common traits in alcoholics
Hi everyone,
it's been a long time since I last posted so I should introduce myself again. I have been married with an alcoholic and pot user for 9 years and we have 2 sons, aged 6 and 2.
For the past 2 years, after realising that there was nothing I could do to help him with his addictions, I have detached myself, emotionally. I stopped the nagging, started doing things on the week ends on my own with the kids, and I stopped relying on him for domestic chores. The result of this was that I feel I became stronger and more independent, but on the other hand, his drinking and pot smoking increased and somehow, without realising it, my resentment accumulated. Then in april, we went to France for 2 months and stayed with my family. Given his behavior for the past 2 years, I wasn't keen to go on that trip and booked my tickets at the last moment. He was very adament he wanted to go. But of course, while there, his drinking became totally out of control. While he mostly drink beer and wine here, he started drinking scotch over there as well. The whole trip ended up in a crisis when he verbally abused my mum and threatened to commit suicide in front of the kids, which to me is intolerable. At that point, I had decided to leave but he suddenly decided to give up alcohol. Started an outpatient program, supposedly, although after 2 months, he only managed to have 2 appointments with a psychiatrist and 2 appointments with a social worker. In fact, he never really even began therapy at all and resumed his drinking and cancelled all appointments.
This has been heartbreaking for me, to come to the realisation that he broke every single one of his promises, not only to me, to his family, but also to our 6 year old son. He does not care about how we feel. So anyway, I wanted to ask you questions about some of his "traits" and I was wondering whether they are common in alcoholics or whether these are traits of a sociopath:
- total disregard for the consequences of his drinking on "loved" ones.
- total lack of empathy to others' feelings
- inflated sense of self :"I am so special"
- paranoia:"you are having an affair" (yeah right, with a full time job, 2 kids to raise pretty much on my own, I sure have time to have an affair!!)
- It's always someone else's fault if he is drinking too much. ("I drink because you are a pain in the ass, I drink because we don't have sex, I drink because I am bored with you etc etc")
- lack of motivation to do anything apart from drinking.
The list could go on and on.... I have started to attend Al alanon meetings, although I feel that at this stage, my main priority is to ensure that I am emotionally and physically capable of leaving with my 2 sons while still working full time. I started taking antidepressants 4 weeks ago and this is helping but I still feel very very tired.
I am happy to be able to post on this board. I have read lots of threads that show me that there is a life out there after you leave your alcoholic partner. This has given me a lot of hope and I am looking forward to the day I will have my own place with my 2 sons....
Lucy