Leopol

Hi All,

For the past 3 weeks i’ve been reading a lot a lot of stickies and posts from all of you and it has helped me tremendously. I feel like i am ready to share my story and hopefully gain some insight in what the last three years of my life have been like. I apologise in advance because it is long but it is the first time I am coming forward with my story so bare with meeee



I have no previous experience with alcoholism or addiction, especially high functioning addicts, so i had no idea what i was looking for whatsoever.



I met my ex boyfriend when I was 26 years old at work, he was intelligent, smart, funny and had a great job. He was also a beautiful man. Corporate culture these days really thrives on open-bar parties, large alcohol consumption, and unfortunately where we live in Amsterdam, even cocaine. It is not abnormal for anyone to engage in such substances. At least, to a certain degree. I was brought up progressive and my parents always told me to be honest about everything and its oke to want to try things but just make sure you are always in control. Hence, i am not an angel and previously have tried substances but never ever out of control. So when i met my ex boyfriend i didn’t think much of it. A few months into dating i did realize he was drinking and using cocaine a lot more than i would consider normal, i asked him about it and he became defensive – i should have known right then and there that this was a big RED FLAG. Instead i told him that if he wanted to keep seeing me he needed to be able to talk about things, he apologized and said fine what do you want to know? I asked him if he was in control of the situation, he looked me straight in the eye and said yes. I put it to rest and just let him be. I had zero codependency issues in the beginning.



My ex had a great way of leading a double life, when with me he would behave perfectly, when with his friends he turned into some drunken lunatic who would binge uncontrollably. As I’m writing this I feel so dumb because to be completely honest, he was not that great at leading a double life. It was more that I was willing to look the other way so he COULD live a double life. I wanted to believe it was a phase, that there wasn’t really a problem. Most activities that we did together involved drinking, and him usually ending up using cocaine. He told me sometimes he peed the bed when he drank too much, he told me it was a physical thing and he went to physiotherapy for it, it wasn’t anything to worry about it. ANOTHER RED FLAG. But here’s the thing, I went on the internet and looked up bed wetting due to alcohol. The most posts that come up don’t have anything to do with alcoholism. They just explain the science behind it. Either way, maybe I was just blind. So bed wetting is absolutely disgusting right? He told me if he took a line of coke it never happened. Well there goes another RED FLAG. Normal people would probably limit their alcohol consumption instead of resorting to another drug to cover up the alcohol addiction. Once again due to my complete naïve outlook on life and my love goggles I was just like oke whatever.



He was a great boyfriend half the week, he would message me constantly, always checking up on me, making me feel seen, heard, loved. It was crazy. I never, ever experienced the kind of love bombing that was happening. Everyone in my environment, even my parents and friends told me I was so lucky to have him in my life. And that’s how it felt. Besides the alcohol and cocaine consumption he was wonderful and smart. We moved in together about 7 months after being in a relationship due to covid outbreak. I was living with my friend and she and her boyfriend needed to quarantine so they took our apartment and I moved in with my ex.



This is when **** started to hit the fan. I realized his drinking was WAYYY more out of control than I suspected, he was drinking nearly every day and also using cocaine. He would message me endless messages in the middle of the night that he would stop and he felt bad and if I could help him. Mind you I still had no codependency tendencies at this point, after weeks of this I actually told him to please stop messaging me these ridiculous messages and just get help if he wanted it. There’s nothing I can do, he needs to do it himself. My own life was thriving, work was going well, I was eating healthy and going to the gym. I felt if I set a good example I could show him how he could live his life. Also the way he was living his life was like a mirror for me. I was a naïve 26 year old when I met him and just watching him made me realize what I did not want to be. It was a catalyst for growth both personally and professionally. It was easy for me to detach from the situation, it had nothing to do with me and was his journey.



