The material presented
here is not Al-Anon Conference Approved Literature. It is a method
to exchange
information, ideas, feelings, problems and solutions on a personal
level.
I had dated this lady for a few months seven years ago. I broke up with her because of her heavy drinking. So I get a call from her back in march out of the blue. I was just coming out of another relationship. So we eventually started seeing each other again.
She told me she no longer drank much, nor did she care to go to bars anymore. Well, as it turns out, it appears as though she still drinks quite a bit. She has been drinking in front of me in light moderation. But I have discovered that even when she is with me she has been sneaking drinks. She spent the weekend at my house, I worked both nights while she stayed home alone. I found two empty bottles of vodka (375 ml each) that she threw out. Must have drank one a night plus some beer and wine coolers!. I don't know much about drinking, but isn't that an awful lot of booze to drink in one day.
She has a car but always has someone driving her places. She always tells me someone is borrowing her car or it is in the shop. I have since discovered that she has had two dui's, the most recent last october. So I am fairly certain she lost her license but is keeping that from me.
And of course before getting a firm grasp of all this I proposed and she said yes. So we are engaged and I do love her, but obviously feel a bit betrayed by her deception. I am searching for the best way to confront her with this. I feel if I go ahead with the marriage with her still an active A, I will be in for a lot of suffering.
-- Edited by rutnut on Monday 28th of September 2009 01:43:31 PM
This relationship SCREAMS red flags!! Alcoholism is peppered with lying, manipulation and denial. I can only say what I would do. I'd yell DEAL BREAKER!!!.. and call it off. Not ONLY due to the alcoholism but everything that a healthy marriage is based on, including trust and honesty. She's obviously had a problem for many, many years and hasn't managed or sought sobriety. Her "bottom" is yet to come, if it all.
Most of the time when alcoholics are confronted they tell you exactly what you want to hear, then do what the disease wants them to do only sneakily (which you've already discovered). Watch her actions, do not listen to her words (promises).
Should you consider staying in this relationship, I would strongly suggest holding off on a wedding date, attend Alanon meetings, give it a good long consideration..then make a final decision.
Christy
__________________
If we think that miracles are normal, we will expect them. And expecting a miracle is the surest way to get one.
Welcome to MIP and alanon. I believe you have been given an excellent suggestion and would like to add that giving alanon face to face meetings a try would be very helpful.
Look in the white pages of the telephone book and call the main alanon number listed. Get to a meeting and pick up some literature especially the booklets: "The Merry Go Round Named Denial" and "Understanding Ourselves and Alcoholism"
Meetings and the literature truly helped me to decide that I needed help to relearn how to live my life with peace and dignity.
Please keep coming back and give alanon and this board a sincere try.
Aloha rutnut...so let me take up there with my story...So we go to lunch over my Mom and Step-Dad's and while going there I have a mental change of heart because I just know that nothing has changed. She is drinking as much and as often as she did the last time we were together and I can see the outcome. While at lunch I make up my mind to say goodbye to her and try to regain my balance. I had just come out of another alcoholic relationship to find myself in this one 6 months later. I will tell her goodbye after lunch. During lunch and in front of my parents..."Surprise" she says, "Jerry and I have been thinking of getting married." (HUH Not!!) and then we leave and while I'm thinking NO!! I say..."lets get married". (The insanity of the disease.) I cannot remember everstopping to buy the handbasket that I eventually ended up in hell in but 3 years later there I was again...In hell, new model of handbasket and still in hell after I said...No!/Yes!.
I know what miracles look line, sound like, feel like, smell like and taste like and I got that experience and awareness by saying No! for me and following up on it. Don't let fear cause you to justify not doing the next right thing. Do the next best thing in spite of fear. After 6 years it's back and worse and you don't have any better solutions.
Thanks for the prompt and kind replies. No doubt the red flags are flying and I know what would be best for me but it is hard when your brain goes one way and your heart goes another. We have a wedding date but I am not going forward with any further planning at this time. Funny, but I don't want to hurt her by postponing. Yet I know it is her that is doing the deal breaking by putting on a false facade. I want to give her some time to see what she is willing to do. But what do the statistics say on A's that stay sober?
I almost ended it last month. Apparently her drinking buddy and pal over the past six years was her boss. She had already told me he has been physically abusive to her a while back. Now on this day he was drunk and mean and she tells me he grabbed her by both arms and threatened to hit her. She did nothing in the way of reporting him to the authorities. When I saw her two days later she had bruises on both her arms. You could clearly see where he put each finger and squeezed. Only now she tells me it was not from him. She tells me it was from carrying campfire wood when she was camping with the kids. Says she bruises easy. I stayed after her about it giving her every opportunity to admit he did it. But she continued with her story to my dismay. I just could not imagine how she expected me to believe it when it was so obvious. Now he is in treatment, just finishing in pt and is now in half way house. She went to some counselling meetings while he was in and told the counselor he had abused her but would not elaborate to me. ( It was nonsexual he is gay). Why do I feel I am in a soap opera?
