Expert: Joseph Lee O. - 4/27/2007

Question
We live together,For one year now. He moved into my place from being in a halfway house. I didn't know he had such a drinking problem because when we dated he never drank and he was not allowed to drink while living in the shelter. When he moved in, he took the liberty to buy beer, then he had crack on him and started to smoke it after he had practically one 12-pack of beer to himself. I didn't drink during his journey. I didn't know what to do at this point, I felt like had made a big mistake, and that it was too late to send him back to the 1/2 way house..The next day he apologized, and he didn't do it again until the next month. He doesn't have a license and I drive him to places, and we started going on Fridays to bars..He promised he wouldn't drink to much, but always after 4 beers, it's to late, then I just wait until 6 hours have passed, and it's time to close, then I take him home and if I retaliate, or tell him of my discomfort of sitting 6 hours at a bar babysitting him, he starts talking bad about my family, about me, about everything, politics, the world, GOd, and how bad everything is,,and how he wasted hi life drinking, and this is what he become...and then he wants me to drive him to get crack at the projects, or at motels where there are crackheads. If I don't, I don't hear the end of his bickering, and yelling, and he won't leave me alone until I do. I literally have to leave him alone at home, and drive somewhere for hours to get away.

He comes from a loving family, (which he loves, but complains about, saying it's part their fault he became this way.) They send him money to bail him out of trouble, but they don't want him to come back to his home town because they've been dealing with his issues for years. They like him to visit, but he still finds time to get too drunk and spoil the visit,then to hide he drags me to the nearest crack hotel again. He apologizes the next day, he gets better each and every day until there is another stressful episode he can't deal with. He always pays hi bills, he's never late a payment.. He makes sure he has money saved, but he spends 100-300 in one weekend and then regrets it, saying he could have bought me a bicycle, or a digital camera that I needed. I don't throw these things in his face because I don't want him to have another reason to drink again, but I'm getting sick of this life with him. We don't even have sex. He lost the desire like 6 months ago. He feels guilty having sex with me, he says. Also he just takes care of himself in the showere, if he has the desire, and even that makes him feel guilty.. I feel really sorry for him, I've gone to Al-anon, and I'd rather be going to art classes at night. This weekend I know he is going to drink, I can feel it coming, and I've planned to go to a hotel off the interstate to disappear, I don't want to drive him araound, or hear how he wasted 40.00 on cab fare to a pub, or hear how they kicked him out of a bar,etc. etc. etc. He can't even go back to the 1/2 way house. They have a long waiting list. His company is cutting back hours, and he' getting paid less... I don't have many problems to deal with like his, and my life is fine. I don't need this to go on anymore, but I'm afraid he may end up dead somwhere, and we can't afford re-hab.


Answer
Greetings to you.

Letters such as yours are not uncommon, and they always cause me to again ponder certain things ... such as about how so many of this world’s finest young women end up in “play marriages” to going-nowhere and dying young men with such great potential.  Your desires, willingness and commitments are undeniable, your ever-increasing frustrations and eventually-unbearable pain are unavoidable, and yet nothing ever really changes ... and how or why is all of that so?

We men, and just as I have certainly been, are the primary culprits, yet the solution for each and every human being, including our wives and children, is precisely the same:

“Almost none of us liked the self-searching, the leveling of our pride, the confession of shortcomings which the process requires for its successful consummation.  But we saw that it really worked in others, and we had come to believe in the hopelessness and futility of life as we had been living it.  When, therefore, we were approached by those in whom the problem had been solved, there was nothing left for us but to pick up the simple kit of spiritual tools laid at our feet.  We have found much of heaven and we have been rocketed into a fourth dimension of existence of which we had not even dreamed.
“The great fact is just this, and nothing less: That we have had deep and effective spiritual experiences which have revolutionized our whole attitude toward life, toward our fellows and toward YHWH's universe.  The central fact of our lives today is the absolute certainty that our Creator has entered into our hearts and lives in a way which is indeed miraculous.  He has commenced to accomplish those things for us which we could never do by ourselves.” (“Alcoholics Anonymous”, the book, page 25)

Please do not hesitate to let me know how I might be helpful to you,

Joseph Lee O.