Expert: Rebos - 3/7/2004

Question
Hi
My father was an alcoholic and died at the age of 61, my brother is following in his footsteps. I suffer from depression and am on medication which I'm too afraid to stop taking incase it gets even worse. I know I'm not feeling very good lately.
My boyfriend is 30, I have been with him nearly 2 years. During which he was mostly drunk. He'd go on binges, borrowing money to pay for his drink, missing days at work. He gets visibly drunk after just 3 pints, and falls asleep after 5. He'd just keel over and sleep on the bar for an hour. WE had penty of discussions and arguments about it. Eventually he joined up with the AA 6 months ago, and he was like a new man. My anxiety lessened an our relationship really improved.
Now however in the past 2 months he's had what the AA call "slips". I just dont understand how a pint of beer is worth more than me. I dont want to end up like my mother, and I dont want to bring any child into a life that would be like mine was. So why am I still with him? Its like I have no control, I know I should leave, I swore I would leave, but my head is saying maybe that was the last time he'll ever drink. But here I am again, he's collapsed in bed drunk.
Please just help me, give me some advice or help to do what I have to do. I have to get out, I cant live my life like this anymore, but I feel so stupid and worthless. Why cant he see how much this hurts me?  

Answer
Good afternoon Grace

Thank you for your question. I will do my best to give
you information
that will (I hope) help you to make some decisions.

From what you have written there is
no question about it, your boyfriend is an alcoholic! Just because he has periods of abstinence between his binges does not make him any less of an alcoholic.
The measure of whether he is one or not is…”if his
drinking is causing problems, then it is a problem”!

If your boyfriend does not stop drinking, and you stay
with him, you are looking at a relationship (as you know from your personal experiences) with the good possibility of having a lifetime full of pain and misery ahead of you. If his situation remains the same and you stay
with him he will get worse with or without you being
in his life. You will become his victim, but never his girlfriend, lover or wife. Drinking
alcoholics take “hostages” they never take partners,
because their
alcoholism does not allow them to have a normal
relationship with another
human being. Alcoholics who are still drinking are
generally self-centered
to the extreme, booze is more important to them than
ANYTHING ELSE. As
much as he may love you his addiction will never allow
you to come first,
booze will always come before you, his health, his
job, his family, and
even his very life. By breaking up with him you may be
doing him a big
favor by helping to raise his “bottom”. In other words
his recognition
that he has lost another thing that was important in
his life.

I know of many cases where the non-drinker of a couple ends up “joining “ the
drinker as a matter of their own survival. What ever
you do (unless you
are also having a drinking problem) don't join him in
his drinking. To be
a male alcoholic is bad enough, but to be a female
alcoholic is much worse
because of the “special” problems that a woman drunk
faces. You will
become his weak prey that he can do with, whatever
he wants to.

It is very easy for you to become an “enabler”. An enabler is a person who allows an alcoholic to continue
drinking, primarily by their acceptance of the
alcoholic's actions and NOT
holding them accountable for their unacceptable
behavior. Many enablers
are impelled by their own anxiety, emotional problems and guilt to rescue the alcoholic from
their predicament. You as an enabler may be meeting a need of your own rather that the need of your boyfriend. If you have no special knowledge or
training in the field of alcoholism and you try to
help him he
can sense your weakness and continue on
drinking because he knows that you will be forgive
and rescue him time and
time again… and again. In a backhanded way an enabler
gives the alcoholic
“permission” to drink by their continued acceptance of
the alcoholic's
unacceptable behavior. What ever you decide to do it
should be based upon
your head talking and not your heart. Don't let your
actions appear to be
allowing him to continue drinking. If you continue on
the road that you
are on you haven't seen anything yet. Alcoholism is a
progressive disease
it only gets worse it never gets better on its own.

I would make it very clear to him that you do not want
to hear from him
again until he does something positive about his
drinking problem…and then
only after he has been sober in a program of recovery
(like AA) for at
least one full year. Never make any threat to him
unless you intend to
follow through with it.

HOWEVER, as insane as it would be, if you cannot stop yourself from continuing
your relationship
with him, then it would be wise for you to attend
Alanon meetings. If you
chose to remain in your relationship with him and you
don't attend
meetings you have no one to blame for your situation
but yourself. If you
go to Alanon you will find that your problem is not
quite as unique as you
may think. At Alanon you would learn how to live with
having an alcoholic
in your life, and learn the truth about the disease of
alcoholism. Alanon
is intended to help YOU and not the Alcoholic
directly. In order for you
to be able to help him you must first learn to help
yourself.

