Welcome to First Steps to Al-Anon Recovery. This is a series of podcasts to discuss some common concerns for people who have been affected by someone else’s drinking.
Today we’re going to ask Al-Anon members if they ever thought the drinking would stop if the drinker really loved them.
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Been with my boyfriend 16 years. 2 kids, a 14 year old girl and 8 year old son. He’s beat me 5 times drunk and told me he was going to leave me and the straw of last was when I started drinking too…confessed to cheating 10 years ago. I think he is holding that against me and told me drunk he never loved me and was a lie and denies that is not true and acts like nothing… I am going get a job since last job was 2013 at ER and had to quit because daycare issues and was working nights. I love him and want get my life straightened out before I leave him. I don’t want to leave him as he tried to quit and is going through mourning his father death too. But my pride is killing me softly.
I’m 48 and my husband of 3 years is 57. We dated for 6 years before we got married. Yes – we met at a bar. We were both divorced. I was attracted to him because he was the life of the party, everyone loved him, fun guy! Sex life was great. We would dance and party with the best of them until the bar closed weekend after weekend.
With all of that being said – I do not blame him for everything. I knew he drank. I also knew his marriage ended due to his wife’s cheating — perhaps, I thought, that was a good excuse and he would “snap out of it” once he married me and was happier. Wrong! Who did I think I was? There were tons of signals – but I overlooked them and accepted them time and time again — after all, this wasn’t my first marriage – I didn’t want to fail yet AGAIN.
In the past year alone, he has told me he was going to quit drinking at least 6 times. He has told me he is not going to loose me because of alcohol. He has apologized for “disappointing me” again. YET – he drinks himself drunk almost daily. He hides the liquor bottles. He passes out. With me — he is impatient and is disrespectful. He has no interest in having conversations or showing intimacy. To everyone else — he’s still the life of the party, he’s “so crazy”, so much fun! They don’t know what I put up when they aren’t around.
He is in love with his bottle. For the past couple of days I have talked to him very openly about needing to get professional help (not the first time this conversation has taken place) because he can’t beat his addiction by himself. He’s been best friends with it for way too long. He of course says he doesn’t have a problem. I told him that if he asked his friends and family if they thought he had a problem that they would all say yes. He said he didn’t care what they thought. When I asked him if he cared what I thought he wouldn’t answer.
I told him I was no longer enabling him and was no longer putting up with it. I told him I’m not happy in having to worry about what I was going to come home to everyday or whether or not I could have a conversation with my husband or not. I have felt like a roommate, not a wife. He doesn’t seem to care. I honestly think my marriage is over.
I am the wife of a binge alcoholic. I just left home this week after being married for 23 years. My two sons (ages 23 & 19) are alcoholics and substance abusers. My 19 year old just finished 30 day residential treatment for heroin (after his 2nd relapse). My husband thinks because he has cut back, he is fine. He gets drunk, says horrible things, antagonizes me and the kids and then apologizes or most often, blames me. As I began reading these comments, the damage that alcoholism causes is so deep it is simply overwhelming. What is also overwhelming is how many wives, girlfriends, moms, dads, husbands, etc., believe their love will just overcome this addiction. It won’t. If it could, none of the drinkers would continue drinking. Every one of you loved this man, woman, son, daughter, etc. so much you would and did anything to save them. Have you ever heard an alcoholic say “I stopped drinking because my mom, wife, kids, husband” just loved me so much and they told me how much it was hurting them”…said no one ever. So, recognize you cannot stop the drinker from drinking, only they can stop themselves. We must all either save money, stay with a friend, move out, kick out the addict, let them live on the streets and realize they may die and know we will be blamed, made to be the bad guy or girl and feel guilty, shunned from our family or friends for not sticking it out, hear “he is such a good guy, how could you do it, etc.” and then turn to the rooms of Al Anon where none of these statements will be uttered, where you are understood and loved. Where your madness is known and shared by EVERYONE in the room, where you can find peace. Keep coming back. You are not alone and your love will not stop this addiction. It can’t. Anymore than your love can stop cancer, diabetes, heart disease, etc.
I should have left my husband 23 years ago when early in our marriage (I had a 1 month old) at Thanksgiving where of course there was drinking, I said we needed to go home, get the baby ready for bed, fed, and his reply was “I am having fun with my family. What is the matter with you?” When he said he would only spend Christmas with his family and he would golf anytime he wanted and that was all there was to it. When I was home with a very sick baby and he was out drinking with his brother until 3:30 a.m. When he wouldn’t answer my repeated calls nor the calls of my children (then about 10 & 13) who he was supposed to take them holiday shopping and had been out drinking. When he went drunk over to my divorced neighbor and tried to proposition her and she told me to come and get him…the list goes on an on. It was always my problem because I was a bitch, didn’t have sex enough, was too controlling, needed to relax and have more fun…whatever. I feel enormous guilt for not leaving sooner and also because we did have good times. He would go a few months without heavy drinking and it was good. He has a good job and never missed due to drinking. But he was still angry and mean. He flies off the handle and I walk on eggshells. So now, I am trying it on my own. My kids know I didn’t leave them, I left their dad. My husband knows if he will face his problems, I will go to counseling every day for a month if that is what it takes. He won’t. It’s my problem “because I am too controlling”. There is hope. God has opened doors I never knew were unlocked. Friends I didn’t realize understood have come forth with their own stories. I am sad, scared and concerned but I am hopeful and my friends, know that the drinking won’t stop and it’s not that they don’t love you. They love their disease more or are just incapable of seeking treatment.
My husband is a drinker and has been for the last 35 years or so. At first I did not know it. He is a nice person underneath, but he is so sick from his drinking. He twists things. He lies. He takes up for himself even though he is wrong. I have reached out for help from family members and also other people to try and figure this thing out, but everyone looks at me like there is something wrong with me. They say things like, Leave him alone, or be nice. I have been so mentally abused by him until I am the one that lashes out. I try to talk to him, but he never listens or takes heed to anything I am saying. I have Lupus, and I am not supposed to be stressed out. He does not care about me at all….I want to leave so bad, but he pays the bills. I have no one to help me, or anyone that will listen. I am so tired I do not know what to do….I feel so lost…
I’ve been with my husband for over 18 years, married 9 years this past August. He’s the most amazing person when he’s sober, but when he’s drinking, he’s a monster. He becomes angry, mean, verbally and mentally abusive. Like everyone else, we have been through a lot, lost a baby boy in 2014, my husband lost his father 2 months after. He’s always been a drinker, since the first day I met him. Its just been these past 4 years that its been out of control. He drinks almost every day. I find double shooters everywhere, hidden in the bathroom, in his pockets, I even seen them as I’m driving up to our condo (he tosses them out the window before he parks). I can’t take it anymore. His drinking consumes him, we don’t have a life anymore. I’m basically married to myself and he’s married to his double shooter fireballs. There’s no intimacy, no romance, no date nights, no nothing, He wont even kiss me because he knows I’ll smell it on his breath.
I recently got the courage to leave him. I left my home for my sanity and peace of mind. Don’t know what my future holds, but am hoping to find peace with in my heart. Being married to an alcoholic kills your spirit, at least it did mine.
How do you tell the sober husband you love, that you don’t love the drunk husband? Since his heart attack in 2015, he has been drinking to feel better. When he gets that buzz he is very agressive and likes to argue. I walk away and go to bed when he is like this, but he just follows me.
I need to leave him! I started looking for a place but don’t have enough money yet. If I stay it tells him that I’m accepting his behaviour. It is hard because it is the most difficult decision I have ever had to make. When he is sober he is the sweetest most caring person. I do love him, but I love myself too. I have health issues and when he is drunk my health suffers.
I don’t know if I should wait until I have a place and move my stuff when he is at work? Or should I tell him now that I am leaving?
So I’ve been with my husband for 10 years. I met him in a really bad part of my life. I was here in the US (not my home country) and started using drugs. But I worked and took care of my life. He soon was homeless and then we moved in together. He would never hold a job, and would drink and come back in the morning. Sometimes I’d go after him desperately because I thought something had happened, and he could barely walk so drunk he was. He was also doing a lot of drugs, while I was backing down. I was working sooo hard because money wasn’t enough. I got pregnant and wanted abortion. I had to ask my boss for an upfront of my salary and had to tell her why, and I had an abortion. He didn’t even go with me there. He lied that he was working, and then one day the rent day came up and he didn’t have his half. We were homeless for over a month. I slept with cockroaches around me, it was the most sad time of my life. But he was always a good man, so sweet, had a nice family, and he had such a big heart… so I went back to my country and he went there after. I quit drinking and using drugs completely. We got married. He was good for a while, but then started the drinking again. Nothing like it was before, this time was like every once in a while he would go out, spend a lot of money, and come back in the morning. He would not answer the phone all night so I couldn’t sleep not knowing where he was. Then the binging started every month. Once he spent all his salary in one night. Another time he lost my credit card. Another time he got in a fight and came back bleeding. My family saw him that way, my dad… it was horrible. Then I kicked him out, but only to see if he would recover being away from me and having to take care of himself. He came to the US, his country. I’m here now as a grad student. I wanted to be with him, and we got together. On the first time I saw him after 1.5 apart he had been drinking. I told him I’d only stay with him if he went through the AA program in a recovery home. He was there for one month and begged to stay with me. He was good for a while, but in the last 2 weeks he went out twice and came back after 3 AM, drunk and high on cocaine. He never has money. We never do anything because he never drove since I’ve met him because of 2 DIUs, and I don’t have a license here yet. He doesn’t drink so much as other alcoholics, so sometimes I think he has moral problems and that’s not the alcohol that can see this. I haven’t loved him in a loooong time but I feel so bad for him. He is such a good looking man, he is smart, comes from a good family, he is very well spoken, but he doesn’t like working and likes drinking a lot. I’m finishing my PhD in a few years and my plan is to stay with him until then and see if things get better for him, so maybe I’ll not feel guilty when I leave him. I made a condition that I’d only let him stay if he went to school, and now he’s going. Maybe that will keep him busy and he will meet people that have normal life, different than the college kids that are his drinking/drug friends. We haven’t had any intimacy for the last 6 months, and I know it’s horrible for a man but I just can’t touch him. But he doesn’t want to leave so… I just feel so bad for him… maybe one day he will like himself enough to be a good sober, hard working man.
I’m just at my wits end he forgot to pick me up at work because he went out …frustred
Thank you for this Space. Boyfriend 36, I am 26. We have Lived together for two years. I am Desperte. I wAnt to leave him but I love him. He depends on alcohol to relax. I am exhausted. He doesnt think he has a problem. He doesnt go out. He just drinks in his room watching tv. What about me? Our goals? I feel he only thinks of getting high.. someone helpme i know i have to leave but I cant. We just got kicked out from the beautiful house we rented because of oír loud fights. Gavehim another chance bit has drank Twice after just just weeks. Please more mature ladies guide me, ty
My 46 yr old daughter just died from liver failure. As I work back thru the wreckage she left behind, I think she drank for years and hid it well until about 5 yrs ago. She was a binge drinker. She drank until she passed out. We tried to get her help, we tried to shut her off, but she was our daughter, part of us, we couldn’t just walk away. I realize now we probably enabled her. I feel so sad and guilty. The worst part of all of this, she left her 8 yr old daughter behind. Our granddaughter lives with us now. We are all trying to cope with this. I am 65 and just retired, did not expect to spend the last part of my life raising another child, and coping with the pieces that my daughter left behind.
I have been in a relationship with a guy I believe to be an alcoholic. He has a strong background of alcoholic relatives, starting with his mom. His mom used to be the type of alcoholic who gets verbally and physically aggressive and abusive. My partner ended up on the streets and started drinking at a very young age. He is now 29 and I am 31. When I met him I knew he drank a lot, from what I saw and under my standards, but I did not know he used to drink almost daily before moving in with me. When he moved in with me I started seeing he drank 2 or 3 times during the week, plus heavier on the weekends. I was troubled because he does not get aggressive neither verbally or physically, at all. He keeps being his lovey dovey self, he just plays his PS4 while drinking, then cooks dinner, then we watch movies and go to sleep. He has never passed out, but has has a couple black outs where he does not clearly remembers certain conversations, but this has been rare. He keeps on going to work and everything seems to function normally. Though, I come from a family where neither my mother or father drank, so I am not used to it. I do drink socially and I am not gonna lie, I have binge drank and passed out on one of those crazy weekend nights, but we are talking of a once a month thing and not even. We have had so many arguments over his drinking, I hate coming home to a man whose breath and skin stinks to alcohol, to a home where I see bottles and bottles of beer, I hate seeing him grog sick next day and going to work like that, I hate how he looks after it, all pale and so old. He has made plenty of compromises after I have threatened to leave him. Though, he breaks those compromises again and again and twisting his words to his convenience. First he said he was going to stop drinking during the week and leave alcohol for the weekends; then, he changed it to have a couple beers once or twice a week night, but then his “couple” beers turned into two or three tall necks, not two or three standard drinks. He says he does not see the problem, that I am overreacting, that he likes his beers after work because he has a hard physical job, that he is not spending all our money nor gambling nor being irresponsible with work or family/friends commitments, that he just wants to enjoy a few beers here and there, that he is an adult and knows what he is doing. Some other times he accepts that he can not stop at two or three standard drinks, because it has no effect on him, he has built a high tolerance. I broke uo with him yesterday, again; he thought I was gonna change my mind, I asked him to come up with a plan on how to stop this situation, he did not, so I left. I am so heart broken, I do not know what to do. I do not really want to leave him and I have never felt this in love, he is supportive, hard worker, extremely caring to my needs and wants, but this one things is killing me even though it is not extreme. I do not know what to do.
My husband lost job, union got him back in if he goes to out patient rehab. (Didn’t work the last time) maybe Im to blame? I have been without voice which really stressed our relationship but we have been working on it. Please tell me it gets better. We have long painful history, which we both have worked on and we both want to for filling our dreams together. Any success stories out there?
Ive been with my husband for over 18 years breaking up for a couple of weeks here and there we have been together for 5 years without major incident but just recently theres been a few occasions where ive wanted out one being that he went out drinking and went banging on the single woman’s door across from where we live , i only found out because she didnt answer and tried ringing him when he had returned home and i asked who was ringing him and of course he lied and i demanded to see his phone !! Then we went on holiday a family holiday with our sons and his parents and he was drunk for 2 weeks since we have been home i said i jad had enough and it was tge drink or our marriage he chose the alcohol but wouldnt leave so now hes still here drinking as soon as he finishes work and sleeping on tge sofa but actually seems ok about it and im going crazy!!!
Wow,… This is crazy. It’s like my life is being seen from the inside out. I have been to hell 3x’s and back with my husband and his drinking. All the money, courts, blowing in the lock on the steering wheel before he could drive it, classes, AA and then some. He’s mean as hell when drinks, but then he stops for weeks and will do anything for me. I’ve been called names told he hates me and sometimes leaves for nights at a time. When leaves I feel peace. I know God frown upon divorce so I feel trapped on this roller coaster that won’t stop. 🙁
I just left my alcoholic boyfriend of 1 year and 4 months 2 nights ago.
We broke up 3 times in the beginning because I couldn’t stand the monster he was when he was buzzed. Now, I’m a Tennessee girl, I’ve been drinking whiskey since I was 10. I don’t NEED IT EVERY DAY,,,EVERY 2 HOURS! Sure I have a good time, but that’s only when camping or with friends and that’s it. Not every day!
So, the LAST (4th) time we got back together, he PROMISED he’d stop drinking the “hard stuff” and I sincerely believe he did. He is such a WONDERFUL man when he’s not horrendously drunk. He did, however, have about 2 to 4 beers a day, which didn’t alter his personality at all. So that was fine with me for a year.
I specifically told him during our conversation that day he made that promise……that I will LEAVE if he backtracks. I have him 4 chances so I told him, in solidarity with him…I would stop drinking Whiskey too. And I did.
Okay,now, he DOES have insomnia problems and smokes Marijuana when he gets anxiety. He does NOT want to be a pill popper so he relies on that and beer to get himself to sleep. But with this HORRENDOUS divorce and sharing custody of 2 teenage boys and 1 adult son living at home….he’s stressed. HORRIBLY stressed. Excuse? I don’t know.
Last week, (Friday) I found two 12 OZ bottles of JD “Hidden” in a toolbox. Along with his Marijuana bowls. It’s not the weed I was upset about,since I didn’t have a problem with that, but HIDING the whiskey!
I took pictures of the bottles EXACTLY where they were hidden….and confronted him with this.
He said he just couldn’t take the stress of his divorce anymore and the Melatonin’s I was giving him were NOT working. Even the weed wasn’t working. So he FREELY admitted his did.
I said I’m packing my stuff. He then turned around, went to the nearest Rite Aid drug Store, and came back with TWO big “jugs” of Crown Royal!
Then as the night wore on, he started verbally abusing me, and then it happened……………he THREW ME OUT OF HIS HOUSE AT 1:30 AM!
Called the cops to have a “civil standby” and I got as much things as I could and had a friend drive me to a hotel and I checked in for 4 nights.
He’s been texting me (drunk) and telling me he’s going to pile my stuff in the yard and set it on fire! I called the police again and they said “we WILL NOT come out again whenever he threatens this” MY grandmothers cookware, family photos and my daughter’s awards (she’s 14) were in the house.
So my friend an I want to the house to see if he did pile my stuff in the yard….he didn’t.
Then he kept texting me he did, then he didn’t, then he did, then he didn’t. ALL NIGHT! It became a game to him. He KNEW the cops wouldn’t come out there that many times!
Sorry I’m rambling……….i’m starting to feel I FAILED him and feel it’s partly MY FAULT! I returned his Promise Ring….and he said I ripped his heart out when I returned the ring. He also says I kept him from being himself. WHAT!?? He was the one who said “You made me a bettter man Denny….thank you!” He said I and his kids were his “focus” and giving me all these praises and now he says I was the one holding him back? From what? Being Whiskey Bent?
I’m not sure if I should go through some therapy or something so I can get over this “my fault” feeling.
I’m in a million pieces right now.
I met him when I was in a dark place in my life. My ex had left me pregnant and alone. I was looking for a friend and ended up hanging out with him one night. He was drunk when I came over but I really didnt think much of it. I wasnt looking for love… Just a distraction. We got along so well we ended up dating. Little did I know the entire time we dated he was talking to other girls and telling all his friends that I was living on the streets and how he took me in. It was a lie of course. I lived with my sister in a house we shared and had never been homeless in my life. His lying only got worse the longer we were together… After catching him cheating twice and lying about his continued contact with the girls and there families, I’d had enough. I was pregnant again this time with his child and I had kicked him out. I still dont know whats worse… The way his drinking ruined our relationship… Or the fact that I’ll never forgive him for choosing alcohol over me and our family. I told him last night that I wont b giving our son his last name when I give birth. His family made several threats about killing our unborn child and thus are not allowed around him. I told him since he is the only member of his side of the family that our child will know, I would rather him not know his father at all if he’s going to continue to be a drunk. I would rather him think his father is a good man who couldn’t handle the stress than for him to b abused by his alcoholic father.. He still calls me saying I’m over reacting and how we are going to be together. Even after all of this he cant admit to the verbal or physical abuse he put me through… I finally realized he’s never going to change for me.
I used to think if my husband loved me, he’d quit drinking. Now . . . I realize that he doesn’t have room in his heart to love more than one thing at a time. He loves alcohol. I’m just here. He’d rather spend time alone and drink. He is angry when I ask, beg, threaten and plead for him to be and get sober and he can be verbally abusive when drunk, but he is lucky enough to pass out every night and not remember it the next day. I feel tortured and miserable because I can’t forget the things he says. I can’t speak to him about his mouth because he claims I “over exaggerate” how he treats me when he is drunk. I literally down play a lot of his behaviors because I feel sorry for him. He is embarrassing and I feel bad for him. I just know people have to talk about him when he is drunk and it makes me feel like I have to protect him. He hurts me and I feel like I have to protect him? Crazy what sober people go through living through someone’s alcoholism. He lies about how much he drinks. He believes just because half a bottle of whiskey fits into one very large glass, it constitutes as one drink. I started writing him emails, believing that he would read them while sober and it would be more productive for a stable marriage . . . Sadly I found out he has quit reading them.
When we first got together we drank together and had a ton of fun. He would tell me the next day how I acted and what I said and I remembered none. Not only was I embarrassed, but I began to realize that I loved him enough to give him all of me. Sober me. To actually give our marriage a real chance by being . . . Me. It’s just too bad that he doesn’t feel the same way. What it boils down to is what we had in common was drinking. Now that I don’t drink, it appears we have nothing in common.
I pray that one day he will realize the severity of how thin our marriage is being pulled due to his alcoholism, but I’m beginning to accept that he will be happy alone and drunk. I will soon begin preparing to move and start a life without him.
Best thing is just let him be the alcoholic he is. It will get him in the end. I have tried for years to get him to stop. There is a point where you just give up. I am planning a life without him as his days are numbered. He most recently got his 4th DUI so let the courts deal with him now. He cannot drive for 3 years and yet he gets his booze. Tonight he is not home – somewhere – and most likely will walk home if he can even find his way after his drinking. I refused to pick him up! I will not be an enabler anymore! How is he going to make his court dates? Not my problem anymore! It might sound cruel but I have been to hell and back with his drinking. Final thought – if he does try and walk home he might just get picked up by police. Happy Easter to him!
I have been with my man for 14 years, we lived under the same roof for 11 of those years and currently, we each live with our parents. We lost the last home we had because he lost his job and down-ward spiraled. The last month of our lease, we got into an argument after i’d come home from celebrating a friends birthday and he was drunk after he promised he wouldn’t drink. That night, he left and went to his mother’s house. I didn’t speak to him for 3wks as he did not call or text. That was the first time i had ever felt abandoned by my soul mate. For many years he would only binge. It escalated to him missing many days of work and loosing jobs because of this. My own jobs were at jeopardy because of my attendance due to late nights arguing and not sleeping etc etc.
Now that we have been living separately, his parents do not enforce or even speak of any boundaries with his drinking. Actively for the last 3 years, he has worked his binge drinking into a full blown addiction to the point where he has actually admitted to me that he wonders where he is going to get his next drink as soon as he wakes up. I’ve threatened him, i’ve pleaded and begged, I’ve tried to leave him, for 3wks i cut off all communication, and he did not even reach out to me. He ended up getting a group of drunken manipulative friends and a temporary fill in for me, sharing intimate details about me, about us and about our relationship with this girl. He also let his friends disrespect me in front of him and did nothing. This man that he is now, I don’t know him. this is the worst in him, yet I love him and I find it excruciating to live without him and even more so to continue to go on with him like this in my life.
We had plans, we were engaged, we had a life, in 14 years we haven’t had any children and now i think this is why, God only knows. I don’t want him to feel abandoned, but I feel that I’m loosing myself in his addiction, I’ve changed, and not for the better. I feel weak, I feel enraged and insane, I’ve now been diagnosed with anxiety and borderline high blood pressure, I feel that I’m obligated to see him through this because I know the man he is on the inside and I know that man is not all completely lost. But what can i do? The people in his home turn a blind eye to his addiction, his apartment is upstairs from a liquor store which he gets credit for beer, and works off the credit by stocking in the store. There are so many obstacles and i feel like I’m alone in seeing them and seeing what needs to be done.
This makes me the bad guy, the nagger, the one that “drives him to drink”. I’m not ready to leave, but I can’t bare to stay, I’m lost right along with him.
Pray for us as I will for all of you
I have been married to a great guy sober and something other than when drinking. He is a manic depressant with sexual trauma ptsd. I myself am military ptsd. He has not been sober for more than 15 days since his last drug-alcohol overdose. His drinking has destroyed our financial secutity on multiple times. I let him stay. Cause…darn it…what a great charming everyone lives him good to me kinda guy…when he is in his right mind. We did not celebrate but watched like a messed up reality show our tenth year in marriage. He drank. I list another part of me. That was 13 days ago. Tonight. I am told it has nothing to do with me. This is the last evening I engage with the wrong mind. I have called my father. He wants to give me money. I will not take it. I just wanted to hear him tell me I can do it. Tomorrow I will attend another alanon…maybe this time i say something or stay longer. But tonight I accepted this fate of bad decisions and circumstance and bad luck. I researched and downloaded a few things to help me get back to financial stability so i have the strength to do what has to be done for my kids and me. Love of my life has little to do with it. Love of myself has everything to do with it. I start again but with a bigger set of tools and networks and self worth than the last time i started again. So it will be okay if i take the time to care for me. But for tonight…at least right now…i just wanted to say that outloud. Even if it is just to remind me i deserve cool fun charming loving kind of guy more than a little bit of the time.
I’ve been with my other half and father of my 5 year old , since I was 16. I’m now 29 , he is now leaving in the middle of the night staying gone for 3-4 days ..always so sorry when he gets home . He hides bottles in his car and all around the house . I will not let him drink here.I just don’t know what to do anymore.. I want to leave, I love him but just don’t want this anymore ..but being able to pay everything on my own ..iso easier said then done ..
I have known my husband for 16 years. He does not drink very often, 2-3x a month, but is out of control when he does. He has got two DUIs, the latest one after just two drinks. He is very skinny and that might have something to do with his low tolerance. Recently he was out of state on a business trip and went to a bar to catch football game. Got too drunk, got lost on way back to his hotel, kept taking trains and buses and walking for 3-4 hours before passing out on a side walk. I had to beg the hotel front desk folks to go looking for him. Luckily he was found and brought back to the safety of his hotel room. After all this, he still claims he does not have a drinking problem. I asked him to choose between me and alcohol and he refuses to abstain from drinking. Says he is going to make sure this does not happen again. I dont believe in anything he says anymore and I know that the next drunken night is just around the corner for him. I am going to therapy to figure out what to do next. I would walk out in a heartbeat if it were not for our 7yr old girl.
I have been with my husband for over 23 years and the last 6 years have been a living hell. He has been in and out of rehab 3 times. Pills, cocaine and this last rehab was for drinking. I am at my end of what I can take. I am no longer hurt by all he has done to himself and our family but I am angry. I just don’t know what else to do.I love him with all my heart. I keep holding on to that I know the man I married,the father and son I know he once was is still there. But when will enough be enough. It is destroying me as a person. Sometimes ones I can’t even look at him. Without think how can you do this to people you love you are so selfish. We have even told him if you feel like drinking or taking a pill reach out to us we will be there. He never calls. Never!! I caught him this morning drinking at 5am!! What makes people do this? I just don’t understand.
Yes my heart tells me he would stop drinking if if he loved me and if he loved our 9 month old son but my brain tells me that love has nothing to do with this addiction. He choses the shots and liquor over us everyday. He thinks because he functions he is okay. He doesn’t believe me when I have been telling him I can’t and won’t live like this. He has allowed the alcohol to take him and the beautiful smart person he is away from me. I don’t understand that. I can’t comprehend being that selfish and self absorbed. My heart is breaking. My story is so similar to thought I read above. I am exhausted. I am scared. I am lonely. I retreat to bed earlier and earlier so I don’t have to argue or watch him drink more. I don’t want to have to leave. I am so angry that this addiction is potentially going to cause chaos in my life. I am so very tired of feeling all alone.
I’m 32 and my bf is 15 years senior
We have been together a year but have several fights while he was drunk. He has never physically hurt me and I know he won’t. I love him
When he dies not drink his a perfect guy
He works hard takes of me our apartment, but yes he drinks and can’t control it I rarely drink to not drinking at all and I gave him an earful and listed all the hurt he has caused me. I can’t change him but I put my foot down saying alcohol or me and I deserve better . We have plans for our future we talk about us as partners, but this last time he was drinking for got to pick me up from basically and stated he was lost. I don’t believe him and I just want him to stop drinking bc it’s destroying Jim, us and myself and I know I need to worry about me but how do you walk away knowing his a good person and you love him….tell me bc I can t this time and as well as the other times. he says he drinks when he has a stressful week and I told him he needs to find a healthier way to release stress, but my family wants me to walk away but I love him and I know his a good guy. I pray he gets help and for us to be but I know if at one point I just end up being hurt to where I lose myself I need to walk away from him.
Ugh, I’m beyond crushed and heartbroken. No idea where to go from here as I truly believe the only place to go is away from him. Long story short- got pregnant after a few months dating, he left, we battled in court, 7 years later we got back together. However, he went from being a big pothead to an alcoholic pothead.
I know he loves me. I don’t question it. But this isn’t the true-love fairytale I envisioned for myself that I know I deserve. He has a horrible drinking problem. I’ve “broken up” with him 100 times and he always charms his way back in. I love him more than anyone, and he knows that. He claims no one has ever cared for him as deeply as I, and he couldn’t stand the thought of losing me. So what do we do? A few days of no drinking here, an AA meeting there…and right back to the bottle faster than I can even process.
It’s now 333am on Christmas. He ruined Christmas Eve by coming home this afternoon drunk. Denied it left and right. Swore he was just sad from a funeral he had been to. It wasn’t until we drove to church I realized how drunk he really was. When I told him not to come in with us, to leave, he yelled to my son all the things he got him for Christmas (knowing this was a hard year for me as it is prob my last “Santa” year). Later, while I was at my parents holiday party, he called belligerent saying if I tried to hold him back from seeing our son on Christmas there’d be problems. So I was forced to leave my parents early to go back home to his drunkenness.
I’m lost. All of me wants it to be over, while all of me wants to stay. I hate him, I love him. I’m so jealous of every other relationship I see, because the people in it seem so much happier. I’ve BEGGED God for answers/guidance…but His silence confuses me more 🙁
My husband of 3 years left me because he chose beer over our marriage. He completely bailed on me, leaving me with all the bills. He never had the courage to tell me to my face he was leaving. He just grabbed all of his stuff while I was at work. I’m now blocked from his FB, his email, and his phone. At 43 years old, he’s living in his parents’ basement. And he’s going to the bar every day.
There had been two attempts at sobriety on his part, both times initiated by him because, after our first six months of marriage together, it had become obvious that he was an alcoholic. He had hidden it well while we were dating. Both times he made the decision to drink again because he swore he could become a “normal” social drinker. Yeah, I’m sure you all know how that ended.
I made all the mistakes in the book like pleading, nagging, threatening, bargaining, crying, and trying to “fix” everything. I compromised and humiliated myself in the process. I knew in my heart the relationship was doomed, but he was a loving and funny and amazing man while sober, so I told myself those moments were worth the pain. And I told myself the biggest lie of all when he was drinking: at least I got a man, and I’m not alone.
Al-Anon has been the biggest blessing to me. I’m now much more confident about myself, and I worry less and less about things that used to eat me up inside. I now understand that I can only change or fix me. And I’m worth it.
My husband cant go past four months and then he breaks down get his mikes hard lemonade drinks and drives u til its all gone wont anser his cell when i call twenty times.when he does come home he calls me bad names and wont pay mortg light bill.he just blows his pay day and expects me to get money from payday loan.he says he wants help but never goes to get help.should i just leave after five years of marriage and lose everything.
I have been married for close to 15 years my husband is always been a big partier but also a responsible person hold a job down helps pay the bills . We have three kids together and his drinking has been an issue multiple times throughout our marriage . In the beginning of our marriage it was hard to tell who would come out when he drank too much sometimes he would be the funny fun guy that everybody liked and sometimes he would just be a complete jerk never physical but just mean . We’ve had several arguments over the years and he’s always said he’s going to stop drinking or slow down or I’m too uptight maybe I need to start having fun . I’ve always noticed when he has one drink it never stops there he can’t stop drinking once he has one . He’s in a high stress job as a police officer and I get that but with three kids in the house I feel like it’s important for them to have a good role model. He will drink so much at night on a random weeknight that he’s falling asleep in his chair doesn’t help with the kids the kids think he’s just tired from work he says dumb things that don’t make any sense and the kids just kind a laugh I think they’re a little young to understand what’s going on but when I see it I actually just get upset . I’ve told him it bothers me when he drinks so much I told him I don’t understand how you can sit by yourself at night and we go to bed and drink all night until you pass out . And he always says he needs to be healthier and to stop drinking so much and watch what he eats . Now he’s older he’s now on blood pressure medicine he’s on and I depressants and yet none of that has been a wake up call for him . He’s a high functioning alcoholic finally last night he admitted to me that once he starts to drink he can’t stop and that it worries him because he’s really made an attempt at least the last few days to stop drinking . He sets these random limits of I’m only going to have one drink and I know that never stays it always turns into just one more just one more Intel a bottle wine or two are gone . He told me just today that our family is more important to him then drinking and that his health is more important and he wants to see his kids grow up and he wants to stop drinking and he’s worried . I’d like to say I’m excited but I’ve heard this before and as I expected while he was at work he called me to talk about his health . And now it’s changed from maybe I won’t drink anymore to maybe I’ll just drink at social settings like when we’re out at a party or something and I’ll limit it . To me that’s just a way for him to negotiate a way to continue to drink . I’m not at a point where I want to say it’s over or you need to make a decision between your family and alcohol because he’s not a bad person he just has an addiction that he needs to own and to get help but I’m at the point where I just don’t feel like there’s anything else I can do or say or write letters to him about or cry about or lecture or anything anymore he has to want to do this on his own . I always worry that I’m going to have to tell my kids that he had a heart attack because he decided to choose his lifestyle over us . I had a mom who deals with stress by drinking wine lots of it growing up his dad while not in the picture why he was younger is a severe alcoholic it runs in the family’s and I worry about my kids I can’t listen to any more negotiating or promises or I need your help then when I tried to help and point out hey you said you weren’t going to drink anymore I get a nasty look and a wire you nagging me . He’s always in a state of justifying why he drinks so much and the next morning he’s always depressed about his weight about how he feels about I can’t believe I drink so much it baffles me how he doesn’t see how this is affecting everything . I’m at a loss for what to do now I don’t want to take his promise and just blow it off I want to be able to help him but it is exhausting on my end to try and continue to support and help when he’s not helping himself . How many times do you say it’s OK you can try again . He does not help me around the house he does not help me with the kids I feel like I’m responsible for everything in this house and it’s starting to catch up I want him to see what a good life he has and what a good person he is but I can’t force that . The whole situation depresses me I don’t even know where to go or what to do . So his latest promise I am holding onto Falls hope you had again that maybe he’ll stick to it and yet I know in a matter of weeks will be right back to where we were at . It’s just depressing I can’t talk to my family about it because they’re so judge mental I have nowhere to go I’m embarrassed to talk to my friends and I’m trying like hell to protect my kids from seeing their father who is a good person and loves him not be able to get a handle on something . God pray for me
I’m a recovering alcoholic 10 years sober. I met my SO when I was a teen. We both drank. That’s what kids do. I went w him for a few years. Till I met my husband I married went seperate ways. He married. Didn’t see each other for @30 yrs. my husband was an alcoholic and abusive. I started drinking heavily had a DWI but quit eventually. I got divorced moved out- went out with a guy for 4 yrs. then found he’d been cheating on me for like a whole year and lied to me. We weren’t married. He lived w me. He wasn’t much of a drinker. I remained sober. Even when I found out. He was a cheat. I wanted to die instead but at least I didn’t drink. My next bo of 3 yrs was more of a disaster . He drank beer whiskey moonshine took pills line Oxywas not mean but seemed to always flirt with other women inviting women to meet etc. Told me I was a jealous nut. Had to sit in a bar that’s only place he ever took me out. Lived w him a few times my house of course. Felt used. Felt hurt and not worthy of even that loser as he’d rather be with other women. Still didn’t drink. Probably should have. If anyone ever went through what I did with him they would. Now I’m with my ex-bo from my teen years, he’s great except one thing– he’s a drunk, worse than the last idiot. Worse than husband. He says he wants to quit. I said I’d help. But he won’t even look at my AA book or try. Now he’s canceling things like spending one hour with my family on thanksgiving. Using excuses. Like he’s sick the dog is sick etc n he’s home drinking watching football w his buddies. I’m a strong person to stay sober he’s not going to ruin it either. I love him dearly. But can’t stand how alcoholics put booze first
I can’t trust my husband anymore. I still love him but am afraid I may be to the point I hate him equally. He lies a the time. We can’t go out socially any more and have no friends. He can’t just have a couple drinks. I am tired of my friends having to help me drag him.to the car because he is so hammered he can barely stand.We have a young son and my husband wants little to do with either of us. He comes home eats, stares at his phone for an hour then locks himself away.for the night. He is very selfish. This isn’t what I wanted out of life or a family. I don’t want to waste my life and it all seems hopless.
