SugarLily

Sorry for starting another thread. I couldn't sleep last night and got to thinking. Something I can't quite grasp...

When I was with the ex, I would constantly excuse his behaviour when he was drunk. In my mind I would seperate the sober him and drunk him and call them 'Jeckyl and Hyde'. This kind of made it easier for me to accept and enable his behaviour. His family also did this - when he acted up the answer would be "Its just the booze" ie: "Its not really him".

However I do know that alcohol removes inhibitions, things you might have not said sober come spilling out when drunk. My mum is a firm believer of "the truth comes out when you are drunk".

I've seen this many times before when people are drinking. They spill their deepest darkest secrets, those that are shy are suddenly itching to hit the dancefloor, people admit their deep hidden love for others.

So my dilemma in my mind is - Is the nasty abusive hurtful character my ex was when drunk really HIM?

I wondered what others thought about this, whether they thought about this also.

bookwyrm

This is something I'd like to know too. The man I married has vanished but I do see glimpses of him here and there. Is who he is now the 'real' him? When he is drunk and lashing out, it this what he really thinks of me or am I just a 'safe' emotional punchbag for him?

mmmm. Thinking out loud for a minute...does it really matter? I have to deal with the alcoholic him all the time now and I may be looking at our past through rose tinted glasses. Maybe he was this way but disguised it well and I just didn't see it. But I 'know' (or at least I'm trying to get it!) that I can't control him and I can't change him so I have to deal with who he his now.

Good question Sugarlily, it's made me think... I'm sorry I can't answer it!

best

Or another way to word it...self control.
What alcohol does is magnify issues we may already have as well as add in a few other bad habits.

Have you ever been angry enough at someone that you said something hurtful or thought something hurtful?
If so...does that make you a bad person? Not really...unless such happens all the time. Alcohol would take that issue and magnify it.

Ok now that we learned and do all these stupid things long enough...they can become habits and once we stop the alcohol intake, the habits can still be there...thus the reason for the 12 steps used by AA... they help us find our true self again and repair the damage to our charactor that alcohol has built up in us.
So the answer isn't a true yes or no because alcohol increases but also adds to what is there already.

barb dwyer

SL -

It's a good question.
I suppose it would depend on how long the person had been drunk and low much time of their lifewalk they've spent sober.

WHichever one is bigger, maybe.

I am an alcoholic, and I can tell ya that for the most part no one could tell the difference between my drunk and sober. But I've spent most of my life ... sober.
I didn't grow up drunk. I didn't grow up calling every bar in town looking for my parents.
SO drinking ... and drunkeness... was only a major part of the last six years of my life.

Even the BB talks about Jekyl and Hyde of the alcoholic.

I was married to three alcoholics.
And I was never ... in love with any of them.

I was in love with the IDEA of them.

With who I thought they were GOING to become.
or with who I wanted them to be.

But never once ... with them.
Not as they were right at that time.

WHen I figured that out...

Wow.

My whole world ... changed.

geees poncho

The true person is the sober person
inhibitions in check
mouth in check
balance in check
the truth comes out when hes drunk
because nothing is in check
We all have weird thoughts, but we don't acked or speek of them.
when sober.
herein lies the disease,
Booze allows them to flow, unchecked--not the real person.
Best is right about the 12 steps, cleaning up our past.
If a practecing alkie is abusive, its the booze.
and it does take a healthy program to make amends and recover
But don't hold your breath, waiting. Recovery takes a long time.

SugarLily

Thats a good point - does it really matter? I guess perhaps not. He is who he is now. He told me on the phone the other day that he is giving up the drink and NOT for me - for him. He's never said that before. I wish him well on his journey.


Thanks for replying.

SugarLily

This really strikes a chord with me.

I'd stick around hoping and praying that he would return to the loving person he was. He really is not an evil guy. He loves kids and animals, was unbeleivably affectionate and sweet. But drunk? - BAMN! A whole different person.

I still would love for the Idea of him to become a reality. But I can't do it for him, I've come to realise that.

barb dwyer

hi sugar -

and that's the hard part.

not making the decision...

but making whatever choice .. from a place more rooted in reality.

And for me -
it had nothing to do with them being evil or bad guys.
They just turned out ... to be who they were.

I was the most suprised person in the room to learn
I was worthy of ... well, of better.

So I had to learn about
'do I love him, right here, right now? alla time? as is, no frills?"

That's a tough question to be asking.

But ... we gotta.
We GOTTA ask.
Sometimes over and over.

SugarLily

In short - no.

I love who he was and the idea of who he could be.

One is in the past - the other could be the future

But neither of them are right here and right now.

I am - I wasn't happy - I need to be.

barb dwyer

then ******{SL}}}}

You're not alone.

We don't close out minds to the future ...
but we can't afford to live there, either.

loner1968

this has always confused me too. My ex was so drunk the last time I spoke to him that his mean and cruel comments made me never want to talk to him again...and i have not. I thought he just hated me and maybe he does but I also think now that he was protecting his "good thing" and didnt want me to be in his life anymore so he could continue on his downward spiral. Which he has done from behind a facade of lies and new clothes!!!

loner1968

also...like many of you have said...'does it really matter?' not to me most days...sometimes i get stuck but i just come here to get through it. Most days I dont care what he thinks or has said to or about me.

