Expert: Rebos - 12/18/2006

Question
I'm at my wits end dealing with a alcoholic.  I want to leave but, I love him because of the Man I know he can be when sober.  Previously this summer although on home incarceration, he stopped drinking for 4 months and everything was fine.  After becoming free again, he continues to stay in bars and drinks all day.  I also suspect he may cheat on me as well when intoxicated.  He's starting to drink at a earlier time in the day and he has stopped going to church.  In between these times he has moderated his drinking and gone to AA meetings.  I've even attended with him.  He admits to his problem and has cried on numerous occasions that he wants to stop but, can't.  Currently he is in the court system awaiting the decision if they are going to revoke his probation for the numerous DUIs.  His health is going down (his eyes are yellow, lose of weight) and he drinks more.  I just started attending Al-Anon meetings for the help I need to stay sane and not get caught anymore within his drama.  But, why would a highly intelligent, professional Man (lost his job because of drinking) continue on like this when he knows there is help and support for him out here.  A Deacon at our church whom resides over our Christian Addiction Ministry Program that beat a crack addiction of 17 years has agreed to be his sponsor.  What else can I do and why is this happening?

Answer
Good afternoon Kimberly, and thank you for your question.

You say that you love your boyfriend…I hope that you do realize that your boyfriend can’t love you! His addiction to alcohol won’t let him love you or any one else! His addiction to drink is so powerful that he has to drink…no matter what. Until he admits that he is powerless over alcohol he is destined to either die from drinking, (which as you write that his liver has been affected), end up in a penal institution or mental institution. You wrote that he admits that he has a drinking problem, but so do those poor souls that are in the soup lines at your local shelter. They readily admit that they are alcoholics, but so what are they doing about it…NOTHING. Your boyfriend has not had enough trouble yet. He is going to meetings for the wrong reasons. And by the way you are doing him a dis-service by going to meetings with him. If he is serious about his sobriety he like many, many other AA members will find a way to get to meetings. AA meetings are not a social event, like a date. I have never seen or heard of an alcoholic who wants to get to AA meetings that there isn’t someone who will take him (with the exception of it being you). All that he has to do is speak up, and say (at his next meeting) that he needs a ride! It will show you how serious he really is about his sobriety. You aren’t his mother, his keeper or his warden. It will give him an opportunity to become a part of the AA program rather than apart from it. With you there he will never join a group, never get an AA sponsor, he will never go to closed meetings for alcoholics only and most of all he will never change. If he doesn’t change from the guy that he was when he went to his first meeting he will drink again, and if he is only going to meetings on a hit or miss basis he will never stay sober for very long. Which he isn’t! He should be going to meetings 7 days a week! I hope that the Deacon, you mentioned, (that is to be his sponsor) is himself in AA. If not, he has the wrong person for his sponsor. Even though he has stopped using crack for 17 years, if he doesn’t go to AA meetings he (your boyfriend) is looking for the easier softer way to get you off his back once again!

I would guess that every time you or his legal problems put the heat on him he says that he will do something about his drinking, but once the heat is off him he breaks out and drinks. I don’t know how much time you have invested in your boyfriend but it is my opinion that you should get rid of him before you get too emotion-ally attached to him. Just think of the trouble that you will be faced with if you end up having a child with this guy and be strapped to him for the next 18 years or so! If drinking causes problems then IT is a problem! Alcoholism never gets better on its own it always gets worse, and the direction that your boyfriend is headed he will get worse. Alcoholics don’t have girlfriends, they don’t have wives, they don’t even have children, Alcoholics take hostages and have victims…they are too self-centered, and care more about their right to continue drinking than they do for their girlfriends, wives or children. Ask him to stop drinking and see if he does, and of course to continue to go to AA regularly. That should tell you something. I have never seen an alcoholic stop drinking on their willpower alone…the addiction is too powerful.

Stopping drinking is not a matter of willpower. Alcoholism is a disease. Drinking alcoholically is but a symptom of a deeper underlying problem that an alcoholic must face 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, binge or periodic drinking, drinking only on weekends, changing what they drink, smoking pot or taking other mind altering drugs or even switching to “near beer” with 0.05% 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 or she 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. There is no bad time for you to leave him if you decide to do so! Alcoholics, if they want to drink, will find all kinds of EXCUSES to pick up a drink. Maybe you will be helping him to hit his bottom, by raising it, before he kills someone. As a matter of fact you may help to save his life by raising his bottom even if you may no longer stay together. Until he “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. Threatening, begging and even putting him away against his wishes will not get an alcoholic 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. His track record has proven that. 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.

If you do talk to him or write him a letter you may want to say that you are leaving him because of his drinking. 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.

From the description of your actions I would say that you may be an “enabler”, because you haven’t held your boyfriend responsible for his behavior! It seems as though he becomes a “good boy”, but once the “heat is off” his addiction to the drug alcohol sets him off again. It is very easy for those who are close to an alcoholic to become “enablers”. Many enablers are impelled by their own anxiety and guilt to rescue the alcoholic from their predicament. If you don’t use the special knowledge that you can learn at Al-Anon your boyfriend will sense your ineptness and weakness and continue on drinking because he knows that he will be forgiven again and again. I hope that you do not turn into such a person. If you decide to stay with your boyfriend please continue going to Al-Anon. You should be getting active in Al-Anon by having an Al-Anon sponsor, joining a group, and getting as active in your Al-Anon program as much as you would like to see your boyfriend active in Alcoholics Anonymous.

It is said that alcoholism is a disease of denial, and it is apparent that your boyfriend is in denial about what it is doing to him. It has no cure…once an alcoholic always an alcoholic! So to speak, “once you make a cucumber into a pickle, you can never change it back to a cucumber”. The good news is that there is recovery from the disease and it is accomplished “just one day at a time.” I’m sure that you have heard that saying before.

I am sorry that I may have come down on you so hard, but you are talking about the rest of your life depending on a drunk, that will not do what’s necessary to clean up his act… Not because you want him to, but because he wants to get well and change his life for the better. Please...what ever you do never make any kind of a threat to him that you are not absolutely sure that you will follow through with. If I can be of more help to you feel free to contact me again. Thank you Rebos