Hello. I am not 100% sure my husband has a problem…..or maybe that is part of the problem. I don’t know. Anyways he has been drinking a lot lately in our garage alone, I have been keeping track. He has about 6-9 sometimes 10 beers a night. I don’t mean Fridays or Saturday I mean on a Tuesday. I am worried that this is the start and wondering how many others encountered this situation? We use to drink and party….a lot, together however since we got married and had our daughter I find that I just don’t want to anymore. He doesn’t seem to have lost the desire. He even drinks when he is suppose to be in charge of our daughter but thinks it’s okay because she is sleeping….any advise? Does anyone think I’m being to hard on him or is this the. Beginning of an issue?
I go back and forth between so many different emotions. I feel alone, angry, sad, grateful, all in the same day. I have a wonderful husband who tries constantly to make me happy. He waits on me and plans for every way possible to make my day better. He just can’t stop drinking! He is killing himself and I am watching. He is my husband in the morning, and drunk and annoying in the afternoon. He is very ill. I can’t stand the idea of leaving him, because I know he will become a pitiful falling down drunk all alone. I am a nurse and I deal with alcoholics in my work. There families have left them. He has no one else but me. He has cut all ties with his severely fucked up family. He will not seek counseling because he is afraid they will tell him he is bad (which is what has been pounded into his brain for his whole life). When I get frustrated and mad at him, I shame him more, which reinforces the bad feelings and need to drink. I know I need to let him hit his own bottom again (He quit once for 9 months), but it is so hard to just let him drink and be around him like that. We have no children, so it is just us two. I laugh at myself for saying “Let him drink”, because it is not up to me. I need to Love him, and accept his LOVE. I need to learn to be happy in my life, regardless of where he is. I can do this! WWJD? I ask myself, what would my Mother do. She has passed, but she always gave unconditional LOVE, in spite of ANYTHING her children did. I can do that for John. He certainly needs it.
My husband’s drinks and drinks now he lies all the time I can’t trust nothing he says cause he lie so much look you dead in the face and lie I tell him I’m leaving him I’m done and he’s like whatever you love me so you not gonna do nothing i put him out and he makes like he’s going for good but he comes back later that day .
I’m married to a highly functioning alcoholic. We dated for two and a half years and then got married. I knew he had drinking problems but he always swore he didn’t and tell me he’d stop drinking so much. We both have a child from previous marriages/relationships and now have two children together. We moved from Wisconsin to Florida. I’m so alone down here. He drinks from the moment he gets home from work until he goes to bed. He doesn’t care how it affects any of us because he’s told me it doesn’t affect anyone. He gets extremely angry with me if I try to bring it up at all. He’s had three DUIs in WI and had to go to jail the last time for 3 months. He has hit me three times but that was in the beginning of our relationship, he also used to kick me out all the time. I have no where else to go. He doesn’t hit me or kick me out anymore but tells me to leave if I don’t like how things are. He won’t have adult conversations with me about anything. I’m great fun for all he has done for me, has a highly paid job to take care of us monetarily, help me pay to get my GED, drivers license, car, and corrective surgery to fix my stomach. I feel like I’m being paid off to deal with the drinking though…even though I have a car now, I need money for gas, which means getting a job. Now I have no problem getting a job and working hard to help pay for bills, but this means letting my husband take care of the kids while I’m gone. Every time he takes care of the kids while I try to do something, I come back to him plastered. The kids are young and don’t know but it’s really started to affect them. My husband will scream at them if they act up or he’ll just basically ignore them. He won’t help with potty training or enforcing bedtime, with bathing or cleaning up. He doesn’t do anything productive with them, just turns the tv on for them and sits on the computer or sits outside smoking cigarettes. I feel it’s dangerous to leave the children with him but I’m not going to have much of a choice if I want to save money and try to leave. I have no friends or family to take care of the kids and obviously can’t afford childcare. My family in Wisconsin don’t really seem to care enough to help me at all. They haven’t visited since I moved down here except for one weekend. I’ve lived here over three years now… My family and friends don’t even talk to me anymore. I’ve sacrificed everything for this man and I feel it’s just been thrown back in my face. He’s always telling me how lazy and wrong of a person I am….I’ve kind of given up. I still take care of my kids but I’m depressed and alone, I want to just curl up in a ball and die. I don’t have anyone there for me. I just wanted to complete my goals/dreams of getting a job and going to college, just being happy with myself and enjoying my family. I’m starting to become the nonfunctional person because I don’t know how to cope or do anything anymore….
I think we all have a problem with co-dependancy. My boyfriend is also an alcoholic. He moved in a year ago. I’m at a crossroads, try to help or give him 30 days. Ive never in my life been through as much verbal abuse as this man can dish out. I have become emotionally numb. He too has a problem with beer, not wanting to quit, once he starts. Dr. Phil says, you teach people how to treat you. Im a Christian, but truly we need to love ourselves more and say, you are not going to act like this and treat me like this. I believe adversity makes you stronger. I also believe God wants his children to be happy. I believe a support group will help. I pray everyday, things wil l get better. They have somewhat, until he picks up a six pack. Best wishes everyone, there is power in numbers and faith in our God above.
my husband drinks, sometimes he goes for days and then he will pull a drunk,
I feel as though its my fault because I have gained weight since we first was married,
he lies when he drinks, I find empty beer cans under the sofa or dresser, my father drunk for the first 28 years of my life, and he stopped, he was an ugly drunk, my husband is not but why cant he stop drinking he says , he always says he will stop but never does,i feel alone and unloved ,not happy with life,what is wrong with me.
My husband has no control when he drinks once he starts he can’t stop, we’ve been through so much together he’s a good provider and loves me and the kids but drinking is ruining our relationship. It’s come to the point that when I see him start to drink beer or liquor I’m afraid because I know how things will end. Frankly I’m tired of it but I want to save my marriage. Help
My partner is a functioning alcoholic and he doesnt even know it. When he is confronted with it he just shrugs it off or says that it isn’t, I’m overly embarrassed to take him anywhere when he’s drinking, he loves going for rides and I do take him majority of the time
Why can he just not stop. I did when we got together
A few times he got so drunk he pissed the bed, he often becomes violent but tells me that I’m being a sensitive princess and that I’m making it up. He drinks Friday night after work right up until 11pm Saturday. & then on the Sunday expects me to wait on him hand and foot
I’m living with my fiancee. We been engaged over a year now and dated longer before that. He wakes quite earlier then I do. But if I’m up at 8am he is already drinking beer. He says he was up early had coffee way before I woke up. He claims he has coffee at 4 and I have cought him drinking beer by 7am now once he starts he drinks til going to bed. If we go anywhere he takes his supply of beer. Evening along with beer he will have jello shots or mixed drinks or shots of ever clear till he passes out. Now he says he can go weeks without any alcohol but that’s only when there isn’t any way to get any beer. He buys atleast 2 thirty packs a week. His brother who we spend time with will go through 4 30 pack aweek. So guess where we go if boyfriend is out of beer. He loves to go to his brothers because they often have jello shots. I have asked him to cut back quit. Gets very mad threatens to break up runs to his brothers. He doesn’t drive been told because the meds he is on for pain which I understand. Sweet man loving but sex is slim to none. I love him dearly But this is grating on me. He is never mean just silly hard to talk to. Thinks you said something you never did. Forgets things that happen. Beer goes with him no matter what riding in the car. And he loves go to get groceries has to make sure he is incharge of what we get so we have enough for his beer And cigs. Yes we do eat good he cooks very good at it so I let him. But in the store he gets silly. He calls it joking with the meat counter guys. I call it silly old annoying same thing every time just loader later in the day so I try to get us there in the morning. Oh I have told him He embarrasses me just hurt his feeling for a day then back at it. Well part of me wants bad to marry him because I love him and he is good to me. Evenings and nights I get to think is this what I want?
I dated a high functioning alcoholic for a year and a half, on and off. I am 26, she is 42. She is a very successful saleswoman and provides well for herself and her daughter. In the beginning we would go out to casinos every weekend, I never had so much fun with someone. We would drink, constantly but it was the beginning of a new relationship, we were enjoying it so I thought nothing of it. As time went on, I noticed she would pass out on the floor in different areas of her house. She would get NASTY sometimes when unprovoked. I would even meet her at a bar, drive her home in her car as she was passed out, and sure enough in the coffee mug in the drinkholder was the smell of wine. I have no proof but I am convinced she cheated on me. That doesn’t hurt. What did hurt was watching a woman I love slowly destroy herself every night. I didn’t dare try to talk about it with her after the first time, I walked on eggshells for weeks afterwards. We were judged a lot for our age difference, we did not care though. I want to be with her so bad it kills me, but I know she is not going to stop drinking.
I fear her daughter who I became very close with will pick up this habit when she gets older. My ex almost convinces me that she doesn’t have a problem, if she is so convincing to me, does she honestly not realize it herself? I want to go back to what became my family so bad, but no I can’t because the tape will replay. It kills me.
My husband is a functioning alcoholic. He drinks every day to the point where he cant walk and has to crawl around on the floor. We have been married for 3 years and have a 2 year old son together. I hate that my son sees him like that. He always wants to argue and make me feel like everything is my fault. I have given him and ultimatum several times its either the alcohol or our son and I. He slows down for a bit, but never completely quits. It is very hard for me to work a full time job and basically raise our son alone. I have threatened to leave if he doesn’t change but he wants to take the vehicle from me, among other things. I don’t like being in the same room as him, and our son doesn’t like to be around him. I have major depressive disorder and anxiety, and I am medicated. But still don’t want to be around him or listen to his bullshit. Excuse the language. I just don’t know what to do anymore. I’m watching him slowly kill himself every day and I am so exhausted.
What do you do if the start of your incredible, romantic, crazy romance was all based around alcohol. All those amazing things that are said at the beginning when you’re so naive and you don’t realise the person you are falling for is an alcoholic and all those ‘sincere’ and completely meaningful things they say about you, that make you feel like the goddess you always wanted to feel we’re just them in their buzzing and pissed up state.
It’s been 3 years on. I feel like an enabler. I am an enabler. I grew up in with an alcoholic sister and I know – textbook – everything to do with addiction, this potential hereditary disease that controls one mind and they’ll only stop if THEY want to stop – AA saved her life and thank god for that. They say we seek out and look for the same people in our lives. So I met an alcoholic. A seriously hot one too. I never was able to fix my sister, and like hell I wish I could have. I saw her pain and her self destruction so up close it still gives me shivers today, and what’s arguably worse is how useless I felt. When I met him I thought: oh hello here we go, I can’t act clever because I’ve been through it all and I can help him, fix him… maybe even save him. What a power trip I was on.
I’m fucking stupid. These days I drink so much just to keep up with him. Just to get along with him. Although I’m in so much disgrace with myself I’ve found I am drinking for all the wrong reasons myself and getting upset and lashing out when I’m drunk, because it’s not where I wanted to be. I love him. But perhaps if he sobered up he wouldn’t even sincerely love me like he says he does. Sometimes I want him to drink because it’s the person I now know and who I apparently fell in love with. He only tells me how he feels about anything when he’s drunk. I only know his opinions on me when he’s drunk, pretty much. If sober, he’s so grumpy and hates the world.
I’ve tried everything. For 3 years I genuinely have. From tough love to deep compassion, from encouraging AA to encouraging he takes his own path, to drinking with him and not telling him what to do, to being so drunk myself I manipulatively force him to look after me and make him taste his own medicine.
This is hell. I love him so much. But he loves alcohol more. And alcohol will always come first. I’m just the third wheel.
I had a first date with the man I’ve been seeing a year ago. He admitted to drinking
A bit but I don’t drink at all so it wasn’t a red flag. The 2nd date he basically stood
Me up. I didn’t hear from him for a few months and he asked to go out again. I did and he
Said he had a problem with drinking beer but that it was handled. I knew that was a red flag
Because I’d been around the AA rooms. Over the course of a year we dated erratically. I had
A tough year and never really met anyone else romantically. The last time this man and I
Had a date he admitted to crashing his car and getting into two bar fights. His face was when
Swollen and he gained at least 30lbs this year. It’s strange to be attracted to an alcoholic
Especially as I’m sober for almost 20 years. I hope I have the courage to stop seeing him
I have broken up with my boyfriend of 2.5 years about four times this past month. I’m 27 and he is 29
The first time was because he went on a binge drinking for three days, and cheated on me with a stranger one of those days. He says they didn’t have sex, but I’m still scared about it… He has been badly drunk about once or twice every week since that time.
My thought process is very bizarre. I know I don’t need him in my life. I can support myself alone and I also have family and friends that support me when Im down. I know that his drinking is ruining my life. I know I cant trust him anymore, that all he does is lie to me, that I can’t live this way anymore.
So technically I should be able to just leave him….
However, I feel that he needs me to get better. I feel that I love him and that I care about him so much to see him take his life away through the drinking. I feel he is depressed and that me leaving him is just going to make it worse for him and harder for him to get better.
Everytime I have broken up with him I get really depressed and scared about his life. He goes on a bimge drinking andI end up getting back with him a few days after because I convince myself that if I stick around a bit longer, he will get better. And he always begs me to stay and tells me that he needs me and that he will get better and he will go to treatment. But he hasn’t, he is drunk right now. It’s been months of this back and forth in my mind. I feel so terrible. I wish this was just a dream and not reality. Please God help us all.
My boyfriend is an alcoholic on the weekends he drinks from the moment he gets up until he passes out he won’t eat and lies saying he has but I think it’s just so he can keep drinking if he runs out of beer he will go to the bar I always have to be babysitting which he embarrasses me sometomes because he can be a mean idiotic drunk. I’ve been with him on and off for 15 years we’ve lived together for 2. When I’ve brought it up to him he says he will slow down he did stop for whole month but was so different wouldn’t talk or do anything no sex drive just moody. I just hate when he gets to the point that he’s verbally abusive I know he needs counseling he’s supposed to take classes for his DUI he got earlier this year hoping that helps a little..
well i don’t see the point in a long detailed story. My boyfriend of 1 year is an Alcoholic, his drink of choose is a pint of vodka which he drinking straight out of the bottle like it’s water. it’s very hard to watch. I guess I want to know what is wrong with me? I know by now he will never stop, that I will never be number 1 in his life, his vodka is loved by him more than his 2 little girls. Over the past few months things have gonna bad. we lost our home because I was the only one working, he started drinking the pints and pints of vodka. He says he has “blackouts” and he will treat me so badly but be nice to anyone else. he has taken to calling me fucking bitch, he has punched holes in the walls of our new place and calling me names the whole time, he will start putting me down saying things i don’t even want to repeat. he told me yesterday that he will stop drinking on monday but he wont, you know. he just won’t. I just cannot believe any more that this person is able to really love anything. the most passion i see from him is giving to his drinking friends.
I am so hurt and so lonely and depressed. I feel so bad about myself. i try so hard to talk to him but after last night i dont even want to try anymore. his 2 girls live in the house too. I dont knoow how to make this awful feeling i have inside to go away. this whole year he has done so many hurtful things to me and he never changes. It hurts to feel like this over a person who makes you feel like nothing but a replaceable body from the girl before.
Same here . I’m a few weeks pregnant and I really should’ve thought this through. My b.f and I have been together for three years. He has been in and out of jail for DUI and domestic abuse. I keep thinking things will change but I live a lifestyle where I need to hide my things including my money and car keys because he gets aggressive when he drinks. He has been to drug testing, meetings, jail rehabilitation ect. U name it but once he’s done with his sessions he goes about the drinking again. I don’t think he will ever change honestly because he even admits he has had an alcohol problem since 15 and he is now 26. He needs help. But I don’t think he wants any.
I’m in the same predicament. My boyfriend of 3.5 years is a drinker and nothing seems to want to make him stop. The police have been called numerous times because of the arguments. He is the most kind, lovely, loyal man but as soon as he has a drink, he is calling me (and my family) all the nasty names under the sun.
Supportive love won’t work, tough love won’t work. He is depressed and can’t find the motivation to change, so he drinks which sucks the motivation out of him in the first place. It’s the viscous cycle again which so many of you have talked about.
We’ve always wanted kids together, and we’ve talked about marriage but the drinking causes constant arguments, and it’s chipping away at our relationship.
I’m currently at my Mum’s because I can’t take it anymore. I just don’t know what to do, I love him so much. It’s killing me to see him like this 🙁
Six years ago my husband of now 13 years (together 7 more on top of that) began drinking more than usual after we moved to our new home. I realize it was sparked by stress but it has continued and worsened not gotten better. He drinks at night after work, at home, is not unkind and usually ends up drinking himself to sleep. Our kids don’t often notice because he has been this way so long and he just seems to be silly dad. He drags himself up to tuck them in but then crashes on the couch again after. I am the one it primarily effects. I don’t feel like I can have a real conversation because hes drunk. Or I have no conversation because he’s asleep. I’m alone a lot and lonely. I haven’t talked to anyone because I don’t feel that locally it would stay anonymous. I don’t want to leave. I love him, I love our family life. He’s my best friend. He doesn’t think he has a problem. After all it’s just me it effects. I just don’t want to feel so alone anymore.
We drank together when we first met, I grew out of it, and it seemed like he did too. We got married, had 2 children. Then the alcoholic came back. There were nights I didn’t know where he was, I would drive around looking for him. Then the last day of school for my Kindergarten and 1st grader. He took the kids and their grandpa fishing. He got pulled over and was arrested in another town for DUI. SLOWLY he started to pull it together. Attended an outpatient recovery program, 2 of them. He quit drinking and refused to admit he was an alcoholic. On his one year sobriety date I was diagnosed with Breast Cancer. I went through treatment, radiation and surgery. WE WENT THROUGH, TOGETHER
I dont know what to do. I have been dating my boyfriend 1 year and i love him so much. He is perfect; except his drinking. Its starting to bother me more and more. He knows it bothers me. We are on different schedules and he works the 3 to midnight shift. By the time he gets off work, I am sleeping and he goes to the bar. For awhile i was asking him to not go but then i didnt want him to resent me so i asked him to respect me and go home by 2am and not be drunk. He’d stay out till 6 am sometimes! I have no idea if hes lying to me about what time he goes home. The bar closes at 3 and i got a text last night at 330 of him walking his dog. So i found myself here, worried. Am i crazy? Im past the drinking stage. I dont like having more than 1 and that is not everyday. Sometimes if our schedule allows it, where he randomly works a day shift, we will meet after work. Grab dinner and a drink. After our night ends at like 8, im thinking he must be tired and will go home, but he always goes out after. That hurts me too. It makes me feel like his day wasnt complete after seeing me. I feel like im not fun enough because he has to go out and drink after. I feel lile he isnt happy with me because he goes to the bar everynight. Im sorry, going out is fun when you are single and you want to meet someone, but why do you have to constantly do it when you are happy in a relationship. Is he not happy? I do think one day he wont want to hang out with me anymore because i feel like i am a drag to him when i mention anything about drinking too much, or our future. I hate it because he is my everything and so perfect but if his drinking doesnt get under control i will have to end it. I have to stay strong because i dont want to marry into this. It’s my deal breaker.
He says his frnds are high functioning alcoholics, well he is too if you ask me. Alcoholism does run jn his family too. I wish i could help him. Is there any advice you guys have? I really hate to see my relationship end over this.
Lynne,
I am in the same boat as you. Not engaged and able to run. I don’t know what to do.
I have been married for 14 yrs to a man who binge drinks. It scary how much he drinks. He not only drinks he smokes pot. Thursdays he drinks 6 to 7 drinks starting while our child has a friend over for a playdate, keep in mind both children are 5. Then comes Friday night and let the real drinking begin. Every weekend he drinks a full flat of bear and a 2-6 vodka. I have left him once the year. Not sure what to do
I have been with my husband for nearly three years. I have provided everything for our family. I have two children with a previous marriage and we have a 6 month old daughter together. When I met my husband I didn’t think anything about him being an alcoholic. I really didn’t even understand the term. I still have a hard time understanding it even though I see it in him every day. I have no family history of it and I can drink a lot and not even feel anything. My husband on the other hand can drink three 25 oz beers and already be slurring his words. We fight a lot because he can’t control himself. He neglets our daughter and me because of it. We don’t have a love life anymore. He passes out regularly. He lies so much now I am not sure he can tell the truth. He can’t keep a job and I have had to pay our way most of our relationship. He has talked to other women since we have been together because of this issue as well. I don’t know what to do anymore. I’m fed up. I’m about at that point that I just want out of our relationship. I do know alcolism is a sickness and can’t be cured overnight. But if he doesn’t quit soon then I can’t keep this up. I have to worry about what’s best for the kids and me. I do love him and I know he loves me and he has a problem. I’m just so very unhappy and stressed out constantly.
My man and I have been together for almost 3 years, we met when I started working at a bar. It was his local “after work drinking spot’. He would always come in when I was working, and we hit it off. It took him 4 months to work up the courage to ask me out and he took me out to a football game.
I fell for him instantly, and knew I wanted this tall, gorgeous man to be my person. He made me laugh and we challenged each others conversation, We became best friends.
The thing is, I knew he was a drinker and I always felt he had it under control, we both liked drinking a lot. It took a year, I noticed he wouldn’t have a day off of drinking and started lying about where he was.
We would have a date set up and he would forget because he was drinking so much somewhere else. He even got so drunk he passed out and left me alone at the bar when we were supposed to be celebrating my birthday.
This actually became a regular thing. He was always late. He had to leave work and go to the bar first. No matter if he was already late or had a previous commitment. He would just end up pushing everything off. It was his weakness.
We talked about it, of course he promised he would slow down. Made rules for himself, said he would stop doing shots. Then it was I will stop going and drinking for my lunch break. He would be able to do this for only two days. After that he was back to normal taking shots of jagar and enough Guinness that he wouldn’t even have dinner.
I realized how much he was at the bar and found out he didnt eat breakfast or lunch. He would have 4 drinks at lunch then when he finished work he would drink more. He would drink so much he would stumble home and pass out.
He had back problems and would use it as an aid to sleep. He quoted “its the only way I can sleep all night without being waked up by pain.” Of course that means he doesnt make love to me when he comes home. Im waiting for him to finally get home from the bar and doesnt even hang out with me.
His apartment has not been cleaned properly in 15 years. First because he never was taught. I guess his mother assumed he would find a wife and she would take care of the household. Her son is an alcoholic that cant take care of his living space. Second he gets anxiety about how dirty it is and then leaves to go to the bar to ignore it.
He physically grabbed my arm for the first time in anger and even pushed me against his apartment wall so hard I hit my head. I had bruises for 5 days and was sore. When I brought it up, He said “deal with it.” My man is sweet and caring and loves hugs. This is not my man.
We never lived together but I packed my stuff up from his apartment and I left 5 days ago, I contacted a doctor and sent the information to my man. I dont know if this is right but I gave him an ultimatum. Drinking or me. I let him know i love him everyday. I just wont be with him until he makes his choice. Maybe ill have to let him go. Now I am not sure what I am more scared of. A black eye or worse… or losing my best friend and not being able to help him.
I read these comments and it breaks my heart to know there are so many people suffering much like me. I am currently sitting in a hotel and my “boyfriend” is at the bar getting plastered. Its like I may as well be invisible. He gets. Upset if I. Not sitting near him but never notices when i walk away. Its his birthday today but does that mean he gets a pass to be an asshole to me and treat me as though i dont exist? Its so sad. I feel so alone like why am i here with someone who could care less if i was here or not? I want to just drive off snd leave him here and move on with my life because thus is bullshit. I deserve someone who wants to be near me, and so does everyone else out there dealing with an alcoholic. Its plain to see nothing matters but the drink and thats it. I pray to God to remove me from this situation and bring me better love but I know moving on is completely up to me. Why? Why do I continue to take this? I dont know. I need help breAking away from this situation.
I loved a man deeply for 25 years…we had a good life for a long time which he’s always battled alcoholism…one day he started drinking heavy and never looked back until our marriage was completely destroyed…we divorced…he moved out and we don’t see each other no more…it’s for the best…
My boyfriend and I have been together for 3 years. He is 21 and I am 19. He has always been a social drinker, and we actually met when we were both drinking at a friends party. I am also a social drinker, but don’t feel I NEED to drink anytime my friends are, I have no problem being the DD when we go out.
When we first started dating, he would ONLY drink on the weekends. Friday OR Saturday night, but not often both days.
Him and his friends now drink every single weekend, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. They are all the types of people who will drink until they are absolutely smashed, and egg each other on to drink more. Him and his friends all work hard labour jobs Monday to Friday, but also now drink throughout the week after work.
Before going to the bar, he will often drink an entire 40L bottle of Crown Royal and then spend $60-80 more at the bar on drinks, getting a beer and a double crown and coke drink each time.
His job requires him to work long hours all summer, spring and fall, but to be unemployed for the winters. This winter was specifically tough for him, he lost his grandmother in January and was extremely close with her.
Ever since his grandma had passed, I realized his drinking has been increasing, A LOT. He used to be a huge gym rat and would workout daily. This winter, he gained about 40 pounds and has stopped going to the gym. Now, whenever I ask to go, he says he’s too tired or instead would rather go out and have drinks at a pub or restaurant.
He chooses drinking over a lot of things now.
Being unemployed, he obviously didn’t have as much money as he had while he was working, yet still ALWAYS had money for the bar.
Now that he’s back to work, he owes his mom, his dad and I hundreds of dollars, but chooses to spend his money on booze and going out, then paying us back.
It has gotten so bad that his mom had to ask another family member for rent money because she couldn’t afford to pay her rent without the money my boyfriend owes her.
I’m really worried about him, and every time I try to talk to him about this drinking situation, he laughs at me and think’s I’m over exaggerating or making things up.
It’s gotten to the point where I’m embarrassed to be out with him, I don’t like who he is anymore, but obviously still love him.
I don’t know what to do, or how to address the situation to him without jumping down his throat calling him an alcoholic.
I don’t know how to make him realize that he has a problem.
I need help.
HE needs help.
wow I can’t believe all the comments. I have learned after many years that we cannot make them stop. They promise to cut back and they might once or twice by a couple of beers but the end result is the same. I have spent countless nights crying and stressed and it starts from the minute I hear the clang of those damn bottles. I hate it. the highlight of my night is when he passes out and hopefully without an argument. I see it as a problem and he doesn’t. it has ruined many events including family vacations and functions. I have tried everything from being supportive to counting the beers and nothing helps. He actually drinks more when he thinks I don’t know how many he has had. I can’t help him and he doesnt want help bad enough to change things. so we need to change our way of thinking. we need to find an outlet (and I don’t mean start drinking too). get a hobby, make plans with friends or family and let them sit home alone and drink. After all, it’s no longer a conscious choice if it’s an addiction. they have to want to stop…sometimes even hitting rock bottom doesn’t do it. so the way I see it is that WE *THE NON DRINKERS, need to find new coping mechanisms besides crying, arguing, begging. If you can’t take it anymore, leave. I have finally after all these years (and I mean lotsa years), make plans on the nights I know he’s gonna drink. my hair appointments to pedicures to meeting a friend for a long overdue dinner. that way, I’m staying busy and happy. he’s staying happy too. it’s obviously not the best case scenario but way better than what it used to be.
I met my now fiance when I was 22 years old. I was a senior in college, had three jobs and a twice-a-week internship. He was 26, had a great job, handsome, tall and was extremely genuine — and he made me laugh. He loved to go to happy hour on Thursdays and out drinking almost every weekend — didn’t seem out of the ordinary — I was the only person I knew, my age, working almost 40 hours a week and a full-time student.
His lifestyle seemed normal and fun. I enjoyed being able to let loose once or twice a week and go drinking/partying with him. I was a senior in college and it seemed so normal. It really wasn’t until I graduated from college, got a full-time management position right away, and we moved into an apartment together, that I noticed something wasn’t right.
I wrongly assumed that once we moved in together, both had great full-time jobs, that the partying would naturally slow down. It did for me! I was no longer interested in drinking nearly as much as he was. I started noticing that he not only drank at dinner when we went out to eat, but also every night with dinner — at that time around 3 or 4 beers. i still didn’t really notice an issue. He is the size of an NFL quarterback, so I thought that my occasional one beer was about equal to his occasional three or four.
I thought our weekend activities would change. They didn’t — not for a very long time — he still wanted to go out every weekend– he was still spending hundreds of dollars of his money on booze instead of saving or paying off his student loans. A functioning alcoholic to the tee. He was a true weekend warrior — he worked every week just so he could get to the weekend and party. He doesn’t know how to stop drinking once he’s started.
Fast-forward almost 3 years later — we are engaged and getting married in less than a month. I am scared. He has promised many times to slow down — and honestly since we first met he has — weekends at the club/bar are rare — but he still has a problem. I find empty nips in the trash and once a half-empty bottle in his car. He can go about 5-14 days max without a drink, but never longer. The lying is what hurts the most.
it’s very hard for me to understand this disease — I drank a lot for a while — but I grew out of it and stopped. I was simply done feeling sick and wanted to have productive weekends and days, rather than wasting them being drunk or hung over. Why claim that you ‘want’ to stop? Why claim that you are ‘trying’ to stop — but you don’t and can’t.
I am starting to wish I ran a long time ago. He told me he would be home from his work function (at a bar) 2.5 hours ago. His phone is off and I feel like a fool. This isn’t the first time this has happened — and today is my birthday. What the hell have I done?
I feel like a fool.
Well, I must be nuts. I hooked up with my ex — we just lost a really good friend to a drug overdose. I am so afraid I am going to lose him. I just pray that he will go into treatment as he says he will. I know I can’t do anything, other than be there for him, but it is hard to watch him make these choices.
My husband has a bad drinking problem. I pray he would stop. He is a good provider. We’ve been married 23 years and divorced 15, now back together. I love him and realized I didn’t want to be alone, but now I know why I divorced him. He would rather drink than be sober with me. He drinks and passes out! I hate it. I feel so alone. I wish he would stop.
I really don’t think it’s because they don’t love you. Addiction makes one selfish. I remember when I was using, I’d pick my addiction over everything and everyone. Then I felt guilty about it. And I used more. Used more, hurt more — a vicious cycle. It was an excuse to keep using.
The addict has to love themselves enough to quit drinking or using. They could have every ounce of love for you and the world, but at the end of the day it’s their choice. It’s a very unhealthy way to guilt an addict into quitting. It will never work. Besides, if you can’t love yourself, you could never love anyone else either.
I have been with the love of my life for 2.5 years. We currently have a 15-month-old son and I have a 6-year-old from a previous relationship. I am 29 years old and the very first day I met him he was covered in the smell of an alcoholic. I knew the signs and ignored them, until later that night I called him out and said he was an alcoholic. I did not make it any better, because I ordered a drink for myself.
He has been battling alcoholism for a long time. Both his grandfather and father fought off the disease. The nights we seem to have are like battle zones. We moved in together and for what. He hasn’t helped me with any of the bills, because of his drinking. I have woken up to find him missing. He has stolen from me and our kids. Our sex life is non existent. I have to wake up early to work and it’s very stressful, and I come home and literally do the most. He doesn’t go grocery shopping, so I have chosen to leave him. He has even keyed my car when I finally did throw him out. We have fought and it’s just not good for the kids. I told him if he can’t pay for the damages and then agree to get counseling, we will never be together again.
I am so grateful to hear these stories. I love him, I do — but some way or another I have become exhausted, as if I am the one who is drinking and ruining my life. I stop by occasionally at his job to remind him of what is waiting for him, but I can’t live with him. He needs to feel for me the way he feels for alcohol, the way I feel for him. We are a family and I will continue to love and support him, just not highlighting his negatives and try to be a lil more loving. I guess I could of been more loving if he just was more responsible. Hope our situation gets better, because all these stories are super similar.
Not married. I dated my childhood crush for 6.5 years. I have known him for 25 years. We had a child together. He lived in Texas.
I knew he was a drinker before he moved out to California to be with me. His choice, not mine. I have a child from a previous relationship. When he first moved here, my oldest daughter would go with her dad and we would go party. Not knowing he was a heavy drinker and a not-so-nice drunk. He did not know his limit. He would drink and drink and drink. He is not a functional drunk by any means. After a few huge fights, I stopped going out and drinking with him.
When he first moved out here, he lived with his mom for well over a year before I allowed him to move in with me, because he was not working. His drinking was so bad he would pass out in the bathroom, living room, drive way, car, and even the dirt lot next to the house. He would have no control over his functions. Within a year of living here, he got a drunk in public.
In the 7 years here, he has 2 DUIs with a blood alcohol level of 3-to-4 times the legal limit, and a drunk in public. He is loud. He is annoying. We live in a small town so everyone knows of him or about him and his ways with drinking. 98% of the people just tolerate him. We are now broken-up and have been for 7 months.
It is so heart-breaking to sit back and watch the love of my life drink his life away. His dad is an alcoholic and lost everything (career as a marine, wife and kids). Out of 4 kids, he is the only one who followed in his dad’s foot steps and he is not even the youngest one. He is 30 and lives with his mom. He is always at a bar.
I have been dating my boyfriend for 4 months now. He drinks every day, stands me up, lies daily, argues, but can be very sweet and loving when he wants. The problem is I am almost 9 years in recovery from alcohol and drugs, but I am also 6 yrs older than he is and now I have kicked him out, and he is back at the homeless shelter. He doesn’t seem to care if he is homeless, and also no job. Now I am alone again, as I can’t live with someone who drinks every day. What a shame.
