Expert: Druideck - 4/4/2009

Question
I was in a relationship with my Ex for 4 yrs. He drank a 6pack of Budlight everyday. Is he an Alcoholic. Also if they leave you and go into another relationship well they treat that woman the same way they treated you. Also why are they never there when you need them the most. Do they know they hurt you. Why would they leave everything they own behind. Also why can you not get closure. Thanks

Answer
Eileen,

I would say your Ex was very likely
an alcoholic although it depends
more on how it affected him and
his life. If it had negative effects
on his work, health or relationships
and he kept drinking then he
was likely alcoholic.

How he treats another woman will
depend on him and how he decides to
behave. If he has poor relationship skills
then he will have problems with
anyone he is involved with.

Alcoholics are sick people and
this makes them behave irresponsibly.
Recovered alcoholics are often
among the best behaved people
you could meet. They learn
how to live again with others in recovery
programs such as AA.
This depends on how much work they
put into it of course.

Alcoholics can be unfeeling
and often don't empathize
with others. They don't
know or don't care if you
feel hurt by their behaviour.
This is often a result of
how sick they have become
spiritually from alcoholism.
It is an illness where a man
or woman goes downhill progressively
in all areas of their life.

Recovered alcoholics often try
to make amends for this
bad behaviour at some time
in their recovery.
This is to make peace with the past.

They often behave irrationally
and leaving their things may
be part of that or maybe
they have trouble letting go
and it feels like they still
own a piece of someone or something
when they leave things there.
Or it might just be too much trouble
and they are afraid to return
for some reason of their own.

Closure can be difficult as
often when living with an alcoholic
you take on their illness of
dependency. This results in
a kind of addiction to the person
where you keep wanting things to
be different and think if you
try hard enough you can fix
the relationship.

This obscession to overcome the
problems with an alcoholic
is often to relive and repair
some part of our past life.

This might stem from problems
with an alcoholic or neurotic
parent or just comes from our
insecurity and desire to
be loved. We sometimes go to
ridiculous ends to be loyal
and try to make bad relationships
work out.

We get addicted to the ups and
downs of a stormy relationship.
We miss the excitement that
is not as extreme when with a
healthy person.
The drama can be very addicting
when with a troubled man.
It is painful but at least we are
feeling something.

Recovery is learning to move more slowly
and enjoy peaceful things and people.

We learn to hold still with our
anxiety instead of getting
involved in another bad relationship.

We learn to give ourself the caring
we crave. We find love inside rather
than outside of ourselves.

We try to attract love rather than
chase after it. We are not desperate
to find a new person, we feel whole
and complete as a person alone.

We let go of people so we can
focus on ourself and let them
live as they want without any
interference from us.

Take care!