Anyone leave an alcolohic they are madly in love with?

[hooghie]

My boyfriend is perfect and amazing 95% of the time. Nobody has EVER made me feel as good as he does. We have so much fun together- have the same interests, etc. I have never met anyone who is similar to him.

 

The problem is the 5% of the time he is hammerred. He's annoying and careless (wakes me up at 4AM when I have work the next day because he wants to talk to me about something), he's embarressed me in front of family and friends, etc.

 

I have discussed the issue with him on numerous occasions and told him that eventually- I WILL get to a point where I will leave. I am definitely part of the problem because I enjoy going out and having a few drinks. I just wish he could stop after 4 or 5

 

My main question is- has anyone gotten to a point where they walked away even though you were madly in love and everything else was perfect? How did you do it? What made you do it? Is there any hope? I feel like if he quits it will be for me and I know that is just bad news because a relapse is inevitable.

 

If YOU are a sober alcoholic, what was your breaking point? How difficult was it?

[Art_Critic]

I'm a sober Alcoholic.. almost 18.5 years

 

My breaking point/bottom was two fold .. I lost my father to cancer and he was the main reason I drank.. I drank to show him I wasn't a drunk..

and I lost my GF of 4 years/fiance of 8 months//

 

That was my bottom before I got serious about AA .. I had been going to AA for a year before that but it wasn't doing any good because I was going for the wrong reasons.. I went to all my meetings drunk..

 

You cannot make him stop drinking.. he will just start drinking behind your back.

He has to quit for himself.

 

The best thing you could do is do a week or 2 of Al-Anon meetings for yourself.

It will help you regain yourself in the relationship and to be able to seperate the person away from the alcoholic.

 

They will also show you where you are enabling his behavior and what to do about it

 

Al-Anon

 

Edit.... As soon as I gave it up for good and for all.. June 28, 1987

it was easy.. and I have never slipped or will I go back to drinking..Day by Day I live my life..

 

I may drink tommorrow but today I don't want a drink and hopefully when I wake up tommorrow I will feel the same..

[magda]

Yeah.. and apparently when he started dating me, he slowed his drinking down a bit. Because at first, I didn't know he was an alcoholic. Well, neither did he. But the behaviors associated with it started to rub me wrong, as I recall. He loved me, but he wasn't exactly a happy person... I started pulling back and he started drinking more (more visably, at least). I cut it off and a couple months later he hit his bottom and started AA.

 

3 years later, he's sober and we're married. And he's become such a different person. Before, I loved him, but would I have married him? I guess not. He didn't have the integrity that he has now, or the personal responsibility, or many, many of the traits I love the most about him.

 

I don't remember any exact breaking point when I broke up with him. It was a bit of a gradual thing, perhaps. Maybe it wasn't that hard for me to do because certain things about him I didn't love and so I detached rather easily. I feel bad saying that because it's not really true, but then again it is. Maybe we went into the relationship the wrong way - I dunno. Aside from the good things, it wasn't a strong, real relationship. I loved him and worried about him and wanted to help him... but me trying never got us anywhere. Him doing got us where we are today.

 

I echo Art_Critic's suggestion that you check out Al-Anon. It's hard for us non-alcoholics to really understand and it's really important that we do.. Oh, if they could just stop at 4 or 5...

[hooghie]

Thanks so much to both of you! You have given me hope and that makes me feel great

I have decided that one more drinking related episode and I WILL break up with him. It's the only thing I can do. If he decides to quit and we get back together then I will be the happiest woman alive

 

I will definitely check out alanon. It's a start....

 

ART- one question for you. My BF actually did go to an AA meeting and he came home and said he hated it because all everyone talked about was how much they wanted to drink and how miserable they are without alcohol. Is this typical or was it just the 1 meeting he went to? Maybe he jsut wasn't ready for it

[Art_Critic]

ART- one question for you. My BF actually did go to an AA meeting and he came home and said he hated it because all everyone talked about was how much they wanted to drink and how miserable they are without alcohol. Is this typical or was it just the 1 meeting he went to? Maybe he jsut wasn't ready for it

 

He is BSing you .. and if that was the case there are meetings everywhere

all over every city so he could change and find one that suits him better..

They don't talk about how miserable they are without it.. They may talk about how much they miss it.. but a drunk that quits believes that the worst thing he could do is drink again..

 

A new alcoholic needs to go to 90 meetings straight.. they call it 90 meetings in 90 days.. one a day ..

 

It is a fellowship.. He is still in denial..

 

Remember that he has a disease that tells him its okay to drink and to continue his alcoholic behavior..