My husband and I have been married for 2-1/2 years. While we were dating, we’d have a couple of beers a couple of nights a week. Never really got drunk together. Never saw any red flags. He was affectionate, romantic, attentive. After we got married, we immediately moved out of state. Things went downhill fast.
It’s like he became a different person overnight. No longer did he feel the need to sit next to me at restaurants. Gone was the snuggling and the romance and the butterflies. I had a difficult time finding a job after we moved and it was a really difficult time for us. I got really depressed and we were broke, but he ALWAYS had beer. Regardless of how dire the situation was, he could afford that beer. He wasn’t supportive or understanding while I was looking for work. He just blamed me for all the stress in his life and for his drinking. He basically made it sound like my unemployment was his reason for drinking. Forget that I’m an absolute wreck!
4 months passed before I found a job. It’s a great job! I love it. We’ve moved to a better part of town into a nicer house. We’ve taken up camping and really enjoy doing that together. The problem is, he can’t go one night without a 6-pack or more. There have been a few times when he’s been passed out snoring and I attempted to wake him up to roll over and he’s started slapping or hitting me. When he “comes to,” he acts like I was attacking him and he has no idea what is happening. Aside from those 2-3 times, he’s not really a mean drunk, but those two or three times were horrible; threatening suicide, breaking his brand new iPhone, calling me every name in the book.
I’ve begged him to stop drinking. I’ve even started sleeping in the guest room on nights that he drinks, but he still would rather have beer. He has literally chosen beer over me 9 out of the past 11 nights. I’m concerned for his health and concerned because as much as I love him, I don’t really like him anymore. We’ve been planning this great outdoors weekend that kicks off in the morning, and I’m actually dreading it. My hair is literally falling out from the stress and anxiety caused by his drinking. We’re never intimate. He won’t have an adult conversation with me about anything.
No idea what to do, where I draw the line, how I get him to get help. I’ve tried everything I could think of. It doesn’t help when I’m super supportive and it doesn’t help when I go to bed at 7:30 to avoid being around him. Ugh. It’s so frustrating.
My husband and I both drink. Tonight is the third time in two weeks that I have barricaded myself in a room in our house or slept in a car to feel safe. My partner of 22 years, whom I love deeply, is poisoning this relationship and his behavior has me fearful for my safety.
After listening to an onslaught of vile words about my worth, my nothingness, my lack of contributions and warmth, I retaliated — repeatedly slammed a door and screamed at him like an animal. I then retreated with our dog to another part of the house. He followed soon after, kicking the door as I sat against it holding him off — afraid again. He stopped once he kicked the door in half. Splintered shards littered the stair landing.
Afterwards he stood at the bottom of the stairs reminding me that this was all my fault — my actions 12 years ago, when an attempt to find warmth and positive attention from men led to affairs. I came clean and we stayed together in what I thought was a second chance.
Ten years later he had his own affairs, the worst being a sordid, extensive relationship with a married woman. In our home they played house and documented all of their filth on film for me to later find. Two years and many counseling sessions later, I have forgiven his bad behavior and grown as a person.
The continued verbal abusiveness and physical threat is unforgivable. I drink to tolerate it and am an equal contributor in escalating fights. I must leave to salvage my self-worth and remove myself from risk.
I’ve been with my current partner for just over 2 years. When we first got together we used to party and go out drinking all the time. I fell into the same type of habits for a while, but then realised my body just can’t keep up. I now occasionally drink on weekends with him, which is stupid I know. I just feel alone and don’t know how to interact with him sometimes.
I’ve tried many ways to “fix him” by writing a letter, threatening to leave and stop nagging him about it. He’s highly functioning while on it and everyone enjoys his company except me. I can see through the drinking ways, I can see him hurting on the inside. But I just can’t get the courage to leave even through I know I need to.
He has been abusive twice before, but I had a firm word with him and he hasn’t done it again. He cracks it very easily and calls me names. Recently he had a week off from drinking and now he’s back into full swing, drinking 4-5 times a week. He’s been okay and not as nasty. But every time I notice a glass of wine in his hands it breaks my heart. I need to leave not just for him but for me. I just don’t know how to say goodbye to the love of my life
I met my boyfriend when I was 15 (I am currently 18). I feel pathetic and perhaps a little over dramatic and inexperienced writing on here.
Anyways, my mother and father are both alcoholics. My mother ran away from my father and he now lives alone and I’ve seen him for a day in the past five years. My mother still drinks — I believe, in fact, more excessively than my father. She currently lives with my little brother. I have completely lost her, and I know every single one of her tricks and I know immediately when she’s had a drink. Every day I think of my brother and how he is doing, as I didn’t cope with it at all. I’ve lived in three different family homes after leaving my mom and will never regret leaving when I did.
This brings in my boyfriend, the love of my life, my only love I’ve had. He literally brings the sun to me and no one has ever made me feel how he does. He is funny and clever, he showers me in love, and I couldn’t be more thankful. I believe I do a lot for him, but often I’m scared I’m no good for him. He started drinking and smoking at a young age, to be honest. He lost his dad (who was an alcoholic) at the age of nine and that clearly traumatised him.
I’ve had immense difficulties in seeing him. My family, whom I first lived with, banned me from seeing him completely (he didn’t even drink much at this point, but smoked). Anyways, that is past. Now I live happily with my grandparents.
After he had a gap year, this September he started a course, didn’t like it, so he moved to a college. However, he had a terrible accident two days later, meaning he couldn’t carry on his course, which included a lot of manual labour. He has had depression for the past 4 years, so 2 years before we got together. He currently self-harms a bit, and he is drinking a lot while being at home, but also he started his new anti-depressive medication about 2 weeks ago, which means he has much lower tolerance (and he isn’t meant to drink at all), which I thought was great at first but he is just getting worse, every occasion a drink is needed. He has bottles all over, hidden in his room, and he has started stealing drinks from my grandparents as well. I love him, I love him so much I can’t bring myself to get angry with him and I know he has to help himself.
I’ve suffered from depression myself. I’ve had an ED (which I believe is very similar to addiction, if not one itself) and I’ve grown up watching alcoholics drown their inner bodies. I could never leave him, so that is out of the question. I cannot tell his mother, as that would just make things worse, and I cannot tell my grandparents as they are terribly judgemental and would destroy his self-esteem even further.
I just no longer know what to do, other than completely unallow myself to drink which I rarely do, or to sacrifice our relationship by telling him how things are, but I’m low on money and if I have any it goes on drink for him. I really do understand more or less what he is going through. I just struggle to understand why he does not get tired of being sad and craving alcohol and why he doesn’t get tired of being sick, and tired of having to hide it all. And tonight I made a big decision that I will help him. I can’t fix him, which is what I often try and do, but I’ve found him three possible jobs. I’ve decided to not drink unless it’s a birthday of someone important and he isn’t present, and also decided that I will try and make our life more active.
I know I am young and know there is a very high chance that I won’t be with this guy for the rest of my life, but he’s done a lot for me and I now must repay for all he’s done.
I hope that all the people who are struggling with a close one feel as strong as I feel in whatever decision they make, but making no decision is making a decision itself. I hope that all the people who read this comment live much happier than they live now. Alcohol will not haunt me for the rest of my life, or those I love.
I just lost the love of my life to alcoholism. He died with end-stage cirrhosis of the liver and he died alone. His secretiveness permeated everything. He told no one that his cirrhosis was end-stage and we all thought he was going to get better. No one had the chance to say goodbye to him. He left 2 young daughters behind, as well as a bunch of us who loved him, feeling like we were just hit by a truck.
I was with him for 6 years and it was the best ride of my life for the first 4. I worked with him and saw him on the weekends, but we didn’t live together. I guess that was the perfect setting for an alcoholic to drink in secret. He’d always been a drinker, I knew that, but I never knew to what extent, because he hid it so well. He never got sloppy and never drank much when I was with him, but he was consistent.
Looking back, it’s hard to not beat myself up for not figuring it out in time to maybe help him. It’s hard not to wonder what could have been. Hindsight is indeed 20/20. The relationship was so amazing for so long and the change happened so slowly and gradually that it was almost as if I’d woken up one day to find that I was his mother rather than his girlfriend.
Constantly worried about him, trying to “fix” him, taking care of everything, sad to see our beautiful relationship starting to unravel, not really understanding why it was unraveling. How could I not have known I was dealing with an alcoholic??
I was mad at myself for even being frustrated with this beautiful man whom I loved so much. I was begging him to take care of himself (he neglected his health in many other ways and I was focusing on that rather than the real culprit). I wanted to grow old with him and it would never happen if he didn’t watch his health and take responsibility for his life.
I started becoming resentful that he wouldn’t take care of even the smallest things in his life, that I seemed to be doing everything for him. He never seemed to have any money, and I thought it was alimony and child support — there was always some excuse for the things going on in his life, and at first I accepted his excuses. He just had bad luck, that was all. So I gave him whatever I had.
I would have done almost anything for him. Eventually I had to accept the fact that no matter how much I did in the relationship, it would never be enough. If I didn’t get away he was going to suck the life out of me. I told him that until he gets his act together we can’t be more than friends, and a week later he was in the hospital.
Even then, he was able to convince everyone that things weren’t as bad as they were, like he always did. And we all believed it because, as always, we wanted and needed to. Even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Even though his belly was bloated and the rest of him was skeletal, and he was yellow and so weak he couldn’t get around. Even then, we believed that he was on the mend. It wasn’t until after he’d passed and I was cleaning up his apartment that the pieces started coming together.
Conversations with his childhood friend and sister. Empty vodka bottles hidden in various places. Empty pill bottles of all kinds (some opiates). It was a shock and a betrayal. How could he tell me I was the love of his life and keep all this from me? There was a whole other life he hid from everyone else. It’s too late to go back now, and I don’t know if anything would have been much different if I’d known sooner anyway. Someone that secretive about it was too protective of it to want to change. I wish he’d loved himself and us enough to at least try, though.
For my part, all I can do now is work towards forgiving myself and him, and learn more about the disease and the signs so I don’t make the same mistakes again. And I would like to help his children if I can, they will need a lot of support and help to get through this. I worry that they have the potential to become alcoholics later or get with men who are, if they don’t get help now.
My heart goes out to everyone who loves someone with this terrible disease. There is nothing simple about it, there is nothing cut-and-dry. It’s filled with confusion, doubt, insanity, pain, shame and has terrible long-term effects on everyone it touches. I have to accept the fact that I understand almost nothing about it and I was woefully ill-equipped to even detect it in the man I love, let alone help him. I’m going to my first Al-Anon meeting on Friday because I have to do something, and I figure it’s a good place to start.
I had been in my first relationship for 3 years, but met my current boyfriend (of only 6 months) shortly after I broke up with my first and only long-term boyfriend. We met when I was 19 and he was 24. Im currently 20, and he recently turned 25.
The connection I had with him was unexplainable! We were so crazy about each other. It seemed like it was so meant to be between us! Within a few weeks of us dating, he was urging me to move in with him and his roommates, and to get a job in the small town he lived in. I landed a killer job in the community, working for a huge company, which was a really big leap for me and an amazing wage for someone my age! I didn’t want to pass up the opportunity. But right from the beginning, I knew something was off with him.
The first time I met him, he had been drinking. He claimed it was because he was nervous about meeting me, and felt that was his ‘coping mechanism’ to calm his nerves. Then when I got the job and moved in with him, I noticed the drinking was a lot more frequent than I had first thought. He knew it bothered me, because I grew up with a very different way of life than he did. I didn’t know what alcohol was until I was 12 years old (if not older), and it terrified me seeing how it made people act. Granted, I only turned 18 two years ago, so of course I had went out here and there, but I’m not a big drinker! I hate the way it makes me feel.
My boyfriend is an extremely hard worker! He loves his job, and his boss, and his family. But it’s difficult, because he grew up watching his parents struggle with alcohol abuse, and his dad and current boss (whom he admires) are both alcoholics.
Only a month and a half ago we moved out of the place we were in (with roommates), and got our own place together — which was also quite the leap, considering we had only been dating for 4 1/2 months at that time. Within the first two weeks after I moved in with him and his roommates, he had had a bad accident where he almost lost his thumb (alcohol was involved in the accident). He was off work for about three months, and being so fresh in the relationship, it made things difficult for me.
I went from living with my parents my whole life, to living with three guys and a six-year-old girl. All of a sudden I became a nurse, maid, and nanny with no transition time after moving away from home for the first time. We had to make 4-hour trips (2 hours there and back) to the nearest town, every few days for doctors’ appointments, and he became extremely depressed. His drinking had slowed down a lot due to the medication he was on for the pain, but it didn’t last long before he started back up.
He’s been back working for just over a month and things seemed so much better. He seemed a lot happier all the way around and promised me the drinking was going to slow down once we had our own place. Then I noticed his drinking had become much worse. He will come home and finish an 8-12-pack of beer, and take shots by himself any night of the week until he can’t even speak properly or walk straight. I think in the past 2 weeks he’s only been sober maybe 3 or 4 nights (out of 14 days — it’s gotten way out of hand). I told him I don’t care if he has a few beers after a long day at work, but also that there is no reason he needs to finish a 12-pack and a whole thing of vodka by himself on a Monday or Tuesday night.
Just the other night I had asked him to slow down a little since he had already finished a 12-pack, but he looked at me like he was doing nothing wrong, and chugged half a mikki of vodka as I asked him to know his limit. I just shook my head and went into my office, shutting the door behind me, but as little as 5 seconds after I shut the door and started to cry, he came stumbling in and hugged me. I tried to push him off and tell him to leave me alone because I was upset, but when he drinks he gets extremely affectionate –always kissing me, and needing me with him. But when he’s sober, it’s the opposite. He shuts himself out. Hides behind his video game and doesn’t say a single word. It’s gotten to the point where I feel like I’m completely wasting my time here. He sits there and tells me he wants to marry me someday (only after he’s been drinking), and says he’s so happy we got to start our life together, but I just shake my head because I know it’s just because he had been drinking all evening.
I see all these comments from people about being with their husbands for 10-15-30 years, and nothing has changed. And thinking that this is how my life is going to be (if I’m with him forever?), that scares the ever-living stuff out of me. Especially because I’ve had to start keeping track of his drinking (for my own sanity, because it’s getting so out of hand), and can’t even get myself a drink because if I go to work, it’ll be gone by the time I get home. I have actually had to hide liquor because he has no limit. It’s just an endless stream of drinking. He’s like a bottomless pit, and if there’s a bottle somewhere, he’ll finish it before I even have a chance to say anything about it.
My husband and I are high school sweethearts. I am due in 10 days with our 3rd girl.
Alcohol is consuming my life. My husband drinks at least 3-4 times a week. I guess you could say I’m lucky he drinks at home vs a bar, but it brings out the worst in both of us. From everything I read, I see it will only get worse.
It’s very hard to manage, considering I love him and everything about us, except his drinking. Recently I almost called 911 because I thought he had alcohol poisoning. (While 9 months pregnant). He was shaking uncontrollably and vomiting blood. We scheduled a physical the next week and of course he told me he is fine, not drinking, etc.
I went with him to the doctor and made sure he heard about the blood in the vomit and the drinking. I was pretty depressed when the doctor gave him a clean bill of health (only because it seemed to validate that his drinking was not hurting him).
I see that I have no control over his drinking, but trying to ignore it is near impossible. Especially when my 2 girls are getting old enough to notice. I almost had to laugh tonight to myself because I am in such a sensitive time (due any day), and he can’t stop the drinking, even though we will be going to the hospital any moment.
It makes me so sad to have this be my life. When I told him I am considering Al-Anon, he told me I was being out of control. The more I read into it, the more I think it may help me. It’s nice to know you’re not alone.
I have been married to my husband for nearly 30 years. He was always a drinker, but I never recognized it as a problem until about 4 years into our marriage. I had come from a non-drinking family, so wasn’t overly aware of the problems associated with alcohol. His alcohol consumption increased & along with this his temper & violence increased.
My husband has always been an extremely hard worker & good provider & the good times have been great, but there have also been lots of not-so-good times mixed in. We have days where everything is wonderful, nothing seems to upset my husband & this then followed by a week of the total opposite with nothing being right.
I am beginning to believe my husband has some sort of mood disorder such as bi-polar & his drinking is to mask the ever changing moods. On the good days I have convinced myself I am just being silly & an unreasonable wife. But then the drink gets the better of him & I’m sitting listening to nightly drunken ramblings, constant verbal abuse & total put downs. This always followed in the morning as if nothing has happened.
The 30-odd-years of abusing alcohol has now taken its toll on all the family. The worst part of it all is that we have an adult son who has autism who lives at home. He is also subjected to his father’s alcoholism. It is for this reason that I have now decided enough is enough. Fair enough if I want to subject myself to the constant torture, but I am no longer willing to subject my son to the same.
Many of you have said that the alcoholic in your lives admits they have a problem & is apologetic. Well, my husband has never apologized for his appalling drunken behavior or admitted to having a problem. He drinks an average of 6-8 bottles of beer per week night, 12-18 a night on the weekends. His memory is now shot & he seems slow & confused a lot of the time, yet still won’t admit he has a drinking problem.
As I am now nearly 50 years old, I want to enjoy my life with someone who is loving & caring. My husband is either at work or drunk. We never spend any quality time together. I feel very alone & sad 90 percent of the time. I have decided this new year is my year & I will be leaving my husband & taking my son to start a new life. It will be hard, scary & a huge challenge, but one I am finally brave enough to take.
My husband is an alcoholic. I have been married for 24 years. In the beginning my husband was abusive, but it all stopped 10 years ago — maybe because our children are older now, and also he felt real bad for his actions.
I grew up with alcoholism all my life. My dad, uncles and now husband are all alcoholics. My husband’s drinking has progressed throughout the years and I’ve always struggled with his addiction. Just this year I’ve come to a complete breaking point, where now I have flat out cut him out of my life. We still live together, but he has also isolated himself, moving downstairs and never comes upstairs. He recently had a bout of anger and rage as to why I am not talking to him. I stood my ground and continued not talking to him, because he truly brings out a side of me that I never want to become. After sobering up, he actually for the first time in 24 years has told me he will get counseling, that he is sorry for his actions and he wants to have a happy family life.
My daughter has left home due to the dysfunction in our home, and my son has been suffering from mental illness since high school and refuses to have a relationship with his dad. My son has decided to get counseling to get ahead in life for himself, and now my husband is also wanting counseling. There is hope in our home, but currently I feel so numb and angry that I just want to get away from this situation.
Reading these comments and wondering why we are doing this to ourselves! I’ve been married to a high-functioning alcoholic for almost 10 years. And I do mean high-functioning! He is a beautiful man, like none other and treats me like his queen. Living with a high-functioning alcoholic makes it very easy to lie to yourself. If it’s not a problem, it’s not a problem, right? Wrong. Eventually you reach crisis point in one way or another.
He developed gout several years ago but refused to accept that his drinking had anything to do with the severity of his condition. His non-alcoholic brother has gout and it was easier to pass it off as hereditary. I now believe that this was the first sign that his body was telling him to stop. However, I continued on in my denial. It wasn’t until about six months ago that I started to pull my head up from under the sand. I had a really hard time with the switch from sex 3 times a week to twice a month. This manifested in awful ways within my mind.
I really cannot explain it but after much soul-searching, I finally put two and two together. 17 plus years of alcoholism has an awful effect on your body, libido included. I resigned myself to a sexless marriage and at times I even considered an affair. I’m ashamed to say that now, and glad that I did not act on it. I of course tried to discuss this with him, to no avail. He said I had too much time on my hands, thinking about things too much, etc.
Two months ago he pinched a nerve to the point of paralysis trying to get out of bed. He was hospitalised, not for the pinched nerve but for excess alcohol intake and polyarticular gout. His joints were riddled with gout and he was being treated for severe alcohol withdrawal syndrome.
I legitimately did not know that was even a thing! But it is and it is serious. I watched my beautiful, gentle giant turn into a monster over those initial few days. It was one of the most traumatic experiences of my life, while his own hung in the balance. This was the first time I said out loud that my husband is an alcoholic. Those words had so much weight to them. So much.
Like many of you, I have been on the merry-go-round. Broken promises, lies, deceit. The drinking wanes, the drinking exacerbates. But something changed in me and I can never go back to the way things were. And also, like many of you, it is the deceit that is destroying us. I no longer trust what he says to be truth. That is a very difficult place to come back from.
He knows that the only acceptable way forward for me is 100% abstinence. If this does not happen then sadly, this will be our last Christmas together. And I have to keep telling myself that the pain my children will go through due to separation is not a blip on the radar compared to the pain of watching their father drink himself to death. We’ve had many relapses so far. Right now we are back to two days sober. I do not hold high hopes for us and am in no way prepared for separation, financially or otherwise. But I know that either way, next year I will not be married to an alcoholic.
I have been married for 34 years. I was in my 20’s and stupid — I thought that his partying ways would change as he matured — forgot to look at the mother and father who were flaming alcoholics.
Now my life is a living hell. I live in the country, away from everyone. When the kids were here I had them — now it’s me and the animals. He tells my daughter how terrible I am — first it was I was having affairs (never mind that at the time I was always running the kids around, always with one of them or they always knew where I was. He was always the one home (with the beer) — couldn’t take the kids any place because he worked all the time; I’m a realtor and was a stay-at-home mom for 7 years — but ya don’t do anything at all.
Most recently he told my 23-year-old daughter that he wants companionship — what does he think I want? He goes to the shop every day and downs a 12-pack. On a good day it might only be a 6-pack. If I walk back there, he’s quick to hide it. He doesn’t have the problem, I do. He needs to relax, unwind – now he’s retired and things are even worse than they were. After 34 years, I don’t think I should have to start over again.
Don’t know how my life got so crazy.
I have been with my boyfriend for a year (I’m 21, he’s 27). We met in school, we’re both engineering majors and he spent 6 years in the Navy.
A few months before we started dating, he got his third DUI. He had a bracelet to monitor for alcohol until he went to jail for the DUI. He spent 45 days split between jail and rehab. Had the bracelet again for a couple months after he got out, so all was good. After he got the bracelet off, he immediately started drinking again.
About two months ago his roommate told me he got a hooker and a few days after that brought a girl home from the bar and shot a gun in the house, but didn’t do anything with the girls except try to take the bar chick’s clothes off. I didn’t want to get the roommate in trouble and he was about to move out, so I waited until the day after he moved out (a few days ago) to ask about them.
He said he was super drunk and we were fighting at the time (we were on a “break” for like a day, but didn’t see each other and barely talked for almost a week), said it would never happen again, told me nothing happened with them, offered to take me to the bar to meet her because she works there so she could confirm nothing happened, etc, etc.
We talked about it and he told me on that week we were away from each other he had an eye-opening realization and realized how much I meant to him and how much he missed having me around. He told me he would stop drinking if I wanted him to because I was worth it. I asked him to just cut back.
Yesterday he promised me he would only have one or two beers last night, but this morning when I got to his house I smelled alcohol when I opened his bedroom door, and he told me he played poker until 5am and when I asked how much he drank he just said, “Don’t worry about it.”
He’s missing class all the time because he sleeps all day. I just don’t know what to do. I love him and can’t leave him. I want to help, but I’ve never had experience with an alcoholic before and don’t know what I can do to help.
I’ve been with my boyfriend for a little over 5 years. I was 17 and he was 19 when we started dating. We were both still in our partying days when we got together; I had grown up in a very strict household, so when he introduced me to partying and the substances that accompanied it, I felt a new kind of freedom and fun.
Fast forward to today. He recently came out of a 5-day detox program after drinking 750 ml of hard liquor per day, after I had told him that I was done with our relationship. He isolated himself and drank himself almost to death. He was apparently having tremors, visual and auditory hallucinations, fever, and more when he decided to get himself to the hospital. I was kept in the dark about all of this until I texted him asking if he was okay.
That was about a week and a half ago. Last night he came over and I found a water bottle filled with vodka in his laptop bag. I love him dearly, but I can’t put myself through this. I have known he has had a drinking problem for the past couple of years. I would find empty liquor bottles hidden in the closet, and multiple empty beer cans.
He is such a sweet and nurturing man, but his alcoholism has destroyed my trust in him. He never becomes violent or cruel when he drinks. He acts completely normal, actually. He’s at the point where he can drink about a half a pint of liquor and still carry on normally.
I know that it is difficult for alcoholics to completely quit, but I feel I am too young to put myself through this. We aren’t married and we don’t have children, but I care about his well-being and health. I’m scared he will kill himself with his drinking.
I sort of knew right on our first date. We had been talking on the phone, and most of the time he seemed okay. One time late at night he called me drunk and I told him to never do that again. I was heading to his apartment and called him, we were going out for dinner and he didn’t drive. Yeah, totally restricted after 3 DUI’s.
He told me to give him a few minutes, that he would call me, so I went to the Wal-Green’s and walked around, and walked around. I called him back and he seemed a bit confused and told me to come over — yes, he was finally ready.
I get there and go to his apartment, he hugs me, we talk, we laugh, he hugs me again, told me he knew we would get along well. It was then I smelled the hard alcohol on his breath. I told myself, we will just be friends. Six years later, many horrible stories, almost all of them involving his drinking. Verbally abusive to my daughter on the phone, abusive to me. Homeless, we have never lived together, he said he wanted to get married and I told him, some things would have to change.
!,000,000 or so lies later, if I try to talk to him about any issue, he brings up my adult daughter who has had severe panic disorder, Asperger’s. She is high functioning and holds a job, and pays her bills, she doesn’t wash her dishes and that makes him rage. I am a horrible mother, she is a horrible daughter. Though he cannot keep a basic store stock/clerk job due to drinking on the clock. Sigh, I will never befriend someone who loves their addiction so much.
I have no respect for myself currently. Coming here to hear the Al-Anon podcasts, going to counseling and a regular doctor.
He lied to me today, starting verbally abusing me and told me he was not drinking, he has no respect for me. I guess that is where it stands for now. Reading this, this is a truly pathetic story. I suppose I know what will need to be done. Is there an easy way? Absolutely not.
I stumbled across this site on one of my many searches for “answers” to my current situation. I have been with my husband for 16 years, married 13. We have two awesome boys, 12 and 6. We always had the type of relationship that others envied. I felt we were truly soul mates. He had times when he would drink too much, but only at parties and infrequently enough that I could handle it.
He’s had a rough life and I always admired how he rose above his negativity. His parents died when he was 9. He lost close friends to drugs, his brother passed unexpectedly 5 years ago. But he always pulled through. A year and a half ago he contracted necrotizing fasciitis (the flesh eating bacteria) and nearly died. He spent weeks in ICU on a vent and had several surgeries and skin grafts. He slowly got better and was able to come home.
I’m an RN and at first the trauma seemed to bring a new closeness and intimacy, as I did his dressing changes and helped him to physical therapy. We talked and talked and talked about anything and everything. I was so overjoyed that he lived and came home to me and the boys. It had been very hard on them too. But then slowly he started to unravel.
He started drinking more and more. He started to become argumentative and putting me down when he would drink too much. He called me obscene names and said, “Go ahead and leave. You aren’t much. Oh, poor Megan — you have such a rough life,” with an eye roll.
Last year at Thanksgiving he got drunk and belligerent and my mom pulled me aside and said, “What is going on?” I broke down and finally told someone about his drinking. A few days later the school guidance counselor called to tell me my older son wrote in an essay that he became scared when his dad was drunk. I was devastated. How could I think he didn’t notice? He’s a smart kid. My husband seemed mortified by both events and agreed to go to counseling, but went for a few sessions and “didn’t get anything out of it.” He said, “I just need to cut down. Stop nagging every single time I have a beer.”
One night he got drunk and yelled at me in front of my son. I lost it and poured all his beer out. He flipped out and said, “That was real ……. stupid,” and then bought more anyway. He is now drunk every night. I mean, every night. He still gets up and goes to work, but I have no idea how. He wets the bed almost 3 times a week. He sits in the garage and drinks all night, only coming out to eat dinner or help with the dishes. Then back to the garage until he passes out or goes up to bed.
I can’t go anywhere with friends to decompress because I don’t trust him alone with the boys. I told him that and he looked devastated and cried and said, “I have a problem. I want to stop, but I can’t. It’s out of my control.” I suggested rehab and he told me what I could do with myself. This is so far from the person he was with me for 14+ years, until he got sick.
He started seeing a new counselor, but again isn’t consistently going or delays making the next appointment. During the day I get short glimpses of who he used to be, but by night he turns into a spiteful manipulative jerk. We have no life together anymore. I am lonely. I cry daily. The situation has only gotten progressively worse.
I believe I would have the strength to leave him, but I feel guilty because of everything he’s been through in his recovery from his infection a year and a half ago, but then I get angry because the boys and I suffered during that time too! And now we still are.
I can barely stand to be around him anymore. I can barely sleep next to him without literally wanting to punch him in the face. I miss him. Or at least who he was. But if he won’t help himself, I know I can’t fix it for him. He needs to do it. I am losing myself in his addiction and he makes me feel like I’m the crazy one!
I have been with my live-in boyfriend for a year and a half now. He and I knew each other a few years before we started dating. He is a very handsome and charismatic individual. Needless to say, I was in love with him the first time we met, even before we started dating. At the beginning of the relationship, there were no real signs of alcoholism. We drank occasionally while watching sports at home or out to dinner. But our lives did not revolve around it.
About 4 months after we started dating we decided to move in together. We left the area I grew up in, where my family is, and moved back to his home town, about 45 minutes away. I agreed because I love him and because the schools are so much better here, which is great for my two children. My kids were also on board because they love him.
About a month into living together, after I sold my home, I saw a trend. He no longer was interested in doing anything unless it involves alcohol. Even our bike rides turned into bar-hopping bike rides. Before him, I was very active and athletic. Did not drink a lot because my kids have been #1.
Fast forward to today. I have a hard time taking care of myself, because I always have to take care of him. My kids are still number #1, but I feel as though I have a shorter fuse now because I have so much stress in my life due to his drinking. He agrees he drinks too much, but refuses to quit. He and his ex-wife were party animals, and I feel as though he thinks this kind of life is normal. It is not normal. It is the furthest thing from it. Currently, I am stuck because I do love him when he treats me well, which is rare. There is no talking about things, it is his way or no way.
This is a terrible disease that is ruining our lives.
I have been with my boyfriend for five years in January. I had previously dated a sociopath and was still attached to him when I met my current boyfriend. He was a breath of fresh air. He did not control me or belittle me. He did party, but I figured, hey, we’re young. I was 19, he was 20.
The first year was pure bliss. He was sweet, made me feel amazing, but the partying got old. Then his friends became our “roommates.” Our home became a party house. We argued and reconciled every night.
It seems worthless to throw away the love and life we have built. It is like we are stuck in a loop. He gets better, then gets way worse, says he will lose his mind if he doesn’t drink. He cheated on me a few weeks ago. Again I said we were through. I came home to flowers, a beautiful note, and after I read the note he promised he would stop.
A week later, I walked in on him drinking whiskey. It broke me, we fought amd he apologized and told me he couldn’t stop, that every part of his body was screaming at him. So he said he would ween himself off. Well, that sort of didn’t happen.
He is drinking less, but it is picking up now. He wants me to be proud of him, but for what? Infidelity? Lies? I don’t know. My mind keeps telling me to kick him out and move on, but I think of him not walking up the sidewalk and kissing me and having to experience life without him.
I married my high school sweetheart, literally right out of high school. Been married for 10 years. Dealt with the verbal abuse, the all-nighters. Partying all night, coming home, picking a fight. In and out of jobs. A couple of times leaving for a day, but couldn’t think of living without each other.
What kept us “trying” was the one fact and rule in our church, that once you marry it is a sin to divorce or separate. No marriage was perfect. I think it was my cross to carry. Dealing with this man, with whom I have 3 children, 9, 4, and a 6 months. Suddenly, after 9 years of ups and downs, after one incident I said it, “I want a divorce.”
Since then, we’ve been 10 years strong, moving forward with clear understanding, communication, and most of all patience. Drinking for my husband was the only thing he knew. His family drank, his father drank. To my husband it was like a hobby. Substituting that with events for our kids or working out and work. I am now a happy stay-at-home wife/mother, while hubby works and comes home, happy to spend time with our kids.
I didn’t give up! It was worth it for me. Not every alcoholic needs to be given up on, but needs to be dealt with in their own special way.
My boyfriend and I have been in love for ten years and have been together for two. I was in a horrible six-year relationship before him and so when my now boyfriend came into my life again and we started a relationship, it was bliss. He was funny, romantic, poetic, inspiring, caring and in total awe of me. I felt like the only woman in the world when he looked at me. But within months into our relationship I started noticing his drinking habits.
He would come round to my flat and if there was no drink in (I’ve never been a big drinker) he would go out straight away to get some. His answer to a hangover was to drink more, and I found after every romantic meal and evening it would always end in the pub. Regardless of whether I wanted to go or not. He would always find a way to persuade me.
Eventually I told him I felt he had a drinking problem. We only ever seemed to argue when he drank and my loving man would turn from kind to cruel and cold. He had even pulled my hair on one occasion and it frightened me to death. When I told him, I expected him to lash out, but he seemed to accept this. He tried cutting down, which didn’t work. Eventually, after completely humiliating me in front of his family on Boxing Day after our first Christmas together, he decided to join AA. He was so passionate about it, he would talk about it and read the book almost every day. He seemed happier, healthier. And we never argued.
I cried with happiness after every milestone he hit and told him how proud I was of him all the time. But soon, he relapsed. Convinced himself he wasn’t an alcoholic. I made a deal with him and said if he hurt me one more time as a result of drink he would have to stop. He agreed. Persistent that he could control his drinking. It didn’t last long, and with that came the excuses in order to not honour our agreement. Everything from he’ll cut down, to he’ll only drink at home, to he’ll only drink with me. None of it worked.
Eventually, as time went on, and after each failed attempt to cut down, he told me he wanted professional help. I agreed, but told him I wanted to go, too, so I could learn how to communicate with him better in order to understand his addiction more. The counsellor we went to asked him to set his own goals, as then that way he couldn’t complain that the goal wasn’t realistic. He said he only wanted to drink with me when we go out for a meal, that he didn’t want to drink at home or when he was away (he works on the other side of the country for two weeks at a time).
Within the first week after this session he failed his goal, yet I still reassured him that he shouldn’t let it get him down and to keep trying. Not once did he meet his goal after that. His paranoia, which he had anyway without the drink, got worse as a result of his increased drinking. He would see things that weren’t there, see things that never happened and hear conversations that never took place. Even imagining that I had wrapped my legs around one of his friends even though my boyfriend stood directly behind me. His paranoia and his insecurity got worse with every drink. Eventually leading to him convincing himself I had been unfaithful. That hurt the most out of everything he had done to me.