-- Edited by rutnut on Monday 28th of September 2009 04:39:31 PM
The statistics on A's that stay sober is not good. But the statistic on A's that never admit their drinking is a problem and commit to AA or another sobriety program is worse. I married my A knowing he had a drinking problem, but he said he had quit and I didn't know very much about alcoholism, so I believed him. I didn't realize that for an A it takes enormous commitment, support (in terms of a program), and effort to quit -- they can't just flip a switch and make it stop. Mine was a binger/abstainer (he'd go for six months without drinking, then have a meltdown, then repeat the cycle, etc.) So I thought maybe he really had quit. I didn't know the disease is progressive. Every time it popped up again it was a little bit worse. Suddenly it was years down the line and it was MUCH worse. And by then we had a child. That makes things much more complicated.
When I finally started learning about alcoholism, I saw that he wasn't going to stop. I can't remember the exact statistics, but it's something like 85% of those who start AA or a similar program end up drinking again. That's the number of those who start AA. It doesn't include the number who never even get there.
Lies are part of the disease. My ex lied about things you wouldn't even think mattered. And always, always lying about the drinking. You start wondering if you're not going crazy yourself, they lie about such obvious things.
If I had known what I know now, nothing on earth could have made me marry him and go through the nightmare I went through. We could have separated and stayed friends in a distant but amicable way and sent each other "Hope you're doin' well" e-mails once a year. That would have been the right amount of distance not to get sucked into the insanity that is alcoholism. The way not to end up hating an alcoholic may be to separate before the craziness take over totally.
I hope you can get to some face-to-face meetings. Learn all you can and keep coming back.
Because that's the insanity that it brings to "us".
You mentioned you don't want to "hurt" her by calling it off. That is also part of our disease. We tend to walk in with blinders on putting everyone else and their feelings before our own well being. We also assume the alcoholic will listen to reason and we can talk to them like any other person or we can save them from themselves. Every person here would give a resounding "WRONG!!"
What would you tell a beloved friend in this situation? Please apply the same love to yourself. In Alanon YOU become first. Your sanity, your health, your general well being. Otherwise you find yourself jumping through hoops trying to fix the unfixable. You CAN NOT make her stop drinking, any more then she could make you become an alcoholic. You are powerless over her and her disease. She has a progressive disease that is ONLY treatable by her own will to become sober. Usually that happens when they have lost it all, have no one and nowhere to turn.
After a couple DUI's (that you know of), and I would venture to guess many more alcohol related problems, obviously losing her driving priviliges hasn't affected her enough to seek help. Why? Because she has people believing her lies and carting her around.
Why is she hanging around with her "drinking buddy" if he has abused her before? Most likely because the disease loves company. It helps the denial. He's not going to complain or call her on her drinking because he's in the same boat.
Please learn as much as you can about the disease. As far as the stats for staying sober? Most sober alcoholics will tell you they make a daily decision every day not to drink. Some make it for life, some refrain for 20 yrs and pick up right where they started.
We all have to fight our hearts vs. brains. Our hearts hold on to a dream. Our brains get us to Alanon for help.
Good Luck rutnut, Christy
__________________
If we think that miracles are normal, we will expect them. And expecting a miracle is the surest way to get one.
You have gotten some pretty good advice here , denial is one of our biggest problems we refuse to believe what we are seeing , we make excuses for crappy behavior , we believe the lies ,we lie for them , we cover up thier mistakes over and over again . that is our insanity . find meetings for yourself , learn all u can about this disease and how it affects every one around them , this does not get better it only gets worse . You know the answer to your questions your jsut not ready to say them out loud yet , so u now have a choice no more excuses , u accept that she drinks and lies and carry on , or u get help for yourself .
My dream used to be a quick proposal. I married the first one after just 6 months of daring well merging really.
I do know very much what it is to be driven by loneliness. I also know these days I look for and act on red flags. I often met someone and was in a committed relationship the next day.
You do not have to marry this woman tomorrow. You can set a time limit on when you can marry.
I do know absolutely for me it was rush in and then not be able to leave or make changes. Negotiation is possible with anyone even an alcoholic. If you have an opportunity read Getting them Sober that will help you with setting expectations.
Again thanks for the great advice all. I am certain I do not want to go ahead with marriage till she is sober. I am just wondering how to proceed with confronting her. I would like it if she would come forward on her own but that is highly unlikely. I had the perfect chance last noc when she told me how she has been nothing but honest with me. But not wanting to ruin the day I bit my lip. I know every individual body may tolerate so much alcohol before the liver etc. are destroyed. I believe by the amount she is drinking that it will kill her. So I am praying I go about confronting her in the right way. She is secretly drinking 350 ml of vodka a day in addition to what she drinks openly.
