Welcome, It does sound as if you are having a hard time, I know personally from experience that it can be a difficult time having a significant other get sober, for me I wanted change, and I wanted it all to change NOW!!! and when the change didn't happen fast enough for me (since mind reading and retroactive change were also involved in my "recovery plan for my still suffering girlfriend" I thought I should get involved to "help her along" a little bit and maybe point out some of the chharacter defects she had missed)

As you may have guessed, this didn't go well, for some strange reason she took umbrage at my attempts at control and got downright defiant when I took her inventory and told her not only what she was doing wrong, but what she SHOULD be doing as well as pointing out her many character defects, while I thought I was being helpful the nouns and adjectives she used to describe me during this period were a bit different

What I learned was I was the one who had to change, being with a drinker didn't "make me sick", I was already "not healthy" or I wouldn't have chosen this person in the first place, what I had done was pick "someone I could fix", someone who "needed me"

I found reading "Codependent No More" and "Facing Love Addiction" very helpful, as well as going to see a therapist and attending some Alanon meetings and reading their literature as well as there is much other helpful literature out there once I began identifying my own personal "quirks" as it were, such as the pattern of the love addict and the love avoidant

What I personally never found helpful was people telling me to break up, not my sponsor, and certainly not random strangers on the internet, and I have never seen any of my sponsees get out of an unhealthy relationship based on "my advice", truthfully I have NEVER seen someone "dump" their boyfriend or girlfriend just because someone told them to, not their mommy, not their daddy, not their friends, not even someone close to them, much less random strangers on the internet, as a matter of fact when and if I got that kind of "helpful advice" like that I automatically stopped listening to them, but that's just me, I'm a bit defiant that way

However what I DID find helpful was I followed the advice about where I should go for help, and when I did that the relationship changed, the first time I was faced with this sort of thing I changed so much that the relationship changed so much it "ran it's course" and we seperated naturally as it were, the second time I faced this sort of thing we stayed together, she got (had) a program and went to therapy, I got a program and went to therapy, and we went to couples counseling together, and the results were very satisfactory

The biggest thing I learned was to stay on my own side of the street and work on myself, focus on myself, see where I had Codie characteristics, see where I had control issues, see where I had unhealthy patterns and focus on those

Last: Him

First if he is in early recovery, his head is so far up his bum that lump in his throat is his nose, early recovery is a confusing time at best with ups and downs unlike anything else I have ever experienced, and if he has a good sponsor and he is working the steps he has been told to "table" all of his "past behavior" for the present, as he will address them as he works the steps one at a time, and he will make amends for them then, to cross that bridge when he gets to it.

If he is NOT working a program or doesn't have a sponsor and is not working the steps my experience is he is only going to get worse, in AA we say "if you sober up a horse thief, all you have is a sober horse thief" and my experience is living without alcohol only made my character defects worse until I got into so much pain I addressed them. Being around him during this period would try the patient of a saint, and that's if he stays sober....

So, my bf has finished detox and one-week of rehab and I'm concerned. He's acting very arrogant and doesn't talk about how he "feels", only about stories in rehab.

This stuff comes out slow, and chances are he's talking about how he feels to people in his support group, which is right and proper, it's VERY important to keep our program away from our girlfriends/boyfriends as it creates an incredibly unhealthy dynamic, I had to learn I wasn't my girlfriends psychriatrist and the surest way for me to push her away and keep her from talking about her "how she feels" was for me to push her to do so, especially if I then told her what she was feeing was inappropriate and she should be feeling a different way, such as pushing her towards guilt and remorse when she was feeling positive about being sober, what I learned was to talk about how I felt, AND provide for her a safe place for her to talk to about her "feelings" when she was good and ready


He says he spent enough time beating himself up about things while drinking, and is ready to move forward. He's acting so positive, that it scares me.

He's absolutely right, it IS time for him to move forward

Change is scary, but acting positive and being positive is a GOOD thing, he is right, we drink when we beat ourselves up, if he has a good sponsor he will walk through these issues in bite sized chunks, I had to learn how to allow people to have their own experiences, and not "tell" them how to feel or think I know what they should be feeling, I'm not God, and I am not a therapist, and I know for DAMN sure I like people to allow me to have my own experience and not tell me how I should be feeling so I try to give that same courtesy to others, that is if I want them to spend any time with me


My fear is he that he doesn't face all of these things/gain forgiveness and then has a breakdown at a later date. He's very focused, but I think he's missing the point of all of the support. Does this get better? Is this normal?? How do I talk to him about it?