He has left me in debt. I lost my job four months ago and have been desperately trying to find work, yet he always holds the fact he supports both of us against me. He even went as far as to say I’m the one that makes him drink. That I drive him to it. That I’m an attention whore. His words sting every time. He recently admitted that he is depressed, and after admitting that he was wrong to believe I had been unfaithful, he self-harmed upstairs while I was sitting downstairs waiting for him so we could continue talking everything out.
As a sufferer of depression myself, and having self-harmed in the past, this was devastating. I have done nothing but defend this man until I’m blue in the face. I have dedicated two years of my life to supporting him and making it known that I’m here for him. Sometimes I feel it’s a control thing with him, that if he can upset me with his actions and words then it must mean I care. That because he is supporting me financially that he can do and say whatever he wants.
I used to be so strong. Now I’m afraid to leave the house in case someone he knows sees me and that it will only convince my boyfriend further that I have been unfaithful. Sometimes I can’t eat or sleep. Yet I know he doesn’t lose sleep over me. Over how he makes me feel. I know it doesn’t cross his mind that I may be laying in bed crying. He has already almost lost his job due to his drinking. But I’m not scared of losing our house, I’m not scared of how many sleepless nights I have. I am scared of burying him. Scared that he will either drink himself to death or become so depressed as a result of his addiction he will kill himself. I simply cannot live with myself if that happened. Yet even though he credits the fact he is alive today because of me, sometimes I do truly doubt whether he loves me or cares for me. Yes, this man has put a roof over my head and supported me through unemployment, but nothing can condone how he has treated me. He even went to a strip club and didn’t even tell me until I found out. Yet, he accuses me of cheating?
Tonight he accused me again. Exactly a week after he was so apologetic that he had accused me in the first place. I know that if he doesn’t get help and change and I continue to stay with him, that it’ll be me they will be burying before him. I have lumps in my breast that I have been warned could turn cancerous, a heart problem, and a history of depression and self-harm. I simply cannot carry on with the way I am being treated. I’m not even being treated like a human being. Everything has to be on his terms. When we talk, how long for, when I can call him. Yet, when he comes home from working away, and he’s sober, he’s everything I’ve ever dreamed of. It’s heart-breaking to see the man I love change because of drink. Knowing that one day it’ll kill him.
I have been advised by help-lines to leave. Because I alone cannot convince him to stop drinking and that the way he is will eventually run me down to the ground. I have not yet decided whether or not I have it in me to do that. This man has been in my thoughts for ten years, the love of my life. I always believe there is one person meant solely for another. I know he is my soul mate. But nothing hurts more knowing that your soul mate has the potential to run you into an early grave, and that he will soon run himself into his. I feel for his family who one day may lose a son, a brother, an uncle. I feel for myself, knowing that if I stay, there is a chance I will bury him, and that if I go I will get a phone call with the news I have been dreading, or I will pick up a newspaper and see his face. I want my boyfriend back, not this stranger that has taken over him. But I’m scared it may be too late.
I too am living with and married to an alcoholic. My husband is non-abusive, non-violent and a great dad to our 2 children, aged 5 and 1.
I always thought I trusted my husband. He is not a bad man, but has experienced a young life with an alcoholic, abusive father and a family all sharing the same guilt and shame. His own mother is emotionally unavailable. They say they care, but they have turned their backs/gone into denial since discovering he has the same sad illness.
As sad as it is, you have to break the cycle sometimes to save your children. It is a progressive illness. I have lived with my husband for 15 years. I am the provider in the family, have a good job and manage the children. He works, but treats me like his mother when it comes to paying the bills, sorting the children and emotionally, etc.
I have been clinging on to the idea he will change. The hardest thing for me to come to terms with is the lying and the deceit. That has ruined our marriage. Then there is the denial. I am trying to support him and he is having weekly counselling and attending (albeit a reluctantly) AA.
He accepts he has a drinking problem, but also accepts he is struggling with the prospect of a life of sobriety. My fear is that at 35, I am letting life pass me by. I can no longer cope and my own health is suffering. My head is telling me to go, but I wonder why I feel so guilty.
I decided to leave my fiancé today. I finally have the strength to do it and not look back. We have a 5-month baby boy together and last night he went out at 9 and didn’t come back till 3 in the morning. When he came back, he was throwing things and crying. He eventually fell asleep on the floor.
We are currently living with his family while we are or were saving for a house. We were together for 4 years and engaged and this has been a cycle for years. It’s pretty pathetic and he needs to grow up. I may sound cold, but I was there and tried to be supportive of his recovery, but as always he does well for a little while and then eventually stuff like last night happens again and he never remembers what happened. I remember. He is also verbally abusive and I don’t have time for that.
I deserve someone better. I am moving in with my family and really want to start over. Any girl can have him. He’s a good looking guy, but he gets a pass because I feel some people shelter him. I am not an enabler and I need to do what’s in the best interest for myself but for above all my son. It’s not going to be an easy road, but I’d rather pick this road than continue this damn road. This was the straw that broke the camel’s back and there were many other instances too. I almost left him while I was pregnant, but wanted to work things out.
So, I am 30 and starting over. That’s fine with me.
My husband is an alcoholic. I knew it before I married him 4 months ago. He is not abusive or mean or any of the things I’ve read here. He is actually sometimes more affectionate when he drinks.
He was so bad he nearly lost his job. We put him into a 5 day detox and he is better, but still drinks every day. Not while at work and now only beer. But today I found 2 shots of vodka in his pocket and he admitted he has drank at work again.
I am so scared he will lose his job. And I am worried about him. The doc says his liver enzymes are high. He can’t keep going like he is or he will die. I love him, but I wonder if tough love is the best route, or just letting him go.
I have decided to end it with my partner after 1.5 years. It’s one of the hardest things I have to do. I have given him loads of chances.
On Friday night, we were supposed to go out. I found 18 empty bottles of vodka, hidden. He became abusive towards me and I did not feel safe. He grabbed my arm behind my back and was roaring and shouting.
He is a great, intelligent, kind man when he is sober. I always believe him when he apologizes — “Next time it will be better. I will make it up to you. I want to stop drinking.”
Heartbroken beyond belief, but know it’s the right thing in the long term.
Four months ago, I began seeing a wonderful man and we fell insanely in love with each other. He has always been so kind and has treated me so well. He showered me with attention, compliments, gifts, wonderful surprises. Our relationship has always been healthy and we communicate well.
We wanted to get married and had planned on meeting his parents. He, however, binge-drinks about twice, maybe three times a week. Sometimes he will have all-night drinking marathons and sleep all day until he has to go to work. If he’s stressed and overwhelmed, he will drink more often.
This was always a concern to me, but I wanted to ignore the problem because everything else was so perfect. Per his idea, we went vegetarian, and he made small changes in his drinking habits. Started smoking less, cut out the liquor and only drank beer.
He got very drunk one night and broke up with me, saying he didn’t feel like he was good enough or could do anything right. He became remorseful and we decided to work it out.
We had a long talk. Laid everything out, and all seemed to be going wonderfully. I gave him the coming-to-Jesus talk about his drinking and how it impacts our relationship and future together. He seemed nervous and uncomfortable, but admitted he drinks too much and that it’s bad for him. He agreed to not do the after-hours drinking anymore, to see a therapist, and cut way back overall. I told him that if he can’t control his drinking, he shouldn’t drink anymore, and get help.
He agreed. We spent the night together. In the morning, he said that he just can’t do it anymore and that he resents me for asking him to stop. He has cut off contact and refuses to tell me what we both know — he can’t stop and he’s backing out.
I feel like I lost the person I was going to spend my life with to drinking. I’m afraid of what it will take for him to make the decision to stop. I’m terrified that he won’t. I miss him so much it tears me to shreds.
I’ve been with my boyfriend for almost 8 months now. We met dancing salsa. We hit it off so well. We have so much in common. He makes me laugh, he loves me for being me, and I am just so comfortable with him, except when he’s drinking.
He has been drinking a lot lately. He lost his job due to going out and drinking and being late. He barely passed his classes his last semester of college and has one class left. I am 26 and have a stable job and am getting my masters and he is currently jobless, living at a friend’s house because his family got evicted from their apartment, and he is 30 years old.
The last time I went drinking with him, that was the day I quit drinking for myself. He upset me so much to the point that I can’t even look at any alcohol without getting anxiety and nauseated. He calls me names when he is drunk and then says he’s never going to do it again.
It’s so annoying because I did him a huge favor and went to pick him up across the border because his license is suspended due to a ticket. Oh, and he’s also had 2 prior DUI’s. About two months ago, something happened and he scraped his face up so badly. I don’t know what else to do at this point. I told him that he needs help, and he agreed, yet when I brought it up again, he got upset.
I honestly don’t know how I’m going to get through this because he has so much potential. I recently found out that he is traumatized from a prior relationship and had met me when he was already in this drinking phase. I don’t know what to do. I’m so sad because he is an angel when he’s not drinking, but I don’t see this stopping any time soon. I don’t know what to do 🙁
I thought I was alone. I am a fairly attractive 24-year-old student teacher. I have options, as many of my friends and family will remind me. Everyone’s answer when I try to talk about the alcoholic in my life is to simply leave him. But it’s never that easy. How can I forget the hope that man gave me when I met him? How can I just abandon my dreams of all that we could share? He used to seem so moral and strong. How can I just forget that?
Well, short answer, I’m sick with his disease now too. But maybe I have finally found the help I need. I’m tired of wanting to jump off the BB&T building because I can’t fix him, and because I always believe the empty promises of proposals and a new sober life that never comes. I just want to be happy and feel secure. I don’t remember what that feels like and I know this is because there are things that I need to work on myself.
I have been with my boyfriend for almost 7 years. We started drinking together many nights a week after work. We both have decent jobs. I managed to get a DUI a year ago and knew way before that I should stop drinking. This was a huge blessing in disquise. Huge fights, no money and black outs.
I have now been sober a year and have tried to get my other half to stop drinking. A lot of time I don’t know where he is and he tells me lies about where he’s going. He’s not cheating on me. He’s having an affair with alcohol. It is part of every day after work. He gets into town from work and 3 to 5 hours later, stumbles into the house.
I, through my own addiction, have discovered that control was a huge road block to getting better. I cannot change him. I am helpless when it comes to that. I can’t handle the lies and obnoxious attitude. My problem is letting go. I need to let go. He will not get better with my help, but maybe with tough love when I walk away. I know he loves me, but not enough to keep me here in this predicament.
I do not want to admit to myself or to my community that my boyfriend has a drinking problem.
I met him at a bar, and at that time I was doing well for myself. I exercised, ate right, barely smoked — had two jobs. I started to party with him, and lost both jobs because I couldn’t juggle partying and working.
He drank almost every night to oblivion. When his daughter was around, he drank less but he still drank.
Almost two years later, I have a great consistent job. He drinks less than he did when I first met him, but he still drinks.
When he drinks, he’s hard to talk to. He repeats questions and I have to repeat myself over and over again.
When we are out, I always worry about him driving home drunk — without a license, because of his DUI that he stopped going to classes for.
When he’s not recovering from the night before, he is having a drink. For him, he always makes excuses for why he’s drinking and I let it slide.
Or I nag him, which he says makes him drink more.
I don’t want to break up with him, but I am so angry and bitter and unhappy. Living a life with him is total chaos. I tell him I am done all the time, and he says that I bitch too much. I question myself all the time: do I have the nagging problem, or does he have a drinking one?
I am very confused and very sad and very lonely. He is out at a bar right now, while I am sitting home alone. I don’t want to be done, but I am so tired.
Alcohol has been a defining theme throughout my entire life — first (and still) my dad, now my husband. I wish I had the resources then that I have now to have researched and understood alcoholism and specifically the children of alcoholics. If I had, maybe I would have realized my susceptibility toward falling for an alcoholic. Maybe I would have realized when I met him 22 years ago, that he was already on his way to becoming an alcoholic. Maybe I would’ve never married my husband. What an awful thing to say. What an even worse thing to feel.
I love my husband, desperately. But every day I sit and secretly wonder what my life might be like if I had fallen in love with a sober person. Maybe I wouldn’t have the nice house, or the nice car. Maybe I couldn’t afford the vacations we take and maybe I wouldn’t be able to be a stay-at-home mom. There would be a lot I might not have. But I might at least have the peace that I long for. And that desire seems to be getting stronger and stronger all the time. Then I feel guilty when I realize that he has given me the one thing that has made all of my pain and anxiety so far worth it — our children.
My husband is a great provider and a pretty great dad. And when he’s not drinking, he’s a wonderful husband. To be honest, even when he is drinking, he’s a good husband. Well, at least compared to some, I guess.
He’s never been violent with me. He doesn’t call me names or belittle me. We do have some heated arguments, though, which always end up with me feeling guilty and hopeless. So I try not to bring up the drinking at all. Especially if he’s already had a few. It only ends up with me in tears, crying myself to sleep. Unfortunately, it’s gotten to the point that he’s drinking almost every night, anywhere from 12 – 24 beers a night, so there’s never really a good time to discuss it at all anymore. Not that it’s ever done any good anyway, but still I keep wanting to talk to him, to tell him how much it hurts me, how embarrassing it is to me, how the sound of him crushing yet another empty beer can makes me cringe. How smelling it on him sometimes makes me physically ill. I keep hoping he’ll realize that he’s slowly losing me and that for once, for this one person, I’ll be enough.
I wasn’t enough for my dad. I know it’s a disease, but my heart can’t stop believing that if I was worthy, my dad would’ve stopped drinking. I wasn’t enough for him, but I truly thought I would be enough for my husband. I want someone to love me so much that they can’t bear the thought of hurting me.
My children are getting older now and although they’ve never mentioned his drinking, I can see that they are beginning to react to it in subtle ways. And it hurts so much, because although I was much younger when my dad crossed the line into full blown alcoholism, I remember all too clearly the anger, the frustration, and the embarrassment that I believe they are just now beginning to feel. I can’t stop their dad from drinking, but I can save them the anxiety of living with an alcoholic. It’s a feeling that I’ve lived with since I was 5 or 6 years old. It’s never left me since that time and if I stay with my husband much longer, it will probably be the thing that kills me. I don’t want that for my children.
Unfortunately, I’m a year from being able to leave, at least. I need to work on building a career for myself so that I can support myself and our children. I need to have some money put aside that is not in our joint account so that when the time comes, I can be ready to rent a place of our own. I need to be ready to explain to my children why we’re leaving.
They’ll be shocked. They have no idea there are any problems with us at all. At this point, even my husband probably thinks I’m finally ok with his drinking. At the very least, he has no idea that I’m planning on leaving him. I put on a really good face and pretend to be happy because a year of fighting seems worthless.
But tonight, a year seems like a lifetime.
So glad I found this page. It helps to not feel so alone — because I am. We recently moved away from my family to live in a mining town. The plan is/was to cash in so we can buy our own home in a few years. I am now in the middle of nowhere. With zero support around me. Not a single person I can talk to. I’m currently a stay-at-home mum (getting back into work really soon), so haven’t a cent to my name.
My fiancé has always had a bad relationship with alcohol but has been able to ‘control’ it over the last few years. Since moving last week (big regrets now!), he has gone through 2 boxes of beer, countless bourbon cans, wine etc. He thinks it’s no big deal.
He had promised (ha) me that he was working on his health. Eating healthy, exercising, no more drinking. When he walked in the door last week with a box of beer and a 4-pack of bourbans I said, “I thought you weren’t drinking anymore!” Well, he cracked it. Because he doesn’t have a problem with alcohol. And he works hard so deserves it. And it’s hot. It was a hard day and he just wants to relax. I’m so over it.
He tries to control me and has a way of turning things around on me. Sometimes it works. I’m a well-educated woman, how am I letting this happen? He’s very manipulative.
I guess I always try to see the good in people. I’m a helper. A fixer. Except I can’t fix him. I want to talk to him properly about it. But I won’t do it when he’s drinking — it seems even one drink is enough to change him. Plus, I won’t do it in front of our 1-year-old, but I have no one to mind her.
I’m sure he has depression, I’m sure he’s a narcissist. He complains about our lack of intimacy. Sorry, a slob who burps, farts, swears, stinks of alcohol, who is drunk is not attractive to me at all. But if I explain that, he turns it around on me. It’s my fault that intimacy is no longer present. He works hard all day to pay the bills, you know.
Money is a huge thing. A few years ago we lived in a similar place where our pays were fantastic. He acknowledges that he drank the money away. It wouldn’t be like that this time, though. He’s a dad now, with goals. Bull.
Last night I asked if he’d like me to make a quinoa salad for dinner tonight (a meal he’s said he liked before). “How much is quinoa? We’re trying to save, remember?” So pretty much I can’t spend $10 on something healthy for the family that will last many meals, but he can spend hundreds on alcohol every week.
I feel like I’m just about ready to leave, but have so much to consider. I definitely don’t want this to be my daughter’s ‘normal.’ But what I do, what I say to him, how many chances I give him, I don’t know.
My story is basically similar to all of your stories — I currently live with/am married to an alcoholic. He’s quite a high-functioning alcoholic. We’ve been together for over 20 years & married for 12 years. We have three adorable children; 7, 5 & 4 years of age. Yes, I knew he was very fond of alcohol before we married, & envisioned a problem. Although I didn’t want to face it & justified by thinking he would outgrow it, change over time, step up to his responsibilities of having a family, a mortgage to pay, his dream home blah, blah, blah. Boy, was I wrong! If anything, he’s become much worse.
I am aware that alcohol is a progressive disease — however, wholeheartedly believe that I have enabled him for years. Why? That, I’m still trying to understand. All of the reasons why I’ve allowed this unhealthy relationship to continue for so long will unfold in time, as I soon begin to work on myself.
There are many differences in my story. One is that this is the second time I’ve been in long & serious relationship with an alcoholic/addict. I’ve recently realised that it’s been easier for me to blame him & my ex (yes, I also see the pattern). Another difference is that my husband is not the abusive one — I am.
On top of that, he isn’t at all violent (not like my ex!). He seems to have an excessively high tolerance to alcohol; as he fails to slur his words, stumble, suffer from blackouts. Even though he drinks at least a bottle of vodka a night + some extra spirit mixers or wine whenever he can. However, he does wreak of alcohol, he is excessively overweight, his personality changes, he is more argumentative & confused, he suffers from memory loss (but doesn’t admit to it), his liver is obviously suffering, he has an unmanageable life (works, but is very disorganised), continues to make empty promises, etc. I could go on & on, but you all know the symptoms.
Basically, alcohol is taking him hostage & it’s just about to kick him in the groin. Yes, I’m taking action – & if you can’t tell already, I’m really excited about it. Life is too short & I’m not wasting any more time in denial.
I see the light. I’m moving forward, no matter how scared I feel at times. I’ll cry myself to sleep every night for a while, but with each new day without him I’ll become stronger — I’ll find me again.
Happiness is just around the corner for me. And, yes, I’m scared & yes, my kids are going to suffer & yes, my hub will also suffer, but hey what’s the alternative — stay living in this miserable situation in a nice house, with a comfortable lifestyle? No way. I’m going to be a single mum & I’m going to be poor, but I’ll be rich in my health & happiness. That’s the only way forward for me. Advice to self: Don’t look back; you’ve been down that road before.
My (ex?)-boyfriend of a year and eight months is a low-bottom alcoholic. He has been drinking for three decades, has lost jobs, been kicked out of school, been homeless, arrested and in jail many times, had health problems — like extremely high liver enzymes and throwing up blood, and when he goes to the hospital to detox every month or so, his blood alcohol level is high enough to kill a person, or at least put them in a coma.
He’s almost been killed because of alcohol on occasions, like chipping a tooth when he fell while drunk, and another time stumbling in front of a speeding fire engine! He’s burned bridges with friends, and now is losing me.
I’m tired of the merry-go-round, tired of dealing with abusive words when he’s too inebriated to have a normal conversation, etc. Yet, he still won’t go to A.A. And he knows that A.A. helps because he’s done it before!
Lately, he thinks that smoking pot will save him from drinking, but he keeps picking up anyway. But I know that there’s nothing I can do about his recovery, only mine. So I will keep going to Al-Anon because it helps me. God help me if I go back to him again! I love him, but I have to love myself more.
Married 22 years. My husband and I used to party all the time as young single adults. He comes from alcoholic parents and I come from a family with alcohol abuse from grandparents.
Over the past 5 years I’ve noticed the drinking was getting severe and it was not uncommon to find him drunk early in the a.m. We have kids. We have careers. Every school vacation or holiday vacation for the past few years have been ruined with his drinking.
I don’t even want to host holiday events. I would like to cancel Christmas and if it weren’t for the kids I would. Last summer I had him taken away by ambulance because he was so drunk he was lashing out, demanding alcohol but too drunk to get any himself. These week-long binges occur approximately every three-to-four weeks. He will just drink until he is lying in bed groaning in pain because “his guts hurt.” I’ve found him passed out in his own puke in my bedroom, his nose bleeds and makes a mess of my bed and bathroom.
Back a couple of months ago, he was out driving and got into an accident and had no recollection of the driving, he was so drunk. He managed to sober up for 10 weeks and recently during his week-long binge passed out in the road and fractured his skull. We have two kids to put through college — I could really use that $20,000 toward their education, not legal and hospital fees.
It is so frustrating. Even after this recent near-death experience, he tells me he still plans on drinking — he thinks he can be a casual drinker.
I feel so helpless. He is seeing a therapist and I understand there are relapses, falling off the wagon. I really wish someone would get it through his thick skull that he no longer is able to handle any alcohol.
My boyfriend is a “functioning” alcoholic. He is kind and funny on one end, but has to have at least 6 beers every single day after work with his buddies at the bar and can’t go the weekend without trips to the bar too. He neglects the emotional needs of his daughter and has started to neglect our relationship too.
Last week I told him how much I don’t like it when he shows up at my apartment drunk and tries to treat me like a booty call. He had promised to come over to my apartment last Wednesday for a nice dinner I cooked him, but never showed up. He had spent four hours after work drinking with his buddies at the bar and forgot about coming over to my place. I cried as I blew out the candles I had so carefully placed on the table and hurt inside as I put the cold uneaten food in the fridge. Of course, being a functional alcoholic, he had tears in his eyes as he told me how sorry he was the next day.
When I’m babysitting his 11-year-old daughter, she tells me how much she doesn’t like it that her dad goes to the bar after work instead of coming home and spending time with her. I’m starting to realize that I do not want him to be a stepfather to my three sons, because of his drinking.
I did not allow him to come over to my apartment tonight, because I knew he had been at the bar with his buddies drinking again. I thought long and hard about it and I think I’m going to break up with him tomorrow. There is no way that I can have a healthy future with an alcoholic who doesn’t want to get help. Just because he has a great personality and a good job doesn’t mean that he doesn’t have a problem. I love him very very much because in a lot of ways he has been kind to me, but I can’t overlook the alcoholism in his life.
I’ve been with my partner 2-3 years now. Known her for 8 years. Always got drunk off 2 glasses of wine. Now she regularly drinks 5-6 bottles a week and has done so for 2 years. I don’t know what to do.
Had many arguments, as I love her dearly. We have children from past relationships and she has been in abusive ones in the past. Her mother and siblings are all alcoholics. Not sure what to do.
I have been in a two-and-a-half year relationship, living together a year and a half. Recently with his last drunk episode he broke up with me. It hasn’t even been a week apart. At his point I did not argue, just left and have been moving my things out as this is not an isolated incident. He has been verbally abusive and has pushed and shoved me.
Our relationship is very loving and functional without alcohol. There is good communication and teamwork. Being that we are in our mid 20s, a lot of our mutual friends drink. For a long time we decided to put distance between his friends, so he could stay on track. Recently they have all made amends and I did not want to keep him from his friends. Since then, he has been on a downward spiral. He struggles with what I believe to be bi-polar disorder. I know he self-medicates.
My problem is I still love this man very much. I want to be a supportive person in his life, but at what cost? He has made empty promises. I have always forgiven him the next day. This has been the first time I have kept no contact. He seems apologetic and doesn’t want me to leave. I just don’t know whether to tell him that I’d consider giving him another chance if he quit drinking, or if it is hopeless altogether.
After many years of struggling to keep my marriage together, I am at my wits end. With three grown boys and no one to turn to, I have become numb, sour, angry, frustrated, empty, helpless, angry, sad, depressed, and lonely. I gave him 19 years of my life, but for some reason he just can’t get on the right track.
He spent 12 years of his life on drugs, sobered up for three years and is now on alcohol. It first started with a few drinks and “I can quit when I want” to drinking any time of the day and forgetful nights, fights, and abuse.
I gave up my family, friends, country, and myself for him. My kids gave up a lot also, just to have a father in their life, but now I regret it. I regret putting my kids through the life I chose. Every day he wakes up with regrets, and I’m sorries, and it won’t happen again’s. He knows he has a problem, but won’t get help! Says he needs to go to rehab, but won’t. We are in a 3rd world country because of his drug issues and cases, so he thinks the rehab here is useless.
Now my kids don’t want to live with him anymore. I am financially stuck here and know that if I leave him, his friends will eat all our savings and most likely end up killing him or his liver. I don’t want my kids to have such a bad influence in their lives, and I know I’m being unfair to them.
I tried calling a few Al-Anon meetings for help, but was not able to get it! I have lost myself many years ago. Feel like the merry-go-round won’t stop and our days won’t change! I wish I could walk away.
I’m 30 years old and my boyfriend is 38. We have been together for 3 and a half years and lived together for 1 year and half. I have a 6-year-old girl that lives with us. I am not good with writing, but I need to express what I am going through.
My boyfriend and I have a good time with drinking together and I thought everything is normal. He is really good to my little girl, with or without drinking. My whole life I’ve been with drinking parents — a father who is verbally abusive and a mother that can’t control it or stop. I told myself I would never put my daughter through the life I had.
Recently, my boyfriend has become really bad with the vodka. He’s hiding it and lying to me (I know how to find the bottles). I know when he is toasted, I can see it in his eyes. I know he has a problem, and I want to help him to stop.
I love him to death. I want to take him to AA meetings with me. I want to be there to support him and help him. I want to know why he has his addiction and I want him to talk to me. I did get him to confess that he has a problem and he needs to slow down and limit himself, but that didn’t help.
He wants to quit, but he has a hard time finding a way to quit. Oh, also, when he is drunk he gets really lovable, to where it starts annoying the heck out of me. I am afraid that his liver will fail and he is going to have a lot of health problems. I will be joining my first Al-Anon meeting tomorrow.
Although reading these stories makes me sad for everyone suffering, it also makes me realize that, without a doubt, I made the right choice.
I just ended a relationship with a high-functioning alcoholic, and I don’t drink at all. I loved her very much and tried many times to talk to her about her drinking. She would cut down, and then go back up again. She always said, “I have to be the one who decides how much I drink, not you.” And while normally I would agree with her, she really wanted to have a baby with me.
She has no kids, and I have four already. She doesn’t understand what it means to be a parent and how much commitment and energy it takes. Anyway, we broke up over it and although I’m still in love with her, and miss her, I know it’s the right thing. It doesn’t make it hurt any less, though. I feel like she chose the bottle over me.
I am in love with my soul-mate, who happens to be an alcoholic. I never was raised around or had any idea of what actually alcoholism really was, as far as the toll that it takes on the person that is not an alcoholic in the relationship.
I just thought he was a good person helping his buddies all the time and doing favors to help them out, when the reality of what it really was was drinking, whenever he and they got the chance and had an excuse to do it. For a while he was a lot of fun, having all kinds of friends and hanging out all the time. I never got to experience that kind of life and was very naive. I had fun meeting new people and hearing their funny stories — then it got old when they kept repeating them night after night.
I want to say I was roped into this by love and was blinded until we got married. I guess I thought it would get better once he had someone who honestly cared for him and he could be at ease that I was there to help him and not use him like so many other people. Then once we got married it got way worse and I guess he figured I was trapped and he could just be himself, as when he was single for 13 years prior to me, and reality set in with me. He always had an excuse to go over to visit with a buddy who was also a drinker and did not come home until late at night, through the week or weekend.
As crazy as it seems, I am 57 years old and my husband is 55 years old and I had no clue about this kind of life. I met my soul-mate at 50 and I had been married before, but life was so boring until this outgoing, wonderful man came into my life and showed me how to really live. So I thought, as I look back and what he has put me through — abuse, physical and mental — and all the while I have a full-time job and have managed to excel, because life was much better at work. He is disabled physically and does not work, so he has no care as long as he can drink.
But I love him and want to help him, but I have no idea how I can stop his drinking.
When my boyfriend and I met, we drank and did the party thing. Three years later we had a baby girl. I changed my life to try my best to be a fit mother like I saw growing up. He kept doing the same — now 12 years later and 2 kids, it got worse.
I can’t take this anymore and reading these comments I don’t feel so alone. I love him — his father recently died of a drug overdose. I’m afraid my kids will suffer the same.
He tries to stop drinking for a couple days, then loses himself bad. When he’s sober, he is a good dad and we make plans for our future, but it all goes down the drain when vodka gets in his system.
I feel hopeless and I know I can make it without him. It just hurts to think of moving on. I will always worry about him. My kids don’t deserve to see this. I grew up in a Christian home with stability, love and peace. I don’t get it and probably never will.
I’ve been with my boyfriend for five years now. I’m so in love with him. I love him with every aching bone in my body. I just don’t know if I can handle him being an alcoholic anymore.
When we talk about our future I get so excited, but I’m also disappointed because a piece of me knows he will never change. Being an alcoholic runs in his family. His grandpa and his mom are both recovering alcoholics. His grandma and his dad are still alcoholics. His brother is an alcoholic and so are his friends.
Every time we try and get him help, it never works out — because everyone who he surrounds himself with are alcoholics. I want him to get better. I’m just waiting for the day he gets better, but a part of me knows that day isn’t going to come.
I don’t know what I should do. I don’t just want to give up on him. I feel like he needs me. Leaving him will not be easy, but maybe it will be the best thing for me. Sad that I lost the love of my life to alcohol.
I listened today to the first podcast & it was talking about would an alcoholic stop drinking if he loved me. I have been married for almost 5 years to my highschool sweetheart, who found me after 20 some years on Facebook. Both of us divorced & with grown children in different states.
He was the one person I never forgot about, so to speak. I was well established where I was & he was retired military with a civilian job on post. I felt like God had opened the skies & sent me the person I had always wanted to be with in life.
I had a terrible childhood, which entailed a mother who left when I was 15 & I went to foster care and so forth. My husband now knew all those things, so I thought he would be the only one who could never possibly hurt me or make me feel unsafe or abandoned.
The distance was 1,000 miles & I was the one who had to make the change, but I was okay with it — especially if it meant that I would feel complete. Problem was I can’t say I didn’t know he had an alcohol problem, because I did. But the key detail was I thought that I could “fix it” or it would get better since we loved each other so much. More or less, I would be the answer to the addiction.
I uprooted where I was, moved to him. We married 3 months prior, all to a new town, new area, to realize almost 5 years later I can’t fix him, and I blame myself.
The verbal abuse is so bad. Honestly, as I type this I cry because I don’t understand & I feel so alone. How could someone that I loved so long, hurt me so bad with words & why won’t he even try to stop for me?
I feel like it’s too late to turn back now, and this is my life. My daughters both live 1,000 miles in separate locations & my parents are deceased. So I have no one but him.
I have worked since I have been here, but never had time to make friends or do anything other than with him — because I felt like I had to hurry home to make sure he is okay. If I stopped somewhere on the way home it appeared I would get punished — by coming in and him drinking. I have expressed my concerns, just as recently as 2 hours ago, & he called me something to my face that he had never done before.
We have so many things, so blessed. He is a hard worker and a functioning alcoholic. But I am an empty shell, longing for emotional connection, & him to just make me feel like I am someone to him that matters. I have quit caring about any of my wants or needs, due to worrying about him. I feel selfish if I don’t totally focus on his problem.
I just had cervical cancer in April, & I really thought that it would wake him up, to see life is worth living for, but it didn’t. So honestly, I don’t know what to do anymore.
My fiance and I have been together for a little over a year and are expecting a daughter in a few months. He claims he will quit drinking for me, but he will go a day, another day passes and he asks me if he can buy a drink. He will buy one, which leads to the day after me picking him up at his friend’s house and he is intoxicated.
He has lied to me. I saw a bottle of vodka one night in the refrigerator and then when I mentioned you better be staying sober, I went back to the refrigerator pretending to get some ice cream to find the alcohol gone. I know I am about to have a child and my life is going to change forever, but I want him to be a part of it. I want to get married, to have a happy, whole family. He has been previously divorced, but alcohol wasn’t the only factor in the divorce — his wife had been unfaithful.
I just don’t know what to do anymore. I love him, but I’m afraid that he is going to drink until he dies. He has recently shared with me he has been hearing voices in his head (usually he is drunk when this happens). I have never heard of alcoholics hearing voices before, though. I pray to God he gets better and seeks help for the sake of our relationship and our daughter
I have been with my fiance for 5 years now. He has always drank, but previously it seemed social. I didn’t realize he had a problem until about 2 years ago. He would drink and start fights with me, waking up the next day as if it never happened. He started blaming me for everything wrong in our relationship — when I have been the only one trying to keep things progressing.
His 3 kids live with us and they are teens. They barely talk and spend most of their time locked up in their room. His middle son is failing most of his classes and his daughter is starting to sleep in the same bed nightly with the middle son. My fiance doesn’t care to correct any of what’s going on. He only cares about his liquor.
Yesterday while he was drunk, he threw my phone into a wall and shattered it — his excuse was that I was getting on his nerves telling him a story about one of my co-workers.
He wreaks of alcohol and BO daily. I have to wash our sheets every day because this horrible smell gets in and stays in the bedding. Even that smell is my fault. Nothing is ever enough for him — if I talk, I’m saying something annoying and he doesn’t want to hear anymore. If I walk, it’s too slow for him. If I want to watch something on tv, he storms out of the room because he “can’t” deal with the tv shows I watch. A few months ago he went crazy because I cooked chicken twice in a week and apparently he hated chicken that month. Now this month he hates ground beef and purchased a freezer full of chicken. I can’t keep up with any of it. I am drained.
As I write this, I am laying downstairs on our couch because I can’t stand sleeping next to him. He woke me up 2 hours ago wanting to argue about why I told him a story regarding my co-worker — all a bunch of drunk nonsense, making a problem where there is none. Do I love him? Of course — but if he can’t sober up, I have to leave him.
How can A.A. help when he goes to meetings drunk — and they don’t say anything that I know of. He can’t get past Step 4, has been a member for a year. I was so blinded in love with him, but the smell of alcohol every night has soured my heart.
