Addiction and Depression

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Lamb_Serenade

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Please pray for my husband.

He has been diagnosed with severe depression, PTSD, borderline personality disorder and is abusing alcohol. I think he is an alcoholic, but he calls it abusing, or self-medicating with, alcohol. He is currently under the care of a counselor and taking anti-depressants. He has been advised by his counselor to not drink, but he is choosing to not listen.

His drinking is wreaking havoc on our home life right now. I am so lost right now, and at a loss for what to do next. We have discussed and fought over the drinking. It doesn’t matter how I choose to talk with him about it, because he treats it like what I’m saying doesn’t matter to him. He seems to just throw it in my face by continuing to drink. It makes me angry and hurts me deeply. He will not listen to anyone, professional or personal. He is only listening to what he wants, and I am afraid what he wants is going to cause more damage than he is willing to consider.

I am currently seeing our priest so I have my outside perspective and next week I am going to see a counselor myself. The counselor is a practicing Catholic, so I think it will be good for me. My husband refuses to do joint counseling of any kind, be it professional or spiritual.

I ask you to pray for me and our DD as well. Pray for our weekend to improve and be a little brighter for all of us. Most of you probably look forward to the weekend because it is relaxation time from work, school, etc. I dread the weekends because my husband has weekends off, and my DD is home from school. The drinking makes things so tense and while I try to shield our DD from it, we can’t really escape his poor behavior. She is five and she acts more mature than he does when he is drinking. When she is angry or frustrated she acts out and I have to deal with two people acting like children. At least one of them has the excuse of actually being a child! So weekends are very stressful for me and my DD. We both look forward to the week as something good, some hours of the day where things are peaceful; she has school, and I have the quiet house. The weekends, we don’t get that break.

Others have suggested AlAnon, but I’m not ready for that yet. I’ll see how things go with the counseling, and in the meantime, my confessor/priest-spiritual advisor is there for me. Today, I guess I justed needed a place to vent “in the mean time”.

Your prayers are definitely needed, and definitely appreciated.
 
I am so very sorry to hear about your situation. I will pray for you, your DH and of course your DD. God Bless you all. :signofcross:
 
I am only 18 and i know very little about your situation and about life or alchoholism in general so please don’t be offended by my advice. Perhaps your husband is using drink to compensate for something missing from his life or to escape. Perhaps you could gently ask him what it is. If this sounds like a stupid idea to you please ignore it.

I will pray for you
Pete,

Glory to God
 
Pete said:
I am only 18 and i know very little about your situation and about life or alchoholism in general so please don’t be offended by my advice. Perhaps your husband is using drink to compensate for something missing from his life or to escape. Perhaps you could gently ask him what it is. If this sounds like a stupid idea to you please ignore it.

I will pray for you
Pete,

Glory to God
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Pete, thank you so much for your advice, I only wish I could tell you I needed to take your advice. In reality, I have already done this. He is using the drink as an escape. His PTSD comes from 23 years as a cop. He also has trauma from his childhood he is dealing with. He thinks the alcohol helps to dull his brain so he won’t think about it. What it is really doing is two fold; it makes him think about it more, and it makes him feel guilty for doing it. He has a very low feeling of himself and has very strong suicidal thoughts that he deals with. He is not so suicidal that he will do it because he is a person who does think of those he would leave behind, and he says the pain of thinking of how we would feel if he killed himself is greater than the pain of what makes him want to end his life.

For the record Pete, your advice is very well thought out and I appreciate that someone your age without the personal experiences to pull from was able to find sound and good advice to give.👍 You are a blessing Pete! Thank you.:hug1:
 
Hello,For most of us,we can only imagine the things your DH has seen or experianced.We dont give enough credit to our law enforcement men and woman.I will pray for your family.Dont give up.He may get worse before he gets better.The Devil will fight back,but I have “Good News”,Jesus has already defeated him for us.We are more than conqurers through Him.(Sirach 31:25-31,1Co.13:4-7.
 
I will be praying for your whole family.
:signofcross:
Hail Mary,
Full of Grace,
The Lord is with thee.
Blessed art thou among women,
and blessed is the fruit
of thy womb, Jesus.
Holy Mary,
Mother of God,
pray for us sinners now,
and at the hour of death.
Amen.
 
If only more of our youth could be like Pete!

God, I pray now for this family. The husband has an alcohol problem of which you are very aware. I ask you to heal this man Father. The wife and daughter are suffering Father, ease their suffering and grant peace to this family. I pray this in the name of Jesus Christ… AMEN
 
I am an recovering alcoholic and suggest that your husband goto AA. It works. Plain and simple. No amount of counseling or rehab or anything else usually will work without AA. And contrary to popular belief, God is at the core of AA and most successful recovering alcoholics in AA attribute God as the main source of their success.

Also, if you were ready to ask for help from us, you are ready to spend an hour at an Al-Anon meeting. Just go and listen if you dont want to talk. It is much better than basic counseling or advice from a priest because you are dealing with others in the same situation as yourself.