At Alanon
you will meet people who have an alcoholic in their
lives too, and that
their own lives had become unmanageable as a result of
it. Alcoholism is a
disease that affects everyone who comes into contact
with the alcoholic.
Alcoholics are not bad people, they are sick people
who need help, but
they must be held responsible for their actions! You
may not be able to do
anything about your boyfriend's drinking but you can
do something about
the problem that has developed in your life by having
an alcoholic in it.
Until you are armed with the right kind of
information, knowledge and
implications of the disease your efforts to help him
will be for nothing.
Alcoholism is deadly and it destroys everything and
everyone who comes
into contact with it. If you do not have Alanon's
local number call the
following toll-free numbers: 1-800-344-2666 (United
States) or
1-800-443-4525 (Canada).

It is generally believed, by many in the field of
alcoholism, that it is a
three-fold disease. Mental, Physical and Spiritual.

The “mental” part of the illness refers to the mental
obsession to drink
that precedes the first drink... a pre-occupation with
thinking about
drinking which is so powerful that the alcoholic must
drink.

The “physical” aspect of the disease is, that once the
first drink is downed
a physical compulsion takes over in the form of a deep
incessant craving
that the alcoholic must continue to drink until some
outside incident
stops them or they pass out.

The “spiritual” part of the illness (not
spiritual in a religious way) is in the loss of an
alcoholic's values, and
a willingness to settle for less and less as their
drinking continues. It
becomes difficult for the alcoholic to determine the
difference between
right and wrong or good and bad. The alcoholic
develops a change in
priorities where drinking becomes more important than
health, family, job
and friends.

Stopping drinking is not a matter of willpower.
Alcoholism is a disease.
Drinking alcoholically is but a symptom of a deeper
underlying problem
that must be faced up to in order for an alcoholic to
recover. Without
learning what that problem is, trying to stay away
from a drink is known
as "white knuckle sobriety". It isn't very long before
the alcoholic has
to drink again. For the alcoholic there is no such
thing as cutting down,
drinking only on weekends, changing what they drink,
smoking pot or taking
other mind altering drugs or even switching to “near
beer” with 0.5%
alcohol. For the alcoholic nothing will work short of
total and complete
abstinence from any thing that contains alcohol or
other mind-altering
substances (drugs). Of course the exception is a
medical doctor's
prescription as long as the doctor understands that he
is dealing with an
addicted person. Unfortunately, all alcoholics must
hit their own bottom
before they do anything about stopping. I am sorry to
say that hitting a
bottom for some many may mean going as low as a person
can go...plus six
feet! Don't let him take you there with him! Let him
go and get on with
your life. Once again, you may help to save his life
by raising his bottom
even if you are no longer together.

Until your boyfriend “admits and accepts” that alcohol is causing
him problems there
is little you can do for him. No one can scare an
alcoholic into stopping
drinking. Cajoling, hand-wringing, threatening,
begging and even putting
him away against his will, will not get him to stop
doing what he has not
made up his own mind to do. Don't think that he does
not want to stop, he
can't stop when left to his own devices. Also, don't
be lulled into
thinking that he will stop drinking just
because he says that he will. It's not that he will purposely lie to you…
but he will lie to himself because down deep he is afraid to stop.
Alcoholism is
powerful, cunning, baffling and insidious. An active
alcoholic's choices
become limited to: attending a recovery program like
AA, or entering an
in-patient detoxification clinic that has an after
care outpatient
program. If he does nothing about stopping then he is
destined to die a
drunk's death, get involved negatively with the law or
end up in a mental
institution. I am sorry to be blunt, but I am only
stating what you
probably already know. I have never seen an alcoholic
stop drinking on
willpower alone. The disease is too powerful.

You are in a very dangerous relationship and you must
make a decision to
set your fears aside and do what you must do to
protect your self and
above all, if there are any children involved protect them from the good
possibility that his
drinking will eventually (if not already) effect them
physically,
emotionally and mentally. I'm sure that you
bring your tension and
anxiety home with you. There is no reason why you
should remain in such a
horrible situation as you are. Just ask yourself what
you would advise a
friend to do if she came to you and explained the same
situation that you
are going through as her problem. I would bet that you
would tell her to
get away from him asap. You were not put
on this earth to allow another person to enslave you
and have to live in
fear for your life and yet do nothing about it. You may have to
get a restraining order against him to keep him away
from you. There is no
question in my mind that he will eventually hit you
and it will be a
downward spiral from that point until you become too
weak (minded) to
leave.

If you do talk to him you may want to say that you are
leaving him because
of his drinking and the mental abuse that he is laying
on you. And… that
until he is sober for at least a year or more that you
do not want to hear
from him or have any contact with you. You have to get
on with your life.
God forbid that you have a child with him and then
become tied to him for
the rest of your life. He is a loser and a coward (for
what he is doing to
you) and you should seriously consider leaving him.

I wish you the very best and I hope that I have not
taken too much liberty
with you in the way I have responded to you.

If I can be of further help please do not hesitate to
contact me again
through Allexperts.  Thank you Rebos.