I have been staying with my boyfriend for a year now. When we first met it was one bottle, but I thought it was just celebrating our dates. But as the months passed, his drinking is unbelievable. He blames his job for his drinking, which plenty of times we have argued about. He can be an affectionate person, but there is no sex involved in this relationship. He prefers to watch porn. He is unsociable, will not go out, has only taken me out once for dinner.
I ask him to take me for coffee. His reply is we have some in the kitchen. His favorite spot in the flat is the bed, with TV and wine. Cannot make a noise when he’s watching, either league, fishing, or cop programmes. Don’t make a noise in the kitchen, or there will be an argument, don’t chew toast while you are around him, don’t slurp your tea/coffee, not to make a noise with your fork or spoon on the plate. Neighbors cannot mow their lawns, or builders banging anywhere outside. Cannot mow our lawns while he is home, because of hangover day, which is every day. Picks on my dog if things don’t go well for him.
We have slept in separate beds for the last three months. If I had to snore a little bit, which I do because I have a sinusitis problem, he makes this horrible grunt to let you know you are making too much noise. I have asked him to see someone about his drinking, but he said he does not have an issue with it.
I think something has happened in his teen days. A man who once was a good rugby player, fitness person, had many girlfriends, all of whom gave him the heeve ho, and left them for other men.
I am a widow. My husband and I were very happy and had a great marriage. After years being single, I met him through my sister. I have not compared him to my late husband, because he will never come close. How do I help him? I have tried everything. He is all about himself and no one else. He also texts other women when he drinks, and then denies it, and the list just keeps going. He even brings up that I am after his money if we are in a relationship for more than two years. I have more assets then he does.
I have strong feelings for this man. I believe after 8 years being widowed, there must be a reason why I ended up with him. I am at my wits end, I don’t know what to do. He has a good heart, when he is sober — but it’s still all about him, and to top things off his brother stays upstairs, and they are both off the same branch. They need to divorce, but I cannot see that happening. When we have a deep conversation, he calls it arguing.
Why do we subject ourselves to such pain and hurt?
Married 7 years to my knight in shining armour. He gave so much of himself to me and our boys. Trust, independence and love.
Now it’s the bottle that has him. I am drifting away from him emotionally. Feel alone, no one to talk to.
Cried reading many of these posts and think I am being selfish.
I truly hope many of you find the strength to follow your heart for what is best for you. Because you are important too, for yourself and the ones that depend on you.
Thank you guys for writing these stories. It makes me feel a little better about the situation I just walked away from.
I have always drank some. It was very bad when I was young, left home at 15 and was in with the wrong people, a never-ending-bender for 6 or 7 years — always working and putting money away, though. My ex cleaned my account out (over 50 grand) and took off to another country. Wake-up call for me. If I wasn’t so drunk, he wouldn’t have pulled that off!
Started my life over, flat broke at 25 years old, living out of a backpack again and driving a beat-up old truck. Sold my boat and everything of value and rented my house to clean up debts he left me. Off to the drilling rigs I went, ran a 24-hour-a-day vacuum truck and lived in a shack on a drilling rig way up in northern Alberta. I am good at it. That is good money, but you earn every dollar.
I got a boiler ticket and worked the same abusive work. It isn’t a life I would wish on anyone, but it sobered me up because there was no time to drink or eat or even change your socks some days. I still drink some in the summer when I am off. But I got involved with a nice guy that doesn’t cheat on me, but even in the beginning I knew he had the same problems as me, but was a very good person underneath.
For once I could go out of town for months on end and work without wondering what he was up to. Not cheating or spending my money out in bars — no, because his main plan was to work part-time and then come home and get drunk by himself. This spring I came home from the north country and he has smashed up my pickup, destroyed my house from home renovation projects gone wrong. His grandfather is sick in another province, so this is somehow my fault he doesn’t work enough to earn enough to travel. This is all somehow my fault and causing him to drink.
A couple months ago he was working lots. I am off for the summer — can afford and need it. He decides he is somehow supporting me and that I am having some kind of affair with a water hauler. Interesting and almost funny as our water hauler is a 60-year-old man with a Mohawk. I ignored most of it, until he punched me in the face and broke my nose — going on and on about what a whore I am, then up and hit me. My being German, Hungarian and some Irish might have played a part in how it played out. No skinny drunk retard that took the winter off work is going to call me a lazy whore. I broke bones in his face and ribs.
He has been threatening to leave me once a week for the last year, then sobers up and it all changes. He packed his stuff and went home to his mommy and I haven’t heard from him since. Leaves me feeling empty and alone, but could not continue watching someone who was a shell of a person. I get a 5 minute conversation and then he is too drunk to make sense. He watched his mother put up with his dad like that for so many years and told me he never wanted to be like that — he is exactly the same.
She works every day while he is home too drunk to talk to, or just yells at her. I see the emptiness in her eyes and never want to be 60 years old in her shoes. Is it wrong, I just kicked him to the curb? Could there have been any fixing it? I can’t bring myself to call and check is he doing better or just sinking deeper? So many questions and 4 years of my life down the drain. Now I can move forward with my life and try very hard not to pick another one like him.
I love my boyfriend with every tiny piece of myself. We’ve been together almost 5 years now.
We met at 22 and immediately fell completely in love. He was everything I’d ever hoped for and more. I couldn’t believe I had found someone so amazing.
Somewhere over the years our fun “drinks with friends” and “drinks with dinner” became a necessity to him. Every day. Immediately after work, on lunch breaks during the day, as soon as he wakes up on the weekends, and until we go to sleep, he is drinking.
Also over the years he has become resentful of me and angry and emotionally deficient. I’ve blamed myself and sought therapy for anxiety and depression, even medication to help myself. I never equated his mood swings to alcohol. He never really acts drunk, slurs his speech or appears unbalanced , but he must never be sober. I can’t count how many beers he drinks in a day, and that’s just what I know about.
To be honest this is my first time ever really admitting this (any of it) to myself and it’s sending me into a panic. I’m scared for our future together. I cannot marry this man and have children and love a lifetime with an alcoholic.
I’ve been married for 14 years now. My husband has been drinking all along. Without a job, and depending on our parents — that’s been our life.
My husband is so selfish. When he gets money, it all belongs to him. There is no proper planning in our family. Recently he had stopped drinking, but after 4 months he has gone back to drinking.
He does not provide. He is just too lazy to work. He is so violent when he’s home. He comes home late and I feel this is just too much.
This is why I’ve been looking for so long. I really need your help. I’ve read and I’ve seen that you have helped many. Thanks for your big heart. Be blessed!
Here’s what I learned from ma and pa: The same exact second the the abuser decides they want to “stop” is the same exact second they won’t need you any longer. It’s sad, but it’s the way it works.
I, myself, am tired of taking care of another person and being depended on. I’ve got to “wake up,” myself. I know it’s not easy and I wish all of us the best of luck. When we love someone unconditionally, it’s extremely difficult to deal with.
If I leave him, will he quit?
If I leave him, will the kids be better or worse off, having to go back and forth for shared weekends and holidays?
My husband and I have been married 28 years. Right after I married him I realized his drinking someday could get out of control. We have 2 daughters, both adults. When my oldest was 2 years old my husband and I separated because of his drinking and consistently coming home drunk. He would get out of work on Fridays and we wouldn’t see him again until Saturday morning. Saturday he would wake up and redo the previous night’s antics. After a few months we reunited.
I had my second daughter. He hadn’t changed. My girls grew up knowing that reality. He always said he wasn’t an alcoholic because he did not drink every day. I always said an alcoholic was someone who couldn’t stop himself from drinking.
Well, now he drinks 6 to 7 days a week. He gives excuses for drinking. He feels like he shouldn’t have to pay bills and even wants to sell our home. He doesn’t want to go anywhere with me and all he does is drink from the moment he gets home from work until it is time for bed. He is probably watching porn because he sits in front of his computer while drinking.
I want to leave, but find it hard. I am praying that God gives me the strength I need. I’m at my wit’s end. It hurts me to see him destroy himself, but he is mentally and verbally abusing me too.
My husband is an alcoholic. He doesn’t talk to me and practically ignores our kids. He is never home, because he goes out during the week to drink after work. On weekends he takes off as well, comes home extremely late, does not answer his phone and I don’t know where, or who he is with. He comes home drunk and gives me dirty looks if I try to ask where he has been. Then he proceeds to tell me he can’t stand me and that I have issues.
When he doesn’t drink, our marriage is fine. Then when he is on a binge, he can’t stand me and tells me he is tired of me. It’s like living with two different people. He has ruined our relationship and I’m always alone with the kids.
I feel very lonely and always waiting to see what time he comes home, if at all. He cannot keep promises and he cannot drink without getting drunk. He embarrasses me and when we get an invitation to an event, it is very stressful for me because I know problems will arise.
I feel he is extremely selfish and that he does not love us the way he says he does. He only loves himself and his needs. Tomorrow he has his first evaluation meeting at a rehab facility. He said he would go, but he is a liar. He has been out of our house for 9 days. He did not come home and I told him he could not return until he went to get help.
Now he is hating me again because I’m the bad guy who is making him do something he does not want to do. Today we had agreed he was supposed to come home because he had made the appointment and he gave me his word. I waited all day and he did not show. If he doesn’t go tomorrow either to his appointment, I guess it’s the end of my marriage. I am devastated he would do this to our family. He is destroying our lives.
Met my husband when I was 18 years old. He was the change I needed, and he made my life exciting. We got married when I was 19 and he was 24. I knew he drank and had been warned by my relatives, but I just ignored it.
Reality hit after a while, his drinking got worse after he lost his family business and was jobless for 2 years. There was a lot of abusive language and physical violence. We have two beautiful kids. I thought he would change as the kids grew older, but his drinking is just getting worse — where he will hide his booze under the trash can or beneath his clothes.
I have been with him for 17 years and have lost the man I fell in love with. I want to leave him, but feel sad as well. He has been in and out of many jobs and lacks a stable income. It’s very sad to see such an intelligent man to waste his life as such. His back and body have become weak and his health is deteriorating.
My husband drinks a lot, every day. I live in Mongolia. He drinks a lot and is very selfish, hides money from me, doesn`t care about me. If I say we need some item at home, he refuses strongly and never accepts it, getting angry, doesn`t do anything.
We are together for 5 years. It is hard to divorce. It means I have to destroy my building which we built for our life. I am full of worry for him, even now. I ran away from him 14 days ago. He suddenly showed up. He was quiet, easy to understand before, but now he has negative feeling about the outside world.
I hide all of it, cannot tell to friends. I feel ashamed. Today I cannot concentrate on my job, searching for advice on the internet to make me strong. Today I have the feeling that if I go back to him, what will happen. Of course the drinking alcohol life will be repeated again and again. It might be one day I look back and feel full of sorrow, or I have to cope with life without him.
I am in the middle of life. I feel very lonely, because friends they don’t understand me, say I must divorce, but after divorce being alone will make me sad, but again with him I am losing my happiness and fill myself with depression and stress.
I tried to talk to him about stopping drinking, but he says he will never stop drinking, but he might reduce the drinking. I have no idea. I am Asian but to read all these podcasts, all women in this world have a similar destiny. In my country there is a club for alcoholics, not for their family to support or find advice.
A lot of these stories sound so familiar. I am 38 and he is 41. My husband and I have known each other since we were young, but then lived far away from each other. In 2010 I moved and ended up living really close to him. We became friends and soon fell in love. My family tried to warn me, but I didn’t think he was an alcoholic (He had 2 DUIs that I didn’t know about).
I would drink with him sometimes. We moved in together and things got bad. He started leaving for days at a time and coming home with phone numbers and no explanation for where he had been or why he had left. I loved him and I know he loves me too. We adopted 3 children and had 2 biological children.
Last year he left me because I found him at a bar and I took my vehicle and left him stranded there. Well, he said he would go to counseling, and I let him come home. He quit counseling as soon as he moved back in. Two months later he left again.
I have told him he cannot come back until he goes to rehab and gets counseling. It’s not just his drinking–he was gambling, taking money and spending it without telling me, not paying bills, porn, lots of issues, and I have found him on dating sites too.
He keeps turning it around on me and makes me feel like it’s all my fault (When he was here I couldn’t sleep because he would drink and then keep me up all night, telling me what a horrible wife, mother and person I am). I have put my foot down and now it looks like we are headed for divorce. I don’t want that but I can’t let him come home again, doing what he is doing.
He recently started a rumor about a family friend and me and it got around to my church and everyone–it was untrue and hurt a lot of people, but he will not take responsibility and says it is everyone else’s fault for believing it.
I feel lost and saddened that he is choosing his alcohol over us–a bad thing is that he has 3 other children that have not really had him in their lives because of bad choices too.
I know he does love us, but he loves his alcohol and even though he says he knows he is an alcoholic he refuses to get help so he can come home. I don’t know what to do anymore, but I am tired of his drunk texts and harassment and I need to focus on our family.
I knew my partner drank and had mental health issues, but with my care and love she is conquering her mental health situation. I love her dearly. My major concern is her drinking. She does not know when to stop.
She drinks a bottle-plus a night and also a few vodkas. Before she has had a drink she is a lovely, pleasant person who is responsive, caring, funny and great to be with. Once it gets to 3 or 4 pm and the drinking starts, coupled with smoking cannabis, it all goes horribly wrong. She becomes self-centered, nasty, forgetful.
There is no intimacy anymore. And if there is, it’s alcohol-fueled. I am suffering from anxiety and panic attacks. And when she starts drinking, my heart sinks. I get that huge weighty feeling around my stomach.
I try talking to her about it, but she won’t listen. I feel I am gonna lose her. Either it kills her or she leaves me, because I want to help her.
Today I spent half a day crying. On most days for the past few months I manage to cry only a short while. Somehow, the enormity of living with addicted family members hit me by force today.
My son is a drug and digital addict who is currently in rehab. In my opinion, my husband of 26 years is an alcoholic, and in his opinion he isn’t. Essentially, this means that not only have I fallen out of love over the past 2-3 years, I feel I now have also lost my best friend with whom I used to talk about everything. Now it seems I can’t talk about anything important anymore–at least nothing concerning his alcohol consumption and whether he is going to get treatment. I feel I am exploding from not being able to talk to him.
My daughter and I visited my son in rehab last week for 3 days and joined the family program, which was incredibly intense. I have never met so many unhappy people in one room ever in all my life. And now I am part of this group of people with the sad stories.
During these days, a girl with meth addiction did a presentation and when she recounted her life and problems, my daughter became very teary. I dragged her to a counsellor and it turns out that she was raped as a teenager, drugged several times and sexually assaulted. She has had insomnia for years and bulimia and now needs trauma counselling. I think she also drinks too much. When I think about my family, I just want to help them all and make them stop–but I understand that really I can’t do much.
I have learned to follow my intuition in the last few months and at least that led to my son going voluntarily to rehab, because suddenly out of nowhere I found the strength to say, “No, enough is enough. Get help or move out, no more money.”
My younger son is so far still all right, but our family situation affects him greatly. His girlfriend has depression and is mildly bipolar. My youngest daughter has life-threatening food allergies and dyslexia and has difficulties controlling her moods–sometimes she is super happy and then the next moment super sad or super angry.
I grew up in a small village in Europe and the worst part of my life was that my parents and I would argue–that’s all. I feel I am totally unequipped to deal with all of this drama. When I was young, I always gravitated towards the happy and funny people because actually I love to laugh. Hopefully one day I will feel like laughing again–I mean really laughing, belly-aching laughter from the heart. Baby steps for the moment. I am going to my second Al-Anon meeting tonight–the first one I spent crying, so perhaps today I can manage not to cry. We’ll see.
We’ve been married 11 years. He’s always had a tendency to drink too much, and by our third year of marriage he was a full blown alcoholic.
Drinking every day, missing work, getting fired, detox and rehab, over and over. I always think it can’t possibly get worse, and then it does. He has been minutes away from death, and after recovering, still drinks. I’m surprised he’s lasted this long.
Now he’s in the hospital for weeks out of the year because he gets so sick from drinking. And then goes back to it a month or two later. It is insane. A sane person wouldn’t do this to himself. I wish he’d be able to find a way to conquer his demons and stop drinking.
For someone so intelligent and strong, he is so stupid and weak. So now, after over eight years of promises, I watch him through the window, bringing in his bottle, and then lying about it, even though I saw him. I wish it were easier to leave.
No, if love could stop my husband from drinking, he would have stopped years ago. I know he loves me. He would do anything for me, except stop drinking.
His drinking has made me feel like I don’t even know him. Just like everyone else, when he’s sober, he’s a dream–the sweetest, kindest man on earth. Once 4 pm comes around, I get a queasy feeling in my stomach because I know what’s coming. Dr.Jekyl and Mr. Hyde.
In the day I’m his beautiful wife, his best friend, lover. I get hugs, kisses–but at night I’m nothing, a fat piece of crap, and so on. Then we wake up to his I-love-you’s–Good morning, beautiful. I can’t do this much longer. I have never and will never love a man as much as I love my husband, but his demon is too much for me to battle anymore.
Our kids and I deserve better. Just wish he believed that too. He thinks I’ll never leave–he’s sadly mistaken. I’m so hurt, yet I know for my sanity and the sanity of our children what needs to be done. Life is so unfair. I will always be heartbroken.
I was sober for 3 years. I lost my mother in 2012, watched her suffer, and I picked up drinking again. It’s out of control. My fiance’, whom I’ve been with 15 years, is a sober person. I need to find some help before I lose him.
This is the same story, just different people. I am a 60-year-old white female, college degree, divorced 3 times. All 3 drank beer. #3 was the one I was so in love with. Met in 2006. He was in jail for a while when we first met, and he is 12 years younger than me.
We loved music, karaoke and unfortunately he drank during those times. However, he was working for a while, then he just kept drinking more and more and at one time a 24-pack a day. I had a really good job. He managed to make me lose it by calling my job too much. I even married him and still I stayed, hoping he would wake up.
At that time we took his son to raise, 7 years old, and I thought that would help. It only got worse. We moved to where his father lived and it got worse. One night he got drunk, (after the 7-year-old went back to his mom) and punched me. I had him put in jail. I was going to leave him at that point, but I made the mistake of going to visit him in jail to tell him I was leaving. He started sobbing and he looked so bad. Of course, I couldn’t do it.
He promised never to hit me again. Of course, we went out one night and he drank and took something and I got a face punching in the shower that night but he made up a big lie about someone spiking his drink, etc. After that it was just verbal abuse, accusations of me cheating, refusing to work and talking to other women on the phone, sneaking out with them, etc. Advertising on craigslist personals.
Long story short, I divorced him. Then six months later I took him in when he was homeless (lost another job) and finally in October 2014 I left for good.
I am now with a man who does not smoke or drink, has a great job, let me move in with him at his house. He pays for everything and I am very happy. #3 is moving to Florida, has found a job and a new woman and is trying to quit drinking and smoking. Been there before, I feel sorry for the woman because I know what’s going to happen and she has 3 kids.
Where does it end? And yes, like a fool, I still love him. But I can’t ever be with him again. It’s what you have to do to save yourself. I pray for you all. My heart is broken for all concerned. I am not sure these alcoholics love anything except the booze. They don’t even love themselves.
I had been, until recently, with the true love of my life. However, recently his drinking has made him so verbally abusive to me I have had to leave. I know he is an alcoholic and it is an illness. However, the effect on my life has been horrendous. This has been the worst experience of my life. I would have done anything to have put this relationship right, but I now know it is not my responsibility but his.
I dream of everything coming “right,” but I know this will never happen and at least I have kept my sanity. My heart is so heavy. I feel so sad and so sorry for him. I fear for his health and his future.
For nearly 15 yrs I have been with my b/f. We had separate houses and had no kids together, but each had our own. I knew he used to drink and had a drug problem. I never meant to be in a relationship with him, but he just didn’t leave and he was so nice and at first he didn’t drink much, but I guess the more at home he felt, the more of his true self come through.
He would never hit me, but would threaten to kill me, burn my house down, or get others to bash me. He would follow me to the school, yelling at me in front of the other mums and teachers. He would always tell me he could find someone so much better than me and he was doing me a favour by being with me. In some cases he would lock myself and the kids in the car, threatening to run into a pole or off the bridge and kill us all.
I wanted him to go, but he just wouldn’t leave. So with lots of promises and lies I gave him one more chance. Until these last few years when he’s had his second DUI and I told him last chance. Well, that was three chances ago–until today when I told him it was over and he got my phone and threatened me and got physical with me. My friend heard and called the police. He was gone by the time they arrived and I told them not to do anything as his ex used to do it all the time and I knew he got off on it.
So a few hours later my friend and I were walking down the street and he stopped and verbally abused us. She also called the police. This time they advised an AVO. So that’s where I’m at, sitting in my house with the doors locked, not wanting to go outside, wondering if I will be on the news tomorrow! I wonder where did I go. I was so strong, so confident, so carefree.
I met my partner at the age of 62, he was 66. Right from the start he told me he was an alcoholic. Over the next four years he has made huge efforts to stop drinking. Whiskey is the main culprit–he can’t have a beer without a whiskey, and once drinking he doesn’t know when to stop.
Without it, he’s lovely, thoughtful, caring, loving, considerate–but he has no hobbies, does not like reading and finds it really hard to sit and watch any TV unless it’s a documentary, factual, or one of those horrible American Friends series, which I can’t stand. He enjoys crosswords.
When having had too much to drink, he becomes overly sexual, which I don’t want purely because it’s alcohol-fueled. He also says mean things and becomes argumentative. I feel as though I want to pull the plug on this relationship. We don’t live together, I couldn’t–but I do enjoy his company when he’s sober.
I don’t know what do I do. As soon as I see him with a drink in his hand, I feel a large leaden weight settle around my solar plexus and I just want to ask him to go.
My husband is caring and loves his son, but he cheats, smokes and drinks. He lies about everything, even when you see him so drunk. It really kills me and I don’t know what to do.
My boyfriend promises me daily that this day will be the day he won’t drink–and when he comes home I smell it as soon as he walks through the door. He will continue to lie to me until he knows I won’t take the lies anymore and sees I’m about to leave. My trust issues with him are now so awful that I find myself questioning everything else in our relationship. He lies so easily about drinking–why not other things? This is so sad to me because deep down I know that he really is a wonderful man when alcohol is not present.
It’s not the question of whether they love you or not. In most cases they do love you, but they share that love of alcohol as well.
Would the drinking stop if he or she loved you? This is a common misconception and an easy state of mind to get into when in a relationship with someone who has addictive behaviours. I work with people who have addictive behaviours and I also have personal experience of being in relationships with men who have problematic relationships with alcohol.
I believe that this behaviour has got very little to do with us and has everything to do with the person drinking. It is not a reflection on how much or less that “they” love us and more to do with how s/he copes with life, emotions, events etc. It’s about resilience skills and finding alternatives to drinking. This, as we know, is not easy but it is their journey, not ours.
The only thing that we can do that is within our control is to ask ourselves if we can live with this behaviour and the not-knowing when the next drink will be. No one can make this choice for us but ourselves, and every person is different as well as every relationship is different.
My partner is a binge drinker and it has only recently become known to me (or maybe I have only recently stopped being in denial, or maybe I’m just getting bored with it now). We can only work on our relationship with ourselves and make sure that we have healthy, balanced and happy lives. We cannot do that for others. Maybe we can act as a role model for our partners and help them to see and live alternative lifestyles.
What I do know is that if we do not keep ourselves healthy and if we become too involved in the emotional whirlwind of the drinker, then our health will suffer, causing stress, anxiety and depression. Talking to people and getting support helps us make sure we are not to blame and we are not the answer. The answer regarding whether we should stay or go from the relationship will come. In the meantime, we need to stay safe and well.
I am 21 and I met my alcoholic ex when I was 19. He was 21 at the time. I have recently decided enough is enough and I’ve had enough of him. In a way, I do sympathise for him and all alcoholics in general, but hurting the people you love is not the way forward. That’s why I packed my stuff up and don’t want anything to do with him anymore!
I have just recently (about 7 months ago) started dating the most wonderful man. He was very up front with me in the beginning that he likes his beer. He calls himself a beer-aholic, like that’s better than straight up what this is, alcoholism. We don’t live in the same city, which means that up until this weekend I have not been around when he drinks heavily.
This weekend was horrible. He was rude to my friend and myself, he stunk, was sexually aggressive, and not the guy I fell in love with at all. I feel like if I’m going to get out, now would be the time, before we start talking about moving in together and building a life, but I don’t want to leave him alone.
He’s so wonderful when he’s not drinking, though now I wonder if he’s ever been sober in the last 7 months. I’m scared of what our future will be together and I’m even more scared to ask him to stop, because I’m sure he will choose the beer over me.
He’s also had some health issues in the past few years, with seizures that were never explained, and I’m thinking they were from withdrawal, which scares me too. He thinks nothing of having 5 beers and driving and missing work because he has gone too hard the night before.
I am desperate for some help. I don’t want to end the relationship because he is so amazing and loving and caring and supportive and blah, blah, blah, but what I saw this weekend is more than I think I’m willing to deal with for the rest of my life.
I am also in a relationship with an alcoholic. However, we recently broke up the engagement. I gave the ring back because I can’t take the things he says to me anymore. He is not violent or abusive physically, but I do not like the outbursts and throwing things and his acting out towards me around his family and friends.
We are still talking in hopes to rekindle things, but I promised myself I won’t go back if he doesn’t quit. He has already lost his license twice. Has had an interlock put in his vehicle and has to get another one.
I know God is able and I believe God can heal. I don’t deserve the stress and worry and having to see two different people, not knowing which one I’m gonna deal with from day to day. I’m so sad that he can’t see what it has done and what it is doing. He may lose me for good.
He is a very good person. We’ve known each other 15 years and have dated about 8 of those. I don’t want to lose him. But I’ve seen what alcohol can do and I don’t want to watch a person do that to themselves.
I know the topic is, “If the person loves me, then wouldn’t they stop?” I don’t necessarily think or feel that my boyfriend’s love for me will be enough for him to stop abusing alcohol. I know it has more to do with him needing to love himself. I also know the road to recovery isn’t simple and that it lasts a lifetime. My only heartbreak comes from the lies that result from his drinking problem.
My boyfriend treats me so amazingly and is kind-hearted and beautiful inside and out, yet he doesn’t see it. His drinking causes him physical problems and he hides alcohol now in water bottles, among other places, to try to hide it from me. He’s admitted he has a problem and that he should stop drinking, but on the same hand he likes drinking and doesn’t want to stop.
He’s gone through withdrawals once and then relapsed and started drinking again. He’s lied to me when I’ve asked if he’s been drinking and then I’ve found vodka in his water bottle or in a bag hidden in my car. He throws up and can’t keep food down when he drinks even a small amount now, and he gets the shakes and nightmares and heart palpitations.
I’m scared for him. I want him to help himself and I have a hard time trusting him now in matters where drinking is concerned. I find myself invading his privacy by searching his house or car. I find myself questioning everything he says or does in fear that he’s secretly drinking. Sometimes my fear comes true and he is, and sometimes I’m happily mistaken.
I feel like a bad girlfriend when my first thought is, “I wonder if he drank today,” or, “Is he’s lying to me today?” I know it’s not healthy for me or our relationship for me to think this way. Sometimes he is lying and hiding alcohol and the fact that he lies about it makes me feel insulted and heartbroken. I don’t want to leave him as he’s in need and feeling as if he isn’t worthy of love. I do love him and I wish my loving him was enough, but he has to love himself and I don’t know how to help him do that.
I also don’t know how to deal with the lies and the trust issues I’ve developed as a result of them. Dating an alcoholic is such a fine line of being in a relationship, playing therapist, detective, and doctor. I don’t think it’s healthy for me to be the one to hold him accountable, but if I don’t, he won’t. It’s very stressful and confusing and I just wish I had any guidance as to how to deal with this situation.
I’ve heard many say, “Run,” or, “Get out now.” But I just can’t see leaving someone I love when he’s not a bad person and he doesn’t mistreat me. I just don’t know how to deal with the lies from him, or now my trust issues. I see that causing many problems in the future, unless I can figure out a healthy way to take charge of this–but I also know what he does isn’t within my control. I can only control my own actions and feelings and I don’t know how to trust him now, and I also don’t know how to not let the lies break my heart.
I’ve known my husband for 8 years. We’ve been married for 5 months. We moved and the deal was no getting drunk, but he can’t uphold that promise. My dad just died of drinking less than a year ago. I don’t know what to do.
I have been with my alcoholic/drug-addicted boyfriend for almost 4 years. Most of it has been a hellish cycle of drinking and using drugs and stopping for a day or so, to spiraling out of control. He abuses alcohol, pills, pot. I suspect even heroin. I didn’t know he was a drug addict when we were first together and it took me a little while to realize he was an alcoholic. He loves pills too. I think percs are his choice. I have been through so much because of it.
He says it’s my problem. In the beginning we would have these crazy arguments where I couldn’t even figure out why the heck he was so mad, then if I cried, he would laugh at me and make fun of me and tell me he was leaving. He has lied to me, tried getting back with ex-girlfriends and had really inappropriate relationships. Dealers texting him all hours of the night. He would meet his drug connection where we were having date night and slip out the back.
I started defending myself about 6 months into the relationship. When I do, he calls me mean and abusive after he’s said all kinds of rude, nasty things about me. I can’t say a remotely negative word to him or he goes nuts. We could be having a great day and I ask something like why are you doing that. Then he rants, “Geez, I can’t do anything right.” He tells me I just want him to be my puppet and that I need to get cats. He never realizes that all arguments start from the drinking or drugs and his crazy way of thinking. Sometimes he’ll be sitting in the chair with the ugliest, angriest look on his face. I am so tired.
I feel like it has sucked all the joy out of my life. I have nothing to look forward to. We have nothing to look forward to together.
I’ve been with my boyfriend for only 1 year, but he has told me he’s a binge drinker. I’m so sad. I thought he was so lovely and kind. The only thing, when he drinks he is still that soppy person. I’m so mixed up, should get him to move out of my house. Maybe that would help him change and stop drinking, if he loves me.
I’m so confused, love him very much. He’s trying to get help now, but not good at the AA meeting. I really wonder if he wants to. All my family thinks I should get him out of my life. I also have a boy of 5, which is my concern although he does not drink around him. I’m setting boundaries. If he relapses again, he will have to go!!
I am new to this site. I am not new to living with an alcoholic. I have known he has been one for years. My husband and I have been married for about 11 1/2 years. We have been thru so much.
At first I really hated his drinking because he would leave me in the car and I would be dumb enough to wait for him. I would go get his beer for him at times, and at times drink along with him. I have been aware of this, wanting him to change, while at the same time getting angry but allowing this to happen. I have kicked him out, begged him to change, poured out his beer, left him at other people’s houses, and still nothing.
By the grace of God, he has not obtained a DUI or any law violations due to his drinking, only because he has not gotten caught. He has driven drunk while I am in the car, had his son drive him, etc. I love him, but yet have recently realized I don’t want to do this anymore. I am tired of being his accomplice by being quiet. I want to help him, but at the same time as he has told me before when sober, “I will stop when I want to stop.” He is a weekend drunk, but yet drinks one or two beers during the week. I get left at home while he goes to his friends’ house, family members’ house or wherever to drink.
Infidelity on his part also happened and he blamed that on drinking. I don’t want to feel sorry for myself anymore. I want to help him, I pray and pray. I don’t want to lose him, but yet I feel I already have lost him to alcohol. Once in a great blue moon I will get a “I know I am an alcoholic.” Then promises to stop come, but those I have been hearing for over 11 years, and all are false.
I have seen him stop completely for 3 months and only because he felt he had to lie to his brothers, or he can’t drink because of this or that. He says he gives in because he doesn’t want to be made fun of. I think he just plain doesn’t want to. He says he does, but then does the opposite and pretends like nothing happens.
Back in 2008 was the last time we got physically violent, so thank God no more of that. However, there is always “lip service” from both of us putting each other down and calling each other bad names.
I am tired of this same cycle, while at the same time I pray for a miracle for him to change. Co-dependent on him? Well, yes, I guess you can say that, because I look for love, attention, etc. from him that I may rarely get a few times a month, if I am lucky. We don’t have kids together. He has children. Don’t want them to have a bad example, thinking it’s ok to do the things he does, drink, and it’s okay as long as you don’t get caught.
Again, pray, pray, pray and hope for a miracle. I say I am done, but yet I don’t have the courage to kick him out. I say it, but yet allow him to stay. Lord, help me. Mother Mary, teach me patience, but at the same time intercede for me so that I can change. Amen.
I’m 23. I’ve been with my boyfriend for two years. I knew he was drinking, but didn’t know he was an alcoholic. I was so blind for a year–we’ll argue every time over alcohol. He stole my savings to get drunk in a club, stole his mother’s wedding ring and sold it to buy alcohol, then admitted that he was an alcoholic.
He has verbally abused me when drunk and embarrassed me in front of people. I told him if he can go a week without drinking I’ll buy him something as an award for doing good, and he goes and tells me he’s tired and goes home, and later I figure out he went out to stay up all night to get drunk.
I’m to the point that I love myself too much to do this to myself. I can’t do this to myself anymore. I cry all the time and it’s like he doesn’t care. I feel so numb that I can’t stand it. I’d rather stop talking to him now, than go down with him.
My friends, I feel for all of you. My wife of 14 years, the mother of our children, the love of my life, the only love of my life, renounced me and our marriage due to alcoholism. I never saw it coming because she has a good heart, but her drinking buddies decided to educate her on how good life would be without me.
She wanted it badly and took a chance and claimed I was abusive. She hit me every weekend for the last two years. She said she hated me when she drank. She carried on with strangers behind my back. I loved her so much I was blinded by/to the truth. Now she calls when she needs money or a babysitter so she can go out with men. We are still married, but separated.
How sad for her. One day she will reach out for a hand to hold and it will not be there. Someday the alcohol will come for its price and no one will be able to stop it. One day she will see the love she lost, but I will be gone.
I gave my life for her and she took it. You know something, I died inside. I am not the same person anymore. I am called Gabriel now. It is the only way I can cope with this betrayal and alcoholic personality change.
I died inside, but yet I must live for my children. To do so is to suffer the rest of my life alone. I am prepared, but scared. I am lonely. Her drinking cost me my home, 20 years of hard work, my wife, my lover, my best friend, my love, but not my heart! My heart belongs to God and my children!
We can survive this, my beloved friends. We can become who we need to be to survive amid the chaos life throws at us. We are people too, and there will never be another one like us.
I’m 21 and my boyfriend is 31. He has been drinking since the beginning of our relationship, when we met 3 years ago. I don’t know why he does it and in the beginning I brushed it off. But over the past 1.5 years it has been very noticeable. To the point that my mum has noticed, his mum has noticed, and his friends have noticed. You would think that being done high, DUI and having an interlok put on your car would make him come to his senses but it hasnt. 🙁
Last year he drank 2/3 of the year away. When he drinks, he drinks a minimum 12 beers.
