Expert: Rebos - 7/25/2006

Question
Well I just need some advivce. My mind is going crazy.  My boyfriend is an alcholic.  We have dated for 6 months and basically live together.  We are so in love with each other and our lives are so intertwined.  I really can't imgaine (nor do I want to) my life with out him. We had discussed getting engaged soon...well that is until the last few weeks happened.  I did not realize that my boyfriend was addicted until a month into our relationship when he embarrased me at dinner with friends.  He left the table and came back over an hour later and was wasted.  The next day he swore to me he would never drink again and that he would go to AA meetings. But he didn't make a real effort with the exception of a few meetings.  This is also when I found out that he had outpatient therapy w/his family 2 years ago and stayed sober for 6 months then fell off.  After hearing all of this the rule was we would never drink together and that he wasn't going to drink. He was pretty good for a few months then started to fall off again.  This past week he came home after several drinks plastered.  He couldn't walk and some random girl dropped him off at my house. I was very hurt and highly emotional and didn't really want him in my place but i also didn't want some drunken girl that was w/my boyfriend to take him to his house.  At this point I called his parents and told them what had happened.  They've been thru the drill and felt awful.  They came and got him. His parents love me like I was their daughter and I love them as parents.  Which makes this even harder!  I am just at a loss.  He is going to see 2 separte additon therapist, has started AA and says he is going to change his friends/lifestyle/etc.  He hates himself when he drinks and this time he says he is doing it for himself.  He is sick of the lying and the person he is when he drinks.  He wants me to give him a chance to prove himself. How long does his take?  I am just totally confused.  The only plan that I gave him for now is that I need an entire week (at the very least)with no communication, then we can talk- ITs much too raw now!  My questions are many....Is he capable of having a committed relationship with me?  If I love him so much shouldn't I stand by him at the time of need...mandating full disclosure and honesty at all times?  What steps should I be taking to help me come to the best decision for myself?  Please help. Thanks- Erin  

Answer
Good morning Erin:

Thank you for your question. The best that I can do is to
tell you the truth about alcoholism.
You may not like my answer to you, but it will be
honest and truthful.
The action that you take will undoubtedly determine
what the rest of your life will be like!

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 for sure he will get worse.
If you continue to stay you will
become his victim, but never his girlfriend, lover or
wife. 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 is more important to them than
ANYTHING ELSE. As
much as he may love 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
his recognition
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 (unless you
are also having a drinking problem) 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.

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… and 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.

I would make it very clear to him that you do not want
to hear from him
again until he does something positive about his
drinking problem…and then
only after he has been sober in a program of recovery
(like AA) for at
least one full year. Never make any threat to him
unless you intend to
follow through with it.

HOWEVER, if for some insane reason you cannot stop
yourself from continuing
your relationship
with him, then it would be wise for you to go to
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. Please go to meetings
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 an alcoholic will stop drinking just
because they say that
they will. It's not that he will purposely lie to you…
but they will lie to
themselves 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, then to the AA
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. Just ask yourself what
you would advise a
friend to do if she came to you and explained the same
situation that you
are going through as her problem. I would bet that you
would tell her to
get away from him ASAP. 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 and I am sure that he wont be a provider.
You know that its one thing for him to be ignorant of not
knowing where to get
help, but he does know and won’t do anything
about his problem.

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.
I know that you love him…
but he can’t love you and alcohol at the same time!

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