Verbally/Emotionally Abusive Alcoholic Boyfriend Wants Help - Al-Anon Family Group

AshleyA · Newbie

Verbally/Emotionally Abusive Alcoholic Boyfriend Wants Help

hotrod · ~*Service Worker*~

Welcome to MIP.I am so glad that you found us and rached ou. I can certainly identify with your concern and understand your confusion and uncertainty.

Alcoholism is a progressive fatal disease over which we are powerless. One of the symptoms of the disease is that the person who has it, denies the reality and attempts many bizarre activities to prove that he can drink like other nonalcoholic people. Living with the chaos of unreasonable and irrational thoughts leads us too develop negative coping skills that hurt us. In an effort to help the alcoholic , we make ourselves invisible,we focus all our energy on others and our spiritual and emotional life suffers.

AA is the recovery program for the alcoholic and Al-Anon is a recovery program for the family of alcoholics. You'll find the answer to all your questions at Al-Anon face-to-face meetings. The hotline number can be found in the white pages and I urge you to attend. Al-Anon believes that the answer for each can be found within and that we will not give advice but offer constructive tools that can help each of us find our way to the right decision.

Keep coming back here as well you are not alone and there is hope.

grateful2be · ~*Service Worker*~

My x pulled some of that. Yes, you do have to leave for your own sake. Rather than giving you roses, he's going through the remorse stage of the abusive cycle and saying what he probably won't follow through on for long if at all. What he says doesn't matter. What he does is what matters. What he does is drinks, abuses you and kicks you out of a cab in the middle of the night on the side of the road. Call the Domestic Assault hotline or a Domestic Assault Shelter in your area. There are resources available and like them - it is important what we do and not what we say. Forget supporting him if he goes into treatment. He's a man who is abusive. The alcohol helps release his inhibitions. He isn't abusive because he's an alcoholic. He's abusive because he is abusive. We think our love and support is what they need. That isn't true. We need our own love and support. He is a grown man who can get the help he needs and the support he needs in both AA and in groups for assaultive behaviors if he chooses. In my experience, an abusive man needs to feel powerful and so he uses the woman to do that. My x promised all sorts of change, cried and was sorry, sorry, sorry every time he abused me. Then, he just repeated the behaviors and of course, it was always my fault. If I just hadn't done blah, blah, blah then he wouldn't have done what he did. Those are all lies and we can choose to believe what they say or believe how we feel and make changes to protect ourselves. Al-Anon meetings are also a good support system where you can gain help and support for you and break your isolation by being with others who have been through or are going through what you are experiencing. My x also drank Jack Daniels. Even had a Jack Daniels collection. He also smoked pot. Sometimes, he didn't use anything at all. He was abusive consistently. Didn't matter what he drank, smoked or didn't drink or smoke. He was abusive. I focused on his going to bars and smoking weed. Truth was that the greatest danger to me at that time was his abusiveness. Not the drugs or alcohol. Those were dangers to him. Keep coming back here, too. We understand.

-- Edited by grateful2be on Monday 11th of August 2014 09:49:05 PM

Kelly123 · Veteran Member

I was in your position with my first A. I hoped things would get better. I'd go through periods when I would be furious at the yelling/abuse and I would swear I would leave. then things would be ok for a little while, I didn't want to bother leaving so I stayed. Then he'd start yelling and drinking again. And the cycle continued.

I should have left the first time that little voice inside told me to get the heck out of there. By the time I left that little voice was practically screaming at me and I left with a bag of clothes and my dog in the middle of the night. I wasted many years on someone who was very sick and I am still coming to terms with the fact i couldn't make him better. Marriage certainly didn't improve things either. By the time I left I was sick too (still am dealing with it).

I remember when I opened up to a girl at university and she was in the process of leaving her A with two kids in tow. She had just left her husband. She told me the BEST advice that I didn't take until 3 years later. She told me DON"T WALK RUN. I didn't want to hear this advice at the time but she was right. Alcoholism and abuse only get worse with time.

