trailmix

Hi Ali, glad you found the forum and decided to post.

Your ex BF's excuses and "plans" are nothing new, he sounds pretty typical (unfortunately).

There is sobriety (putting the drink down) and there is recovery, two separate things. He is neither sober nor in recovery. Stopping drinking is first, of course, but recovery means healing from that addiction, doing the work, whatever that is and whatever it takes to get away from drinking and back to living life on life's terms.

Recovery is not a "cure" once you are an alcoholic, there is no going back, that addiction will always be there, the recovering alcoholic can never drink, not even one or they hop right back on that slippery slope (by and large).

His intentions might be really good, but the actions just aren't there. We can all have good intentions, doing the work to back up those intentions is the tough part. He doesn't sound like he is there.

You did the right thing in ending this now, all you had to look forward to is perhaps years and years of the same.

1. I am so worried about him - he moved to a place where he doesn't know anyone and I worry for his health. He has no support locally.

He is a grown man, he was coping before you met him and he will carry on as he has now you have left. He moved there, he can move again if he chooses.

2. He said that he has improved (from 10 cans an evening to 4-6 cans and can leave cans in the fridge), so is showing control.

To that I would say, so? He has gone from drinking a huge amount of alcohol a day to a pretty huge amount of alcohol a day.

3. He has made me feel guilty for leaving him, when he is showing control. He said he is getting better and can do this on his own - no AA, therapy, rehab. Apparently he had an epiphany 3 weeks ago.

That's false guilt, guilt is for when you have done something wrong. You haven't done anything wrong. You are looking out for yourself and that is the correct thing to do here and wise.

4. How long would you even give someone in recovery/do they need to be sober, to be in recovery or can they be in recovery if they are slowly cutting back?

As I mentioned above, he is neither sober nor in any kind of recovery (and that's ok, that's his choice). If he actually got sober and sought the help of AA, therapy, whatever support he chooses, you can say maybe a year of actual sobriety (no drinking or other drugs at all) and working on recovery before you can start to see if he is making real progress in himself. Only he can decide, really, whether he is in recovery but you can see it if it's there.

As you have experienced, addiction is a very selfish thing, it has to be when your focus is always or most always on the substance. He would like you to put up with all of it, I'm glad you have chosen not to.