 

It's a denial based disease..

 

Remember for a drunk .. One drink is too many and a thousand is not enough

 

You need Al-anon .. Check it out..

[norcaldivr]

And I know one when I see one.

 

I was plastered almost every day for almost 20 years. I was also in a LTR that lasted about the same amount of time. The glue that held us together was that we were drinking buddies. We were the kind of alcoholics who were able to hold our lives together (no kids which made it easier) so I never really saw a downside except for the fact that I woke up hung over every day. I have to say we had some good times together on our benders. How I was able to stay gainfully employed I'll never know.

 

Then one day I went to the emergency room with something I had never heard of called "Pancreatitis". It scared the hell out of me particurarly since if allowed to progress the disorder is life changing. I remembered wondering if I had screwed myself up for the rest of my life, a distinct possibility. I HAD to stop which I did.

 

She didn't. Nor did I pressure her, I wanted her to be happy. Still once that common interest was gone and the alcoholic fog lifted there was little to hold us together. Two months later we split.

 

I am sober for two years now and SOOO happy to have my life back. I feel like a new person. Just waking up and not being hung over is such a nice feeling. And I can actually go places at night (one thing I NEVER did was to get behind the wheel when drinking.)

 

I can positively affirm what the other posters say. He must want to stop for himself. Nothing else will work. And yes for a hardcore alcoholic like me one needs to hit bottom. Sometimes it is, as they say in the insider circles, catching a glimpse of angel feathers that makes us see the light.

 

He needs help but he has to want it.

[basscatcher]

My main question is- has anyone gotten to a point where they walked away even though you were madly in love and everything else was perfect? How did you do it? What made you do it? Is there any hope? I feel like if he quits it will be for me and I know that is just bad news because a relapse is inevitable.

 

When I was in college I met my exbf. He was so handsome and would always be smiling. He use to say good morning to me when he seen me and eventually started to say good morning beautiful. That is where it all started. I was dating another man at the time so our conversations were always breif and friendly and he respected me.

 

2 1/2 years later I was single again and discovered this man was in my Astronomy class so we began to talk again. Within a month he and I were seeing each other. He told me he was an alcoholic and was in AA. Which he was. But eventually he fell off the wagon and began to drink. I watched him go up and down and on and off the wagon so many times. I stood by him and supported him. I read as much as I could about alcoholism so I could understand the desiese.

 

When he would hit the bottle hard he would start and wouldn't stop for 3 days. He would have major black outs and would be out of control. He sincerely wanted to stop drinking and get control of his life but the bottle had more control over him then he had. He was sincere.

 

We graduated from college and chose to move to the metro Minneapolis, MN area together. In less then one year of living together during one of his black outs he had me backed in a walk in closet and started to punch my thighs and left bruises.

For some crazy reason he had it in his head I was stilling messing around with my exbf before him. (My exbf was sick, he was controlling, manipulative, abusive, and had been harrassing us and he tried to create defamation of character and ruin my reputation with my family and friends. I was going to counceling at the local rape and abuse shelter for the hell he was putting me through) Because of all the problems my exbf caused for my new bf and I my bf's imagination was running overtime and when he got drunk and had a blackout he would take it out on me...

 

When he was sober he was the sweetest, greatest man in the world and was very very good to me... His friends and some of his AA people call him Dr Jekyl, Mr. Hyde because when he drinks he's completely the devil himself.

 

I had to walk out. I moved out on him a year later. It wasn't easy. I loved him and I cared deeply for him but I knew I could not live my life with someone who was out of control and my son didn't deserve to live it either. When I chose to leave I chose to never return. I made a promise to myself I would never get involved with another alcoholic again.

 

After I left him he drank even harder till November when He knew if he didnt change and get help he would kill himself. He is 49 years old now. He has been an alcoholic since his teens. I beleive he has been sober for 90 days. He has been in AA mtgs since November of last year and he is doing well. He has fallen off the wagon a few times but he gets right back on..

 

I am his friend now. ONLY friends. I will not take him back in my life as more. He said I am one of the best support people he has. I don't take his shyt and I also know him very very well. He knows he can't lie to me. I can read him like a book.

 

My story has not been easy and he and I have gone through many struggles and we have a friendship now. We didn't talk or see each other for almost 8 months after I walked out.

 

I think most couples when they break apart because of alcoholsm they don't maintain a friendship. He and I have drawn up boundries, rules, and a common understanding in order for him to call me for support when he needs it. I even told him about LS.. haha

[hooghie]

Thanks all. I really appreciate the time you took to tell me your stories and I have so much respect for all of you.