1,5 years into our relationship we decided to get a dog. The cutest puppy on the planet and it was in this moment that I started to realize he had a serious problem. The day we bought the puppy he went out the pub to tell everyone what a great puppy we bought. And I thought, oh my god, this is the alcoholic that goes to the pub to tell everyone how much he loves his family. Instead of helping out with the dog he would throw everything on me, complain about the puppy not sleeping the nights through and still go out during weeknights instead of staying home to be with us. All the things I never realized as his girlfriend I started to realize as a dog-mom. This guy was completely out of control and his priorities are out of whack.



I had a sit down with him and told him listen what the f are you doing? I am working a fulltime job and taking care of our dog 24/7, you are working 2 days a week and still can’t seem to manage to do anything? So I gave him chores, like a child. RED FLAG. Anyways, he did do the chores. Sometimes he would complain but honestly I think this guy was so dedicated to covering up his addiction he was willing to do anything. Detaching from him more and more and observing him more and more I realized 2 years into our relationship that he probably is an alcoholic. Mind you, I had no idea what I was actually looking for.



So I went to my family doctor, I said listen this is weird but I think my partner is an alcoholic. She looked at me and said why? So I said, he lives from binge to binge, sometimes he doesn’t drink for a weekend to please me but then the next week he’ll be gone for 3 days. He’ll say he’s going to the movies with a friend and he’ll come back so drunk he won’t remember our conversations or how he got home. He suffers from bedwetting, which he has done hundreds of times, never when I’m in the bed but he’s “honest” so he tells me. He cannot go through a single date or evening activity without drinking alcohol, he secretly takes cocaine – even at family where there are children, I’ve asked him on multiple occasions on a night out to stop drinking before I have to drag him home and I cannot make a connection with him, once he is down that rabbit hole he is not coming back until he’s passed out and wakes up 14 hours later, he is tired all the time, he craved alcohol and becomes agitated when he can’t drink, he thinks everything is a reason for drinking, she stopped me and said oke enough. Where do you fit into all of this? I said to be honest I am detached from it because it is so insane to me, I don’t understand what is happening half the time and I’m too busy with everything, I’m too exhausted to deal with him. She advised me to read up on addiction and speak to him.



So I did, I spoke with him and he told me he wanted to get better. THIS IS WHERE MY CODEPENDENCY STARTED. We created a plan and for the next 6 months I was holding his hand walking through everything with him. Actively trying to help him sucked the soul out of my body and broke my heart every day at least once. This is when the manipulation, the lying, the dishonestly all became so clear to me. It was INSANE. The minute I started coming close the truth I became the enemy in his eyes. My ex who once had asked me to help him create a plan and hold him to it was now viewing me as the enemy and blamed me for being controlling. I had no idea what was happening. I told him, listen I am trying to help you because that is what you told me to do… The fights started happening more and more, at one point I couldn’t do it anymore. I told him I am taking our dog and leaving for a bit, he told me if you leave we are done. So I said fine, but i can’t stay here and I refuse to be threatened. I was reasonably close with his family although I had started pulling away months ago trying to create some dinstance while contemplating my life choices. I made a decision to tell his parents honestly I’m why we were breaking up, due to his alcohol and cocaine problem, and then I will leave and we will be done. Wellllllll…. Lets just say once I spoke my truth I flipped a switch in him that I even didn’t know existed. He became a complete monster, chasing me out of the house, threatening me, treating me and the dog like garbage, telling me I am a traitor and I was dead to him. It was INSANE to me, here I am speaking a very minimal truth because trust me a lot more happened besides his “alcohol and cocaine problem” that I didn’t even tell nobody about ever. But just even lightly touching upon this truth gave him reason enough I was dead to him. 3 years of a relationship, his truth, and I am garbage.



We are now 1,5 months into no contact, he hates me so I doubt he will contact me ever again. Last time I spoke to him he was screaming that he will start a 12 step program soon but yea I don’t know. I feel like its best to just forget about him for forever.



Has anyone experienced such 180 turns with their ex partners due to the truth?