Life with an Alcoholic May Not be Possible

If you have lived with an alcoholic for years and feel despair, you may need a change. No one should live without love and happiness. Sometimes it is not possible to stay with the alcoholic because you feel alone and helpless. You need something more in your life and the person is not able to give you what you need. Everyone needs to feel love and sometimes the person that you thought was the love of your life turns out to be your worst nightmare, literally. Sometimes life with an alcoholic is not possible and you may have to leave.

Sometimes, you just have to leave and try to get over him or her. This can be hard, but after the years of living the way you have been makes it a little easier. You may move out temporarily or permanently. Maybe you think that the person will change if you leave and they have to live on their own. You think that they do not need you anyways so they will probably not even care. This is the hardest feeling to live with for anyone. You may still care, but you do not believe that the person you are leaving does.

They want the alcohol more than they want you. This is hard to accept. You wonder why they would choose drinking over you. The truth hurts and you have to accept that you cannot help the person. No matter what you do, they always seem to find their way back to a bottle. You have to move on if you want a loving relationship. Then they do something that makes you feel all warm inside. They stop drinking for a while and things are wonderful until it starts again. Now, you have to start thinking about leaving all over again.

The hardest thing to do is leave someone that you love, but you have to sometimes. Even if they are wonderful for a time to keep you there with them, you still have to make a change. You have to think about yourself and make decisions that can be hard. The hardest part of living with an alcoholic is leaving them for their own good and yours. Sometimes it is hard to be strong, but you need all the courage you can find to say good-bye. You have to stand tall and have confidence in yourself, which you lost somewhere down the line.

You have to think about yourself. You cannot continue to live in fear or without a partner. You need love. You need companionship. You need to be free from the alcoholism. Even if you are not a drinker, you are affected by the drinking. Sometimes an alcoholic affects you more than the alcohol affects him or her. Even if you are not battered or abused, you are because the alcohol wins. You feel defeated by a bottle.

You lose years of being loved. However, you need to grow old with someone that can love you and cuddle you. You need someone that turns to you and not to a bottle. Living with an alcoholic is not easy and you grow tired of being the only one in the relationship that tries. The only choice you have is to leave and start new. You have to break free of the alcoholic and start a new life with someone that does not need alcohol to live. You need stability in your life for the first time in a long time.

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Join Al-Anon When You Live With an Alcoholic

Living with an alcoholic can be trying and unnerving, but you can join a group for support. Al-non is a great help to family members of the alcoholic. There are people in the group that are in the same situations as you are and they are there for support. Everyone supports each other. In some cases, you find out that some of the members have the exact same problems as you do. You learn how they are handling their loved one. They can offer guidance and advice that everyone can use if they live with an alcoholic. This is important to survive.

Guest speakers make appearances at Al-Anon group meetings. Family members and even alcohol counselor take time to visit the Al-Anon meetings to discuss issues that the group has with anything. They can explain things to you that may help you understand why this is happening to you. They are supportive and will not tell you that this is not about you. They know this is about you as well as the alcoholic. They tell stories and share everything they know about the disease with the group. They can help you cope with living with someone you love that has a drinking problem.

Survivors of alcohol disease speak to you. This can be a sad group meeting. Sometimes life does not work out the way you want it to, no matter how hard you try. Survivors of alcoholism tell you there stories. They share with you stories about their families and how they hurt their families and how they feel now. You will here stories about how they loss their families because of the disease. It can be a saddening story, but it helps you understand. They are honest and speak the truth to you. This is something that you might not be used to hearing from the alcoholic in your life.

You learn from each other. When you join Al-Anon, you have the opportunity to talk about your life living with a person that drinks too much. You can hear others talk about things that happen in their lives. This lets you know that you are not alone. Each person in the group has a chance to talk if they want. You are not pressured to talk, but the option is always there. At first, you might just listen, but then you will want to tell your story and people will listen. It will not be like talking to the alcoholic that never hears you.

Support groups are the only way to make it. If you try to go it alone, you can create your own health issues. Al-Anon is confidential and no one is going to say anything outside of the group. You can ask for help. You need help. You cannot live with an alcoholic without support. It is not healthy for yourself or any children you may have. You need to hear what others do to survive an alcoholic friend or family member. You are not alone and you have to remember that.

You learn how to handle the alcoholic. Some people that drink can become violent or disruptive. You need to have an outlet and Al-Anon gives you that outlet. You can talk about the problems and ask others for ways to handle the situation. You can try to go without a group to help you, but if you have nowhere to vent, you maybe inclined to vent to the alcoholic, which could aggravate any already bad situation. The group can help you. They can make suggestions that might help you.

If you are living with an alcoholic, you need some support that cannot come from family and friends. You need a group such as Al-Anon, where everyone there is has a friend or family member that is just like yours. They can offer you support and advice, which will be positive and not negative. The group has guest speakers that might even include reformed alcoholics and their families. This is where you hear about the other side of the spectrum. You hear how an alcoholic feels after he or she has received help and quit drinking. You hear what their families have to say. This helps you.

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How to Avoid Getting Discouraged When Living with an Alcoholic

How to Avoid Getting Discouraged When Living with an Alcoholic

When you live with an alcoholic in you life, it is hard not to get discouraged and just want to walk away. If you care about the person, you want to help them, but the truth is that they are the only one that can take the first steps to helping him to herself. You can try to help as much as possible and do things to make things easier to quit, but sometimes all the help and treatments in the world are not enough. You have to be positive and hope that the day will come when the person finally goes for treatment and wins the battle of alcoholism.

Remember why you fell in love with the person. This is important or you will not make it. Many times, you will hate the person and other times, you will see a part of them come shining through. It is even harder when you live with an alcoholic that drinks and becomes mean and then goes a couple days of being their same loving self. They become the person you fell in love with. However, it can end in a minute when they start drinking again. This is the hardest thing to live with.

Think about the person they used to be and how much fun you used to have. This can work for a time, but after years of abusing alcohol, it can be hard to think about the good times. The person that lives with an alcoholic needs to be strong. This can be hard for some people, but if you love the person, you have to try. It is hard to watch them do this to themselves, but you have to give them love anyway. It is possible to make a difference if you remain strong.

Remember that there is help for you and the alcoholic. There are groups that offer support to the spouse or family of the alcoholic. Al-Anon is a great group to join. You can hear others talk and can even relate to what they are saying. After all, you are living the same nightmare that most of them are living. You have to have support to make it through the hard times. This is vital to living with an alcoholic. The support should come from family and friends as well. If the family does not have a clue as to what is happening, they cannot offer support.

Look at picture albums and see the joyous times you shared. This is a mask of the problem, but it does help. You see the times when the drinking did not control your life. You see another person standing next to you. Browsing through picture albums with the sober alcoholic may bring back memories for him or her as well. Sometimes it is these times that they start to think about what they are doing and want a change.

If you are living with an alcoholic, you have to stand up and let them know that you are feeling alone. You have to let them know that you are there for them, but they are the ones that have to change. You cannot do it for them, but you can offer support and encouragement if they agree to treatment. You are part of the process, but the person that drinks is the only one that can make things better.

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