I had to learn that it wasn't my business to tell her what to think or that he should recover on my timetable, according to "what I thought was best for him" as a matter of fact I had to learn how to completely seperate myself from "her program" and focus on myself, all the worrying and catastrophisizing in the world not only didn't help, it brought about all the stuff I was afraid was going to come to pass, if I thought I saw her moving away from me emotionally, I chased, therefore causing her to pull away etc ad nauseum, in every. single. case I created that which I was afraid of.

I'm no Christian nor a big Bible thumper guy, but I found something interesting in the Book of Job, after his wife and children have been taken away, and he's lost his job and his place, and he's been smote with boils and is sick and has to sit in the mud just to ptovide relief for his sores he says "Lo, That which I feared has come to pass"

or, in modern terms, he created his own reality, in my experience, that which I resist, persists, and that which I am afraid of, I create

I've been crying for 4 hours thinking about missing him, the mean things he said and how it has affected me, and our future. This is so new to us both. I text him earlier to tell him that the things he did are hitting me now that he's in rehab. I was always careful when he was drinking to not make him feel any worse than he did. I ignored the feelings...until now. He called me and talked about what he was cooking!! I don't understand any of this. I would greatly appreciate your thoughts/advice!!!!

I had to learn to get my own help and support for this, and then, once I got it "sorted out" I could sit down with my partner and discuss what is going on with me, but I had to sift my "you shoulds" out from the "I feels" and this wasn't as easy or as uncomplicated as it seemed


He also keeps talking about how much everyone likes him in rehab, etc. He speaks as though it's a popularity contest. He's very likeable and sincere, but this braggert, arrogant, selfish attitude is very bothersome!! I don't know if this is normal???

I was also accused of being arrogant, selfish and self centered in early recovery with some merit, I was absolutely those things, and I was also accused of making it a populalarity contest, but the truth was it wasn't "how much everyone liked me" it was "I finally fit in with a group of people and I have found understanding, love and acceptance after a life of feeling alone" that after a life of feeling terminally unique all the sudden I was with a group of people that not only understood me, but liked me anyway

Anyhow, to sum up, when I was in your shoes, I got help and I changed, and when I changed not only did the people around me actually change, so did my relationships with them, the things I spefically did were work the 12 steps, go to therapy, and read the aforementioned books and discuss them with others walking the same path, some in real life and some on message boards, when I focused on the problem, the problem increased, when I focused on the solution, the solution increased

Then, one day in A.A., I was told that I had the lenses in my glasses backwards; the courage to change in the Serenity Prayer meant not that I should change my marriage, but rather that I should change myself and learn to accept my spouse as she was. A.A. has given me a new pair of glasses. I can again focus on my wifes good qualities and watch them grow and grow and grow.

I can do the same thing with an A.A. meeting. The more I focus my mind on its defectslate start, long drunkalogs, cigarette smokethe worse the meeting becomes. But when I try to see what I can add to the meeting, rather than what I can get out of it, and when I focus my mind on whats good about it, rather than whats wrong with it, the meeting keeps getting better and better. When I focus on whats good today, I have a good day, and when I focus on whats bad, I have a bad day. If I focus on a problem, the problem increases; if I focus on the answer, the answer increases.

Today Max and I try to communicate what we feel rather than what we think. We used to argue about our differing ideas, but we cant argue about our feelings. I can tell her she ought not to think a certain way, but I certainly cant take away her right to feel however she does feel. When we deal in feelings, we tend to come to know ourselves and each other much better.

It hasnt been easy to work out this relationship with Max. On the contrary, the hardest place to work this program has been in my own home, with my own children and, finally, with Max. It seems I should have learned to love my wife and family first; the newcomer to A.A., last. But it was the other way around. Eventually I had to redo each of the Twelve Steps specifically with Max in mind, from the First, saying, I am powerless over alcohol, and my homelife is unmanageable by me, to the Twelfth, in which I tried to think of her as a sick Al-Anon and treat her with the love I would give a sick A.A. newcomer. When I do this, we get along fine.

Perhaps the best thing of all for me is to remember that my serenity is inversely proportional to my expectations. The higher my expectations of Max and other people are, the lower is my serenity. I can watch my serenity level rise when I discard my expectations. But then my rights try to move in, and they too can force my serenity level down. I have to discard my rights, as well as my expectations, by asking myself, How important is it, really? How important is it compared to my serenity, my emotional sobriety? And when I place more value on my serenity and sobriety than on anything else, I can maintain them at a higher level at least for the time being.

Acceptance is the key to my relationship with God today. I never just sit and do nothing while waiting for Him to tell me what to do. Rather, I do whatever is in front of me to be done, and I leave the results up to Him; however it turns out, thats Gods will for me.

I must keep my magic magnifying mind on my acceptance and off my expectations, for my serenity is directly proportional to my level of acceptance. When I remember this, I can see Ive never had it so good. Thank God for A.A.!