Expert: Rebos - 7/4/2006

Question
Hi. I was dating a guy for 7 months before we broke up. He turned 21 a
few weeks after we began dating, but had been drinking since he was
probably 14. He told me constantly that he was glad he was with me,
because it gave him an excuse to not be at the bar every night. We started
having problems, and he started drinking more and more - especially right
after we broke up. For the past 4 months, we have been constantly back
and forth - One day he's telling me how much he loves me, and the next
he never wants to be in a relationship again. Things are really bad
between us right now, so i've spent a lot of time thinking about
everything. I love this guy more than anything in the world. The more I think
about it, I have sort of noticed a trend, which a close friend of ours
has also picked up on. Everything will be perfect between us, we'll be
getting along great, he'll be telling me how much he loves me, we have
long talks about getting married, kids, building our house, etc. This
usually happens when he says he is going to stop drinking and stop going
out. Then, it seems as soon as he starts drinking again, he starts
getting very negative towards me again. He says he never wants to be in a
relationship ever again, is very stubborn and hard to talk to, very
moody, etc. He has told me and numerous amounts of people that he loves me
and that i was the best thing he's ever had in his life. Hearing that
from other people really confuses me when he starts telling me he never
wants to be with me again. He isn't a mean or aggressive drunk. It just
seems every time after he starts drinking his attitude/feelings towards
me change. I was wondering if it was possible that this has something
to do with the alcohol. I don't think in any way that he is an
alcoholic, I am just wondering if it can affect you in ways to completely change
how you feel about someone, like altering your mind. I don't want to
just jump to conclusions and try to talk to him about how I feel if there
is no connection between his attitude and the alcohol,
so i would really like to know if you think there could be a connection
here? Thanks

Answer
Good morning Jess:

Thank you for your question. Yes, there is a definite connection
between your boyfriend’s attitude
and his attitude toward you. You may not like my answer,
but it will be honest and truthful.
Yes, you had better be concerned,
because the action that you take will determine what the
rest of your life will be like.

He has what is known as a Doctor Jeckel and Mr. Hyde syndrome. Which means he
has a personality change when he drinks, the sign of alcoholism. There is no excuse for
your boyfriend’s unacceptable behavior.
His problem is that he can’t drink
in safety, and should not be drinking
at all. With the way
that he is acting I can’t believe
that you don’t know that
he is an alcoholic.

If your boyfriend does not stop drinking, and you stay
with him, you are
looking at a relationship and the good possibility of
having a lifetime
full of pain and misery. If he does not stop he will get worse.
If you continue to stay with
him you will become his victim, but never his girlfriend,
lover, wife or even a father. 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 becomes more important to them than
ANYTHING ELSE. As
much as he may say that he loves 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
getting to recognize 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 don't join him in
his drinking, because 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.
If you have children with this guy just think of what you will be
putting your kids thru!

It is very easy for those who are close to an
alcoholic to become
“enablers”. 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. If an enabler has no
special knowledge or
training in the field of alcoholism and they try to
help, the alcoholic
can sense the ineptness and weakness of the enabler
and they continue on
drinking because they know that they will be forgiven
and rescued time and
time again. In a backhanded way you will give
him “permission” to
drink by your continued acceptance of his 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.
Don’t let your low self esteem make
decisions for you.

HOWEVER, if for some insane reason you cannot stop
yourself from continuing
your relationship
with him, then it would be wise for you to start attending
Alanon meetings. It is the
Only way that you will survive the ordeal
Of having an alcoholic in your life.
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.

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 will be your only chance to
survive the relationship.

If you don’t already know, 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 the
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 0.05%
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
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 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. 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. Rarely have I seen an alcoholic
stop drinking on
willpower alone. The disease is too powerful.

There is no reason why you should remain in such a
horrible situation as you are.
You were not put
on this earth to allow another person to enslave you
and have to live in
fear and yet do nothing about it.

If you do talk to him 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. 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. Never make any threats to him
that you are not
willing to follow through on.

If it walks like a duck
Talks like a duck and looks like a duck…
Then it is a duck!
But you and he thinks that he’s not an alcoholic!

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 your question.
You seem to
be an intelligent woman…don’t let this man destroy
your life. Get out
while you can, and concentrate on a someone who
can love you, more than booze.

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