barralba

Hi, new to this and would really appreciate some advice about my boyfriend.

We’ve been going out seven or eight years now, and we were only sixteen to begin with so to begin with all his ‘problem’ drinking could be chalked up to being a silly teenager – we all did silly things sometimes, myself included. However recently I’ve began to realise that he’s never grown out of it and all his incidents were worse than most. The thing that is scaring me the most is that sober he is a sweet, kind, never-hurt-a-fly type, but that drinking makes him do violent and aggressive things which he often does not remember.
Many years ago he woke up in a police cell with a fine for common assault because he’d punched someone the night before. He remembered nothing and insists to this day his drink was definitely spiked. Fine, maybe this time, but he ALWAYS has an excuse of some type. There was also an incident a long time ago at a mutual friend’s dorms where he got drunk and became angry with me for setting up a sleeping bag in the same room as another guy – it was student dorms and I had no choice unless I wanted to sleep in the kitchen – and accusing me of wanting to cheat. The night just went south and for hours he would storm out of this friend’s house, storm back in, shout vile things at me, then repeat. Really awful things, like telling me I was a ***** and I should burn in hell. In sober life neither of us have ever cheated and we are categorically not jealous people, so it seemed like a different person.

It began with mainly verbal abuse but sometimes begins to get physical. One night, camping for a festival, he came back to the tent while I was sleeping and fell asleep/passed out half lying on top of me. I couldn’t move him so I had to wake him up to tell him my leg was numb and that his elbow was hurting my stomach. His response was to tell me I was a bitch and dig his elbow in deeper until I cried, at which point he told me I was an attention-seeker and fell back asleep. The next morning he remembered nothing at all.

Similar things have been happening over the years, generally quite spaced out, but the last six months the incidents have been getting closer and closer together and much worse. One night, in a caravan holiday park, I woke up at about 4am (we’d had a few drinks and I’d gone to bed about 2, and he stayed up to finish a film) to the sound of the car driving off. As it turns out he never left the park and went to use the communal toilet, about a 30 seconds drive away, because it was raining. Legally I think that’s ok but morally that’s disgusting – it was a pitch-dark park and he was risking everyone there. After ten minutes of absolute fear and panic that he’d hurt himself or someone else (it was very rural, badly maintained roads around with a sheer drop off into the sea!) I confronted him and he was the picture of innocence, saying he was being accused of things he hadn’t done, but he was very obviously drunk. I gave in, took the keys and went to bed. In the morning I woke up to him having passed out with his foot in a plate of food without realising. He’d stayed up hours longer and kept drinking to console himself after the argument. When he woke up he was like a lost puppy trying to make things up to me and I remember just thinking his attempts to win me back made my skin crawl with shame. He has also turned up to a family occasion and somehow become worse for wear very quickly, and is always very quick to say that he’d only had a few and couldn’t understand what had happened. He always has excuses. Recently, waking up in the middle of the night after being out drinking, he smacked his head open on his bedside cabinet. When I mentioned it might have been the alcohol he was angry again and said that he’s just clumsy and he’s done similar things a million times sober. He always makes me feel like I’m being very unreasonable and maybe sometimes I do attribute things to drinking which aren’t. However he uses these times to focus in on and make the rest of my argument look invalid.

I could list so much more but they are all similar. What scares me the most I suppose is that his drunk personality is extremely quick to anger. If I ever suggest he should stop drinking he almost always flares up and tells me I’m being ridiculous.
Reading this back it looks like I’m crazy for sticking around. However when he’s sober he is absolutely wonderful. He is kind, caring, thoughtful, and a far nicer person than I am. I can’t overstate how great he is. When he drinks it really is like a different person. It’s like part of his brain has shut down and I’m talking to a different person, and this feeling is solidified when he wakes up in the morning with absolutely no clue what happened.

I would really love some opinions on this. If we’d only been seeing each other a few months I know I would be off like a shot. However after so many years, I know that sober he is a kind and wonderful person and 90% of the time I am incredibly happy with him. He also has a good full time job and it feels like I’m being silly, how could he have a problem if he keeps that up? Despite still living at home he leads quite an independent life from his family and I have no idea what they think about it. Friends see him as a party animal because they don’t see him going bad much, so I feel very alone. I really do love him but I know for a fact I can’t put up with these ‘incidents’ anymore, though I have lost count of the times I’ve said last chance. I don’t know how to help him. The other day he finally agreed to speak to a doctor or a helpline but I get the feeling he’s doing it to please me, and that deep down he’s sure he doesn’t have an issue. And in fact IS he an ‘alcoholic’ and should never drink again, or just someone who needs to mature his relationship with alcohol? Sometimes I feel over-dramatic using the words ‘abuse’ or ‘alcoholism’ because it’s a million light years away from our upbringing. He is still capable of coming to the pub and having a few and going home, he doesn’t always (or even usually) end up wasted. He does have a family history of alcoholism if that changes anything.
Sorry for the essay.