I'm here........

[SueS]

Starting-

H has been okay. Up and down I guess. He's been quiet, but has again mentioned "us" things. Well, more family things. He wanted the 3 of us to go to dinner this weekend. He has a court date coming up and I think that's probably running through his head. One thing is that he has always wanted to do is work for the railroad. He has been doing a lot of research on that and applied locally. His dad and uncle were life long railroad workers. He knows it's a tough row to hoe, but he sees the benefits to it too. Well, that is absolutely out of the question if he does get a DUI conviction. You cannot have a drinking related offense within 2 years. Maybe this sounds silly or like I'm reaching, but there are times that I feel like H looks for ways to stop drinking. He KNOWS that a railroad job would mean little to no drinking, as they do surprise checks.

I know that I could do this by myself again. I just let myself get back into a bit of a comfort zone. I have been thinking about what I need to do to go on alone. One of the things is to get to the Al-Anon meetings. I need that support. I've been asking myself WHY so many times over the past year. I blame myself and then take a step back and see the reasons it happened on both our parts. I know that I made mistakes, but ultimately his drinking has been the main issue. I knew before I married him what his drinking was like. I guess I was one of the people that thought.....once we're married he'll change.....when we move away from his friends he'll change.....when we have a baby he'll change. I remember him promising me that when I got pregnant he'd stop since I couldn't drink. He didn't. I never took the time to research or go to meetings to realize that his drinking was his issue and I can't change that.

My mom and I have had talks about how alike we are. We're the adult children of alcoholics.....we're the fixers. The ones that think that if we just fix this or that it will change things. If my house is clean he'll be better, if this or that is in order he'll be better....etc. You know what I mean. So, I know what you mean about how he won't change unless HE truly wants to. My dad was the exact same way. He drank for YEARS. He had multiple DUI's. He got lucky.....the state systems weren't connected at that time so one state didn't know what he had in another state. My dad worked out of town all the time. He was good in the way that he would call my sister and I each and every time that we had an event to see how it went and to tell us how proud he was of us. However, he was not dependable. We could never have friends over because we never knew if how he'd come home. He was not an abusive man. We went through treatment with him. My mom threatened divorce. One day about 9 years ago he was stopped on his way back from SD to MN to work. He'd picked up his 6-pack and had been drinking on the way. He stopped at a rest stop. He got busted. He vowed to quit right then. He went to an out patient treatment on his own. We all told him that we loved him but that we couldn't do it with him this time. He understood. He has not touched one drop since. He was not a hard liquor drinker. Just a six pack+ each night after work. He admitted to us that all the times we asked him to stop he did it temporarily to get us off his back. He said one day it just hit him that if he didn't do it he'd die, kill someone else or lose everthing he had. By that time he had 3 grandchildren that he realized he wanted to see grow up.

I just pray that my H sees the light before he gets that old. My dad told me that during his last treatment a young guy (late 20's) asked him what his biggest regret was. He said, Not stopping when I was your age. My H is somewhat like my dad. They function. They do their jobs and they do them very well. They didn't/don't have to drink every day. However, when they did/do drink, they couldn't/can't stop. The drinking goes on until it's all gone.....or until they fall asleep. I stopped to think about things over the past week. Between last Wed.-Monday, H brought home at least a case of beer. There are 2 left. He also "stopped off" for a couple on Friday night. That's over 4 beers a night. Obviously his pending DUI has had no lasting effect on him. He hasn't even come close to bottom.

Well, enough of my rambling. Guess I just needed to get some thoughts off my mind.

Oh, let's add to the list of "what else could make SueS life bad". Had to get 4 new tires on my vehicle today. $$$$, but now I'll feel safer.

Thanks- SueS