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Addiction to Alcohol/Should i stay with my boyfriend who is an alcoholic
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Question
My Boyfriend of 2 years has finally admitted, sober, to me that he is an
alcoholic. He is 28 and I am 21. We met in College through friends. When we
first dated he drank but I didn’t think anything of it. Most college students
drink. Then he moved to start his job in a new city 1 hour away and he broke
up with me. After a while I begin dating someone else and when he found out
he was devastated. We had been talking as friends after the break up. He
called me asking me who was this guy. He then begin to tell me that he
wanted me back and that he had made a mistake and wanted to get back
together but had not gotten the nerve to ask me out again. I told him that I
was not going to go back to him. Not yet anyway. I wanted to learn from my
new relationship. He begin calling me drunk and getting really upset and he
was drinking all the time. I finally broke up with the man I was dating and
started talking to my boyfriend again, kind of dating. Then after a few
months we became boyfriend and girlfriend again. Everything was perfect we
were on the same page about everything and we were in love, we have talked
about getting engaged and marriage, and kids. Then things went south. I
notice that he was drinking a lot and there was always rum in the freezer. He
has problems sleeping so his excuse was that he needed a drink to go to
sleep. But I was seeing him get really depressed but he would not talk to me. I
see him every weekend and I am not around during the week. One weekend
he was really drunk and I asked him if he was an alcoholic after an while he
said yes he was. Then the next morning he pretended nothing happened.
Now every time when I talk to him if I hear the ice in a glass I ask him if he is
drinking. Sometimes he will say no that it is water but I know he never puts
ice in his water… he only puts it in his rum and Coke. I know he is drinking.
Sometimes he does say that he is drinking. He is the kind of person who
keeps his emotions in. It has gotten to the point that I feel we don’t have a
real conversation because by the time that I get to talk to him he has begun
drinking. He shuts off from the world and from me. I could not reach him on
his phone for a day and a half because he was drinking. Finally he sent me a
text saying he would talk to me tomorrow. He said that he didn’t want to talk.
I don’t know what to do I am so young with my life in front of me and I love
my boyfriend with every bone in my body! My mom doesn’t want me to have
to live with an alcoholic for the rest of my life she said that I have suffered
enough in my life from things that I can not control and that I have a choice
here, that I need to break up with him. My mother’s dad and brother are
alcoholics. I also believe that my boyfriend’s dad is an alcoholic. She also told
me that this is not the life that I want and that it is not the life that she wants
for me. She wants me to call this one lady in my church whose husband is an
alcoholic. She said that she would tell me that if I have a choice to get out
that I should. I want to do the right thing for my boyfriend and me. Do I need
to let him go? Is that in my best entrust and his. That way he sees how
drinking if affecting his life? Would it help him reach rock bottom so that he
can start climbing out. Do I need to leave him? I don’t know what to do!!!
Help.
Greetings to you, Claire.
You have written:
>> I want to do the right thing for my boyfriend and me. Do I need to let him go? Is that in my best entrust and his. That way he sees how drinking if affecting his life?
It might be years and many more broken relations on down the road before he might eventually begin to think about wanting to do something about his drinking, so yes, stepping out of his way right now would be a good thing. Follow the advice others are giving you and get out while you still can. Fear and pride might scream for you to stay, and your ego will possibly try to get you to believe you might actually be able to help this "boy", as you call him. The hard fact, however, is that you are presently heading straight into a life of captivity – alcoholics do not have relationships, they take hostages.
There is much we could talk about of you are interested, and you are welcomed to write again ...
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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