Originally Posted by
goldengirl3 
How many here had a really chaotic childhood?
I know it's part of the reason why I was drinking.
To make matters worse, our relationship has finally ended this year. Her lack of connection with me is no different than when I was a child. And that's a hard pill for me to swallow.
How do you get over something like that? This is who she is and it will never change. How do you deal with it?
<--- Raises hand. All sorts of that stuff in my house when I was little. I'm 42 now and still see find remnants of it in my daily life all the time. There was a lot of emotional abuse and heaps of physical abuse.
While that craziness exacerbated my emotional state, it doesn't "cause" alcoholism. My brother lived in the same house......actually got it worse than I did.....and he's not an alcoholic. There are also LOTS of alkies who grew up in "normal" loving homes.
I'm a real alcoholic. I drank because of alcoholism - which has nothing to do with my childhood. Alcoholism isn't a problem with booze either.....it's a problem that booze treats. If you're an alcoholic, and you suffer from alcoholism (the 3-part illness) like I do, then that's why you drank.
I got past it by working the steps with a sponsor and with a therapist who's also in the program. Those two things led me to finding a God of my own personal understanding. I did some work, God did a lot.....a lot more than I did, really.
.....and you're right.... until we can find a way to live happily in our sobriety - to get recoverED - we're not in serious danger of going back out again, we WILL go back out again.