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'd really appreciate some help, advice, feedback on my situation. I don't have anywhere else to turn.
I have been with my Boyfriend for over 5 years, he was 22 when we met and drank a lot (a bottle of vodka most nights) but i put this down to being young, drinking with friends, sociallising. I used to try to keep up with him, but went off the idea (and alcohol altogether in the end). Years later, he still drinks between a small and large bottle of vodka with a mixer (diet coke) every night. He'll start at 6 and be finished by 9. He's not particulaly aggressive, more spiteful and nasty in what he says. He functions - works and looks after the dog, he eats and doesn't go out and drink, will just do it at home (apart from the occasional night out).
MY problem is that i don't like drunk people, i don't like the way he changes, how he talks, the loser he becomes. I think it's sad and pathetic that he has to do it every night. I love the man he is when he's sober, but am starting to hate the man he becomes after pints of vodka have gone down his neck.
Am i being selfish? Should i just man up and let it go, he's not hurting me really is he...
I know the alcohol is bad for him, this upsets me as i hate that idea.
I've asked and asked and asked him to cut down, just have a few nights off it every now and then and he CAN do it, but he chooses not to, he likes being drunk and can afford it (only just) and says he still functions and doesn't hit me so why should he stop - i say because he loves me and something he's doing is affecting me and us, but it doesn't get me any where.
He lies about having a day off and will change his mind on the day.
I don't know what to do, like i said should i leave it be and accept the way he is? In your opinion is it ok? Am i over reacting?
You are not over reacting. These are serious decisions and ones that are of a spiritual nature. You are hitting upon things such as:
What do I want out of life? Is this person right for me? What boundaries are acceptable for me? What behaviors can I put up with and what can't I?
The answers are different for all of us. Some folks would have been gone after 2 nights in a row of seeing their significant other down a pint of vodka. Some folks will stay and find a way to be with the alcohlic (happy, miserable, or in between) all the way until the disease kills the alcoholic. Others ride it out and the alcoholic hits are harsh bottom and then finds recovery. I chose not to stick around waiting for my ex-A to get worse. I did not want a front row seat to that slow suicide. That's just me though. Alanon can help you make choices that feel right to you on a spiritual level.
Living with alcoholism is extremely confusing and unsettling. Alanon is a fellowship of men and women who live or have lived with the problem of alcoholism and who break the isolation caused by this disease by attending face to face meetings that are held in most communities. You will be able to locate a chapter by checking your white pages .
Alanon believes that alcoholism is a disease. We did not cause this, cannot control it or cure it. We who live with this disease are affected by it and become irritable and unreasonable without even knowing it.
Meetings, alanon tools, living one day at a time, focused on our own health and well being helps us to find ourselves and new tools to live by.
I just got finished "birdseeding" the large gang of finches and doves which inhabit our yard knowing that this is the best free meal on the island and came in to prepare for my early morning meeting. Had the time to check into the board and Wow!! more Birdseed.
Welcome to the board ((((Birdseed)))) please sit and stay and read...scroll back in time here for those who have had messages exactly like yours. The disease stays the same, only the names change.
What I did and what worked for me and thousands of others planet wide is;
I found the hotline number to Al-Anon in the white pages of my local telephone book and called. I got a live person who "talked me thru the insanity I was having then...even after the Help in Emotional Trouble and Suicide Prevention people were not available". She led me to my first face to face meeting and when there I was told to get literature (most free) from the literature table on about alcoholism. I heard the definition of alcoholism read at the meeting and learn that what my alcoholic/addict spouse and I and the family were going thru was a disease and that she wasn't just a "bitch" a "bad person" that I loved so much. She wasn't doing it to hurt me...she was drinking and using because she just couldnot not drink and use. The alcoholic is directed and driven by the alcohol...nothing else and that is what you are watching and what is driving you crazy. He cannot not drink the way he is drinking. Alcoholism is a "compulsion of the mind and allergy of the body" and then it also is an allergy to everyone it touches...drinker or not. The disease is cunning, powerful and baffling and what it does is tragic and sad.
I hope you find a face to face meeting quickly and get to it as fast as you can. When there take a look at our daily readers. One of them is the Courage to Change. In that reader on page 312 which carries the date of November 7, the day you contacted MIP, you will find understanding and awareness which may help you calm a bit. I don't know if the reader is online...it is copywritten protected so I could not and would not put it here. Go to a face to face and find it. Al-Anon will save your peace of mind and serenity will come back...you then will be in a better place about what to do iny0ur situation.
Keep coming back here often. You are family; MIP family. (((((hugs)))))
