AboutDruideck Expertise All questions are important,
I have over 22 years of personal experience with alcoholism and recovery issues.
Advanced Counsellor Training / Experience with treatment and AA.
Experience Over 22 years of recovery from alcoholism.
Counsellor in an alcohol outpatient office.
Experience as client and as counsellor in treatment center.
Expert: Druideck Date: 4/26/2008 Subject: Trying to understand my friends behavior
Question I have been close friends with an alcoholic for 2 years, since we met in graduate school. My relationship with him has been unusual for me. He's an amazing guy, smart, creative and can be very kind. He was married and divorced a year later, this was three years before I met him. After the divorce, his drinking began to spiral and he had several breakdowns and did one stint in Rehab. I knew none of this until he came to me during on of his breakdowns, scared for his life and wanted help with detox. Prior the breakdown he met a woman online who he started dating. He broke up with her a week prior to the breakdown and got back together with her as soon as he recovered from detox and was feeling happy, healthy and good about himself. He started going to AA at this time as well. However, as soon as he started hanging out with this other woman, he started treating me very differently. Going from being a very close friend, talking several time a day on the phone, to pushing me away and at times being an utter ass. He devoted all his free time to this other person. Periodically he and I had been intimate and this had occurred when he was not with this other woman. But, it was always strange. First he was really into it (he initiated) and then he would freak out and have to stop. He mentioned to me several times that she was not right for him because there were certain qualities he wanted in someone, such as a certain education level and interest in the world, so he broke up with her and wanted to remain friends with her. However, he had mentioned to me that he put me in a different category, one similar to his wife. That he adores me but feels that he is not good for me. Also that I am the closest person he has been to in a long time, especially a woman. I had also mentioned to him that I would not be in a serious relationship with him until he had been sober for a while. He had started drinking again and eventually I told him a friend of ours, who is a recovering alcoholic was going to reach out to him. He did not take this well and a few weeks later had another breakdown. It was also at this time that he started speaking to his ex girlfriend. It upset him so much that he broke her heart
(he ended the relationship with her three times). When he started fearing for his life, he came to me again, stating that he had no one to turn to and needed help. He is my friend and I too was fearful for his life. We discussed that he needed to get himself clean in order to not mess up the rest of his life. He agreed and has been sober now for about a month. However, like the last time, as soon as he was feeling better about himself he went right back to this other woman and has not called me once to chat or make plans since the breakdown. A week after the breakdown, I did call him up very upset. A delayed reaction to his almost killing himself and a fear that he would once again get back together with this other woman and not care about my friendship with him. He got very upset with me and said that I did not know how to be a friend and that I have no claim on him. Whatever that means. I was always under the impression that close friends share what's going on in their lives, especially if you have let them into the dark part of their personal life. Yes, I have shown frustration to the fact that he tells me how important I am to him and at times has no concern for my feelings. I feel I am the only person he treats this way and when I see him being so kind to someone else it hurts and I have freaked because none of it makes sense to me. This last time, I asked him why he comes to me when clearly this other person is much more important to him. That it makes me feel used that he comes to me when he is feeling bad only for me to fix him so he can be happy with someone else. Was this a really horrible thing to say to him? I'd really like to get some insight into what is going on in his head. Are the things he said to me the truth, or are they lies? How is it so easy for him to drop me once I devote so much time helping him to be with another person? Perhaps he really does love this other person, but why state I have a claim on him? Is this because I have witnessed him at his worst? Also, when he is with this other person, he is utterly devoted. Is it possible for him to have a healthy relationship coming directly out of detox?
Answer Laura,
this guy needs to work on his sobriety
and his honesty and his fear of closeness
or intimacy. These are common problems
for alcoholics in recovery.
If you want to understand someone
it helps to slow down your thinking
wheels and look at their actions.
Thinking just makes guesses and assumptions
as to why people are the way they are.
The truth is in how they act toward you.
It does not sound to me like he has any
stability in his relationships.
He is just making use of whoever is
available and can give him what he needs
for the moment and then he is off again.
His decision making and his ability
to committment, loyalty and trust seem
to be sorely lacking right now.
He probably sees something in all
the women he dates but has to learn
he can't have them all in the real world.
Alcoholics are very emotionally immature
and not very responsible people.
I think they like romance but
not the work it requires to be a good
friend or mate.
The more real question here is your
desire to be involved with him and
the obvious dead end it leads to.
Recovery is a lifetime process,
he will not likely become the man
you would like him to be anytime soon.
Often women are attracted to a man's
potential. They think of what he could
be if they helped him or got him on the right path.
This can lead to being addicted to the up's
and down's these men bring to a relationship.
The excitement of "what is he doing now"
keeps you hooked into him.
Why would you want a relationship with a
person that treats you the way he treats you?
He is only there to use you and then he
is off again. He is a man with a serious
illness that needs much recovery to be healed.
I was a basket case in relationships for
at least the first five years of emotional
recovery from alcoholism.
Here is the best thing you will ever
do for yourself if you do it:
buy on ebay or wherever a book by
Robin Norwood called "Letters from
Women who love too much"
or her prequel "Women who love too much"
This will explain the dynamics of relationships
and why we get involved with guys like you describe.
It will really set you free or at least help
in seeing why you want to understand and help
him so much.
