jeremysampson

My girlfriend of 4 years told me a couple of hours ago she’s been going to AA meetings every day for about a week. I would really love some advice on my role in supporting her through this process. Some background about our situation (I’m 29 and she’s 26):

For the first couple of years we were together her drinking was a real issue. I have a close group of friends who grew up together and would binge drink in the weekends. She didn’t grow up in that environment (never drank as a teenager) and would often get out of control when we went out - like angry and confrontational and verbally abusive. Over time, we developed a rule that she would only drink beer.

That solved the worst of it, but some issues remained, like sometimes she would have 6 -10 beers at home and get confrontational or emotional, or a couple of days after Christmas just passed, my mum took her aside and said she thought she was too drunk on Christmas day – she was being loud and slightly confrontational with kids around (to be honest I didn’t even notice at the time). This left her feeling really embarrassed (we were vacationing at my parents and they’re still getting to know each other).

She told me today that for the last month she’s been feeling depressed. A little more than a week ago, we had an argument after a few drinks and she said something in passing about hurting herself. Today I raised that comment with her, and she said she never actually made plans to carry it out or anything like that, its more that at times she been feeling like she just doesn’t care.

Drinking has always been a big part of my life – I’ve always drank more and more often than her. But I never get angry or abusive, and when I drink, even when I drink heavily, its extremely rare I get sloppy, and my disposition is without exception just happy and chatty. I’ve never really had any bad things happen from alcohol, lost a job or ruined a relationship or anything like that. I enjoy alcohol, and drink 2 or 3 nights a week. It’s rare that I go out drinking these days, but probably once a month will wake up and drink all day long. Its also not really an issue for me to stop, for example, last summer I didn’t drink for 3 months while doing a work project.

As I’m trying to process my role in all this, my main question is: to be properly supportive do I need to stop drinking as well? Get all the alcohol out of the apartment (we live together – just the 2 of us)? Is it terrible for her to be around someone drinking regularly for enjoyment without any negative consequences? Is that just rubbing it in her face?

She’s just gone off to work, its Friday at 4pm, I’ve had a long week and would love to sit back, have a beer and watch a movie.

Any advice people have as we start working through all this together would be really great. Thanks so much for hearing me out.