The person in your life is in recovery now, perhaps a treatment program or AA meetings. Preparing the home to be alcohol free is a very important aspect of helping them to stay sober. Yes, the house should be totally free from any and all alcohol.
In fact, if you do not clear out all the booze because you like to drink, you’re a self-centered person.
Leave me as many comments as you like about that statement.
I am here writing this post to be an alcoholic’s friend, not their enemy!
In war, the opposing side or enemy sets land mines to destroy lives. As far as I’m concerned, if you leave alcohol in the house where a recovering alcoholic lives, you are just making life harder on them. You are setting them up to fall!
Why would you want to do such a thing? I’ll tell you why, it’s called being self-centered!
Another way of getting the home prepared for someone who is getting sober is by attending support group meetings. This is something that should be high on the priority list. Al-anon is a great place to start with your own healing. .
You are going to need all the help you can get in understanding an alcoholic’s behaviors, especially now that they are not drinking. By attending these meetings regularly, reading the literature and interacting with members of your groups, you will begin your own recovery.
I know you have been thinking all this time;
“It’s all their fault.”
Well, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, “but” you are sick as well. What happens as we live in the middle of this crazy dysfunctional disease is that we become obsessed with the alcoholic. They literally are on our minds all of the time. You need to learn how to overcome focusing on the alcoholic all of the time.
The old cliché; “out of site out of mind” does not apply to us when dealing with an active addict.
They are with our thoughts twenty four seven!
Just because they have quit their drinking addiction does not mean that life is going to be fine at home. Many people say that living with a recovering alcoholic is like a night and day experience.
You have to understand that they are having to feel every little thing without medicating their bodies to avoid the feelings now. This generally brings a high level of stress into the home for just a little while. It’s important for you to get the right tools from places like AL-anon to help you deal with them.
Everyone in the family should express their feelings to the person who has quit drinking in a positive way. It’s a good thing to tell them that you are glad they have decided to stop.
Really, when preparing for things to be different in the home, much of the family business should continue as usual. The bills still have to be paid so, a leave of absence is not a necessary thing. The kids must still go to school and do their homework. The family vacation must still be planned and the pets still have to be fed.
The most important thing I can leave you with is…Trust God!
I would love to hear your thoughts on these matters please feel free to comment.
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i googled “alanon menber planting alcohol around alcoholic” and “should alcohol be in home of recovering alcoholic?” and it led me to your website. anyone with a heart knows the answers to these questions. however, my recovering friend has an al-anon husband who consistently hides hard liquor in their home and denies it when his wife finds it. then magically, the alcohol gets replaced in the very same hiding place.
he recently sent a “program-perfect email” out to all family members and their grown children, explaining that he “loves her but hates her disease” and would be seeking a divorce because refused his 1-hour ultimatum to go to rehab. (she’s doing 3 AA meetings a day instead). after laying the groundwork for support in his eloquent email, his wife shocked us all and dove head-first into AA, loves the program, and has been sober for 20 days.
her “getting well” has thrown a wrench in his spokes because he wants a divorce over her alcoholism. so mysteriously, more liquor appeared in his usual hiding place, and if you begin to suspect this (based on other trip-wires he sets up around her), and you happen to give in to the temptation to check his hiding place, she’d be sure to be dubbed a co-dependant for minding “his business”… yet it’s life or death for her. it’s as if he wants her to fail so he can go through with the divorce.
they still live in the same house, and he barely speaks to her now that she’s sober. is it possible he needs her to be “sick” to accomplish his freedom and look good?
Sounds like marriage guidance councelling is required. Perhaps you can suggest it if it’s not too late already. I note your comment is from March and it’s now November. Hope she stayed sober to now and well done if she did.