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My boyfriend of 2 years is an alcoholic. He was in recovery when I first met him but has been slowing sliding backward drinking first 1 quart of beer after work then 2 then 3. He has had many problems in his life created by drinking. He lost his job at the end of October and has not been able to find work. I have tried to help him find a job by assisting him with computer applications as he is not computer savy and offering support. He started staying with my children and I full-time when he lost his job and his drinking continued to get worse every week. The last few weeks have been very trying. As soon as he gets his unemployment check, he pays his bills, gives me some money for groceries and then spends the rest of the money on beer until he runs out of money. He binges on beer to the point of passing out and then when the money runs out he goes through withdraw. It is extremely difficult to watch him do this to himself. He is constantly living in the past talking about how he should have been in the major leagues in baseball, he should be rich, etc. living in the past. The more he drinks the worse his moods become and he is mean-spirited and says things which are really hurtful. I have tried to explain how the things he does and say hurt me and my children and push us away. Once he is sober he will say how he went 1 1/2 years without drinking and he will stop, but as soon as he has money, he is at the liquor store buying quart after quart of beer. Today was the last straw and I asked him to leave. When I got home from work he was drunk and acting like a child knit-picking my son who is 11 and he had left a sink full of dirty dishes from where he had cooked himself something to eat. I cleaned up my kitchen and then went to have a talk with him. As I tried to explain how those dishes and the knit-picking was hurtful to me, he kept making comments about how he is never going to find a job, should have been in the major leagues, he is worthless, basically making excuses and feeling sorry for himself. I told him he has a lot of life left to live, he is only 47 and he needs to keep looking forward, not backward. My words only made him angry and I told him I could not take another day of this behavior that I totally love him, but I need this insanity to stop in my house. He said he knew this was coming and started to gather his belongings. He asked me for a ride home which I gave him. I told him I love him but his drinking was more than I can handle. Taking him back to his place and leaving was the hardest thing I have done in recent memory. I told him I am in love with him but his drinking was pushing me away and I had no choice but to ask him to leave. He kept trying to make me asking him to leave about everything other than his drinking. He was so angry. He told me he loved me too but I had made a choice. I feel like I had no other choice but what I did this evening. I miss the sober him and I don't know if I will ever see him again or if he will ever speak to me again. I have a huge hole in my heart
I call my daughter "Sugar Pie", so welcome Honeypie, glad you are here.
Your story is not unlike mine and many others. The stories are the same only the names have changed. We are all effected by someone else's drinking. As your BF is proving to you alcoholism is a progressive disease. It continues to take over the mind, body, and spirit, of the alcoholic. We have no control over the disease, and the disease dictates the A's thoughts and actions. It makes them do and say things no sane person would ever say on do. We become as sick or sicker than the A in our life without knowing it.
You are three steps ahead of most. In Al-Anon we learn how to take the focus off the A in our lives and take care of ourselves first. What you did was just that. You were tired of the insanity and chaos. Your life had become unmanageable. You did the next right thing for you.
The next thing you need to do for "you" is find an Al-Anon face 2 face meeting in your area. Check the white pages of your phone book for time and locations. You have been effected more than you know by this disease. You need recovery from the effects the disease has had on you.
Keep coming back. Read prior posts on this site. Others will answer your post with their experience, strength, and hope (what has worked for them).........You found a new family today and you are not alone anymore.
HUGS RLC
-- Edited by RLC on Wednesday 16th of February 2011 12:46:01 AM
As you've seen, nothing other people do changes the drinker. Only he can make the decision that enough is enough, and that will happen on his own time line, if it happens at all. Most people do not recover from alcoholism, statistically speaking. I mean they don't stop drinking. That is very tragic but that's the reality of the disease we're dealing with.
At Al-Anon we learn the three C's: We didn't Cause it, we can't Control it, we can't Cure it. You've seen how trying to help the drinker gets us nowhere. It's extremely frustrating. All we can do is take care of ourselves and our kids, which is just what you've done. That is some awesome healthy thinking going on.
But it is very, very sad. The disease makes the drinker insane and pulls everyone else into the whirlpool of insanity too. I hope you can find some local face-to-face meetings to attend. Try out several because they're all different and you'll want to find the one that feels comfortable and good for you. That will help you make sense of this awful thing and learn how to recover your own serenity. (And also how to protect you and your kids from experiencing this again.) Read the threads on these boards, too -- there's a lot of experience and wisdom there. Hugs to you.
Thank you for your words of encouragement. I am going to find a meeting to attend this weekend as it will be hard since my kids will be at their dad's and I will be alone without ABF for the first time. I know what I did was right for me and mychildren. I'm just so angry I had to make that choice. My emotions are all over the place from relief and anger to incredible sadness. I want to reach out to ABF but don't think I should now. I keep waiting for him to reach out to me, but so far he hasn't text or called. I guess I shouldn't wait around for him to contact me. I have a few more of his things left at my house, most important is his transportation. His vehicle is in my garage to which he has a key. I plan to put the few other things of his in a bag and place it next to his vehicle in the garage. I took my house key off his key ring yesterday while he was gathering his stuff and ranting about me making him leave and how he knew it was coming and how he couldn't believe I was making him leave. I realize he was trying to put me on a guilt trip. I feel like he is a child and he was making me into his mother and I don't need anymore children, especially a 47 year old one. Sometimes having to be the grown up really sucks!
-- Edited by Honeypie on Wednesday 16th of February 2011 07:34:45 AM
-- Edited by Honeypie on Wednesday 16th of February 2011 07:35:31 AM
Being an alcoholic and also having been in a relationship with another one for 7 years...your sharing made me quiver with memories of what I used to be like, but also what my ex was like. He would complain about the past constantly...about how he should have been rich...how he got jipped in life....he would progressively say mean things to me and when he got drunk enough would start bashing my family and calling my mom a b@#ch, telling me I could not make it on my own...etc. Yeah...it kept getting more and more and more crazy til I reached the same point as you in pretty much the same way. With my own drinking, I would say I would stop "if and when...." All that did was prolong recovery and allow more time for me to reach all those "not yets." In essence, I was about to drink myself unemployed...not able to drive...and nonfunctional. Literature in AA states lasting sobriety cannot be contingent upon anything and that whole attitude of "I will stay sober if..." is a recipe for continued relapse. Sobriety has to be unconditional and come before everything else.
You said a lot in what you wrote. One important thing is that you really highlighted some hallmark symptoms of the disease of alcoholism. You gave a real snapshot into his alcoholic thinking and being stuck in that rut of negativity and regrets. I know what that is like first hand. Unfortunately, he would need to do more than stop drinking to have things work out. He would need to address all of the problems that he is that he is currently throwing alcohol on to self medicate and try and drown them out. Sounds like you know this already. Alcoholism is a thinking disease more than a drinking disease. Putting up with and being affected by those insane thoughts that you highlighted so clearly is toxic and everyone on this board knows what that is like so you are not alone.
Regardless of how things turn out...you made one of those critical life decisions that are so hard to make, but ultimately are probably necessary.
