Jereberly

A couple of months ago I met my sister's double mix partner in tennis, and after a few meetings I gathered courage to ask him out. He is always very happy and optimistic, kind and fun to be around in general. He did not talk much about his past and he never drank alcohol. I didn't think much of this and he said he didn't want to drink because he is focused on his tennis. I though that sounded normal. And after all, not everyone likes to drink.

Then an incident occurred last saturday when I introduced him to my friends at a party. And since we consider each other boyfriends they were curious to meet him. They thought it would be fun to pour alcohol in his drink without him knowing, to see how he would act when he was drunk. They meant it as an innocent prank. Very quickly he felt sick, vomited, was very shaky, getting headaches, etc. Not drunk, just very ill and he fell unconscious.
We called an ambulance and was hospitalized for the night.

The next day he tells me that he is actually an alcoholic. (Or was, I don't know when people are considered alcoholics, recovering, sober, etc.) He explains that he takes antabuse at parties with alcohol present, to prevent him from drinking. Also that he started drinking heavily when he was just 14 and smoked weed most of the time.
He has a very tragic past of continually sexual abuse through several years as a child. This man did horrible things to him; beating him with belts, raping him, threaten to kill his family and more. He shot some very sick footage of doing this to my boyfriend, and took pornographic pictures.
Long story short, the man breaks into their home one evening, threatening his mom with acid and my boyfriend attacks him with a knife, stabbing him numerous times. Eventually the man dies from the wounds. His parents wanted my boyfriend punished for manslaughter which luckily does not happen, as it was an act of self defense.

My boyfriend has declined all kinds of treatment and help, this includes help for his alcoholism. He has managed to stay sober for almost 4 months. He had tried for 3 years to stay sober, but would relapse every 2-3 days.
He is a very happy and cheerful person; no act. It is really who he is. He does not see any reason to at least talk to a doctor, and jokes about if we want him to cry or feel sad.

It makes me wonder, if it is really possible to go from alcoholic to sober all by yourself? Specially with such a past. I have not tried anything much out of the ordinary myself, so I dont know how it is to live with such things. But I just cant imagine it is possible to do everything by yourself. Some people can go a long way on their own, no doubt about that.
But one day all these things might come back and bite him in the rear. I'm afraid if that happens he will be totally unprepared and end up doing drugs or drinking again.

I hope this post didn't take up too much of your time and if someone can explain about going sober all by yourself, if it is possible and maybe something that convince him to seek professional help, if necessary.

He is 21 years old, been sober almost 4 months. I know he has a very hard time being around alcohol. When he goes shopping, he has to avoid the aisles with alcohol completely. He can barely even look at them. A few times he has left the items and just rushed out of the store. To me, it all looks like someone who is ready to go on a binge any moment. Today at an café our friend ordered a beer (he doesn't know about my boyfriend's problem as he doesn't want to tell) and went to the bathroom. The beer arrived while he was gone and suddenly my boyfriend just reached for it. I had quite a struggle pulling him away from the table without attracting too much attention.
But I dont know if this is a normal thing, nomatter if an alcoholic receives treatment or tries to do it on his/her own. I dont want to jump to conclusions without some more knowledge about all this.