Originally Posted by
fiveyearzen 
I thought you might be my wife under an assumed name until I saw your number of posts. She accused me of the exact same thing: trying to control her. I've had to give that considerable thought, because it is a valid concern. Codependency isn't the issue here, though. Codies either try to fix problems in others rather than in themselves or they allow another to do all the fixing for them. I'm not avoiding my problems.
If she weren't my wife, then it wouldn't be an issue. I'd simply walk away and wish her the best. I suppose I am trying to control one thing: the stability and safety of my home. It's a fine line to walk, I know, and it is a responsibility I do not take lightly. I don't think I used religion to back that up. The basis of my assertion is not that her drinking bothers me because I am a Christian, but because I am an alcoholic.
welcome to our world.....
I used all the same arguments to try and change my husband. Having a problem with someone elses drinking, and trying to get them to change their behaviour, to solve our problem with it, repeatedly, is a codependent behaviour.
That is not to say that you are "wrong" not to want to be around someone who drinks, nor is it wrong to put boundaries in place to protect yourself against behaviour that you don't want to be near. But to expect someone to change to suit us, to solve our problems...... if that worked, this would be an empty board, and the AA boards would have significantly less traffic.
I wouldn't go down the bargaining either (although I tried often! LOL), but it might be a time to wonder whether your gambling and smoking are things that are healthy for you to continue, are they indeed issues that need tackling? this you can control, because it is about you, keeping your side of the street clean.
Your continuing recovery from addiction is your issue, and you have to set out boundaries that protect that. But you talk about her drinking as a personal insult to you. Is it?
I used to get into terrible rows with my ex about a couple of friends I had that he didn't like, he thought my continuing to associate them, when he didn't like them was a personal insult to him. I didn't expect him to associate with them, and there was no effect on my behaviour that he could come up with that was a reason for him to not want them in my life (other than paranoid fantasies that because they were single I would somehow forget that I was married if I went out with them). Still he thought it was a basic respect issue: that if he didn't like something, I should change my behaviour to suit him. My take? I had few friends, these people had known me a long time, I valued their friendship, I understood that he felt threatened by them, although he was wrong, I am not that forgetful, or easily led, but why should he have a power of vito over who I could and couldn't be friends with.
If your reasons for not wanting to be in a relationship with someone who drinks are that it threatens your own sobriety, then you have a pretty stark choice. If it is for other reasons, can identify the behaviours that she exhibits when drinking that bother you? and put boundaries in place to make those not an issue?