Regardless of what you choose to do, I will pray for you and your family.

Our Father, Who art in heaven, Hallowed be Thy Name. Thy Kingdom come. Thy Will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Amen.

Hail Mary, Full of Grace, The Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now, and at the hour of death. Amen.
 
This won’t be a popular post but for the sake of your daughter I’m going to post it anyway! I grew up with an alcoholic father and so that is the perspective that I bring. For your daughters sake, please find somewhere to go or ask him to go somewhere else until he can stop. I watched what my dad’s drinking did to my mom, I watched police arrest him, I watched as he didn’t come for days on end and I absorbed it all. I’m 30 something now and can still FEEL the feelings I had as a kids laying in bed hoping mom & dad would stop yelling at each other.

I’m just saying however you THINK it is affecting her, it is doing more and she knows more than you think she knows.

Don’t let him rob your daughter of her life, her self worth. If you won’t do it for yourself, do it for her. Make him stop or make him leave.

My 2 cents followed up with a prayer. I’ll add your family to our prayer list.
 
I’m praying for your family I’m a recovering alcoholic,my mom and dad were also,now my son suffers from drug addiction,its a very painful life,once the evil one has a hold,but don’t give up on him.I really suggest you try al-anon,for yourself and your daughter,it is a family disease,especially if this is a duel diagnoses.Pray,pray and pray some more it has helped me so much,and feel free to vent,you also need to do that.My prayers are with you.
 
St Rita, please, we pray that you would ask for great graces for these people. You know how deep the wound goes when family members suffer and do not reform their lives. Please beg God to help them and to guide her husband to lead a sober life. Anne
 
Lamb_Serenade said:
He has a very low feeling of himself and has very strong suicidal thoughts that he deals with. He is not so suicidal that he will do it because he is a person who does think of those he would leave behind, and he says the pain of thinking of how we would feel if he killed himself is greater than the pain of what makes him want to end his life.
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Please forgive me if this sounds harsh or brash, I do talk from some experience that I won’t get into, he “probably” will not commit this act because of his selfishness. Which may also be why he drinks as well. For some, for **most **addicts, it takes hitting rock bottom for “them” to make any lasting changes. If he cares, the way you describe, it could take your leaving him or putting him out. There is no good solution for your situation, but please, please protect yourself and your DD.

Father, I beg You and Your love for Your children, to bring this man out of his wallow and take away his want and need for alchohol. Please convert his heart and cause a conversion depe within the wells of his soul. I pray that you will send St. Michael to protect Lamb and their daughter from the harmful effects from this man’s addiction. Please deliver them all from this terrible situation. In the name of Jesus I pray to You with confidence. Amen.
 
ChinaDad said:
Please forgive me if this sounds harsh or brash, I do talk from some experience that I won’t get into, he “probably” will not commit this act because of his selfishness. Which may also be why he drinks as well. For some, for **most **addicts, it takes hitting rock bottom for “them” to make any lasting changes. If he cares, the way you describe, it could take your leaving him or putting him out. There is no good solution for your situation, but please, please protect yourself and your DD.
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You know, I thought he had hit rock bottom which is why this is so difficult for me. He was arrested in March in another town and charge with DUI. Things were definitely on the downward spiral when that all went down. As I mentioned before, he is in law enforcement and is actually the person in charge of the patrol division. It was a definite BIG mistake, and he was devastated knowing what he had done could jeopardize his career and our future (if he were to lose his job he would sacrifice a great deal of his retirement benefits). He did do all the right things, plead guilty, paid the fines and started counseling. I thought we were on the track to rebuilding everything that this tore down. He stayed sober for four months and then started drinking again.

What remains at the end of the day is he needs to acknowledge his disease and begin dealing with it on that level. He is only dealing with what led him to drink, and is not dealing with the drinking itself. I pray he will come to a point where he will.

Thank you all for your prayers, support and advice. I will likely be back to continue venting as I need it. I will definitely be hanging around the forums, so I can read and share with others.
 
A dreadfully difficult time for you. Will keep your husband in prayer with St. Rita, patron of difficult causes and St. Dymphna patron of those with mental problems…
 
Hi there,
Im a recovering alcoholic myself, so i hear you loud and clear.
First thing you should ask your husband to read up on alcohol and the affects it has. Firstly, you can get his attention by telling him its only a temporary fix, and it doesnt solve his problems, secondly, alcohol makes the depression worse.
The more a person drink, the more it upsets the chemical balance in our brains and that leads to worse things.
Im not a mental health professional by no means, but there is plenty of information to tell you this also.
I will pray he stops drinking, and i will pray a lot, as praying worked for me.
I begged and cried so much to God to please give me strength to stay away from alcohol, and just out of the blue one day, i just lost the urge to drink. I thank God so much for that gift.
I will pray he bestows it upon your husband.
God bless you and i hope your husband stops very soon.
 
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