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I've been in love with someone for a while now and we have finally this past year got together. It was a long distance relationship until I moved back into town. Things went from perfect to just hurtful. He became distant(even more so than just the 8 hours distance itself). He would disapear or not say anything to me. He got stressed out and extremely depressed from all i could tell and he would tell me. two weeks before I moved back to town being only 10 minutes away he broke up with me saying he needed to go to rehab and he was an alcoholic. That hes been dealing with this for a while and has tried hiding it from me. He said he wants help but does not want to drag me down while he gets the help. It was pretty emotional and upsetting. He would keep advising how he wants to get help for himself but he cannot be in any relationship until hes better. That he wants to be the man I deserve and wants to help himself so that things will be so much better for everyone. We have talked since then and although he has not gone to rehab he would try to not drink for a few days then tell me he felt withdrawal symptoms and he would drink to stop them. He would talk to a therapist the one day but didnt like him so theres not another he had made an appointment for. He agreed to AA that he wanted to try and said for me to drive him and for the support.
Good days he will say he wants these things and bad depressed days he just doesnt say one word to me or discourages any progress he maybe had made. He doesnt think he deserves to get help. He's goes from giving up completely on himself and on the fact he could get help to wanting to get the help.
I've tried not to be pushy and just be supportive. I went to my first Al-Anon meeting yesterday and when he found out he was in agreement to try to find one this week. Its hard that His family does know about his disease as I've talked to them about it. His friends however dont nor work collegues on top of he just recently got a new job. More people who dont know. He will tell me that he needs to not drink however being an A he will always want it.
I just dont know what to do. I cant keep thinking hes out drinking or worrying if hes hurt somewhere. Its easy to hide or push away from me... as I was close enough to see the real thing going on. ITs easier to hang out with people who dont know whats going on because then you dont have to face it. With me it hurts him it seems because he knows i know and want to help and hes hurt me very deeply.
Please.... any advise... anyone who went through this... Please.
Welcome to MIP. I am very glad that you found us and had the courage to share. Your experience sounds very familiar and I'd like to assure you that you're not alone.
Alcoholism is a progressive fatal disease over which we are powerless. AA is the recovery program for people who find they have difficulty with alcohol and Al-Anon is a recovery program for people who that have lived with this disease and tried to cope with the insanity.
Face-to-Face la anon meetings are held in most communities and breaking the isolation caused by living in this disease is extremely important to the mental health of anybody surrounded by the distorted thinking generated by this disease. I urge you to search out the meetings and try six different ones before deciding if Al-Anon is for you. It is here that I learned to keep the focus on myself, live one day at a time, discover my own needs and truly understand and accept that alcohoism is a disease.
We also have online meetings here twice a day which are very supportive Please try them as well and also keep coming back and sharing.
Aloha Ogirl and welcome also to the family. MIP has a lot of Al-Anon members in attendance with support. We have all been where you are at now and if you scroll back in time on the shares you will come to understand how similar your story is with ours. This is a very supportive family and you have come in contact with a very cunning, powerful and baffling disease which is older than dirt. Its been around for thousands of years and has driven millions insane or killed them. Welcome home. Al-Anon is for those who have been affected by someone else's drinking and you heard that at your first meeting and so that is what we do we attend and work that program with every ounce of energy we can muster because to not do it we get the same consequences as the drinker who will not arrest the disease by total abstinence...insanity and/or death. That's not said to scare you that is part of the AMA definition of alcoholism. Keep coming back to MIP often...there is nothing you can say that will confuse or scare this family...we know what crazy is...we use to do it daily except for the help of our program. Keep coming back (((((hugs)))))
It sounds like he is doing you a favor by admitting he needs help and can't be in a relationship until he is the man you need. I would let him prove himself. Detach with love. Let him do what he needs to do. And you take care of yourself!
-- Edited by Newlife girl on Sunday 6th of April 2014 01:28:09 AM
Love is powerful but when you love someone else without having firm identity or love of self - it leaves you so wide open to serious heart break for a number of reasons. 1. You will attract people with problems. 2. You will put all your eggs in the relationship basket and not have anything to balance you out if things do not go well. 3. The other person becomes your higher power and you will try to be theirs.
So - I would suggest alanon meetings and getting out and making a rich and fulfilling life for yourself on other levels for now and let him go as much as you can. In alanon you will hopefully learn to love yourself better, develop more solid spiritual grounding, better knowledge of who you are, what you like to do, diverse interests, confidence....all of that. You will have a broader view of life , will experience life differently, and be far less susceptible to losing your entire self in a guy.
Giving up your prior life to move near this guy and then having the guy turn out this way is a real sucker punch. Right now I can absolutely see how you would be devastated. In another post, you asked how to start getting over the overwhelming depression. I suggest reaching out to face to face alanon and get busy with forming your new life. Right now, you moved there for him and it's not working out. Your entire life and focus is on him...Challenge yourself and start building areas of your life that have nothing to do with him. Do nice things for yourself and treat yourself kindly. I was told by my sponsor when I was experiencing similar heartache and desire to change another person - "Focus on what you think you want from him so bad....and give it to yourself or find it from your higher power." Mostly, I wanted love and to not be lonely. Hence, I learned to love myself and to connect better with others outside of a romantic relationship.
