Expert: Rebos - 7/8/2006

Question
hi,my partner is an alcoholic and he has been detoxed on 5 occations,the longest he went without a drink is 10 months,i have 3 kids and after 3 years of putting up with his mood swings and embarassing behaviour ive made him get his own place to live.i feel like im abandaning him and feel very guilty,he is to ill to go out now because of the amount hes drinking and he calls me being abusive saying its my fault hes stuck indoors and he says i should give him company whenever he wants it and that in cruel and evil because im trying to get on with my life.im scared if i dont keep an eye on him and take food round that he will die and it will be my faault for leaving him.i dont no what to do,he is at presant waiting to go into detox for 6 weeks,the longest he has ever stayed in was a week and then he insisted on leaving.why do i feel so responsible for him.i have 2 disabled kids to cope with aswel and am on antidepresants myself.i dont no what to do please help me.

Answer
Good morning SAM:

Thank you for your question. I will give you some information
that will help you to decide what
you can do to help you through your present situation. It may
hurt you with what I am going to
tell you, but it will be honest and truthful.

First; since two of your three children are disabled you are in the
habit of being a caretaker, and
when it comes to your partner (I take it that you are not
married to him or that none
of your children are his) you have to break that bad habit.
You already have enough problems
in your life and don’t need any more!

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 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 attend
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 Alanon 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. 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 and you are
killing him with your kindness.

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 like you would the plague. 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.

You know that its one thing 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.

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