I contacted al-anon today and they are mailing me a listing of their meetings so I hope to get to one by next week. I think it's going to help me.

 

Truth is, I don't think he thinks it's much of a problem. He's way too smart to let it affect his work. He works out all the time and runs marathons every year. Even when he has admitted he has a problem and stops for a short while (usually after an episode that leads to a big fight)- he eventually goes back to it.

 

I can't imagine not having him in my life :(

[Geoffrey]

I recently got out of a relationship (6 weeks ago) with a wonderful girl that I spent the last 14 mos of my life with, every single day. I love her dearly. She is an alcoholic and i know that I am too. We are both 40. She has much less self-control over it than i do. It was beginning to really wear on me, we both quit drinking for about 5 weeks, it was a sunny time in our lives, certainly not easy, but then her life issues called her back to the bottle once again, and, unfortunately, i followed suit.

 

We had a wonderful relationship for a long time, until the drinking began to take over our lives.

 

She also suffers from depression, not a good thing to medicate with alcohol...I have watched her slowly decline over the last year, she lost her job, fell deeper into depression, and did nothing to seek the help she so badly needs. I must admit we enabled each other, but in the last two months she developed feelings for a fellow alcoholic (he is 47) who suffers from end-stage liver disease, who ended up in the hospital for some time with ascites (fluid swelling in the abdominal area - his liver is basically cooked). She felt sorry for him, became his greatest advocate for getting himself well (he has no other people who would do that for him in his life), and they developed feelings for one another. He is now supporting her financially (he has some inherited money) because she is too depressed to look for work again (she has been out of work for 7 months now). This man has teeth rotted down to the nubs, and a basically broken body and partly clouded mind. Not everything works properly, if you know what I mean (i am fully functional, with a good job, not depressed).

 

The decision to part was mutual, she would run over to his house (which is filthy, I might add) and go on 2-day drinking binges. More than once I went over there to take her home and put her to bed to recover. Finally, I saw where the relationship was going and decided I needed to save my own sanity...but i will NEVER understand what she sees in this man....he lets her do whatever she wants (he is now 2 months sober), she drinks heavily in front of him and is now basically living there. She doesn't want to work, doesn't want to get well, and doesn't function except to watch tv for most of the day.

 

This is a very sad tale, but writing about is theraputic for me. When I first met this girl she was a ray of sunshine, welcomed me and my kids into her world, took good care of herself and all of us.

 

Now she is a shadow of her former self and it just makes me cry to think ther eis nothing more that I can do for her right now. I see all of her wonderful colors in her rainbow and the person she really is, she is so ill right now. I pray for her on a daily basis, would perhaps LOVE to try it again, but certainly not under these conditions...much healing to do on her part.

 

May God reach out and touch her heart, heal her depression, open her eyes, and show her EXACTLY what is going on in her life that she needs to fix....because there is nothing more that I can do for her now. I am hurting very much over this breakup and i know she is too, I know she loves me but her illness is driving her life choices right now.

 

Pray for her too, please.

[targetbag]

Just wanted to give another plug to al-anon! I've never been, but my mom has and it totally changed her life. My dad is a recovering alcoholic (quit before I was born as a contingency upon them having kids in the first place), and my brother is a former alcohol and drug abuser. When my mom began attending al-anon regularly, she changed SO much for the better. She has many dear friends from the program, and is one of the most confident and well-adjusted people I know. I'm glad you've contacted them, and I really, really encourage you to follow through.

[ms_jnj]

I have walked away from an alcoholic boyfriend that I loved. He was endangering himself, me and others with his behavior and although I tried desperately to help him for months it didn't work.

 

Things got worse and worse and what started as what you call the 5% grew to 15%, 30%....60%. The last straw was when he called me lost, bleeding, sobbing, barefoot in the middle of the city we live in with no idea where he was or how he got there because he was so drunk had blacked out at some point and came to as described. It was incredibly scary because I had no idea where he was, didn't have a car to come get him anyway....he was irrational and drunkenly incoherant....I had to call his DAD to come look for him at 4AM. To top it all off I had no idea he was out drinking...he had told me he was working the closing shift at work.

 

In the morning he refused to admit that anything was wrong. Then I knew...my life had become a hell for months and I could not help him and I could not live like that. So I walked away.

 

It was hard...I ignored his drunken phone calls and such and now he hates me for leaving him. He still will not admit that he has a problem. It was heartbreaking but....my life is much better without all the desperation and fear that his drinking problem caused.