Useful Lessons

How do I live with my active alcoholic addict?

There were several lessons I had to learn about living with an alcoholic addict that, once I learned them and applied them consistently, improved my life. I believe that my learning and applying these also contributed to my alcoholic addict recognizing that they had a problem and then seeking help for their problem. Each of these helped me. Together they helped me a lot.

Here are the most important:

• I learned to stop enabling my alcoholic addict.
• I learned to change my desire to control my alcoholic’s drinking.
• I learned to recognize when I was in denial and thereby contributing to the problem.
• I learned acceptance for the aspects of my alcoholic addict marriage over which I had no control.
• I learned detachment from my alcoholic addict’s emotional rollercoaster.

It took me a long time to learn these well, but even in the early days they helped me to understand where I was contributing to the problem. In any problem, the first step is to recognize that there is a problem and then to stop doing whatever is making the problem worse.

One definition of insanity is to continue doing the same thing while expecting a different result. By this definition I was definitely acting insane in my alcoholic addict marriage for a long time. These learnings helped me regain my sanity.

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