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Addiction to Alcohol/My Fiancee
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QUESTION: Hi there,
I have been with my fiancee for 6 years. He is an alcoholic. He is on his 3rd DWI and is facing a felony charge. He came out of jail (after a five day stay for the DWI), admitted that he had a problem, went through DETOX, and is now attending an outpatient center twice a week for treatment.
It was only about 2-3 weeks after his release that he began drinking again.
He does not have a job now and I am paying all of the bills myself (we share an apartment).
I feel like I'm at the end of my rope. I have no idea what to do. The wedding is in six weeks and I obviously can't go through with it. Beyond that conclusion, what am I to do? Should I bail out and run? Should I remain with him and be supportive? It appears as if he is genuinely trying to get better, but hasn't been terribly successful.
I love him very much and I want us to be together. I am not, however, willing to accept his behavior as something that is ok. I have worked very hard in my life to obtain a good education and I am currently in a great position in my career. I want to have a happy life. I want the same for him.
Please advise.
ANSWER: Greetings to you, Bethany.
The first thing you need to know is whether your fiancé wants to stop drinking forever or only wants to stop having problems, including legal ones, that are in any way related to drinking. In other words, he might still be looking for a way to drink “safely” ... and if he truly is an alcoholic, of course, that is never going to happen.
Get out while you can and stay out, completely, until you understand permanent recovery and you are absolutely certain of his. Also, have you ever wondered how you ended up in this kind of situation?
Peace to you,
Joseph Lee O.
Email: leejosepho@hotmail.com
Forum: http://www.aimoo.com/forum/freeboard.cfm?id=721484
---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------
QUESTION: I think this drinking issue was always there, I just didn't see it. I was very young when we began dating and as I have matured, I can see the effect his drinking has had on things.
How can I come to completely understand permanent recovery?
Greetings again, Bethany.
I had written: "Get out while you can and stay out, completely, until you understand permanent recovery and you are absolutely certain of his."
You have asked: "How can I come to completely understand permanent recovery?"
First, here is an overall statement straight from "Alcoholics Anonymous", the book, pages 84-85:
"And we have ceased fighting anything or anyone - even alcohol. For by this time sanity will have returned. We will seldom be interested in [alcohol]. If tempted, we recoil from it as from a hot flame. We react sanely and normally, and we will find that this has happened automatically. We will see that our new attitude toward [alcohol] has been given us without any thought or effort on our part. It just comes! That is the miracle of it. We are not fighting it, neither are we avoiding temptation. We feel as though we had been placed in a position of neutrality - safe and protected. We have not even sworn off. Instead, the problem has been removed. It does not exist for us. We are neither cocky nor are we afraid. That is our experience. That is how we react so long as we keep in fit spiritual condition.
"... Every day is a day when we must carry the vision of G-d's will into all of our activities. 'How can I best serve Thee - Thy will (not mine) be done.' These are thoughts which must go with us constantly. We can exercise our will power along this line all we wish. It is the proper use of the will."
In other words, and rather than the impossible “Don’t drink” exhortations of today’s AA and most “treatment programs”, permanent recovery is about actually having the problem removed.
Next, and as you can glimpse at the end of that excerpt, permanent recovery is directly related to and dependent upon spiritual transformation:
“‘G-d, I offer myself to Thee - to build with me and to do with me as Thou wilt. Relieve me of the bondage of self, that I may better do Thy will. Take away my difficulties, that victory over them may bear witness to those I would help of Thy Power, Thy Love, and Thy Way of life. May I do Thy will always!’ We thought well before taking this step [Step Three] making sure we were ready; that we could at last abandon ourselves utterly to Him.” (page 63)
Permanent recovery, then, is similar to going back to the factory for a complete overhaul rather than limping along as best one can while merely hoping to “make it”.
If you have ever heard a preacher or anyone talk about the relative depravity of the human mind, permanent recovery is the result of spiritual transformation.
The best place to begin your own reading along that line is in “Alcoholics Anonymous”, the book ... and I will gladly answer your questions as they come up. One thing to keep in mind, however, is that the alcoholic is almost never interested in a permanent solution until/unless his or her life has become completely unbearable and death seems imminent.
Peace to you,
Joseph Lee O.
Email: leejosepho@hotmail.com
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Answers by Expert:
Joseph Lee O.
Expertise
Greetings to you! Amidst the insufficiency of all the philosophical, religious and “self-help” approaches to relief from chronic alcoholism, I have personally experienced the content of “Alcoholics Anonymous”, the book. Thus, I can now explain at least the essence of the physical, mental and emotional aspects of an alcoholic's inherent condition and plight, and I can show why a spiritual solution is required and how it works and how to attain one.
Experience
The oldest of four boys, I grew up in a religious, Midwestern-USA family. Unable to decline a friendly offer in a social setting, I had "no effective mental defense against the first drink" ("Alcoholics Anonymous", the book, page 43), and took my very first drink ever at age 24 ... and within minutes I had become obsessed with getting more of the effect that glass of homemade wine had given me. Alcohol had just done something *for* me that nothing else had ever done; it had seemingly "fixed" something inside me I had not even known was broken.
Over the next seven years of my life, I "drank up" just about everything and everyone ever meaning much to me at all, and I eventually abandoned my young family so I could drink and smoke pot at will. For, you see, alcohol was giving me a good-to-go feeling about life and a sense of control I had never before had, and at least in the early days of my drinking it could kill just about any pain that came along.
At age 31, however, circumstances and consequences had piled up all around me in ways that were making it obvious I could not continue on much longer. Life had become too tough, my pains had grown too great and the dangers of continuing to drink had become too undeniable for me to be able to continue believing I might ultimately survive an inescapable drop to the bottom of the pit. I still wanted to be able to drink safely as in days past, but something had seemingly "taken over" my drinking and was dragging me completely out-of-control after just one drink. So, and even while completely overwhelmed by the thought of facing life alcohol-free, I decided to stop drinking altogether ... and I quickly discovered I could not. No matter what I said, thought or did even just "one day at a time", I always ended up drinking once again. Where I wanted to drink safely, I could not, and neither could I remain abstinent for very long at all ... and such is the physical "allergy" (where one drink takes another) coupled with alcoholism’s mental-emotional obsession for the effect of alcohol ...
... but then I met a small group of people who personally understood my deadly dilemma - my complete personal powerlessness - and those same folks were quite able to propose a permanent solution. I accepted, of course, and today it is as if I "could not drink even if [I] would" ("Alcoholics Anonymous", the book, page 57), and for that I now remain unendingly grateful.
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