This is hurting me so much. I blame myself. I bring it up with him. I try to help by cooking healthy meals and asking to go for walks. But all he wants to do is drink. I try recommending counselling and AA. And he says he would, but never did it. I try to speak to him on a neutral level, but he brushes me off.
We live together. I have so much invested in this relationship, but I have to leave. I want to leave, in time, and get my young adulthood back without him.
He’s stayed up all night, being loud and making friends with the neighbors and drinking. He’s kept me awake too, worrying, and by his loudness. I need to go to work tomorrow to pay the bills.
I hate drinking myself. Well, I did in the beginning of our relationship. But his drinking has had an effect on me. Last year I gained a lot of weight drinking alongside him.
I need to get away from this relationship for myself. He won’t change. And I can’t change him. He needs to do it himself.
I am giving him 2 months. I won’t tell him this. I will save my money to move out of this shared apartment. And if he hasn’t improved, I am going.
My husband and I have known each other for about 10 years. We have been married for four months. We have two biological daughters and a daughter from a previous relationship he’s had. My husband was great at first, but now it’s like he’s verbally abusive and manipulative. I’m totally stressed out and I’m so ready for a divorce. But I love him. It’s just he has insecurities within him, and the drinking which takes over his mentality.
My husband was an alcoholic who stopped drinking for 15+ years. He only drank iced tea and water. Our children didn’t know the hell that I went through, thankfully. Fast forward to today. He fell off the wagon, thanks to 2 people that I know. He started drinking crown and 7’s, at first in the social settings. Then he went from that to drinking beer because it’s cheaper.
He’s drank our retirement away and is verbally abusive, calling the kids ugly names and belittling me. He’s driven us all away from him. I have fallen out of love with him and want to go on with my life without him. He’s very selfish and says that this is all my fault. I’m at my wits end and will be going to a divorce lawyer instead of AA.
I periodically get so sad that I am divorced from my alcoholic ex-husband that I have to read some blogs/comments from others in the same boat–loving an alcoholic.
We dated for 10 years, were married for 10, but separated for 5 of those 10. We have a son who hasn’t lived with his father since he was 5. I loved this man a lot, and when we were young, and carefree we had many fun adventures together.
The drinking never seemed a problem until a few years before we married. I blamed it on a lot of things and assumed it was situational and would get better. But after we married and I became pregnant, it got much, much worse.
He has been in rehab 5 times in 5 years. I am glad he is still trying, but I have lost all hope in us. He was and is periodically verbally abusive, mostly completely irresponsible, and is just a person I don’t even recognize anymore. I guess I still have the memories of the person he used to be, or the people we used to be. We sure had some fun back then. I am sorry it’s over.
I sure hope he can stay sober for our son, who has been destroyed by the loss of his father. When a husband or father dies, you are surrounded by an outpouring of support. When your husband or father falls away into alcoholism, it is like they died but you can’t really talk about it, and people shame you and turn away from you like you have the disease too.
Thank God I have a good job and my parents are helping me raise our son. I don’t know what I would do otherwise. My ex hasn’t worked a day since we got married, and says he never will again. I didn’t even ask for alimony or child support. I just wanted him to support himself. This disease is the pits. It’s ruined 3 lives, and one of them was mine.
I am 24, my boyfriend is 34. At first, when we met he got drunk and said some really obscene things. I brushed it off and just thought we were in an argument I didn’t think much of it. Fast forward four years later. I have been in a verbally abusive relationship.
The alcohol has caused us to drift so far apart. He’s nasty, verbally abusive. I honestly feel like he hates me when he drinks. I’m in tears all the time and it’s like he doesn’t care. He will kick me even further to the ground with his words.
I just remember many nights, begging him to stop, praying to God to make this monster go away. He’s great when he is sober, but a monster when he drinks. I know after four years I can’t change him. I am constantly educating myself on this. Reading different internet articles, how to handle situations and how to walk away.
It puts a hole in my heart that the man I love has demons inside he can’t get away from, and I can’t continue to put myself or expose my child from a previous relationship to him. What will he learn from him? Not a good role model, if he can’t give it up!!
Even though he’s promised to stop many, many, many times, he never has, and I always feel like I look like the dumb one for staying and giving chance after chance. I mean, who does that? Who wants to hurt forever? I don’t. I really don’t.
I’m 23. My fiancee is 24. We’ve been together 2 years and five months. My man has always been a drinker. In fact, he used to drink and drive. His car was his personal recycle bin. He would drink all day, even sneak it to work til he was caught with his first DUI. He stopped drinking as much for like a week, then like nothing ever happened. He isn’t a mean drunk or anything. In fact, he is super loving, but the problem is he is harming himself physically and hurting us financially.
I’m tired. I am on the verge of telling him to get help or I am leaving. He won’t even go to his court-ordered drug classes. I need help. Lately his drinking is so bad I realize he isn’t in bed and look for him. He will be outside asleep or thrown-up in my chairs, or lays in bed and throws up on the floor and passes out. I don’t know what to do anymore. I am unhappy, but I love him so much. So much, but I can’t take it.
Hi, I have been around drink all my life. It is in my family blood. But I made a conscious decision not to drink, except on special occasions. It suits me. My new boyfriend of 7 months is a daily drinker, but will stay out of the pub if meeting me. I never asked him.
I know you will all think me stupid, but I wonder if it is possible that maybe he will decide to stay away from drink. My marriage ended because he was a violent drunk. But my new man could not hurt a fly or raise his voice in anger.
I have taken things slow for the children and it will take a long time to build up trust. I wonder if I should get out now or risk it. It is a big decision to make. Thanks for listening.
I have been in A.A. for 2.5 years and have been sober for that time. It’s incredibly hard, but I haven’t found anything that works as good as the A.A. program. I met a man in the rooms who I love very much (we were friends first and then he moved in and we ended up getting together), and we click in almost every way. He is sensitive and kind and has a pureness to him that’s so endearing. He doesn’t have a sponsor, though he does 4 meetings a week and has been in A.A. longer than I have (9 years).
Last night he came home late and then got into bed around 1 and seemed very different, using sex talk he doesn’t use. I couldn’t smell anything on him except toothpaste and cologne. I had a bad feeling in my gut and just knew he had been drinking. The worst thing is he won’t tell me the truth! It’s the worst as he is now this morning shaming himself and staying in bed and won’t talk at all. I don’t know if I should stay with him and make conditions that he gets a sponsor, etc. Or I could get out now before I am too involved.
I am 26 years old and I can relate to your pain. I met him at a local gay bar. At 1st drinking with him was never a problem until I noticed the monster he became when he had a few drinks. Small disputes turned into arguments, Arguments turned into fights, it got so bad that cops had gotten involved. Blood and bruises were created and there was nothing I was able to do.
I tried to make him realize he had an alcohol problem, but he denied it due to the fact that he wasn’t drinking every day. I thought I was wrong because he would constantly tell me that I was trying to control his life, change his ways and I wasn’t accepting him for what he was. So many broken promises of him stopping were made. To be accepted, he constantly lied to his family and friends about many situations. Playing the victim and running away from the real problem. He always used any little excuse or misunderstanding to leave the house and drink.
He expressed that he wasn’t changing who he was for me, as I met him that way. As hurt as I was with the knot on my throat, I told him I’m sorry I can’t accept you drinking–leave it or this is the end of us.
I am so convinced that I did what I could for him that even his own mother is on my side. After all the emotional and physical abuse he caused, I got fed up. The next day he came home drunk, asked me why was I ignoring him. I reminded him of what was said if he walks in that house with alcohol in his system. He said, “So you’re breaking up with me.” He packed his bags and left.
As much as it hurts, I had to think it is either you or me, and I would never choose me over anyone. It hurts so much. I miss him dearly, but as crazy as it may sound, he chose alcohol over me. And I’m worth more than a substance he does not need in his life. He was and always will be My 1st true love. But I leave the rest to God. He can only save him from him.
I’ve been with my boyfriend 14 years. When I met him 14 years ago, he never used to drink, but now he drinks every time he goes out. I’ve asked him so many times to please stop that drinking, but he always says to me, ” I do what I want to do.”
The thing is when he’s drunk he treats me like he hates me. He embarrasses me in public by trying to pick fights with me. I feel that I don’t know him anymore and I’m falling out of love with him.
We have three kids together and they are little. I feel too my life is a disaster. And I feel so lonely in this world. I don’t know what to do.
I’m 45. We’ve been married 16 years. He drinks to excess most nights. He drinks until his face is flushed red, his eyes are droopy, his movements are uncoordinated, his speech is slurred. He’s moody, irritated and unpleasant to be around. The scariest thing is he will drive when he’s drunk.
I can remember back to our earlier years together. Wine was consumed with dinner almost every night. Somewhere in our years together it wasn’t just wine. Now it’s wine and beer and scotch, 4-6 drinks a night. It might be more, but that’s what I was able to keep track of for one month when I was trying to understand how bad his drinking really is.
It blows my mind that I feel like I have no idea how or when it got this bad. I have no idea how bad it’s been for how long, because it isn’t really that bad or at least I thought it wasn’t that bad. I’m beginning to see that it is bad and not just because it breaks my heart.
It’s bad even though we don’t fight when he drinks. He doesn’t yell or hit. He goes to work. He pays his bills. He visits with friends and family. To everyone on the outside, he’s not an alcoholic or someone who drinks too much.
It’s bad because we are lying to everyone, including ourselves. I avoid him when he is drinking. I don’t nag or complain. I’ve only had 2 conversations with him about his drinking, where I used all the “I” statements and “feelings” statements I could muster. I have become the designated driver as much as I can. I’m starting to see the looks on our friends’ and family’s faces at parties and get-togethers.
It’s bad because the alcohol abuse is hurting his mental and physical health. It’s bad because it’s hurting our relationship. It’s bad because it’s hurting me.
I’m exhausted, sad, confused, scared, angry and so very tired.
I feel like he’s giving me a reverse ultimatum–put up with it, or leave. I’m not sure what I’m going to do, but then again I don’t see me writing this same post when I’m 55 about the same situation.
Thanks for listening.
We’ve been married 10 yrs and my husband has been using drugs and alcohol. He has been convicted 3 times. Because of these, we moved to another state, where he got 2 convictions. After all these, the only thing he has changed is drinking and driving, because he has one of those interlock systems. He still drinks in the house and uses drugs.
We have 2 small children and I know he is sick and he needs help. However, he does not see it like that. I’ve been waiting for him to change. He is a good person when he wants to be, but I need to think about our children. When he drinks and does drugs, he gets agressive and this just makes everything worse.
I feel bad for him, but I feel even worse for me and my kids. I am tired and honestly I really don’t feel the same way I used to. I really need to get away from him, and I know this for sure. My only worry is that he will get worse when we leave, but how can we stay with him under this circumstances? I see a lot of people that change, but how much time do I have to wait, and also I don’t see him trying to stop doing this.
He beats me in front of my son and I beat him back. My son was trying to separate us, but he continued beating me with no shame.
I am 23 and my boyfriend is 29. We have been together for a year and 3 months. Getting into this relationship I knew he had baggage, but I liked him so much I accepted it. He is a veteran and with that said he has experienced many things and seen many things. He is affected by PTSD.
I am at the point where I don’t know what to do. Every time I think he’s doing good and that he’s on his way to being sober, I come home to him drunk or him coming home drunk. I’m still with him because I love him. It hurts. He wants help, yet when he gets it he turns around and goes back to square one. I hate it, because he’s a great stepfather to my boys.
My boyfriend likes alcohol. He knows that I don’t like it. I don’t like it because I have post traumatic stress from previous alcoholic experiences. He knows that seeing him drunk hurts me. He keeps telling me that he will never do it again, but he carries on over and over breaking his promises. He doesn’t mind upsetting me for alcohol. He stays out till early parts of the morning drinking. I’m a strong independent lady but that doesn’t shield me from the weakness of love. I want to walk away but don’t know how.
I have been involved with my boyfriend for 3 years. He is 44 years old and an alcoholic. He is currently without a driver’s license due to drinking. I tried to help him pay his license fees only to find out he has charges in another state. No license, no job, no credit and no bank account.
There has always been another woman in the picture who he says he wants to leave so he can be with me. I am a widow and he helps me with home repairs. I recently gave him $200 cash, which he claims he lost.
I used my Walmart credit card to buy clothing and items for his son who was getting out of jail – $135. His son got in more trouble and he returned the items for store credit. No idea what he purchased with store credit – probably beer and smokes.
The other woman is a widow and has used her deceased husband’s life insurance to support the man we share. I need to get out of this relationship before he shows up at my door. I have no family close by and have had a few dates which have not worked out very well. He checks my cell phone and computer to see what I am doing. Wish me luck in making a break.
When we met, my boyfriend was more of a social drinker and had a beer here and there. Now 3 years later he is heavy into drinking. He buys like 4-8, nips at least 6 days out of the week (the 100 proof Smirnoff), sometimes on top of a beer or two. He is a very angry drunk and likes to fight with me and call me out.
He’s promised to stop and cried for me not to leave. In fact, 2 days ago we fought badly and when he sobered up in the morning he said he would never drink again because our relationship is worth more than alcohol. He’s now been drinking for the past two days. I too cry myself to sleep. I know I’m stronger and smarter than this, but I guess I’m in denial because what we had before he started drinking was so real. I just hide my emotions now.
Wow, this is so similar to what I’m going through. I’m 19 years old myself, and I’ve been dating my boyfriend for almost 9 months. He’s 23. He has been drinking since he was 16, and it got really bad. Then there was a period where he had stopped and was only having a casual beer every now and then, and that’s when he met me. But then things started getting really bad in the past two months for him, causing him to become an alcoholic again.
He has a horrible temper, which I’ve seen. He also never laid a hand on me, but these two things together accompanied by his troubled past are really making me think and hurt, because I don’t want to lose him. My parents, who once wanted to get to know him, want nothing to do with him.
I love him, I recognize these red flags. He knows he has an issue and it’s hurting me, but this is a real disease and he truly believes he needs the stuff when even he knows it only makes his and my pain worse. I know he loves me, and as much as I try to blame the disease and not him, a part of me wishes he could just realize how much he’s hurting everyone around him and stop. I’m at a loss of wondering what to do.
I’m floundering for my relationship at this point because we were so perfect before all this came crashing down. Sometimes I even cry myself to sleep wondering where we went wrong.
I am 19 years old, my boyfriend is 20. We have been together for already 1 year and 5 months. Yes, we are young and we do live together. We made huge mistakes, which has landed us in the position to be living with each other. But I do not care, because I love him to death.
He and I grew up completely different, which makes me believe that this will affect us more and more because it has. He lost a loved one when he was 17, going on 18, and has been drinking since then. He says that’s the reason why, but do I believe him. There are other ways to deal with pain that are healthy, but chooses not to take my advice on it, even before we were together.
He is the party type of person and I definitely was not, still am not. He has changed so much and people don’t like it and I just think that it’s affecting him more and more because he’s living like a married man (which is what others say), could care less, but now that he and I have gotten in the worse arguments than ever before, it’s really making me think.
He doesn’t lay a hand on me, but says the most hurtful things, which hurts so badly that I would rather be hit by a truck just because I think it would hurt less. He takes advantage of a “few beers” when I say it’s okay because he hasn’t drank in a while, but then he wants to stay longer at wherever he’s drinking. I just don’t even know if it’s going to stop, but all I can do is pray and pray and hope that he can realize what I’m saying. At this point, I’m feeling so lost and the last thing I want to do is lose him because of alcohol. I hate it so much.
I dated my boyfriend for 3.5 years. I noticed in the first three months he was always at the bar after six pm, and when he was finished with work that’s where he finished the day–alone, or with friends. As the years went by, I realized he was a high-functioning and savvy alcoholic. No one believed me. I was the jealous, crazy partner who was controlling and ” untrustworthy.” He painted that picture to our friends.
I got pregnant. Out of fear of dealing with it alone, I had an abortion. He couldn’t even support me the week after, he had to go out and drink at night. His drinking escalated to the point where he was not able to be the boyfriend I met. No dinners, no romance, just lies, some cheating with the ex-girlfriend (that he doesn’t remember), and some late nighters with cocaine and runs to the strip club. Our lives became unmanageable. His work went down. He was barely making what he was when I met him, and blaming the clients and circumstances around him.
He had no major issues or embarrassments because of his drinking in front of family, friends, or work, so I still looked completely insane. At home though, after five pm, he was a disaster. His drinking at night appeared in control, never sloppy, but at the same time I knew as others didn’t, that he was in “black-out mode,” and the second we got home, it started. Fights, crazy comments, behavior, and it finally culminated this past March when he peed his pants standing in the living room, then sat on the floor in embarrassment, fell over and passed out. I left him the next week.
He has threatened suicide in the past, lied, cried, begged, wrote letters, involved our parents. At this point I am 200% done. It has been six months now, and I miss him terribly. He hasn’t shaved and is looking like a bum, dating someone who is way too young and obviously clueless.
He admitted it is all his fault, but that this “is bigger than him” and he cannot stop. I miss this man so much, he is my true love. But I am happier in the peace I now have in my life, which makes me sad. Six months later, he finally gets it is over, and has not stopped drinking, looking dead, and showing up to work. No one in his life has said anything to him yet. Still. And I am appalled at the roll family and friends play once the partner steps out.
Good luck to everyone here. this disease is a killer.
I’ve been dating my girlfriend, on-again, off-again, for over 3 years. I noticed that she was a heavy drinker within the first couple months of dating. I’ve known her for years and we started dating through work. We are both teachers. She is a binge alcoholic and when she drinks it’s game over after about an hour.
We get in the most horrible fights when she drinks and I always feel bad afterwards and, of course, she never really remembers much of the fights. She has gone to rehab twice within the past 5 months. She has done in-patient, out-patient, AA, groups, everything you can think of and it hasn’t worked.
Just last week she was drinking at work, with kids, and decided to leave because she became aware the she was intoxicated. She was pulling out of the parking lot and didn’t look both ways and was T-boned by a truck. Thankfully, she wasn’t hurt, but her car was totaled. I, of course, came running to save her and was fully expecting to see her go away in a squad car because she was obviously impaired.
I don’t know how she got away with it, but the officer didn’t take her away. She must have a guardian angel or something because she always seems to just get by without really getting in too much trouble. She missed a few days of work and didn’t drink until today. She was drinking at work again but somehow made it through the day without leaving or getting in trouble.
I just don’t know what to do anymore. I love the girl so much, but it’s really hurting me and she doesn’t seem to care that she is really affecting the people around her.
I have been with my fiancé for four years this coming January. We met over drinks at a local restaurant and in the first year prided ourselves on how many bars we had visited over the Pacific Northwest, but he always drank more. I knew he liked his cocktails before we took the plunge into love (and the occasional “herb” or pill) and was even very drunk on some dates, but I chalked it up to stress, nervousness, and I like enjoying cocktails and wine or beer also.
He lost his well-paying job May of 2012 because he yelled at a co-worker while intoxicated, although he denies it. It has gone down hill from there. A few months later we moved where he found work with his father. Great! Except he started drinking at lunch and just a “small” cocktail before work–the cycle begins again. He was drinking more than a standard bottle of vodka a day and stopping at bars on the way home. We were in for some very mean fights and he (and I ) said horrible things. He would back me into a corner and try to scare me or punch a hole in the wall or dent the fridge, tell me if I were anyone else he would “eff” me up and so on. I am hot-tempered Irish and don’t like being backed into a corner. Needless to say he lost that job and the next two, where alcohol had played a part.
The most he’s gone without drinking was six days. He denies he’s lost any work due to booze or had any other problems because of it. That’s because I take care of everything. My family thinks we need to part ways, but it’s a hard decision to make. The most recent booze-filled adventure was he fell in the bathroom after drinking heavily for days (wake up, drink, pass out, relieve himself, drink), fractured his ribs (the fourth time, all vodka-related) and I took him to the ER the next day. He had two cocktails before going–I only knew of one–and was drunk before going to the ER. His blood-alcohol was .50, and I was dumbstruck.
He knows he’s an alcoholic, but doesn’t seem to want to go the next step. He was a contractor in Iraq and saw horrific things I can’t imagine. He gets drunk and starts talking about it and becomes very sad and depressed for days, or becomes very angry. I know his drinking is his choice, but I do buy it for him because we have lost so much we can’t afford a DUI. If I don’t get it, he’ll drive and get pulled over.
I am enabling and have become codependent on his alcoholism. I want to leave, but when he’s not obliterated he’s amazing. I just want him back, but if he doesn’t get help I don’t know how to move forward.
Sounds like the world is chock-full of swilling males. Well, I’m the guy and my wife of 31 years has been an alcoholic for easily 25 of them.
At first I didn’t recognize it. Then she became disabled and combined pain meds with it. Sloppy stumbling drunk– embarrassing, humiliating, exhausting. Then she started getting abusive. Now she just retreats. Wonderful person until about 4 pm and then it starts. Of course, she doesn’t get up until noon–but then again, she “can’t.” Haven’t had sex in over 20 years.
This is not a disease. This is a choice that turned into a habit that became an addiction. And the other choices just add to the pain. I made a commitment to God to stay with her, not a commitment to her but to God. And He will judge this. I feel like I’ve lost so much to her choices.
I come from a hard-working family, so I can’t tell anyone. I’m 30 and he’s 33. Last year we lost everything. I used to be a strong person, now I’m hanging by a thread. I used to drink sometimes, now my world revolves around it.
I can earn good money working from home, now my work revolves around his drinking. If you can’t beat them, join them–but then the arguments happen. I can’t leave, I can’t live without him. Friends are starting to say they love him sober but can’t deal with him drunk. Neither can I.
He says he’ll stop and get a job, that we’ll have a normal life–holidays, meals out, cinema–but it never happens. I die alone without him.
I love him so much I can’t leave. It’s been 10 years this December. I work from home. The money I make depends on his drinking. He says he’ll get a job and won’t drink anymore.
We met in December 2004. I was 20. I thought he was with a group of friends, as there was so much to drink on the table, so I asked are these drinks for your friends? I know now they were his, so what do I do. Yes, he has chosen drink over me and now I find myself drinking too much just to keep up.
I feel trapped. I don’t know what to do. We’ve been married 19 years. The love of my life. Ten years ago he started drinking. Three years ago the fights started. Throwing things at me, saying horrible nasty things to me. Problem is, I believe them. I am that horrible blankety blank that makes him drink. If I was just a better wife, more loving or more supportive or more this or more that, but I’m not.
I can’t leave. I can’t afford it. My mom doesn’t know, she can’t handle her own life, I would cause a mental breakdown if I told her. My son, age 2, adores him. Our teenage daughter begs him to stop, but he just gets angry.
He tells me he wouldn’t drink if I was a better person. So my next goal is to be a better person. Never say anything negative. Never say anything or do anything wrong. I wonder if that will stop him. I doubt it. But I feel like I have to try.
Been with the love of my life for almost 4 years now. He has always been a drinker, and family history of it. But since we moved into our new place he has been drunk every day, pushing 5 months straight. In the last year he has been in the hospital about 75 times or more (not joking), and I have even slept there with him for 2 weeks.
He is young, 29, and doctors have already talked to him about the possibility of cancer and pancreatitis. In the moment it scared him and he slowed down and went from hard liquor to beer. Which I was proud of that change that he initiated. Now because the beers are not as heavy as hard booze, he says he has his stomach pain under control now, so his daily cocktail is a 30-pack and vodka. I’ve told him that he needs help. And that I miss the man that I met, that used to spend time with me, sober.
Now it basically consists of me hanging in my room to avoid confrontation with him, and him blasting his music, drinking non stop. He says horrible things to me–and please don’t get me wrong. I know I am no angel. I have said some horrible things as well. But for a long time now, I’ve stopped drinking with him as to not enable him. That doesn’t matter. He tells me to do this one day, so I do what he wants. But then the next day he makes me feel crazy for ever doing that thing that he wanted me to do a few days ago.
We have been in and out of fights. Serious physical fights that I never really believed were wrong or that I was a victim. But staying at my mom’s I’m been able to take a step back and realize he makes me feel like nobody. That I have no chance in life. Which I end up feeling guilty for feeling, because before I felt like I was his everything. He made me feel like I was the only thing that mattered. And now there is a mistress in our relationship that has stolen him from me. Her name is Alcohol. He becomes someone completely different. Even the look in his eyes is not the same.
By chance he was begging for money and booze, but I told him I was broke–so for one day he was sober. And that was the man I met. He is still there. But masked by this vile poison that consumes him. Our fights have become so constant that my clothes are constantly in bags, because he kicks me out.
Now this time I have been at my mom’s for 2 weeks, and I have barely heard from him, except only when he wants something. I am so torn. So mentally deranged right now. I still hold my phone hoping he will call. I still love him so much because I know his potential. But I wonder if I can keep loving someone that doesn’t love me in the same way. If I should give up on him and move on. Or if I should keep standing next to a man that has told me he knows he is an alcoholic and doesn’t want to change. I am falling into deep depression.
I’ve been married 34 years. Husband is an abusive alcoholic, no respect, no conches. He drinks every day/weekend very badly. I went to AA a few times, I was told I was trying/working a dangerous game–to be very careful. I really wasn’t thinking.
I am a fixer/care-giver. I think I can fix everything. I made a big mistake in thinking I could fix him. It back-fired on me. He came after me with full force. As of right now, I have a concussion, 4 broken ribs, don’t remember that morning.
When he’s not drinking, he is the most loving man you could ever want. He is my love of my life. I go to Al-Anon 2/3 times a week, I’m working the Steps. I see so clearly it’s a disease. I wish I had AA/Al-Anon in my life long before. Maybe the outcome would be different. But I realize, “I’m powerless over alcohol.”
We have 2 beautiful adult children. We are now going through the court for a separation/divorce. It’s very hard to look back at the past, not much better looking at the future. I’m alone, confused, don’t know how to live by myself for I never lived alone. I’ve been with him 3/4 of my life.
My wish/hope–I pray every day over and over he will get “help.” I don’t want my children to someday tell me something tragic has happened to their dad.
I met my guy about a year and a half ago online. No one ever advertises that they like to drink, so how would I have known. The first couple months of our dating were fabulous and there were no signs of any drinking problem. Fast forward a few months and he is out a few nights a week at the bar. My needs in the relationship have been forgotten.
I don’t know if alcoholics realize they are hurting the other person as much as they are, because, let’s be honest – they are usually making very selfish decisions. At this point in our relationship, I doubt everything he says to me. I doubt the amazing man (when not drunk) who says to me that he is planning on spending his life with me and is trying to work to get there. But every night I see him that way, his actions speak much louder than any words or promises.
At one point, I thought I could save him or help him. But I realize now that I can’t. I also realize that I stopped having one or two social drinks even. It is making me not want to be or go out near a bar even.
My boyfriend whom I have been together with for 2 years has launched full force into his alcoholism. However, I can have a few and put it down before I feel drunk. He wants me to quit drinking altogether with him, but I really don’t want to. I enjoy having a beer after work. I don’t drink a fifth of Jack and drive in my car and play the victim card all night. If it came down to choosing him or alcohol, I would chose him in a heartbeat. I just wish he didn’t take it so personally when I have a beer. Gosh!
I don’t know what to do to help both my parents realize what they are doing and how it makes me feel without getting mad at them. I don’t want them to feel bad because they have practically lost everything. No, I am not under their care anymore, due to both their drinking.
For my mom, after losing her kids and her home, I now know that she thinks that she can’t do anything to fix it and has no other choice but to drink. My dad, on the other hand, has been drinking ever since both my mom and dad have been together. My dad’s drinking and constant negativity have gotten my mom into that habit.
I don’t see them as much as I use to. They have been staying at my auntie’s with us, but have gotten kicked out. I don’t know where they are. I miss them, the old them, and wish they would at least make an effort to show they care. When I do see them, I don’t feel that certain connection with them as I use to, but I do make an effort to spend time with them when I can.
I want to help, but I don’t want to make them feel worthless. They aren’t going to get anywhere without trying. I feel so bad, the truth is they don’t have anyone or anywhere else to go and they’re out there struggling.
I’ve been with my boyfriend for three years as of September 2014. We had known each other for several months before we started dating. We met through a mutual friend. We would all hang out and drink together. I, however, grew up and realized it was getting me nowhere except into fights. He, however, still acts as if he’s a teenager (he’s turning 30 next January.)
I didn’t mind the drinking in the beginning, even though it was 4-7 times a week. It became a problem when he quit his job in 2012, we lost our house, and he screwed over my father by not working with him (when my father offered to let him come along for a week so we could make our rent) and of course, he would use every dollar we had to buy beer or Wild Turkey 101. Or that stupid synthetic weed, K2 crap. But that’s not why I’m ranting here. We ended up living at one of his friend’s trailers after we were kicked out, and this place was nasty. No one would do dishes or clean, and there were rats and black mold everywhere. Still don’t know why I stayed.
I left him for a few months in 2013 when he cheated on me because he was so drunk. I should’ve stayed away, everyone tells me that. But I’m a strong believer in second chances. So, here we are on this “second chance.” He quit drinking in November of 2013 and hasn’t touched it but once on New Years (which was my idea.) He ended up getting out of jail on the 9th of this month because of his second DUI/driving with a revoked license which he was convicted of in May of 2013. His first offense was in 2008.
I love him to death, but I don’t know if I can deal with him going back to his old ways. It’s been like 2 weeks since he’s been released from jail and he’s on probation for the next 12 months. He’s been drinking a lot recently, and mostly with his cousin. We got into a fight yesterday because I picked a friend up from work at 7 pm and was gone for about 40 minutes. When I came home, of course, he had been drinking. I drove off without speaking a full sentence to him.
We’re moving in less than a week to the opposite side of the state unless I call it off, which I’m tempted to do. Where we’d be moving he has a bunch of old friends who still drink and smoke pot. I don’t know anyone out there except his mother and his older brother.
I feel so confused. I want us to work, but he’s not willing to make the effort.
I don’t want to waste my entire youth following around and living with an alcoholic.
I’ve tried everything I can think of to make him quit. He won’t quit on his own, he won’t quit for me, and he won’t go to classes for help because he “doesn’t need them,” in his own words. All I know is that he and I are having a serious talk later, if he’s not already drunk, that is. He probably is. But if he won’t quit drinking, I’m not staying. If he loves me, he needs to prove it and start correcting his past mistakes.
I work on the weekends. My husband drinks every day after work. 2 weeks ago I told him he would lose his family if I ever came home from work and he was drunk again. He cried like a baby and promised he would stop. He got fired Friday and I asked him to not drink because it would make things worse.
Well, I came home and he was drunk. When he’s drunk he is cold and talks to me with no respect. He is verbally abusive. He also acts belligerent in front of my 4 and 14-year-old and any other children around. Our neighbors have seen and heard many arguments.
After 10 years of begging him to stop, I can’t take anymore. He won’t leave our home, so I have to deal with him until I can start a divorce. He denies that he is drunk when it is obvious. I’m tired of his lies and promises. His drinking is affecting my 14-year-old. He has no respect for his father anymore, because he hears the things he says.
At this point I don’t care what happens to him. I just want him out of my life. He caused me so much pain and is crazy and uncontrollable when he is drunk. He is like another child.
Hello, I’m 26 years old and have three girls with my husband. We have been together for almost 8 years now. He has always been a drinker and here lately he’s been drinking a lot, and he’s not him when he’s drunk.
I’ve been thinking about ending our relationship bc he won’t stop and it’s affecting our relationship. For the past three weeks he’s drank every day and drinks a lot and it’s to the point to where he’s just pushin me away. I don’t want my girls to grow up seeing their father drunk all the time. I just don’t know what to do anymore and I don’t want to hurt him, but I feel like that is how it has to be.
I met the love of my life 8 months ago. I’m a recovering alcoholic so I know the signs. My man is wonderful during the day, but when he drinks at night I’m scared. He says so many awful things about me. I’m over 40 and wonder if I’m just hanging in so I won’t be alone. He wasn’t like this when we met and I have no one to talk to. When he is sober, I am the love of his life. When he drinks too much, I suck in every way.
Married less than a year, and in the past 3 months my husband vastly increased his drinking. He always loved a drink, but not like this. Sadly with the drink came the fights and tantrums.
When asked to cut down, it all came to a head for me and I told him (while he was drinking) that I wanted out. The following day he returned home after drinking, so wish I had told him to go to his mum (also an alcoholic) and what happened would of been avoided.
I had to call the police and now he has been charged with dangerous and threatening behavior. I have dropped his stuff at his mum’s; he is devastated.
If he would admit that he has no control of the drinking and the drinking brings out the monster in him and agree to attend AA, anger management, perhaps I may decide to take him back as my sober husband is a wonderful man.
Only a mile separating us physically, but an ocean of beer keeping us apart.
I wonder if I am a fool for believing he could stop and save our marriage.
I’m 21 and I have been going out with my boyfriend for over a year now. I knew he drank too much before I started dating him, but I was a freshman and I wanted to prove I could be wild too.
He makes empty promises all the time. We no longer go out on dates because I’m afraid he’ll show up drunk and embarrass me. I haven’t introduced him to any of my friends. I know they’ll judge him harshly since he always smells of liquor and looks unkempt.
I didn’t want to break up with him because he is my first. I now realise that he has a disease and that I am too young to be dragged down with him. I know it sounds selfish, but I can’t keep up with him anymore. I’m glad to be getting out, but very heartbroken.
I was so naive I did not realise my partner was an alcoholic. He never had money; he was always moving home; he always turned his mobile off so I could not get in touch; he was full of excuses; he blamed me for most things that happened; he was often angry and took it out on objects by throwing and breaking stuff (never physically violent with me, fortunately); always in a deep sleep during the evenings and seemed to get drunk very quickly.
I stuck with this for 5 years, without even realising what his problem was. I lost a few personal belongings (jewelry) and always thought there was some other explanation, other than the fact that he was stealing them. I know this sounds terribly naive. He always had great excuses as to why he never had any money, and why he had to keep moving home, and it all seemed plausible to me, so I honestly believed that he just had an awful lot of bad luck in life. This made me want to help him and “mop up” all the issues that seemed to conspire against him.
Last week he asked, again, to borrow money so that he could get his mobile phone back from the pawn shop, in order that we could communicate. As soon as he got the money, I did not hear from him. It was at that point that I binned my sim card and decided that enough was enough.
A couple of days later, I received some e-mails saying he would put photos of me on a porn site if I did not give him £250. It was at that point that I cancelled my e-mail account, removed myself from all social hangouts, blocked him on everything else, and have moved on with my life.
Some time ago, I moved home myself and did not tell him where I was moving to, as I had been thinking of a great get-away for some time. I had not stopped contact with him, as I still loved him, and kept thinking that he needed me in his life. I was fooling myself into believing that he loved and needed me, as he would plead and whine every time I tried to get away from him.
