Hi all,

New to the forum and I just wanted to say that it has been a HUGE help reading through all of the posts and the stickies, mainly its just really comforting to know that there are many people out there who have had the same Is it me? or Am I crazy? thoughts as me. Sure it helps talking to friends and family, and even though I need to let go and start to move on, theres something holding me back, whether its conscious or unconscious Ive got some kind of block up where Im not thinking clearly and still rationalizing and blaming myself.

So here goes. Just got out of a relationship with a man I suspect to be an alcoholic and marijuana addict. Even now Im trying to rationalize and convince myself he isnt, but even if hes not a textbook alcoholic/addict, I just know I have a problem with his behavior, and he didnt seem to care when I brought that fact up to him. But basically heres a smattering of his behaviors, please feel free to chime in on whether or not this seems problematic:

Drinks alone, even after I have gone to sleep
Cant seem to control himself theres no stop mechanism in his brain
Routinely passes out, in public, at friends houses and at home
Has one DUI but has driven drunk on several occasions
Blatantly copes with stress by drinking (I lied to him and his response was to buy a 24 pack and I was just expected to be ok with that because I had done wrong)
I asked him to cut back on smoking weed, he said he would, he finished a bag yet continued to smoke the resin in his bong every day
Has some kind of compulsion when it comes to substances hed get drunk and crave weed, he just had to smoke it and reverted to almost a childlike insistence on smoking
Frequently irritable, mood swings, emotionally distant
Father was an abusive alcoholic that left their family brother and sister have issues with anxiety and depression

We were involved in a long distance relationship for 8 months and he suggested I move in with him, so I did. I knew that he was a drinker and smoked weed, but I of course made excuses for the red flags and rationalized in my head thinking he was just a partier. He also told me this behavior wouldnt continue when I was up there following one of his binge nights when he had promised to call but didnt, I knew he was too drunk to remember and he was apologetic and remorseful when he said This s**t isnt going to happen when youre up here. He had also told me he wanted to cut back on smoking. Of course he was just telling me what I wanted to hear so Id move in with him. The transition was hard, and I felt like I wasnt getting enough emotional support and understanding from him. Basically the second night I was there we went to a friends house and I met all of his friends/coworkers for the first time. He got wasted and passed out and we were forced to sleep there, despite me asking him before hand to please not get so drunk that wed have to stay there, leaving me feeling abandoned and feeling really unimportant. I was left to drag his dead-weight body off the couch upstairs, and one of his friends came over and laughed about it. He just gets this way sometimeshes really heavy isnt he!

WHAT?? Seems to be enabling behavior to me. But of course at the time, I thought it was normal, he had friends and a great job and seemed to have things in order. But the drunken pass-outs continued, the slurring, the stumbling, the drinking entire bottles of vodka in addition to beers, the getting noticeably more drunk than everyone else during the week, the chronic weed smoking and then the chronic resin smoking, and his response to my Maybe you should slow it down? requests was to get pissed, say that he didnt have a problem and was just trying to have fun with his friends.

His behavior was erratic and strange. At a party with his co-workers (including one with whom hed had a NSA relationship right before me and in fact he was still sleeping with her when we met) he acted distant and didnt seem to want to pay any attention to me. When I confronted him about it he skirted the issue and just said that he felt sorry for her as she had gotten pregnant by her ex (who shed apparently left my XABF foraccording to him.) But aside from that, he seemed generally unhappy with me and seemed much happier engaging with others, a people-pleaser if you will. Im not sure if I was the crazy one or if there were deeper issues there, but I felt worthless in his life. I began to question my place in his life and wondered if he was talking to someone else, wondered if there were things he hadnt told me about this girl or any of his other relationships, since I slowly began to distrust him and lose respect for him. I looked through his emails and lied to him about it, but eventually told him the truth. The dynamics of our relationship changed after that. He seemed unhappy unless he was drinking/smoking/partying/hanging out with people that werent me, and our sex life, which wasnt that great to begin with (he had some erectile issues) began to dwindle as I no longer wanted to sleep with a drunk. Of course he blamed that on our chemistry being off. But after a day of fighting and one night with me feeling particularly attacked by him, we got back to the house and in a fit of rage I threw some remotes at the wall and ended up breaking his tv. I now realize that was an attempt to get his attention, in a very dramatic and extreme way. But that was it. He wanted me to leave. Despite me moving all the way for him, he essentially kicked me out of his house despite my apologies and explanations.

But before I left it was a constant mind game. Hed say things like I need you and then I need you to be different. Suddenly I became the selfish one, the immature one, the angry one, the one with a problem. I left thinking he was going to work on things, that maybe he just couldnt be around me. He said he loved me and wanted to forgive me and get over what had happened. And a week after I had gotten home he called me up saying all these things. Turns out he was drunk. We continued to do the long-distance thing but two days before he was going to be out of the country for work, he calls me up saying that things have been hard with us apart, and that he doesnt want to be in a relationship since he doesnt think he can trust me to be faithful because he has trust issues with me now. So after being strung along, going back and forth with the mind games, after the promises of wanting to work through things and forgive, the alcoholic/addict dumps me.

I just feel like a fool, for believing his promises, for believing that he really wanted to change his behavior, for believing that I might be important enough for him to cut back, for believing that I was any more permanent than any of the other women that have let him down. I should have known from the get-go when he said he was looking for perfection that trouble was down the road, and I would end up disappointing him just as everyone else had.

If youve read this far, thanks for sticking with it. I know I screwed up too in our relationship, but Im confused as his inability to see things other than black and white and inability to forgive and take some responsibility for the demise of the relationship. Id appreciate any input that might attempt an explanation at his behavior. For the longest time I was the one for him, our relationship was great (even though I did overlook some troubling behavior continuing to drink through the night when he came to visit me for the first time after I had fallen asleep, almost passing out in a bar and me having to drag his stumbling body out, trolling for weed from strangers, etc.). In my mind there are two sides to him: theres the ACOA side that grew up in a horrible situation with an abusive alcoholic father, so I can be understanding of how he reacts to things the way he does. But then theres the side of him thats actively engaging in these dangerous behaviors despite his history and addictive tendencies, the side that didnt really care that I had a problem with things, the side that said Well, thats just what my dad gave me when I told him how his drinking was scaring me.

I dont even know why Im asking these questions or still obsessing. Hes broken up with me and made it very clear that he thinks everything is my fault and that he really doesnt want to speak with me. Why cant I let go? Why am I holding on to this unhealthy relationship? Did I overreact to his behaviors, or is he really an alcoholic/addict? Am I a horrible person for doing those things to him? Do I deserve forgiveness? If you really love someone, dont you want to forgive and work things out, and is his inability to do so characteristic of alcoholics/addicts? Is there any help for him?