I've read every one of the posts on this thread and I can echo some of the sentiments of posters responding to Bohn05. I dated a guy who was an alcoholic for almost 2 yrs. I did love him and I know he loved me. However, with an addiction, "love just isn't enough" is what I kept replaying in my mind. When I first started seeing him, I didn't realize how bad his drinking was. I'm a tee-totaler but I don't care if someone has a beer or two as long as they quit and don't get drunk. My guy was pretty depressed when we started seeing each other & while I had never dated an alcoholic, I did know a thing or two about depression. I felt so bad for the guy because he had had some tough situations in life to get over. But, then who hasn't really? His drinking episodes in the beginning were sad, crying jags that made me feel horrible. At one point, I thought he might even commit suicide. I called his ex-wife (he did not drink like that when they were married years ago) because I did not know who else to call, and between the two of us, he did go to a detox center for a few days, but that was not long enough to change his addictive patterns and he was far from over his depression at that point. He was back to drinking within a week. Then as time went on, his sadness changed to anger and he kept picking arguments with me over nothing. I have never seen such rage in a guy in all my life. I was not afraid of him physically harming me, but I began to see the emotional toll his behavior was taking on me. He also had a daughter who loved him and he had custody of her part of the time, but he started being hateful to her just like he did to me. His ex-wife started getting angry with him because he refused to clean up his act in order to not upset the daughter. Last Nov. I finally had enough of his addiction and his inability to want to get sober & stay sober. In the 6 months that followed, he called a couple times but I was slowly getting on with my life. I continued to feel bad for the daughter who was constantly thrown back to this man when she should have been kept away from him. Then in May of this year, he had another argument with the ex-wife over his drinking & the daughter being treated badly. Ex-wife told him she was keeping the daughter away this time. He came to me and said he was done drinking. We talked almost daily on the phone but were not back together by any means because I had zero trust at that point. Long story short, he stayed sober for about 10 days. He talked about going to AA during that time but never went. I have been in Al-Anon over a year now. He started back on the booze when he got angry with the neighbors who are also a bunch of drunks. After all the apologies, the promises, the manipulations, I finally decided I could not risk involvement with him further. I no longer answer my phone at night and I am trying to rebuild my life. I do get lonely but I don't miss the instability, the irresponsible behavior or the selfishness that comes with a drunk's lifestyle. I've learned a lot in Al-Anon but more than anything, I have learned that valuing yourself sometimes means making some hard choices - choices that the drunk refuses to make because a mature, stand-up kind of guy would see (in his sober moments) what all he is losing or stands to lose if he doesn't get help for his addiction. I felt like 2 years of trying to "help" this guy was enough. And believe me, I know what it's like to wish things were different. I loved him like no one else and I'm sure he can say the same thing about me, BUT he loves booze more than he loves me, he loves it more than he loves his daughter. At some point, the drunk will have consequences. The son in the original post talks about karma and I believe that eventually that does kick in but it is sometimes too late to salvage any relationships from the past because addiction cuts so deeply into the self-esteem and well-being of the people around the drunk. The drunk can't see it until they have nothing left.
I will add one more bit of advice for anyone in a dating relationship. If the guy lives with his Mom (alcoholic or not) you DO NOT want him. I also dated a guy once who refused to leave the family nest. He wasn't a drinker but he was immature and selfish. I stayed with him longer than I care to admit. Secondly, if a guy starts asking you to pay for things that HE should be paying for, that is an indicator that he is NOT the one.