This time, he cannot contact me, and I will never ever contact him again. I feel relieved that I have now “seen the light,” after doing a bit of internet research and reading.
I don’t feel cruel, as he really did lead me a dog’s life. I was so kind and so thoughtful and so full of the milk of human kindness, yet I was blamed for everything, and he never once took responsibility for making me so upset, nor for abusing my kindness.
Now he has to pay for his crimes against me. I will not look back.
I have been with my bf for almost 2 years. I didn’t know the extent of his drinking problems in the beginning, or even suspected anything. He ended up in jail for 8 months because of his drinking.
He has been in and out of jail for 13 years, all relating to alcohol. He lost his wife and kids to it and naturally lied to me about what really happened at first. I left him once because he got physical. I have tried my hardest to get him help and keep him sober. Once he starts drinking again, his excuse is it’s my fault. Or when I ask why he started to drink again, he responds why not?
The amount of stress was unbearable. I jeopardized my job for him, moved for him, sacrificed so much. It’s a cycle. He drinks, then gets sober. He feels remorse for all he’s done to me and promises he won’t do it again. It was the same with his ex.
His last stint he was sober 6 months, then I found out I was pregnant. And that was his excuse to drink again, so after a 3-4 day binge I packed my stuff and left him. He drank for 2-3 weeks straight, got sober, and is now serving a month in jail. He has managed to make the same promises this time and wants me back.
This time I’m weary because I am due in 3 months, so I have someone else’s well-being to look out for. It’s hard to trust someone who makes false promises repeatedly, treats you terribly and can’t change. I’m scared once he gets out he will fall into the bottle again. But in a way if he does or doesn’t that helps me to make the decision of fixing and working on rebuilding for our future family or cutting him out completely!
Married to an alcoholic for 11 years. Need to talk to someone.
I’m so confused. I feel destroyed. I have been with my husband for 5 years now. We are in our second year of marriage. When we met we were both in pretty rough shape. I had made my decision to quit doing drugs and was struggling with that. He had his drinking. But when I saw him for the first time a surge of energy went through me and I felt I needed to be better, not just for myself but for him too.
When we first started dating, he would drink every day and night. Have you ever heard of an alcoholic working in a liquor store? Like a kid in a candy shop. He even showed up wasted to our first dinner date. I’m a fool, right? I just love him so much. I knew he would get better and he did for a while. He was sober and sweet and caring and protective. Every day was an amazing adventure. A sudden tragedy changed everything and we decided to move to his home country to be with his family. He hasn’t been the same since. He doesn’t drink every day. He works so hard here, but any chance he gets he’ll drink until he is unruly and passes out. He turns into a monster.
It’s not the man I fell in love with. The man who made me feel electrified. He makes me feel bad now. Like he can’t stand being around me unless he’s drunk. Or at all. I miss my intelligent, delicate husband. Now he gets drunk and blames the fights on me for mentioning that I don’t like it. Like it is my fault. I do feel like if he loved me he would think and not drink. Maybe that’s not true.
Last week he had a four night binge and I packed my bags. Told him to pick me or alcohol. The next morning he seemed like he was ready to make a change. I said I needed a break to think. He stayed at his sister’s over night and called me in the morning begging to come home. So a week has passed, he worked all week so no problems until tonight, his night off. I was at work looking forward to coming home and cuddling with my man but he wasn’t really here. He said he only had 2 600ml beers but it seemed like more. He says he’s just so happy but that now I’ve ruined his mood. That I’m the one who always puts his energy down.
Is it really my fault? Now he says he wants me to go home. What will he say tomorrow? Why did he beg for me last weekend and this weekend he wants me to leave? My heart is destroyed. I want my husband, my friend, my family back. Is this the end? Is he choosing alcohol over me? I must be unbearable. I’m so lost.
My boyfriend lied to me about his drinking. Before I met him he went to rehab because of his drinking problem. Now that we live together, I’ve noticed that when he drinks beer, he’s drinking like it’s water. Like he will drink all the alcohol that is in our apartment. He just drinks once a week, but if he drinks it’s too much. If he’s not working, he drinks almost every day.
I grew up where my dad always drinks, fights with my mum, so if I see my boyfriend drink it reminds me of the past. We always fight, and now I thought of leaving him. I don’t know if I am just over-reacting. His belly gets bigger and bigger and not wanting to exercise too! This affects our sexual relationship!
It’s always the same. He lies, gets vodka, drinks to black out, gets angry, gets emotional, sometimes suicidal, passes out, then gets very remorseful. I’m sick of this. It’s been over 20 years together for us. We have both been in the program for years, but this slip, 8 months, for my husband has been a beast. It seems he can’t leave the house now by himself without getting wasted.
I’m not working & he carries our medical insurance so I’m absolutely stuck in a horrific situation. I never thought my life would turn out like this. He doesn’t even resemble the man I married. I don’t want to live the rest of my life so sad. I need a plan! It just doesn’t seem feasible for me to leave, financially. Also, I’m afraid he will die without my help. This just sucks.
My boyfriend is going thru detox. He has been thru detox before and in rehab numerous times before I met him.
A great person–I’m afraid of the relationship ending. I do not drink, but wonder if I trigger his drinking.
Ok, well, I just need to know if I should worry about my husband. Well, his mother is an alcoholic and druggie, and he never knew his child-molesting father. So now he’s 24 and every day he gets off of work and has a 25-ounce of beer–sometimes up to three. Now he’s not abusive to me, but he grew up watching it with his mother. So now we have two kids and I don’t want them to remember their father always having a beer in his hand, not spending time with them, because he gets off of work at 5 and falls asleep at 7.
I have been dealing with a drug and alcohol problem for the last 15 years and I am 30. I have lost both of my children, and half of my family will no longer speak to me. I have been in recovery now for 4 years with a brief, but life changing, relapse in the middle. I have been sober for 2 years now. I am active in AA, I work the steps and have a sponsor.
About six months ago I met a man whom I absolutely adore. I fell very much in love with him. He drinks every weekend, with the exception of the weekends I have off. He never drinks around me, but when he goes out he gets black-out drunk and I never know if he made it home safe or not. We fight when I get off work and he never remembers, but I do. He passes back out and I go to sleep and when we wake we pretend like nothing happened.
I feel horrible being mad at him for something he doesn’t even remember. I worry myself sick and I think I need help. I know from my experience that I cannot change him, he has to want it. I just feel very stuck because everything logical tells me this can never work. But my heart and soul says hang in there this love is worth fighting for. I know that we need consequences to change. I’m just scared that if I leave him that’s it. Maybe losing me won’t be the thing that makes him want to change. I know he loves me, but I also know from painful experience that love is not always enough.
I’m 26 years old. I have been drinking since I’ve been 14. But over the past 3 to 4 years it has really gotten worse. I’ve had a lot of the same issues, my wife of almost 6 years had left me a few times before for it. I would cry and say I’m sorry and that I will slow down on my drinking. I would say anything just to get her back. Realizing at the time I wasn’t going to stop drinking.
I was never physically abusive with her, but I was very mentally abusive. I would drink, then wake her up just to start a stupid fight. She would cry herself to sleep those nights and then we would pretend nothing happened the next day. I would sit and drink a 15-pack of beer and not even realize how much I drank. I always told myself I didn’t have a problem, that I just enjoyed the taste and the relaxation. It’s how I would calm down after a long 10-day stressful work week. I would also drink every night after work about 3-6 beers. I also told myself it’s what helps me sleep. It was very unfair to her and the kids. Because Dad never wanted to do anything if it didn’t involve drinking. We would go do a family day and I’d be rushing to get home because I knew I had some cold ones waiting for me in the fridge.
All’s I know is I lost a lot of years because of drinking. I’ve become very unsocial to anyone. I became a loner, per se. Until my wife left me, stole my money to get a place to live for her and the kids. Let’s just say I was very glad she did. It made me realize how big of a loser I was actually being. To lose my wife who I love more than life and our 3 beautiful kids to alcohol. I quit that day.
We’re back together. I’m very lucky to have a wonderful woman who put up with my stuff and still stands next to me. It’s been 6 months now that I haven’t been drinking. I know it doesn’t seem like a lot, but it’s tough. I think about having beers all the time. BBQ on a hot summer day, or camping. All’s I know is drinking doesn’t do anybody any good, and I learned that the hard way. What helped me was losing my loved ones!
For years I didn’t even know that my husband had a problem. I thought I was just insecure for no reason. He would tell me I’m crazy, but now two kids later I realize I am married to a severe addict. I really don’t even know who he truly is, because in order for you to be a “functioning” addict that means you have to lie to everyone in your life, including yourself. Every time he says he’s going to quit whatever it is he’s doing at that time, he just replaces it with something else and my hopes get shattered all over again.
It really has been an emotional roller coaster ride, and now I see that it is starting to affect my kids emotionally as well. When he’s clean, he’s awesome and really plugged in with the kids and just when they get used to it, he pulls away and that really makes you feel sad! I’m starting to realize with the help of Al-Anon that my happiness cannot depend on anybody else and I need to be responsible for myself and my children’s happiness.
Living in the “what if” stage is a waste of time and energy. Letting go with love means telling my husband I love him and will always be here if he needs to talk, but I cannot live with him anymore and most likely will be filing for divorce. I really do think this is the only way for myself and my kids to be detached from his problem. It doesn’t mean I don’t love him, but I can no longer put his disease first. I have to putt my kids and myself first.
Falling in love with someone who is an alcoholic/addict in recovery was the last thing I expected or wanted for that matter, but the chemistry entered and all logic left. Now I’m not saying I was blind to the fact that my partner has mountains to climb and it is very much a solo journey. The difficult part for me was accepting that I’m powerless over her choices. Because I love her and understand the recovery process from personal experience, I sometimes have to play the parent and let her learn from mistakes, while protecting my own emotional health and the “want” to guide and control her choices.
A recent relapse drove home how dangerous expectations are. I felt betrayed and let down, promises broken, and for a moment the end to the relationship and a lot of emotional pain. So we got back together after a period of time and reading some of the articles I’ve come to the conclusion I need help on this. Loving someone and protecting yourself at the same time is a balance I wish to achieve.
I am 8 months pregnant. Advanced maternal age. I have been with my husband for ten years. He just got out of his third trip to rehab in one month. He has been in rehab and/or the hospital more times than I can even remember. He wrecked our truck, turned violent towards our son (he has been violent towards me many times, but never our son) and now we are being evicted weeks before our baby is due.
He has had numerous run-ins with the law and several dui’s– although not for a while.
One more and he would probably go to prison.
He also almost died from a traumatic brain injury he got during a brief sober time when he was being not nice to me (and my son) and I pushed him. I almost killed him just trying to get him to leave us alone.
He just got out of his last stint in rehab and is staying in a weekly motel (paid for by his mother) while I am at home trying to move everything to storage before I am homeless–and before I go into labor.
I, too, want my life back.
My boyfriend and I have been together for 5 years and have two wonderful boys together. At some point right before our first son was born he started casually drinking, which was extremely unusual for him. I have no idea what happened, what changed, where the time has gone, but he is now a moderate to severe alcoholic and I have spent every night for the past 18 months crying myself to sleep from anger. He won’t get help, even though I know he has no control anymore, and mostly because I am so scared.
I am so so scared I will wake up in the morning and he won’t be alive. I am so scared our son will find him on the couch–he has fallen, passed out drunk every single night, not alive. I’m so scared of losing him, but I know now I have absolutely no control over him. I begged, cried, screamed, wrote letters, sat down calmly with him, saying he needs to get help, he needs to try and change because I will not be around to support someone who is willing to throw his life away. But most importantly I will not have our sons raised in a toxic environment.
My boyfriend is the warmest, loving, most compassionate, funny, amazing man I know. That man is still inside and it makes my stomach turn that this evil disease has masked the real him. I want my kids to remember the man I know and not see this person I don’t recognize anymore.
Our arguing turned into fighting, which turned into verbally abusive on both ends, to becoming as frequent as 5 times a day. The most out of control fighting sometimes will last for hours. I just packed my things, got my boys and left. It has been about 6 weeks and I have not gone back.
He needs help. I have no idea how to help him find help or what I can do. I cannot sit back and watch him kill himself, but I cannot be in that environment so I feel very lost, confused and just emotionally and mentally exhausted.
My son went into recovery on January 2nd. After four days of detox in a hospital setting, he underwent six weeks of intensive outpatient therapy. Then, he was let go in a job he loved with a local diesel mechanic–not because of drinking, but because the owner was not making enough money to pay him, too. So, he’s been looking for a job for a week and a half–and started drinking again yesterday.
I have gone to seven Al-Anon meetings. Since January second. I was struck by the question at the top of the page because I am trying to separate the action from the person.
Yes, I have thought that if my son loved me enough he would not drink. I am so trying to calm my anxiety and my hopelessness by breathing deeply and working on accepting the situation as it is.
I did not cause it, can’t control it and can’t cure it. I know the words. I am not owning them yet, apparently. I am afraid. I wonder how far away the bottom is.
My boyfriend is an alcoholic. He drinks from the time he gets up till he goes to bed, but tries to hide it. I didn’t know this when we met, he had been sober for a year and relapsed shortly after we got together. I’ve had my own issues with alcohol in the past so can relate to his struggle, but this is beyond anything I have ever seen.
In the past 7 months he has had 2 OUIs, and been to detox 3 times, just to start drinking immediately when he gets out. The logical part of my brain tells me it hasn’t been long that we’ve been together, but my heart tells me to “stick it out.” I love him, he’s a terrific person, we love all the same things, have the same dreams–if he could just stay sober. I worry about him dying every day. I just don’t know what to do.
My husband and I have been together for 17 years. That is 17 years waiting for him to fulfill his promises that always get broken; wanting to be first in his life; wishing that my love was enough to make him happy. 17 years I’ve given this man to realize that the whole time I could have just loved myself enough. I could have made good on promises that I made for me. I could have put my needs first. I could have been happy with myself.
The next 17 years of my life I am going to do just that and quit waiting for somebody else to be responsible for my happiness. I can find things I enjoy in life that don’t involve hurt, shame or indifference. I can look at the big picture and not wonder if it is broken.
I am not broken; I am rebuilt with new feelings, new chances to change my ways, and a brand new understanding about what life should be.
I know I have to leave him. I have pulled my life together, knowing that I am worth more than I have accepted over the years.
First, it was my mentally and physically abusive husband, whom I had a son with. When I was 6 1/2months pregnant he attempted to set me and my unborn son on fire. Later, so as not to testifiy against him, he started dating my cousin and later had children with her.
Now I am married again, but this one drinks a lot. I started going to nursing school, but later stopped going because of stress at home, as well as I stopped working. I made a promise in Dec. 2013 I would get back on track and go back to work and school. Well, I am working, but not yet in school.
The first week of working my now husband was stopped for a DUI at 2:30 am. You can only guess how I felt not to find out until 11 am in the morning that he was in jail. On top of that, they towed my truck. Now I had to borrow money to get my truck out.
The thing that hurts the most is for over three years I have been telling him he drinks too much, and his reply was I allowed other men to do more harm and treat me bad. And that all he does is drink, but I want to complain now. And the fact that he spends his money on drinking still after the DUI, and I was the one paying people back the money that was borrowed, all while he spent his on cigarettes and beer. I do not want him driving my truck to go buy more.
He has not accepted that he is an alcoholic and that he should not drink, which makes me say I have to leave him and save my son and myself from any more pain.
I have fallen in love with a functional alcoholic, and consider myself to be a very strong, non-judgmental person. I can see the beauty in him, though he cannot see it in himself. The deeper we fell for each other, the more he revealed to me, and now there is transparency, and though I don’t like what I see, I cannot abandon him.
I cling to hope that he will realize his true life is not controlled by anyone or anything. I pray and I stay quiet. But, I am becoming a martyr that I don’t want to be. I want to be authentic and transparent too. I want to tell him how it hurts me to be his second love, though I wear a smile. I want him to know he is killing himself, and I can no longer sleep through the night because of my worry for him. He struggles with so much guilt, that I can’t stand to contribute to any more of it, but I also don’t want to contribute in any way to his alcoholism.
I feel that sharing with anyone about what I know is a betrayal, but I want life for him. Additionally, I am a mother of two, and I know we have no future because I will always protect my children. I won’t allow them to love him too, just to watch him self-destruct. I feel lost, alone, and scared.
I can relate to precious wound. My best friend of 31 years has been drinking heavily for 1.5 years and I often feel like there must be something wrong with me. I try to stay detached with love, but it is almost impossible to do without getting stressed about what I am doing.
I get lied to daily and there are moments of lucidity when he knows he is destroying his life, but yet continues on the same path. I do believe he is suicidal and I fear the day that I find him lifeless. I am almost starting to feel numb to all this now and that scares me. I never thought that our friendship, which has endured for over 30 years, would come to an end. At least not like this.
I can really relate to the last post from preciouswound. I also feel crazy and am having a hard time reminding myself that I am not to blame! I have been married to my husband for 38 years and we were drinking buddies at one time, but I stopped over 11 years ago when my life became unmanageable.
I go to AA. It saved my life. Now I see him doing all the things I did and it’s really hard to accept. I am trying not to enable him. That is hard for me to do. I will take it one day at a time.
I have been involved with an abusive alcoholic for 4 years. A lot of days are filled with despair. I feel forsaken in my heart. But I still want the best for him. I wish I could rely on him, trust him, depend on him. His lies have gotten almost hourly.
I used to feel bad for him. Then I stayed because he wanted to kill himself. Now, I don’t know what. I am scared and anxious a lot. I want him to be healthy. I have been rather selfless in this relationship and don’t have much motivation left for myself. I know that it is not too much to ask for someone to simply be respectful, but I keep proving myself wrong.
I know it is not fair to be lied to and cheated on, but I still can’t seem to walk away bc I know he is not ok. Does that make sense. I am feeling like the crazy one a lot of days. Thanks for the place to breathe life to my needs and to hear my heartache.
I live with a man who drinks every time he has his cash. He won’t think of bills or rent. He drinks it all. When I hide the money, the guy goes crazy, starts breaking everything and gets violent with me just to get to the cash, just to buy alcohol. If I don’t give it to him, he starts insulting me a 100x, and hits me.
I try and try and try, but I can’t take it anymore. I try to be sweet, nice, so he can just stay with me, no dude has some place to be, with friends, calls me anti-social and all sort of names. I really don’t know what to do. Sometimes I’m like I don’t need this. But he just won’t leave.
I have been trying to help my boyfriend get help to stop drinking for over 2 years now. I have gone to his house and found him passed out, urinated on himself, threats of killing himself, etc. I try to help him, drag him to the shower, dress him, sober him up, get him to hospital, found out all info needed for programs he can attend, but he won’t do it. He says his life has sucked for years and will always suck.
He tells me I can save his life by letting him move in with me and my kids. That way he can stop living paycheck to paycheck, and his problems that cause him to drink will go away. I love him so much, but I’m scared he will just keep on drinking and the whole “saving his life by moving in” will be just another excuse for why he drinks.
I don’t know what to do anymore. This last episode of drinking has happened on my birthday. He knew I blocked out time for he and I to celebrate, but he stayed home at his place and drank, just disregarded my birthday.
Tonight sucks. I am so much at a breaking point. I have been trying so hard to work on the Al-Anon Steps. Not today. I am feeling dumb and betrayed. Thought my husband meant what he said again, but again not so much. I just wish I was not feeling like the crazy person. The mad person. I hate the person I am becoming.
My husband of 44 years drinks more than ever. He has progressed from a social drinker to sitting in the garage drinking and smoking. He has trouble walking–falls down a lot, wets his pants and isn’t embarrassed or uncomfortable. He is fine mentally and physically each day before he starts his drinking. He golfs every day and is doing extremely good. I am wondering if the falling down is caused by his liver getting worse. He never used to be this bad.
I gained a lot of insight from Melody Beattie’s book. Here are words that made sense to me when I thought if my husband really loved me he would stop drinking. When someone, especially someone we love, behaves inappropriately or treats us badly, we don’t see the behavior connected to a person’s problem or addiction. We don’t understand that it’s their issue. Our only frame of reference is, “It must be me, there must be something wrong with me.” Children do this as well as adults.
Messages control or generate our behaviors. It’s the destructive messages we want to change, the “I’m not lovable” or “It’s not okay to be who I am” that we want to change. These generate self-destructive behaviors.
We don’t have to take another person’s behaviors personally. If they have no love or approval to give us, it isn’t our fault. They may not have had any to give to anyone, including themselves. Here’s an example: “Why didn’t ____ love me? You mean it wasn’t me? It’s not my fault, I’m not unlovable?” The doctor said, “No, you weren’t unlovable. You were just deprived of love. Either they weren’t capable of it or they didn’t know how to show love.”
I want to be sure I am not negotiating with myself when I am discussing conflict resolution. If I ask a person three times to do something and they agree and don’t do it, I am negotiating with myself. They are using the occasion to manipulate, use and sabotage me. And finally, I believe alcoholics are unavailable for relationships because they are already in one. Only if they are in recovery can they be in another relationship.
I am a widow the past 3 yrs. & I suffered a lot in my first life because of drinks. I hate drinks. Now I had a best friend 2 yrs back. Later we both were very close friends, but now we are lovers. He loves me very much, but the thing is that now he is drinking a lot but I don’t want to leave him. Sometimes I am thinking to leave him, but I can’t. So I don’t know whether to leave him or marry him.
I’m currently on probation and attending a recovery programme. I would not like to discuss the reasons why, but had something to do with assault on my partner. I would never of done this if I hadn’t of been drinking. I can go weeks if not months without drinking and when I do have a drink I can go on a 3-day binge.
I am on the verge of losing the love of my life and want to not drink ever again. I want to be able to give my partner a night out and not get drunk and only have a soft drink. I love my partner and daughter with all my heart and could not imagine losing them.
The past year and a half my drinking got worse and worse. I was happy during the day and drunk at nite. I have never had this problem before and was always a happy drunk. I will be 28 days sober Thursday and have no withdrawals or desire to drink again. Drinking made me a verbal abuser and it is not who I am.
My wife and I are separated at this time and I don’t know what the outcome is going to be, but I can tell you one thing. I hate drinking now and will never touch it again. I am a happy person, full of love and I pray every day my wife knows this and we can be back together one day.
Working a program of recovery (aka healing) was and is the best decision I ever had the courage to make. I now live a life of contentment with periods of joy interspersed. I want to share that my baby’s colic (which was significant in its severity) has all but vanished. My relationships have improved, with family, coworkers, friends, etc. I am ever grateful for the 12 Steps.
I was very, very resistant to go to Al-Anon, for several years. I didn’t want to believe in a higher power. I didn’t want to tolerate time, ie have patience. I wanted my life fixed immediately! I heard someone say in Al-Anon, “Give our group a try for six to twelve months; if you haven’t noticed improvements in your life, we can gladly refund your misery.” Ha! A challenge! So, like a good daughter & a good wife of people with addictions/alcoholism, I took my Al-Anon group up on the challenge.
I found a wonderful woman to be my sponsor–boy, she really told me how it was, which could be tough to hear, but I loved and trusted her and I was willing to go to any length to improve my life. And what she said was often true! Al-Anon works if we work it. My child’s colic seems to have been, at least in part, a response to my own distress, my own wounds, that I was carrying around pretty well hidden, or so I thought. What I couldn’t see at the time was that babies and kids are very sensitive to the emotions of the people they depend on for survival. Especially before they can speak or understand language. And no matter how much I denied my woundedness, my child absorbed it like a sponge in water.
Today, after a while in Al-Anon, I feel like a capable mom, and my child finally has a healthier role model and no GI disturbances. Some of us know about “gut feelings.” We carry a lot of emotions in our gut. No wonder babies have colic–if they absorb our pain, their guts can be affected, even causing physical findings like inflammation.
Well, I could go on and on about the wonderful ways in which my life has changed. And to anyone who resists the group because of the higher power thing, what about Love being your higher power? I have a pretty good idea that love is something that most of us want more of, and love can be so healing.
After receiving a DUI, my fiance stumbles through our front door and proceeds to tell me that none of it would’ve happened if she never met me. Usually it’s just the normal–her drinking and getting upset at me about my cats. Now it’s gotten bad enough for her to get arrested for driving drunk.
When I tell her I’m going to leave, she says she’ll just drink even more and then we’ll all have to pay–especially my cats!
She’s so good at making me feel bad about her drinking. I think she uses my cats as an excuse too!
I have been married for two years. My wife is a drunk and drug abuser. I am broke, she is tearing me apart, and she doesn’t care. She hid her drinking from me until we were married. She has hit me, broken my finger, spit on me and I just take it. We have lost everything and now she is in rehab and says she doesn’t know if she can get sober with me. Lol. What a crock. She is just plain selfish.
I just started to go to Al-Anon meetings. Feeling so confused. Not sure what the difference between compassion and being a doormat is. Do I accept lying because it is part of the disease and feel compassionate towards someone who is sick, or do I set boundaries?
I have been together with my husband for 30 years. He constantly lies to me about his whereabouts, and comes home smelling of alcohol most evenings. I’m pretty sure he is not drinking large volumes, but the lying is killing me.
These stories sound so familiar. My husband and I would be married 21 years this June but alchohol has killed our relationship. On top of it all he began reconnecting with school friends through facebook so there’s that betrayal on top of the alchohol. I blame myself a lot of the time and I also spend way too much time wondering what I could have done differently. I hurt for my kids but I also love this man so, so much. Every time he came to me to apologize and promise to change I’d melt but things didn’t change. He lost a job b/c of his problems and we moved across the country for another one. He just now lost that one, We’re lucky we didn’t buy a house here but he left the place we were staying at together and I don’t know where he is. Al-anon teaches you to take care of yourself but I can’t stop worrying about him, For all I know he could be homeless and that is a knife through my heart! When my kids’ school year ends I’m taking them back to my hometown. I will have to start over. I am sad and I am depressed, It is hard to put on a front anymore.
From the other side, I love my girlfriend of 2 years more then life. She left me because of my drinking beer and mood changes. I quit, went to AA and after 6 weeks, I had a 12-pack last night. She doesn’t live with me–sometimes I wish she did, because it would give me even more strength to stop for good. For now we are trying to work things out. I know she loves me, she knows I love her deeply.
I feel so bad for drinking the beer when I went to the grocery store after work. I walked through the store and changed my mind to not buy the beer. Then at the last second picked it up. I hate myself for this, she didn’t do anything to me for me to drink. I just wanted a beer, craved one and the effects it gives me after a long, stressful day.
It’s so hard to stay sober for a long time. Anything past 6 weeks would be a record for me. I went a long time not drinking with my ex-wife, probably over a year with nothing. I’m wondering if I can do that for my new lover. I fear she already won’t trust me because I have tried so many times before.
I love her so very much. I wish they would outlaw booze. It would sure save many families. Right now I’m starting over, not drinking again–but I fear she knows I drank and it will be the end of us.
Hi. I’m a 29-year-old female. I’ve been with the same man for 5 years, who has a lot of problems with drinking and drug use. I knew about this before I got in the relationship, but over time it seemed like it wasn’t that bad, til later I noticed he got worse and started to act violent and then act depressed. One minute he will shout and yell from happiness, then the next thing he’s crying and then he gets angry.
Once he starts to drink, he really pounds them back. I am talking about at least over 40 beers a day, or almost a 24-pack. It’s scary and every day it’s a battle. He destroys our things and always blacks out. I get so terrified I leave and don’t come back for days. I really love him, but I don’t know how much longer I can take this anymore.
He’s always putting me down, always moody, not sexually active and just thinks blasting music and partying are the good friends you need. No matter how much I break down and tell him to go get help for himself, he won’t listen. He also has a big criminal record, which was due to drinking, and his father was the same way–and he’s dead now because of drinking.
I don’t know how to deal with it or talk sense. I know I can’t force him, but I just wish I could punch him to knock his senses and make him see what he is doing to his body. He already went to the doctors before and they said if he doesn’t stop he will die soon. He says he wants to die and doesn’t care. He uses his messed-up leg as the cause and how it helps with the pain.
I know he’s full of it, but it’s so lame and I hate it. We do not have children, thank God, because he wouldn’t do good as a dad–but in time I want children and drinking like this and doing drugs will cause damage and we won’t be able to have children at all.
How and what I can do about this, I don’t know. I mean, if I should just leave him for good, or give him a chance. All I know is some way, somehow, I need help for that man. I wanna save us, but if he doesn’t stop I’m gone forever, and it’s hard. People tell me I should leave him, but it’s easy to say that to a person, but not an easy way out when you really care and love someone.
I am a heartbroken woman who has recently come to the conlusion that the love of my life has a drinking problem he cannot control. As I write this it all seems so surreal. My story goes back 7 years, when I fell madly in love with a kind, generous and loving man. After almost 30 years of being single, I was so certain about him I moved in within a month.
I cannot really begin to explain how I truly felt, and still feel about him. The word love just doesn’t seem to cover it. Initially we were both young and out drinking a lot so it didn’t initially occur to me that he may have a problem. Through the sudden suicide of my mother a few years prior to meeting my partner, I had many moments when I escaped through alcohol and was binge drinking, which I know was very embarassing to him, yet he always forgave me.
Over the years we dealt with an awful lot of dark clouds–including work problems, cancer, family and financial problems, etc. We certainly had had more than our fair share of difficulties and pain. Many times alcohol was used as an escapism, particularly for him. But our love was so true and strong we made it through.
After four years I became pregnant and we were both delighted. Although he was thrilled and excited throughout my pregnancy, the drinking did not seem to be kept to a minimum, but I disregarded any concerns as excitement and anxiousness and thought things would change when the baby arrived. Our beautiful son was born fit and well, but suffered terribly with colic and would scream constantly for about 7 hours a day, and always through the night. My partner was completely unable to deal with this and started disappearing off to the pub for relief.
Just after our son turned one, things hadn’t improved. There were moments, considerable moments where things would improve and then the drinking started to increase and we were right back there again. He drove a number of cars into ditches driving home across fields from the pub. It got to the point where I would just go upstairs and pretend to be asleep so I didn’t have to deal with it. The pain of not knowing what behaviour I would be dealing with every day was excruciating. After lunch with a friend one day I remember driving home to see his car in the ditch, and terrified he was dead.
Despite attending couples counselling, things did not change for any considerable amount of time. Then one night he came home from the pub and told me he did not love me anymore. I had coped with so much, a new baby and an off-the-rails partner with very little to no support around me. I could handle a lot, but being told I was not loved by him anymore was the last straw. I went to bed, cried myself to sleep, woke up the next day, packed a case for myself and my son and left before he woke up.
I know if I had stayed I would have forgiven him, but I simply couldn’t cope anymore and had felt so incredibly low about the situation for so long I knew I couldn’t take it anymore. We lived apart for two years, but I never lost hope that he would `sort himself out’ and we would be a family again. I still loved him with all my heart, but I knew I had to consider myself for my baby’s sake.
Throughout the past two years, there has been hope when he’s sober, followed by disappointment and heartbreak when the drink rears its ugly head. He can be so angry sometimes when he is drunk and says such terrible things that he never would say sober. After recently agreeing on a `two-pint rule,’ to which I made him promise to my face, no more than a few days passed when this rule was completely thrown out the window, when he visited a local pub after seeing a friend.
He arrived home at teatime (yes he did come home, and he probably could have stayed out all night), but when he arrived home he was drunk and had driven home, again, after having lost his license twice in the past due to drinking. I realised at that point (four nights ago) that things were never going to change, and asked him to leave.
I can honestly say this is one of the hardest things I have had to do in my life. Having to say goodbye to the man I love because I cannot cope with his drinking somehow makes me feel so incredibly guilty: I wasn’t strong enough to cope with it, I wasn’t enough for him to stop, I wasn’t able to save him. What if he does something stupid now, how could I live with myself, what would I tell our son? I haven’t seen him since I asked him to leave, but we talked a little the other day (Valentine’s Day–what fantastic timing!).
In the early hours of this morning he sent me a message saying he had never felt so bad in his life and if he came back would I be willing to forgive and forget? It pretty much took all the little strength I had left to say I didn’t know this time, I couldn’t live with drinking, and he didn’t seem to be able to live without it. I prayed that he would come back with: OK, I’ll get help. Sadly the response was shattering. `I guess it leaves us with no choice’
At that moment my heart hit the floor. He wasn’t willing to make the sacrifice to stop drinking for me. In other words, he can live without me, but not the drink. He chose the drink over me! I am still in disbelief, still numb, and feel I’m living in a nightmare. I would do absolutely anything to have my little family back together again, but it looks like the drink has finally won and I am defeated.
I know I could trust him in every other area of life but drink. I know how much he loves me. Why am I not enough? Why is love not enough? Having been on the emotional roller coaster for years, not certain which direction to go, I finally have my answer–and I’m more devastated now than when I left 2 years ago. I know I cannot make him better, he is the only one who can–when he is ready and admits the problem to himself. All I have to do now is take one day at a time and try to keep my head about water while I drag my heart behind me on the floor.
I dare say this pain will be less intensive in time, but right now I feel like all my hopes and dreams for the past few years have been shattered. I love you N and I always will. I didn’t want to give up on you, but I couldn’t take it anymore. I pray you have the strength someday to face your demons and come back to me, but I know I may have to face that that day may never come.
My boyfriend and I have been together two years. I know it’s not as long as some of you, but I still feel the same. He used to be really bad a month after I first met him. It went on for about a year. He’s so smart and has a lot of potential. I think his friends peer pressure him into drinking when he does so good! Every now and then he will stop for a while, but when he hangs out with those friends of his that’s when he changes. And when he drinks he’s a different man.
I can usually tell when he has drank. I get an uneasy feeling. He lies to me that he hasn’t drank but I know better. I don’t want to be in this situation! My parents are still going through things because my dad is an alcoholic. I don’t want to end up being hurt the way it has hurt my mother so many years. I can’t stand my father for hurting my mom. It’s like he doesn’t love her! He says he is sorry and won’t do it again or will try to slow down. I wish I could help her.
And as for me. I know my boyfriend is a great guy. I talk to him when he sobers up and he kinda sees what his drinking does. But when he gets together with his friends all that feeling sorry for how much of a jerk he is when he is drunk goes down the drain and I’m left feeling miserable. Depressed. And my mother is feeling worse than me. I wish there was a way to make them realize what they do and how bad it hurts!
My husband is an alcoholic and completely loses his temper with me and our 2 little girls. He regularly drinks 6 to 10 beers a night EVERY night and can lose it over the smallest thing. He works away but even when he’s home he gets touchy if I monitor it and mention it. He’s always sorry the next day but that’s too late once he’s yelled at guests, smashed up the shed, broken something in the house or just generally abused me within hearing of every neighbour in the street. He’s always sorry the next day or so and continually promises not to do it again. And it’s such crap. Sometimes I can’t even cry, I’m so used to it.
