while. When he got out, he attended AA twice, sometimes 3 times a day for several months and would not stop talking about it and God to the point I was getting anxiety over it. It's been 8 years and he is still attending AA, at least 4 times a week in the mornings and at least 2-3 at night weekly. He meets with his sponsees and sponsor consistently and is constantly on the phone with his AA people. Whenever I call, he always sends me an automatic text of "I'll call you back" and sometimes he does and sometimes he forgets. I can't recall how many times he's ignored my calls for his AA people. I always tell my friends/family that I will call them back whenever I see my husband's number pop up because I don't know if it's something important, but also because he is my spouse. I frequently feel that AA is so much more important to him than me or our marriage. Every time he gets a call about any AA related things, he runs off (ie giving someone a ride to doctor/dentist appointments, meetings, church services, etc) and whatever we're doing gets pushed to the side. This has been happening with increasing frequency.

I've supported him by attending AA with him the first year or so but had to back down because it was just too much for me. We've tried marriage counseling, but it hasn't helped because his priority is so different and our marriage/me are not in his top 3 at all. For him, it's God and then AA and he did not even mention me/marriage as the third. I don't know who he is anymore, like other spouses, he appears, to me, over the top about God and AA and associated practices. I am glad that he is sober, but it's severely impacted our marriage and home life. He has replaced God and AA for alcohol to the point that it's almost unhealthy. There needs to be a balance and I don't see it. We used to go out to dinners, movies, travel, explore the areas around us, not so much now. Now we're roommates who share a home.

I'm sorry that you are going through this. It seems that he needs God and AA to stay sober and that he does not then have the capacity to be a present husband. I'm not sure whether you have kids together, but if not, divorce seems like a great option. If you have kids, it might be worth staying until they are older (only you know that).

[Anonymous]

Helping other alcoholics is a way to maintain sobriety. Spouse may need all the help from helping others ha can get.
Was spouse more present in the marriage before sobriety? But while drinking during that halcyon remembered time of dinners, movie dates, etc.?

Sometimes we find that their role was to be the sick and needy spouse. When we are not their savior but the beloved spouse it can be a wrenching thing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: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.

What you said is where I am at. Although he may be sober, he is still an absent parent and focuses so much of his attention to AA and his people that he barely has time for us. He is gone in the mornings and nights to the point that we can't do family dinners together or go to movies, events, etc. Once in a while, he will not attend an evening meeting but that is few and far between. I do resent THOSE. I am headed for divorce but waiting for our kid to finish high school. In the meantime, we barely talk and I'm doing my own thing with my child. This is what my son is going to remember; an absent father whom he needs now more than ever as a teenage boy.

I didn't sign up for a husband who now prioritizes EVERYTHING around AA meetings. Our marriage is so far in the back seat that I can't even see the back of his head!

[Anonymous]

Well you signed up for an alcoholic husband. If he kept drinking it's a progressive malady and he eventually would lose whatever charm and engagement you remember with rose colored glasses. He would "nap" aka pass out drunk evenings hopefully at home.

He chose not to be a sober alcoholic. The frenzy of meetings and activities maybe settle down. Try AlAnon a few times and see what experiences other spouses share.

You want your good times. Do you care if he was drinking then? He does. Good for him. You go to AlAnon. They even have phone and Zoom.

[Anonymous]

I meant chose to be a sober alcoholic. He is doing what he needs to right now.

[Anonymous]

I mean, AA and other 12-Step Programs absolutely have culty overtones, and it's not unheard of for people to swap one addition (alcohol) for another (AA).

https://open.spotify.com/episode/149vbzTe7u1tCyZzlyAGLx

I have a lot of empathy for the (mostly) wives on this thread whose spouses have found an unassailable excuse to be absolutely absent from family life, and from all of the drudgery and work that entails.

[Anonymous]

My marriage ended after I got sober and started going to AA, and I'm not sorry about it. It wasn't my decision to pull the plug but my ex was definitely not on board. Then again, he's an active alcoholic, which is his business and his thing.

The entire family system begins to change pretty drastically when the alcoholic gets sober and many marriages do end when one person gets sober. I'm only speaking for myself but working to change the underlying behavior and beliefs that led me to believe my only solution was in consuming alcohol absolutely upended my marriage.

I stopped being so reactive. I removed a lot of the problematic behavior when I got sober. But things did not get better between us and there was no alcohol to blame and my ex did not want to dig deep to address what else was going on in our relationship so he bolted. I'd rather be sober without him then go back to something that very nearly killed me and still be in that marriage. Active alcoholism can be like slow motion suicide.

Some relationships can withstand the changes when one spouse gets sober and some can't. You don't like that your spouse attends meetings at night 2-3x a week on a regular basis, and that's totally understandable on some level. On another level, I wonder what it was like to spend those same hours night after night with an active alcoholic? They may have been physically present but chances are they were totally checked out.

There are many different AlAnon groups and it works for a lot of couples I know where one is in AA and one is in AlAnon. But, again, that doesn't work for everyone.

Alcoholism absolutely had an impact on you, and since you were part of the relationship system with an addict, you're going to have your own stuff to work on, too. Like why did *you* choose to stay with an active addict? How did their addiction serve you? A good therapist who really understands addiction would also be helpful, IMO.