Hi Wheretonow
You have not told family and friends because you are ashamed and you don’t want them to know that you are not as happy as you look. It is what I did too and it is wrong. There is no shame in this illness – your husband didn’t want it in his life. By keeping it’s secret we cover for it and allow it to fester unrestrained whilst putting an immense strain on ourselves that can overwhelm us in the end.
When I was in Gamanon (which was a good one x) the girl who gave me back my sanity said ‘walk down the road and you will pass CGs and never know – they don’t fall over and they don’t look spaced out’. In a garden 18 months ago I realised that the person talking to me had a worry and her words sounded familiar. I nudged a bit and sure enough it was her son. We talked and I gave her as much information as I could and directed her to this site. I met her again this year and she has possibly nipped her son’s addiction in the bud. He has a problem with gambling which is bordering on compulsive and would be so if allowed to run unfettered. If I hadn’t talked maybe she would not have had that outcome. The other thing I have come to realise is that there is no such thing as a perfect family which I believed mine was.
The addiction seeks to isolate the enabler and it divides families. It doesn’t want itself to be known. Your friends will almost certainly not understand. It is generally felt on this forum that unless you have lived with the addiction you cannot understand what it is like to live with it. What they can do though is support you as a human being with sadness in her life. If they do look down on you then they are the losers – they haven’t learnt not to judge and that to me is one of the saddest things of all.
You are gaining knowledge now and it will help. It is when we realise that this addiction does not have to control our lives that we realise we are the stronger. Your husband may laugh but it is the addiction you need to look in the eye and tell ‘it’ that you will not live with it.
Thank you for your company. By the way what is said in a group stays in a group – you are completely safe.
Loads of Love
Velvet *********************