I am almost 42 years old and have been separated for the last three weeks from my husband of twenty-two years, because of alcohol. He has been a full-blown alcoholic for the last twelve years. He has been arrested for DUI two times, and wrecked several cars.
The straw that broke the camel’s back was on the Alabama-LSU game. He was so high he didn’t even watch it or even remember that night. My eighteen-year-old son hid the beer that his father had hidden in his truck, so he assumed he drank all of it and had to go buy more. So he wrecked his truck so bad he was bleeding from his head and had to hitch a ride back with someone. When he woke the next morning, he didn’t even remember what had happened. He asked where his truck was.
I thought I could help him, so bad that I put up with being verbally abused every single day, and sometimes physically abused. He could never hold down a job so I was forced to support a family of three for a lot of years. His buying beer every day sucked me dry. On that final night my son told me that he was going to live with his papaw, that he would not put up with it anymore.
That is when I knew it was all right with my son if I left his dad. I hadn’t been his wife for a very long time. I had been his maid, cook and sex partner. but no more. I have so much to offer a man, not that I want one any time soon.
I have been with my husband for 12 years and married for 7 years. We have been through a lot together and he drinks every day. We made an agreement 4 months ago. I told him I wanted him to quick drinking. He said he would have to cut back first because of withdrawals and he would only drink beer. I waited and we agreed upon 4 beers a day and then to cut back even more later. Now he is buying liquor every week and hiding it from me. He still has to drink the 4 beers every night no matter what. I don’t feel love has anything to do with a person actually quitting their addiction. He clearly says he loves me but continues to keep drinking acting as if it is not an issue anyways. I am just wondering what I can do to make him realize how serious the situation is. Everything I have done so far is not working.
I have been with my husband since 2008. We were married in 2010. When we started dating, we both were drinkers and then I stopped. He told me he didn’t drink like that every day, which was a lie. It just keeps getting worse.
The thing is, I don’t want to leave him. I just want him to get better. He knows he has a problem, but he won’t do anything to fix it. We have two boys that live with us. He adopted my younger son. He is a good dad to the kids for the most part.
At times when he is drunk he can be a real jerk. Our sex life really sucks. He keeps telling me we can try to have another baby, but that is a lie too. He wants to be financially stable when we do. Which we will never be, because he spends all of our money on beer. I work too, but I am still expected to be the perfect little housewife. I do all the laundry, clean the house, do the dishs. I am just really tired.
He is so mean to me when he gets so drunk. I hate when he is off work because it is really bad. He belittles me every single day. I can’t do anything right. I don’t cook good, I don’t clean house good. I am so depressed, I just cry all of the time. I have gained so much weight. My face is always broken out. I look like a crackhead, except fat.
I just don’t know what to do. Even if I wanted to leave, I can’t. He keeps my bank account 300 dollars in the negative. God, I just don’t want to be alone, yet I feel so alone. I wish I would just die. No, he wouldn’t stop for me or his kids.
I’m in the reverse situation. I’m the alcoholic. Until
today, I don’t think my fiance’ new Al-Anon existed. I’m
sitting here reading these stories, bawling my eyes out,
but even still wondering to myself if he would benefit, as
it seems he would be the only man there. I hope there are other
men at these meetings.
Me and mine met a year ago, drinking together. We both were ok with it. but for me it became too much. He was in AA during jail time and passed. And liked it, but now he can’t go a week without screaming about wanting a beer or a case, or liquor or anything.
He was supposed to stop when we found out we were pregnant, but it lasted 3 days. We miscarried becasue he exploded at me when I told him my feelings, and I had a panic attack and lost the baby the next day. He felt bad and quit–for 4 days. Now he is right back to the man I met. Only thinking about using money for drinking and we both owe 10600 in bills and garnishments. I don’t know what else to do. I thought if we loved each other we could quit. Well, I did. I wonder if it means he doesn’t care, or if he is just a true alcoholic.
I met my boyfriend of 2 years while I was drinking myself, so at first I didn’t really care about it. About a year into our relationship the alcohol started making him get physically and mentally abusive toward me. I have been to the hospital a few times and even landed in jail twice behind it.
I love him very much and stay with him because I know the good and see the potential in him when he isn’t drinking. He keeps telling me he is going to quit, but I’m sure we have all heard that tired story.
I don’t know what to do anymore. I can’t find it in my heart to leave him, but I also know I need to start thinking about myself first. I don’t understand how some of you women got the strength to get out of your situation. I congratulate you though, and I wish you all the best of luck.
I’ve been with my husband for 12 years and married for 5. We have a 4-year-old son who loves to see us happy together.
He drinks a lot of beer and smokes a lot of marijuana. He has recently cheated on me because we were drifting apart. I believe it all stemmed from the abuse. He’s always lying and hiding things from me. I try to get him to communicate, but he locks up. Sometimes I don’t even know if I really know him. I feel if he at least tried to stop the alcohol and drugs it would clear up some of our problems.
I’m starting to realize that he’s addicted and is not ready. 50% of me wants to give up, but the other half doesn’t. I get really scared when I think of it. I can live financially by myself, but I don’t want anything worse to happen to him. None of our family live near us and I don’t know were he would live.
I need God to help me, show me the way.
I have lived with an alcoholic for my entire life. First my father, then my husband. I have been married to my husband for 23 years and he is at the point that on days off he is drunk by 11:00 am. We are in serious financial trouble, and he has a habit of blaming me and my boys for all his problems.
I have two autistic boys, one 13 and one 22. I can’t leave him alone with my youngest, as he pays no attention to him other than to pick on him. He blames me for not working enough, but refuses to accept that I have never been able to trust him to watch the children. From the time they were babies, there were incidents that my children were injured because he was too drunk to watch them.
After 23 years with him and the 23 with my father, I want a chance at a life that is not dominated by an alcoholic. My life revolves around his drinking and erratic moods and behavior. I wonder at what point I get to hold him responsible and stop calling it a disease he has no control over. I wonder when he has to take responsibility.
My children and I have suffered through so much with him. He has berated us, screamed at us, and made us feel small and insignificant. It seems like a cop out that he gets to use the disease excuse.
I went back to school to get a degree so I could support myself, but can’t even find a job. A failure he loves to throw in my face.
It has been suggested to me many times to attend an Al-Anon meeting, but I don’t know that I can sit there and listen. I hope Al-Anon is more than that. I’m ashamed to say it, but sometimes he literally makes me want to die. I know I would never do that to my children, but I can’t help how he makes me feel, hopeless and dead inside.
The alcohol demon has taken my loved one from me as well. Married 5 years to the love of my life. I was so strong and supportive in the beginning. But the abusive words and behavior when he drinks has really started to change me.
I feel like I don’t know what’s real anymore. Is he the guy who loves me when he’s sober, or is he the guy who hates me when he’s drunk? I really can relate to everyone’s comments.
I am mad at my husband. I have been married for 12 years and he is an acoholic, drinks a lot. Went through physical, mental abuse, was pretty bad. I went through the poring the alcohol down the sink, hiding it on him. He just bought more. Nagging him to death never worked. Yelled at him and made myself sick, ended up in hospital for panic attacks. Just felt no peace at home.
My dad passed away, gave me the strengh to leave my husband. Thank goodness I am finally free, but I still feel gulity for leaving. I am pretty much messed up. I feel like I am damaged goods right now. I don’t ever want a man again, or for a long time. Feel so messed up, but it gets easier every day that I am away from husband.
Moved to another state. It was not easy to leave, but was good for my health to get out when I did.
I did feel trapped at times. I talked to God a lot to help me find a way to get out and I did quit my job, sold my horse, packed up and rented a moving van and drove to Boston. Been here about a month, feel safe and starting to feel more peace. The bad memories are hard to shake and let go. Still a work in progress, so to all those people that feel trapped and feel that way, there is always hope.
My spouse is a drinker who loves to drink. I have been going to Al-Anon meetings and it is helping. How can a person fully detach and free themselves? I wait patiently for a sign.
My boyfriend and I have been together 13 years. Within the last 5 years he has gotten bad. Now he is homeless because we lost our apartment. He’s not allowed to stay where I am staying with an older couple. He calls me all the time and he’s so angry and asks for my help and I am unemployed myself. I’m not there for him like he needs me to be.
My heart breaks for him. I love him so much, but he blames me for us losing our home. And having to be separated is killing me mentally. I don”t know what to do. I stay worried about him so much I can”t concentrate on things.
The alcohol demon has taken my loved one from me. I am very sad, especially here at the holidays. His job laid off their workers until after Thanksgiving. So sad. Signing off for now.
I could have cried most of the day today, if I had had someone to listen. I don’t know who to talk to. I don’t feel comfortable talking to my friends or in-laws. I don’t feel as though they would hold our conversation in confidence.
I am tired of my husband coming home at midnight or later, barely able to walk, hungry and dirty. Why is this happening to me? He is unable to find satisfaction in our home and wants to sell out. He is very confrontational to anyone in authority. I really don’t know what to do.
If I ask to stay and not sell, he gets angry at me. Do I deserve this? I wasn’t raised this way. I had good parents. But I have nowhere to go now. I am trapped. I feel trapped.
He gets very angry at times and it scares me. I am passive outwardly, but inside I am angry at him. So, here I am at Al-Anon. Thank God for Al-Anon.
I have been with my kids’ dad for 10 years. I do love him, but he has a drinking problem and also a drug problem.
He just got released from prison. He promised me he would change, but I believe he has gotten worse. We have a three-year-old son that looks up to him very much. He says he is going to change and make a life for us, but he doesn’t.
While he was locked up, I accomplished so much for me and my 2 children. He has been released for two months and I have lost everything that I accomplished while he was gone. I love him so much, but I know I have to do what’s best for my kids. We just split up a couple of days ago and I’m already missing him. My heart says go to him, but my head says no.
I’ve been with my boyfriend for a little over 3 years. He’s a teacher and I was working 2nd shift, so never home until midnight. So, we never saw each other. We got engaged in February of this year. For the last 5 months I have changed my work schedule and have been seeing him every night. I had an idea that he was drinking, but I didn’t realize how much and how many days a week. I would estimate around 8-12 beers 3-7 days a week.
We started fighting a lot. We canceled the wedding in August. He kept giving me excuses as to why he drank. Stress from work, boredom, helps motivate him to get house work done. The last month has been more consistent with 9-12 beers 6 nights a week. The last 3 weeks have been the worst. Because something snapped in him.
He had so many stresses from work, as well as our fighting, he told me he wanted time apart. He now blames me for his drinking the last month. He says I constantly yell and fight with him and he needs time apart to make sure I am truly the cause of his unhappiness.
He says he knows he has no problem with alcohol. That it’s because of his unhappiness with me. He was supposed to move out (his own choosing), but hasn’t yet and keeps giving me excuses why he hasn’t.
I’m exhausted and confused. First of all, is he really an alcoholic? Or am I making a big deal about it? Secondly, my biggest question is if he were to come back, should I take him back, because I do love him very much–or should I run as fast as I can and never look back.
My husband has an alcohol, and a cocaine problem once in a while, & he is a daily marijuana smoker. This month I had to cover all the expenses in my house–rent, food, diapers, etc. I have 2 children–a 12-year-old & a 14-month. He said he was ready to quit, but today he started smoking again after 5 days. I guess he could not handle it. I was so angry that I screamed at him–only to get a sore throat. Now I am just wondering how can I save some money to get out of this house. I am looking at my savings and it’s not enough! I am so angry–not to mention my light bill is $700.00 & I was only able to pay $300.00! I am so mad!!
My husband of 3 years drinks 12 beers a night. I have been with him for 8 years and never knew he was this bad. I love him but I don’t love him when he’s drinking. I have two kids under the age of two and he’s a great father, but not after 7:00 PM. I work 2nd shift and I don’t want to leave the kids with him, but I don’t want to leave him. I have to put my kids first and I know that this drinking is not good for them. I just don’t know what to do because he won’t let anyone help him, and spends all of our money on beer. I’m at the end of the line.
I have a mother with a drinking problem (and some suspect mental issues), a cousin with a drug problem and a step-sister with a drinking problem. Will be going to my first Al-Anon meeting tomorrow night, hope it helps. Anger & confusion are my two biggest problems right now and I think it is affecting the way I live my life now too. I don’t know what I need or expect out of this. I sometimes think my problem is not as bad as everyone else’s problems I’ve read on here, and maybe I’m blowing it all out of proportion or over-reacting.
I have many other issues too, which makes me think maybe I’m that one that needs psychiatric help rather than the rest who drink or do drugs. Then I also think, what’s the point of going to a meeting, it’s not going to help my mom or sister stop drinking or my cousin from doing drugs, so why should I go? I’m not enabling any of them so why is this my problem, yet why does it affect me so much? I just want them to get better and be normal again, and it makes me so mad that they don’t care about what they are doing to the rest of the family!
My fiance has been drinking since he was 13. He is now 42. He’s been in and out of rehab, treatment, jail, etc. his whole life.
When we first got together in 2007, I had no idea what it was about, how he really was. I had never been around an alcoholic. We moved in together in 2008 and it became an everyday thing. Then came the violence. I won’t go into that, as it only happened like twice, not that I’m saying it was ok.
But then he got arrested on a parole violation. I broke up with him 9 months after he went to jail. He was in jail for about 2 1/2 years and then he got out. I wouldn’t get back with him for several months and when I did, we had a long-distance relationship. He stayed sober on the weekends we had together, and then he was drunk when I wasn’t around. I kidded myself that as long as I didn’t have to deal with it, it was fine.
In April of 2012, we moved in together on the one condition he would not drink. That lasted about 3 months and it started a few beers here and there, then every day, then his mom died and it got worse, then the drugs started, then we found out I was pregnant. The drinking and drugs got worse and he moved out.
He was never violent, he has not raised a hand to me in 4 years. But I hated the person he became–the lies, the drinking, the drugs, and he stole money from me and that was it. I stood up for myself and our unborn daughter. A few days later he checked in to a 60-day treatment.
So, here I am, almost 7 months pregnant, with a baby daddy in rehab. I’m turning to Al-Anon for help and per the advice of his sponsor.
I have been married for 21 years, and in the past 5 years my husband has become an alcoholic. He has been in several accidents around the house because of his drinking and refuses to believe he has a problem. I have found hidden bottles around the house in the last 3 months and I am at the last straw. We cannot go out anywhere because he falls asleep, or passes out, in public. It is totally embarrassing.
I am now at the place where I am ready to leave him. They say that an alcoholic has to hit rock bottom before they wake up. Well, once I leave, he will hit rock bottom. He doesn’t cook, clean or do laundry. I wish him luck.
My husband I feel is an alcoholic. He stopped drinking 8 weeks ago because I was going to kick him out, secondary to his abusive drinking. He said all the right things. He started to go to AA, sought counseling, and we started to go to marriage counseling together.
He has now stopped going to AA and has asked me for the last 3 weeks if I would mind if he just had a beer. I am so frustrated. I’m not his mother. I did tell him that we had an aggreement and if he breaks it and drinks he needs to move out.
I know he will slip, so I have to be strong enough to keep my word. I have a 6-year-old boy who adores his father. He is a good father. It breaks my heart.
Wow, I have the same story as many of you here. I am trying to practice the detach-with-love concept. I am almost a year into a relationship with a very kind, smart and loving guy who turns into an animal when he drinks. He was sober when I met him, but it was because he had no money to drink.
Little by little, he would have a few beers, then a few more, then every day. I tried to get him to limit it to a 12-pack and he exploded in anger that i wasnt going to tell him how to live. He voluntarily moved out of a home we shared. I actually feel like i can breathe for the first time in a long time.
I have been getting phone calls from him, very angry that he has no money and wanting to blame me for the “break up”. I do love this man, he is really a lot of fun when he is sober and has obviously deep feelings for me that he is able to express.
He is trying to string me along and get me to come to him and move in with him. I have said that i would love to come to his place when he is not drinking but i am not going to be around him when he is drinking. I feel like im in a wishy-washy place with the detach-with-love thing. I dont have it in my heart to be mean to him or to just never see him again. I couldnt imagine my life without him at one point.
We both have grown children and are not tied to each other with the heavy family obligations of some, so i guess that was in my favor. I find it hard to stand my ground because i dont know what he is going to say next that i wont be prepared for. He is very angry and moody about not having any money or internet. Detatch-with-love is my buzz word.
It is very comforting to read all of these letters. I am too embarrassed to reach out to friends because I was so emphatic about what a great guy he was.
This may sound crazy, but I’m the one with the drinking problem, and I know I can’t blame anyone but myself and only I can change it. I have done rehab, after-care and AA. After 4 months dry, my husband took me out for my birthday and said you should be able to have a few drinks and like a fool I did and I haven’t stopped. I tell him I need his help, to please go to Al-Anon, to please stop bringing beers home. He tells me he’s not the one with the problem. I find myself in a war.
I hate when I get drunk and don’t understand why I do it. Sometimes I feel like I can’t take it anymore. I stay home alone a lot and don’t go to his family get-togethers just to stay away from him and his family drinking. He tells me he can drink because he doesn’t get drunk. He tells me he will do anything for me and maybe a week or two goes by and he doesn’t bring anything home to drink, but before you know it he’ll have a six-pack to go with his cigar. I sometimes wonder if he has a drinking problem. It’s so hard not to drink when it’s always in your face.
This is really hitting home for me. I find it hard to manage right now. I am crying because I can relate to so many on here.
This is where I have the hardest problem with my husband of 26 yrs. Especially now in our circumstances, because he is aware and admits he is an alcoholic. 4 yrs ago when we were separated, he was drinking and fell down a flight of concrete stairs and was injured with a TBI (Traumatic Brain Injury) and now has permanant damage to his cognitive/executive part of his brain, along with long and short-term memory loss.
During our separation and after his injury we (me and our kids) have learned that with his TBI he is affected differently when he drinks. Him having 2 beers is now affecting him as if he has had a 6-pack, and it affects him faster than before.
We got back together and boundaries were set (or so I thought) that he could not drink and be around me or our kids. There are so many issues we face with just the TBI, but when there is alcohol added, then it does not make for a good combination for him, for us. He understands this, he gets it, he agrees–And yet he still would sneak and drink, and that led to him getting 2 DUI’s within 6 months of each other–wrecking my car, our only vehicle we had at the time, and him doing some jail time.
His 1st DUI he was ordered to do treatment and he chose “Intense Out-Patient Treatment.” The 2nd DUI he got while he was in his treatment. He ended up doing some jail time and throughout that I heard how sorry he was for messing up and how I’m the only one (including his family) that has stuck by him throughout the yrs and how he wants better for himself and for us.
He got early release and did a couple months of the 24/7 where he had to blow 2x a day and did great. He was 20 months sober when he relapsed a couple months ago. I know it was all up to him and yet at the same time I feel the “system” also let us down.
Both times in the same treatment center they required him to seek AA meetings and get a sponsor and did not follow up with him, but passed him anyway. Also part of his parole was to go to AA meetings and get a sponsor and they did not make sure he did that before he got off his parole early.
I know this is all up to him and the choices he makes. But I find it very hard to deal with that I am not enough in his heart for him to quit. It’s like, how many chances is he supposed to get? How many times does he expect me to keep turning the other cheek? It’s hard to wrap my mind around the whole “it’s a disease and he can’t help it.” A part of me I feel like it’s also his choice and that he is chosing not to be sober.
He knows he can’t be drinking, because even now when he does it once a week (so far) he is hiding it from me or telling me he was drinking non-alcoholic beer.
Why can’t the alcoholic think of us and build their life around us the way we do around them? And why can’t my love be enough for him? Why would he continue to risk losing me and our kids? So many more questions and not any answers, or not the answers I want to hear, I guess.
I went to my 1st Al-Anon meeting last night in 15 yrs. I plan on going again tonight to a bigger meeting and hoping something will “click” within me there. I do know I need and want help to deal with this and to learn to live my life for me and not for him. I want my life to feel manageable and not so anxious all the time or emotional.
I’m tired of feeling out of control of anything and crying at the drop of a hat. I do know that no matter what, I am going to have Al-Anon be a part of my life from here on out, and now that I found this site I will be using it daily.
I have been with my boyfriend 5 months. All my friends really dont like him because the way he acts. He drinks from 10 am–whenever he decides to stop that night. This is every single day and he doesnt work and says he will get a job but there is always an excuse on why he didnt go apply for jobs when he says he is going to.
He told me he doesnt know himself when he isnt drinking. I told him he needs to find himself then and cool it on the drinking. I dont really want him to quit completely because I enjoy drinking socially occasionally but I realize there really is no in between for an alcoholic and if he quits cold turkey he will probably have a seizure or have horrible withdrawals.
He says he loves me and my kids but I guess he loves the beer more. I dont know what to do about this situation.
Wow! I listened to the first podcast, which I found because I was searching for some help being the spouse of a husband that drinks. The first question I read was, “Did you think that your spouse would stop drinking if he loved you?” And my answer and reply was identical to the woman on the podcast.
It was like she was reading my thoughts and my heart. He has so many times drank and left me on the other side of his anger, bitterness, hurt, and even sometimes abuse. And yes, it does start because I am angry, bitter, hurt and even feel abused. But he has no idea that I feel this way because of his drinking. He says things when he has his buzz on like, “I love you,” “You sure look sexy,” or even is more attentive to me. But, when he isn’t drinking that person disappears. And, yes he wakes up the next morning, finds that he has upset me or hurt me and the apologizing starts. He is so sorry. He doesn’t want this life. He loves me and doesn’t want me to leave, and I give in and stay.
I feel like an idiot because it is always a lie. He did actually stop for 9 months. He made a promise to me that he wanted our marriage more than alcohol and he stopped cold turkey. But, when it started back, it has become an every weekend or even day-that-he-is-off event. It hurts so deep I have lost my own self. One of the women in the articles I read said that it was so bad for her that she had an affair. What men don’t understand is women have to have that attention. They want the fairy tale marriages with the knight in shining armour and they want it when their husband is sober and realizes what he is saying and doing.
I feel as unappreciated, taken for granted, and unloved in my life now, than I have ever felt. I feel like I live in my house, but I am there to cook, clean, take care of dogs, and give in to him in his sexual desires. That is not how a marriage is supposed to be, but because of his drinking I feel this way.
For so long I have blamed myself because he calls me a nagging bitch and says my nagging just makes him want to drink. And then comes my anger, because alcohol changes him so much, and then there goes another weekend, which is the only time we see each other. If he did not work nights and his job were not so dangerous, I believe he would drink 7 days a week. I don’t believe it–I know he would. He has even said his job is more important than drinking and he sticks to those guns. WHAT ABOUT HIS WIFE? That is where my hurt comes from the most. He would choose his job over drinking, but not his wife.
How much can one person take? How many times am I supposed to allow him to say I’m sorry and stay? No one can take the hurt away and it can’t be swept under a rug, which is what he expects because when he gets up after drinking all day and night he expects that day to be as if nothing happened. I can’t do that and he doesn’t understand that.
I need help so bad, if I am going to stay in this marriage. Right now I really want out. I do love him, but my feelings are changing so much every day and I don’t know how to stop that. The anger has taken me over and it has hardened my heart so much. You can only hear I’m sorry so many times before that is just words, because you know there is no real truth behind it.
I am married to an alcoholic and have been for 10 years. We have 3 beautiful children who are beginning to become aware of the drinking that their daddy is doing. My husband has always been a drinker. However, it has only gotten worse over the years. I always hated that he would have to already have a buzz or be drunk to even go out to any social event where there would be a group of people. I accepted this, feeling it was his own insecurities.
Then the drinking was not only if we were going out to an activity or event, but every weekend. It would always be done in hiding. He would run an errand or hide his alcohol in the garage, under the sink, etc. The next thing I know he’s drunk and the kids and I would continue our day without him. I begged and begged him not to drink at home. I thought if he only drank if we went out with friends that would limit his drinking to monthly or biweekly at times. He couldn’t stop. The constant weekend drinking led to my feeling bitterness and hate towards him. I hated feeling this way.
At times I wanted to leave, but didn’t because I do love this man. I love our family and my kids truely are happy kids for the most part. I then made a huge mistake, the biggest mistake of my life. I hurt my husband. I hurt my family. I had an affair 1 1/2 years ago. It was very short and like I say it was the biggest mistake I’ve made and am very sorry.
My husband is aware of the affair, I have told him everything. Now the drinking is 10 times worse. He drinks every single chance he gets, anytime I turn my back. I am afraid to leave my children with him for fear he won’t care for them as they need, due to his intoxication. My husband works a job every day and is quite successful despite the drinking. We have lost most of our friends due to his drunken behaviors, and I am afraid to go out with him at all for fear he will make a scene, get kicked out, etc.
We have tried counseling and he has seen a drug and alcohol counselor, but refusing to try any of the things that they suggest we do for our marriage or his drinking. He thinks he can stop whenever he wants. I hate what this is doing to our family. As I said before my children, the older two especially, are starting to figure out there is a problem with daddy and alcohol. I feel like the only thing left to do is leave this marriage, but I am so scared to do that to my children and am afraid to live without his support and help.
When he is sober he can be a loving man and wonderful father, but for months now has chosen not to be. I heard about Al-Anon from the drug and alcohol counselor my husband saw, but have yet to attend a meeting. Maybe that is just what I need to do.
I attended my first Al-Anon meeting last week. I wish I had not waited so long. I felt a sense of peace. Finally, I did not feel so all alone. I was surrounded by compassionate people who understood my pain.
If you have not gone to a meeting yet, I urge you to try. There is nothing worse than the pain and the loneliness of living with an alcholic.
I have been married to him for 7 years. I’m done believing in the lies and being strung along with false promises, thinking he will quit and we would live happily ever after.
He is very smart and charismatic. Most people think he is a funny, likable guy. He is very good at hiding the dark side of his personality, which comes out when he’s on his 3rd 6-pack.
I have to face reality and take care of myself. I have two beautiful children and I have to do what is in their best interest–no matter how afraid I am.
I am tired and mentally worn out and it’s not ever going to get better. I won’t let his weakness drag me down anymore. Going to Al-Anon meetings is part of my recovery.
I’m so distraught I don’t know where to start. I grew up in an alcoholic environment. Dad then Mom, because he made her drink or get beat, so she did. I married my first alcoholic when I was 20. It was a nighmare for 10 years. Divorced him. After meetings, I learned I deserved better and so did the children (they never forgave me for that).
Married my second drug and alcohol and womanizer(multiple affairs) a year later. Nightmare # two. We too had a child. Totally unforgiveably bad!! Marriage, 17 years here.
Now, dealing with three children that have drug, drinking problems, stealing from me. I was a social drinker. One drink was all I could handle, then the children were born and never touched another after that. Till this day I can’t even stand the smell.
Am so overwhelmed, am disabled from an accident, living on a poverty level income, no job to be found. My disability limits what I can do. My sister offered to help me with living arrangements for awhile. She has the alcoholic syndrome too. I was homeless, and I feel like she offered not out of kindness but to have someone to abuse. I have nowhere to go.
I started meetings again, hoping for answers. My health is bad, no money to support myself, and a total mess of a family. Am as sick as they are. I have isolated myself, sister is constantly putting me down.
Need soooo much help. Don’t want to be on this planet anymore over this, thinking a lot about it.
Last night my BF of 9 months, whom I love dearly, confessed that all the cancelled dates, failure to call when out of town, and other miscellaneous problems were because of his drinking – not my inadequacies.
I was planning to spend my life with this man. I am very together, 39, and do not have any substance abuse issues. We have had several problems with his teenage daughter and ex-wife, where he has not been able to demonstrate any boundaries. He has a sales job that requires him to travel and “entertain.”
As much as I love this man, and thought he was my soul mate, I don’t think I am in the position to rescue someone. As the conversation went last night, he would like to “slow down” as opposed to “quit.”
I am going to seek out a meeting to determine what I am in for, if I stay.
I have been listening to the podcasts, found them by fluke. I was needing a meeting one hour ago and found this web site. I’m a grateful member of Al-Anon.
I am 54, and a beautiful man came into my life 4 years ago. I did not know he was an alcoholic and was naive to alcoholism being a disease. My life was in tatal chaos, yelling, screaming, pouring booze down the sink, throwing booz outside, swearing like a mountain trooper. You name it, I was it.
Then I found Al-Anon. It’s early days for me. I have kicked the alcoholic out. I’m now dealing with my life struggles from the damage been done to me by the alcoholic, mentally and financially, as he drained my money, expected me to keep him when he threw his jobs in, and I did. I don’t understand myself for putting up with this life-robbing disease.
All you beautiful Al-Anon members around the world, I feel the warmth, love, understanding as soon as I see a member, and in the rooms so safe for me especially when I’m fragile. JUST KEEP COMING BACK is what the beautiful people in Al-Anon say.
Love to you all around the world–an oz friend, xxxooo.
My sister is an alcoholic. She is now at an inpatient faciltiy for 30 days. I am angry at her that she can’t get this under control. She has lost her husband already. One son has really detached himself and another one is at his wits end. She is stubborn and feels she has this under control. But she looks like hell and rarely eats. I am angry that she has done this to herself and won’t face reality. It is hard for me to be in her presence because I can’t stand the way she looks anymore and pretends everything is fine.
My boyfriend is currently sober, although he recently had a slip after being sober for 6 months. (I had kicked him out before those 6 months). He was going to meetings regularly until he started working a new job. Then he stopped and I became extremely worried. My worrying began to grow into something else. It was stress, anxiety and anger at him, and I began to fight with him because of this frustration.
It was after a big fight that he went out and drank. He tried to come back drunk, telling me he didn’t drink, but I knew he was, and I told him to leave. He left and tried to come back one more time. I told him to go somewhere and sleep it off, and we would talk later. In the morning, after sleeping in a cemetery, he returned, and I did not put up a fight about him coming in the apartment. He went to bed. After that, he told me he had only drank 4 beers and said that it was not fun anymore and he felt horrible. But I still feel unsure.
He has only been to one meeting since then, and I still fear that he will slip again. I live with this fear on a daily basis, and I am trying to take it one day at a time, sometimes even a minute at a time. I have been in and out of Al-Anon as my father is also a recovering alcoholic, and I was in Alateen as well. I really need to be back and do this for myself.
I am currently separated from my husband who is an alcoholic. We have 3 children together. I realize that I am not responsible for his decision to drink, but I also know that by staying with him for 26 years I have caused a great deal of harm to my children.
I plan to attend the next meeting and I hope that my children can forgive me for putting them through all of this. I should have left years ago, but fear kept me from doing so. Now I’m glad we are out, but the nightmare continues. I need to learn how to be there to help my children cope with their feelings and be able to come to a place where I can forgive myself.
Over the years my situation has gradually gotten worse. My husband hides his drinking by waiting until I am in bed.
I was raised by alcoholic parents and wanted so badly not to have my children around it. At one time he wanted that too. But his demons are too large for him to fight alone. He does not seek help with this afliction. He says, “Oh, I have it under control.”
I really want to attend meetings in my area for myself and my children.
I honestly believe that my alcoholic loves me as much as he is capable of today. I have come to realize that his definition of love and his ability to demonstrate love often fall short of my image of the love behaviors I crave. When I can get him to look into my eyes–he tries to avoid eye contact–I can see his love for me, but it is hidden behind so much pain. And until he decides to deal realistically with his issues and determines for himself that he wants sobriety, his love will always come way after the drinking.
I always tell my kids that he “needs” alcohol like we need oxygen. If I cannot breathe, it does not mean that I do not love them, it means that I cannot show them because I am focused on getting oxygen, AT ALL COSTS! And all costs for an alcoholic means using and hurting whoever they need to so that they do not have to feel either the discomfort and pain of withdrawal or the feel of their emotions.
We are now separated. Currently, I am once again allowing my doubts center stage with an “open mike” to repeat the tape that loops in my brain, the tape that was created by my alcoholic mother when I was a child, the tape that tells me I am too ugly, never enough, defective, unlovable. While I cannot erase the tape, I had been able to turn the volume to mute in the past. Unfortunately, health issues are raising the volume on the tape.
I am angry and hurt from things my family/sister has done and continues to do to to my family. I have dealt or not dealt with my anger and resentments with alcohol. I have been told many times about help from Al-Anon. My desperation tells me to go but my fear of emotions holds me back. I am anxious to go. I need answers, help and healing.
As far as I know, he’s not drinking. He used to years ago. But he steals, lies all the time, even when I get him at it. I think he’s what you call a dry drunk.
You know, every man I get is a drinker and I wonder why this is happening to me. I guess I’m feeling sorry for myself. I just need to talk to a nice person. And, yes, I am very lonely. I stay at home because otherwise the food disappears from my house. This is crazy.
I didn’t really care if my husband loved me enough to quit or even slow down his drinking, but I have been absolutely certain that he loved his children enough to. I was/am wrong. I have always logically known that u cannot change anyone, they have to WANT to change and u cannot force that willingness upon them.
I’m coming to a lot of new realizations this evening and one of them is that my life is unmanageable, that I need Al-Anon, my children deserve a better and happier home life, and whether I cannot fix or help my husband I can and will help myself and my children. My first step is to attend the first meeting I can find.
This podcast is titled exactly what I think when I find my husband drinking again. In fact, I may have been so silly as to say it to him.
I haven’t attended my first Al-Anon meeting yet. My husband is not in recovery.
I have realized that this is not about me. That he is drinking because of his own issues.
Now, if I can just get myself to a meeting.
I have been in and around Al-Anon for many of the right reasons–but I didn’t get what my part of these equations were–how I encouraged or discouraged or practiced my behavior–and improvements thereafter.
I wanted love so badly that I have gone so far as to beg a man on my knees not to leave me–people used to say I needed to learn to love myself, but that just made me even more angry.
I married emotionally unavailable people and then tried to help them to be loving–and they are today.
I sometimes wonder why I have the father of my children dying after a liver transplant, and hysterical but very together sons–and the step father died last year–so although I am not very fond of change, in fact I resist it, it happens. People die and they do not listen unless you really speak from the heart–and they might not that day, but later on they will think about it.
All the people in the rooms that helped me to love myself are so many. I had to decide for myself what was right for me. The Steps are a process which includes anyone who is damaged or wounded–anyone who needs a new direction, and tools for socializing with people we may not like or agree with–that are the same as we are.
My sadness is that out of four husbands, three are dead to alcoholism–so how do I in Al-Anon detach with love–they are teaching me how. Aloha.
My older daughter, the mother of a 9-yr-old girl and 4-year-old boy, is drinking to excess to the point of being drunk. This happens on a regular basis. Her husband travels for work.
He doesn’t seem to believe there is a problem (he is away). My daughter holds a full-time job, and running to activities with her children I know she is stretched to the limit. Her daughter reached out to a family member last night. I am reaching out to Al-Anon.