LostGuy

I thought that way about my AW for a long time. She was so sweet when sober. But she's sober when she takes that first drink, and she knows that she is abusive to me when she is drunk, and that if she has that first drink she will proceed to get drunk. So now I believe that while part of the real her is that sweet person, I also have to recognize that the part of her that decides to drink every day even though she knows it causes her loved ones pain is also the real her. So even if her actions while drunk seem like that of a monster, the real monster is in her not trying to seek recovery. In that, SHE is abusive, and to blame the booze is to abdicate her responsibility to not put herself in a position where she will be abusive.

laurie6781

I don't know about "them." However, I do know about me.

I drank for 24 years 22 of those alcoholically. I was a mean, vindictive, angry, fight starting biotch and then some!

I came to sobriety with a chip on my shoulder the size of a 2 x 4 and I was an animal with no shreds of civilization left. Today 27 years later there is not one iota of that person left.

So which am I? I know I like myself today. I know the alcohol took away all inhibitions and all civility I had ever been taught.

I also know that each person is different. I know people sober over 30 years that are still A'holes.

No answers here, just what I know happened to me.

Love and hugs,

jillybean

IMO... if there is a mental illness involved such as a personality disorder or abnormal character defect, then sober or not, what you see is what you get.

Many bad behaviors are blamed on drunkeness when the truth is if that person never had a drop of alcohol in their lives, you would still have the Jekyl & Hyde experiences.

It's the individual issues that is at the root of harmful behavior towards others in some cases. Hard to know which it is unless a trained professional has found evidence of a pathology that goes beyond the disease of alcoholism or the choice to be an abuser to oneself or others through deliberate harmful actions that cause suffering.

IMO.. alcohol does NOT cause abuse. Abuse is a choice one makes in how they handle their emotions that is maladaptive and damaging.

Drunk or sober, xABF was abusive and dangerous. Never saw much importance in working on himself to be a better person because in his mind, it wasn't him that was the problem, it was the world and how it treated him.

That is a HUGE part of why he is not part of my life now and never will be again.

Life's too short to be spending all my energy and time hoping for something only I see the worth in.

Beachykeen

I am just now starting to figure the "real person" my XABF is. He is the sweet guy who loves me and is kind and considerate. But he is also the one who knowingly takes that first drink and becomes manipulative and nasty. I long for the first but more and more the second takes over. I was told by someone that I could not love the potential but had to love the real person where they were. So I had to decide more than anything what was it that I needed. So I have chosen me for the time being. Dont know which is more painful, living with him or living without. But part of my recovery as codependent is to seek support from my peers and work on myself. The rest of him I need to turn to God and let him handle it. Harder done than said!!!

Bucyn

I am 48 years old, I've been drunk/tipsy 5 times in my life. Each time I was mellower, sweeter, more confiding, and trusting. And sleepier.

My opinion: both are the real him. If he wasn't drinking, all that nastiness would come out thru another channel. Alcohol does not create anger and hatefulness.

People change, evolve, endlesslessly. As drinkers face more frustration, disappointment and anger in their lives, they get meaner and nastier, eventually they AREN'T the person they were years ago when you married him. They also become less capable of dealing with reality and this angers and frustrates them further. As the good things in life slip away: marriages, friends, jobs, homes...they lash out more, tantrum more, regress into helpless childish behaviors trying to bully life--and you--into giving them what they can't provide for themselves any more.

There is no 'real' you/me/him; there's only the you/me/him of this moment. And if most of those moments are unpleasant, that makes the real him mostly unpleasant.

And if he ever sobers up and stays sober, he won't be the person he was when you first met him. Even if he's a great guy again. He'll be a different great guy; and the relationship still might not be tenable.

Bucyn

I couldn't agree more. The maladjustment to life comes first...the addictions and neuroses and manipulative bullying behaviors are tools to deal with the maladjustments to adulthood and reality.

Bucyn

This is excellent too.

Someone in Al-Anon told me that to a true addict, not-drinking is like having the flu. It feels awful. You are nauseous, sick, ache, feel shakey, diarrhea. Drinking makes you feel normal.

Now ask yourself this: if not having the flu meant you'd abuse everyone around you, neglect and endanger your kids, and cause untold misery, would you choose to have the flu or would you choose to relieve the symptoms and risk hurting others.

I know for myself, I'd suffer the flu before I knowingly, willingly cause misery around me. (To be honest, I'd probably try getting relief from the flu when no one was around once or twice; but once I realized that there was spill over and even if I drank alone, it adversely affected my family, I'd choose the flu).

What would you choose? To have the flu and keep your family safe and happy; or to relieve your symptoms and risk making everyone around you miserable?

These people are choosing to help themselves at the expense of the innocent people around them. They know they are causing misery (for all they argue that they aren't), because they are told repeatedly. But they still choose to make themselves feel good knowing they will be making others miserable.

That's the real them.

Freedom1990

How could anyone define who the real me was when I didn't even know who the real me was?

I spent a lot of my drinking years trying to be what I thought other people wanted.

When that failed, I'd just drink some more.

It was damned painful to live in my own skin. Alcohol relieved that pain...temporarily.

It wasn't until I got sober that I began to discover just who I really am, and it's a continuing journey even after all these years.