Expert: Rebos - 6/27/2004

Question
I left my GF 3 weeks ago because we agreed that if she started drinking again I would. The next morning (8am) I went to pick up my stuff at her house (I had been living with her), she was having sex with this guy she had referred often during our relationship as a "jerk" that kept "hittting" on her. I was dumbfounded, since she had regularly accused me of infidelity, here she was less than 10 hours after we broke up with someone else. Yes, technically we were broke up.

She would seem to change personalities, characters; she  sometimes acted like a child, or like a "tuff guy prison type", and a few other odd personas. She had these crying jags. Obviously about deep issues. When she quit drinking she was the sweetest, most loving woman I have ever known.
Of course, when drinking, she was obnoxious and escalated often into verbal abuse; sometimes she would try to draw me into a physical violence situation. I knew at this point there was a big problem. She told me her former marriage was an physical abusive; I am aware of that triangle, and I avoided her invitations to participate.
Any way my ques are;
1. I am hurt and need time to understand this before I could move on to another; how can she jump in bed with another so fast ( I now suspect they were seeing each other all along)? Isn't she dealing with it?
2.She drinks straight vodka, has for years, is this what causes the personality changes and skewed thinking?
3.She knows she's alcoholic, and hurts people along the way, how can she live with herself?
(I know her major "excuse" for drinking is that her life is too "stressful).
Sorry this is so disjointed.

Answer
Good Morning Stan:

Thank you for your question. I will do my best to give you a satisfactory answer.

First off let me say that when it comes to addicted people nothing that they do should surprise you. That is what addiction does to people. It makes them so self-centered that nothing comes before their next fix, whether it be alcohol or other drug.

If you remained in the relationship there was a good possibility of you buying yourself a lifetime full of pain and misery. Your ex would have only gotten worse never better without getting the right kind of help. If you had stayed with her you would have become her victim, but never her boyfriend, lover or husband. Alcoholics take hostages they never take partners because their alcoholism does not allow them to have a normal relationship. Alcoholics who are still drinking are generally self-centered to the extreme. Booze has become more important to them than anything else. As much as she may want to love someone her addiction will not allow her to let anyone else come first. The alcohol will always come before her health, her job, her family, you or even her very life. By breaking up with her you have done yourself a big favor. And maybe you have done her a favor, if she is not all that far gone, that she knows she has lost another important person in her life. If your ex drinks enough to get drunk, it makes no difference what she drinks if it does the job she is looking for. Alcohol is alcohol. It really makes no difference what she drinks, where she drinks it or who she drinks it with…what it does to her is all that counts! Yes she may have been with the new guy all the time who she said was a jerk, but any port in a storm, so the old saying goes. She seems to be full of the poor me s and is using alcohol to hide the low opinion that she has of herself.

It is believed by many in the field of alcoholism that it is a three-fold illness…mental, physical and spiritual.

The “mental” part of the illness refers to her mental obsession to drink. If you will, the thought that precedes the first drink... a pre-occupation with thinking about drinking which is so powerful that she must drink. In so many words, thinking about the drink in between the drinks. The alcoholic never seems to worry about the drink in front of them, but they think of the next one. 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 the 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. If drinking causes problems then it is a problem!

Stopping drinking is not a matter of willpower. Alcoholism is a disease. Drinking alcoholically is but “a symptom of a deeper underlying problem” that your ex will have to face up to in order for her to ever get help for her drinking problem. Without learning what that problem is, trying to stay away from a drink is known as "white knuckle sobriety", or being on a “dry drunk”. It isn't very long before the alcoholic has to drink again. There is an old saying; “that once you turn a cucumber into a pickle you can never change it back to a cucumber again”. For the alcoholic there is no such thing as cutting down… drinking only on weekends… changing what they drink… or even switching to “near beer” with 0.5% alcohol. For the alcoholic nothing will work that is 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 drinking. A bottom can be likened to going down on an elevator. The alcoholic can get of at any floor they want to. There is no need to go all the way to the bottom floor. I am sorry to say that hitting a bottom for some may mean going as low as a person can go...plus six feet!

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. Many enablers are impelled by their own anxiety and guilt to rescue the alcoholic from their predicament. The enabler may be meeting a need of their own rather that the need of the alcoholic. If an enabler has no special knowledge about 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 again and again. In a backhanded way an enabler is giving the alcoholic “permission” to drink by their continued acceptance of the alcoholic's unacceptable behavior. Making “excuses” for the alcoholic has to be stopped in order for the alcoholic to pay the price for drinking. Because alcoholism is a progressive disease it only gets worse it never gets better on its own. Every time the enabler gets the alcoholic out of a jam, lends money, or in any way allows the person to get away with being irresponsible, they are really buying the alcoholic their next drink. Alcoholics are users!

Only until your ex “admits and accepts” that alcohol is causing her problems there is little you or any one can do for her. She's “gottawanna” stop drinking in order for anything to work! Emotions being what they are will tend to cloud your ability to think rationally, and cause you to see your situation in a distorted way.

I hope that I have helped you with my answer. Unfortunately there is no good fairy that will tap your ex on the shoulder and make her “all better”. It will take a lot of hard work. Until she gets tired of being sick and tired there is not too much you can do.

I honestly believe that you have done the right thing by breaking your relationship off with her. Now all that you have to do is to let go of her and get on with our life. Don't let her control your actions or your thoughts. Put your hurt ego aside and find someone who will appreciate you.

If there is anything further that I can do for you please do not hesitate to contact me again through Allexperts. Thank you, Rebos.