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Old 03-09-2018, 10:13 AM
  # 29 (permalink)  
Sleepyhollo
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Join Date: Dec 2017
Posts: 356
I agree that you have been acting like a true codependent. Not judging at all, lord knows I’ve been there and even though I’m climbing out of that trap it sneaks back in here and there. How could it not after that has been all I’ve known for so long.
No one is saying alcoholics are the scum of the earth. In fact a huge number of them are upstanding well off people which makes it even harder to see through it all and hard to understand why these educated people who should know better can’t just stop drinking.
Yes it is a disease, but not one anyone can fix. Not like diabetes where you take medicine and it gets controlled. Plus honestly, if a diabetic doesn’t want to take his meds or take care of himself, there is nothing anyone can do to help him or her and eventually they will die from complications of uncontrolled diabetes,
The reason everyone is telling you to run is because we’ve been there. We all are the rescuer/caretaker kind of people bcause otherwise we would not end up with addicts, or at least not long term.
The fact that he almost died and he still hasn’t hit rock bottom is all telling. He quit but not for himself. If quit to make everyone around him happy for a while. Quitting alcohol takes much more than just stopping the substance. Without professional help he will be just white knuckling it and live a ps a dry drunk until he relapses again. We all kept hoping it would get better each time they quit and often times it did, for a short while. Alcoholism is a progressive disease and it will only get worse. As soon as they start drinking again after quitting it is like they never quit to begin with, they start right where they left off.
Is it frustrating that you don’t know where he is or what he is doing? Absolutely. Would you feel guilty if anything happened to him? Absolutely, that is codependence at its best. But if we could truly help our alcoholics none of them would be alcoholics anymore. We can cover and enable and try to protect them from themselves for a while but that’s just putting a bandaid on things, not fixing the problem.
He has been through withdrawals before so this has more than likely been going on for many years already. And near death didn’t make him see that he really needed to quit, he was drunk again 2 days after discharge. Until he himself wants to quit AND seek help for it, he is gonna do what he is gonna do, and yes, unfortunately for some people that means dying (just look around this forum). But nothing or nobody can prevent that from happening, maybe for a little while, but it is just delaying the inevitable. He is an adult and can make his own choices. He will drag you down with him. You’ve only been with him for not even 3 months, how much fun have you really had with him? New relationships should be fun and getting to know each other, not spending your birthday and 3rd date in the ICU where he is near death because of his drinking problem.
No one can tell you what to do just like you cannot tell him to quit. But you have very little time invested in this relationship. And it will only get worse. Even IF he decided to get clean and get help today, he should not be in a new relationship while he is working his recovery. That would need to be his main focus. For this of us who are married or have been in a long term relationship with our A, it isn’t as easy but I am realizing that it probably would not have been a bad idea if my RAH had moved out after rehab while we w ere both working on ourselves. Because without recovery (on both ends, the A and the codependent) there can’t be a normal functional relationship.
No one said you need to stop caring, but what is knowing where he is going to do for you besides worry more and trying to think of ways to help him. It is called detachment with love. You need to live your life and right now it is all about him.
This is no way to live. With my RAH we didn’t have the turmoil early on in our relationship and he never ended up in the hospital thank goodness. You are already dealing with someone who is in the advanced stages of alcoholism, he lost his job, his home etc. Yet he can’t be bothered to takes steps to fix himself,
The sooner you can accept that the better. And it isn’t easy because we all like to think it will get better if only.... he doesn’t feeel like he has a problem obviously. Until he does and has been sober and working a program for at least a year I recommend that you go NC. And read Codependent no more, like yesterday. And keep reading here. I have been with my RAH for 16 years and he’s been clean about 18 months. Plus I’m a medical provider. It is amazing to me now how little I knew about addiction, even with living with it for so long. I’ve learned more than I ever wanted to know about addiction and codepdence in the past year. I can’t turn back the clock but I really wish I would’ve sought help and found this forum many years ago. It may not have changed things much but I would lie to think it would have, especially for me taking care of me.
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