Good for you for going to a meeting , best of luck with your decision

Debilyn · ~*Service Worker*~

Them getting treatment before they decide or are ready is moot. I don't relate to I will leave if he does not get treatment. Like it is some cure all. Its not. In fact most get worse for awhile and maybe will be for years.

drinking is just a symptom.

You are on the right track going to al anon. Getting them sober is a great book.toby rice drew, volume one.

We support them by leaving them alone. Allow them the dignity to find their own way in their own personal battle with addiction.

Its now our disease. What we do is help ourselves and stop making them worse by doing anything for them. They would want us to not allow their disease to make us sicker.

Please ask yourself what you want, then go get it!

PP · ~*Service Worker*~

I agree with the others...my counsel is simple. Let go of him and take care of you; otherwise your life may be short lived. You are worthwhile of a lovely life.

ponygal · Newbie

The best help you can give him is your support from a distance. Take it from me. I have been with my alcoholic husband for almost 20 years and it does not get any better. Rehab after rehab, AA nothing changes except on occasion what he decides to drink. I am stuck financially now but if was not I would be gone. I don't even think I love him anymore. I am just numb to his abuse and neglect. We are both pushing 50 and he still acts like an idiot and embarrasses me every chance he gets. He kicked the door in the other night in a drunken fit cause he thought we locked him out. The door was open but he wanted to be explosive and angry and did it anyway. He then proceeded to verbally abuse me and tell me the door being broke was my fault. He called me horrible names and screamed at me. This is what you get to look forward to for the rest of your life. Run while you have the chance. Fall for someone who has it together. An alcoholic will only ever be loyal to the drink. Hugs and Godspeed.

AshleyA · Newbie

Thank you so much all of you for your words. I have been reading many threads over the past week or so, and I have been more scared to stay than go. Gratefultobe, you are absolutely right. He is abusive. When I came home today I was obviously walking on eggshells because I did not want to be here. My boyfriend was quick to point out that something was wrong. So, I told him. I am really pissed at you for treating me the way you did, and have in the past. I don't know how to get over that. To which he replied, "I cannot believe you are making such a big deal out of this, I am going to treatment, and I am sorry. You are inventing things that don't exist just so you have a reason to leave" To which I replied "Don't tell me how to feel, I feel the way I do and you can never take that away from me." He then told me that I should go and find another place to live. Yes! Thank you. I got right on it, and found a place in the building I used to live in. Paperwork is in the process. I am so relieved.

PP · ~*Service Worker*~

Well, what a blessing you have received in the ability to collect together your strength and courage to do the right thing for you! I love reading these kinds of posts.....here is a big hug for you (((Ashley)))

grateful2be · ~*Service Worker*~

Great! When we're ready to go and mean it, the way out reveals itself to us. (((A)))

Jerry F · ~*Service Worker*~

Okay you have been given great ESH (Experience Strength and Hope) and you did some very good change twice before..."Third times a charm"? Don't wait for the alcoholic to understand why you see things the way you do and what you're planning to do about it. Sometimes they experience blackouts and can't even remember who you are or why they are there and how they got there. Do for you and you now have support. In early Al-Anon I use to get told often "This is a save your own ass program" and then I came to understand that it was. YAY!! Keep coming back (((((hugs))))) smile

KennyFenderjazz · ~*Service Worker*~

AshleyA wrote:
"Don't tell me how to feel, I feel the way I do and you can never take that away from me."

That's great! No, feelings can't be taken away. They can be regarded, ignored, trampled on, run roughshod over, but they can't be taken away. Sometimes I ignore my AWs feelings, and sometimes I feel that I don't have any to be taken away, so thanks for the ESH, I needed to hear that and remember that it's not only OK to feel things, but really part of a requirement to be human!

And good luck in your next stage!

Kenny

el-cee · ~*Service Worker*~

Hi ashley, im so glad you went to a meeting, keep going, it will give you everything you need to make the right decisions for you whether that is stay or go. It is all very confusing but alanon will help you see clearer and privide you with tools to make life good for you and to help you understand the reasons within you that explain your choice in partners and will help you get healthier so that you dont spend your life with alcoholics and addicts.x

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.