Hello everyone and thank you for all the wonderful insights and encouragement! I found this site just this past week and it has impacted me immensely. I was married for twenty years to an emotionally abusive man. He's not a drinker and I'm not much of one. I finally had enough when our daughter graduated high school and I think I subconsciously waited until then for her. A few weeks after graduation I had hurt my back and was unable to go to an outdoor concert my husband and I were going to attend. I told him it was fine if he went without me and he went. I was bored so I wandered into an online chatroom. This was 6-7 years ago. The chatroom topic was food and I still frequent that room to this day. I met my A in this room and he hasn't been in the room in maybe five years. I was immediately drawn to him when he was present because he was very funny, he said whatever he wanted without care, he has such great knowledge about music, we're from similar socio/economic families etc. I had no idea he was an alcoholic until three months into knowing him online and on the phone. We met online in June and it just so happened he lived in the same area as my sister, states away. Come October my sister invited me to come out to stay with her alone so I can figure out what I wanted to do about my marriage. Three days prior to my going to my sister's my A calls me to tell me he'd done time in prison, but I didn't let that deter me because I was already emtionally invested in him. My A wa a caretaker for a diabetic in a wheelchair. He's not medically qualified, but the man he cared for was an old friend before he'd gone to pr I spent three weeks with my sister and never felt more alive or liberated! She lives in a major metropoloitan area and we're from a small town so she left me on my own as she went to work and I learned how to get around and talk to all kinds of people. Yes I did meet up with my online guy and it was a nice meeting over lunch. We hit it off very well. Out of three weeks at my sister's I spent maybe 3 days with my A, but we chatted daily on the phone. One of those days I'd seen him he was beyond drunk and later he told while drinking he was supposedly slipped a mickey whcih i didn't believe. the truth he told me some time later was he'd taken a pain med or something from the guy he took care of. as that day drew on he asked me to stay with him the night, he didn't want to be left alone. He lived with the man he cared for by the way. I didn't know what to do, I'd never ever known anyone like him and I was afraid if left there with the man he cared for he couldn't get help if needed. So I stayed. He was a hot mess. He stayed in his room and I was in the living room all night. My A came out a couple of times because he was afraid he said, but he made sure to sit way across the room from me. It was odd, but what did I know? When morning came he couldn't believe I stayed with him and he said anyone else would have walked away and I know now that he's right, but I just couldn't. I had one more week there and didn't see him again until I filed for divorce, moved in with my sister in February. I did not get a divorce because of the A, in the end he had a lilttle to do with it I can admit, but I had filed for divorce 10 years prior and should have gotten out of my marriage at year five. So I move in with my sister and the A and I have great fun. He drank, but he was functioning which I know is still not ok, but I was starting a new life, having fun I never had before, this man used my name when he spoke to me (my ex never used my name), he complimented me often etc. I don't live with my A, my sister HATES him, the few people I know are angered I stay with him given the current status of things. This past May the man my A cared for died and my A fell apart and used that as an excuse to pretty much be pickled 24/7. The drinking has been gradually getting out of hand for the past 18 months, but especially so since May. He drinks to the point he doesn't know if it's day/night, he doesn't know what day it is, he'll call me every ten minutes and say the exact same things because he doesn't remember calling me, he gets very verbally/emotionally abusive, I won't hear from him for days at a time etc. I am trying to make this as short as I can so forgive me. This man's past, which I know also is no excuse to drink, is very ugly. He was abused in all kinds of manner as a child, he said he began drinking at age ten and that led to drug use. He was a herion addict and beat that and he told me some three years ago he'd been smoking crack and had quit shortly after, but he just told me he never quit. <sigh> The last year he's been averaging 4 visits to ER by going himself, being found laying on the ground all over the city or in front of his home and going to the hospitals via ambulance. Mid November just past he was wasted beyond reason apaprently, flagged down a police car and told them he wants help, he's going to harm himself or others so the police had him do a breathalyzer. He blew a .303 and not for the first time. how he is still alive is beyond me. The police take him to a psyh ward at a hospital where he stayed for two weeks. I didn't know where he was the first week. H called me the second wek he was there. From the hospital a caseworker got him into a rehab where he stayed for 30 days. He would have stayed in rehab but there's a side story concerning an atty which I won't get into, but the atty said he had to stay in rehab for 30 or he can't go home. I saw my A after rehab and he looked wonderful. Before rehab he was weak, could barely walk, skinny etc. When he left rehab he bought a bottle of vodka. I saw him again four days later when I went to visit him and he scooted across the floor to answer the door. He couldn't stand up. It was a Sunday and he wanted to go to a nearby state to buy liquor, where we live you can buy beer/wine only on Sunday. I refused to go and left him on the floor. I haven't seen him since nor heard from him. Tomorrow will be a week since I last saw/heard from him. In the past I would always call the hospitals and even the morgue in the city where he lives, but not this time. I love this man, but I can't deal with the insanity any more. I've walked away from him before, he often has told me he's done with me and I always say ok, but he ALWAYS comes back. It's a circus and I can't believe I let myself get so enmeshed with someone like him. It's painful, I get angry, scared and I've been worried to death. We were out the day he was released from rehab and ran into two street vendors who recognized the tag my A was wearing from rehab. They said I can't believe you just got out and already you're drunk! The man had been sober 5 years and the woman 10. They both had just come from a meeting where my A went to rehab.  I was near tears and told them I wished they had magic words for him. The woman took me aside and told me I was loving him to death and I cried. She said I need to stop rescuing him and let him fall and fall hard. She told me I have to let him be. I cry now just thinking about it. So I have let him be and not made one phone call to any hospital. I know he's smoking crack again too. I'm not a drinker and never a drug abuser, but I know more about these topics than I ever thought I would. I have done tons of reading. I do go to thrapy on my own, but I started that four eyars ago to handle my issues, but now I know I need al anon. There are other pats to the story but this is the gist of it. I know it's very long winded and thank those of you for reading. I know I will be ok, things always work out in the end and I'm rady to be well.