concernedgirl

Hi...My boyfriend drinks and I do not. As a matter of fact, I was raised in a religious environment that discourages drinking period and it never appealed to me. Here is my question.

I don't think my boyfriend is an alcoholic, but I may be wrong. I don't see him during the week becuase he drives a truck. From the best I can understand, he does not drink during the week. I think this is true becuase I have never talked with him during the week and sensed that he was buzzed. Also, he has proven to be a very honest person and I don't think he is lieing about that.

Our problem is on the weekends. He does not drink to excess every night, but he does drink some every weekend. He never gets what you would call drunk, but has that glazed over look in his eyes. He doesn't stumblle or become biligerent or anything.

Problem is, I dislike alcohol period. I really believed that he would taper off and quit. All of his friends have quit (we are almost 40)....but he hangs on to it. We fight about it every so often and just can't seem to get along on this issue. Otherwise, he is good as gold.

this weekend, for example, I had some commitments Friday. By the time I got to him, he had already been drinking and although he had said we would go out, we did not. Saturday was much better, but we still ended up fighting about it Sunday.

Please, those of you who are more knowledgeable about this than me, does he appear to be an alcoholic? For him, weekends and beer are simultaneous...That bothers me....Should it?

thank you in advance

Live

I don't know whether he is an alcoholic.

But you do have a problem.
He is gone all week, so the time you are together...weekends, he is drinking and this is not acceptable to you, and even tho' it has caused fights, nothing has changed.

You can't demand that he stop drinking and he can't demand that you like it.....how can this be resolved?
How important is it to you?
What is the quality of life? Is it what you want to live with for your future?

Daisy30

I agree It doesn't really matter if he is an A or not.

What does matter is that his drinking bothers you and he does not respect that.


Many of us do this in relationships, We are dating/marrying "the man he will be" not the man he is.

Glad you are here! Keep posting!!

Ago

Or the man we wish he was or who we can "change him into".

Is that fair to him?

Or he chooses to drink and you don't respect that

Can you accept for him for who he is?

I mean really accept him for who and what he is? If not, if you really want a "non-drinker", I'd venture to say it's not him, and IMO it's not fair to him to try to make him one because you don't like alcohol.

Ultimately it's your choice for what you want in your life, just like it's his choice for what he wants in his. If I want "non-drinking" to be a criteria for a relationship I date a non-drinker.

It's perfectly acceptable If you have a problem with his drinking, it's where you go from here that's up to you. Can you live with it? Is it a deal breaker? If it is, what now? If it isn't, what now? How will you navigate this?

bella162

Hi concerned girl, i'm thinking that for whatever reason, alcohol now seems to be playing a big part in you changing your thinking and behaviour to accomodate him.

Your in a relationship where you feel unhappy, disrespected, anxious , concerned, worried ect ect.. and where your emotional needs seem to be loosing out to his need for a drink, even if he wasn't an alcoholic that in itself is very disrespectful.

Having come from the background you have, was there ever a day when you thought you would be seeking out forums such as this one? I think the fact that your here and aasking questions should be enough of a red flag. However I applaud you for doing so and taking the time to find out as much as you can.

Perhaps you should ask yourself some questions as you might do in any relationship that was causing you concern. What am I getting out of this relationship? What would I loose by ending it and what would I gain?.. Where do I see it going? What do I really feel? ect ect....make a list!... I so wish i had done that 3 years ago, maybe then i wouldn't find myself comming on here every day and using the chat room facillity for moral and emotional support.

Good luck X

concernedgirl

Thanks to everyone for their replies. I am reading all these replies and pondering them carefully. You are right....I never thought I would be on a forum such as this. I have had maybe four sips of alcohol in my entire life. You know, it is "funny" that all of us have our vices, but we think the other one is so bad and ours is not...That is human nature I guess. I do love my boyfriend and I had promised him that I would quit fussing about the drinking. I hate that I broke a promise, but find it so hard not to let it upset me. He truly is a good hearted man, much nicer than a lot of "sober" ones I have dated, but I just don't know if we can get over this. Thanks for giving me a lot to think about . I hope others wil throw in their opinion too. I have always thought that God can speak through others.

Daisy30

Sometimes there are dealbreakers in a relationship. I am learning that I ignored a lot of "things" that bothered me in the beginning of my relationship with my AH. They never went away. We are sepereated and many of these things are just now coming to light for me. I kept telling myself what a great guy he is, while looking the other way at on other things.

I guess what I am trying to say is try not too compromise too much on how you feel your relationship should be. By holding on to someone who may not be right, we may miss the one who is. Kinda like trying to push a square peg through a round hole

Ago

Absolutely

Guy on here, Dgillz has a sig that says if the only tool in your box is a hammer everything looks like a nail, something along those lines

With the square peg in a round hole analogy, I have both tried to hammer the square peg in a round hole with little success, and been the "square peg" that has "been hammered" to try to fit into the round hole, what I have found is when the "hammering" doesn't work, all that happens is that we/they decide that we/they just aren't "hammering right" or "hammering hard enough" so we escalate the "hammering" with the end result that everyone ends up angry, resentful, and "ill used".

Sometimes just a different tool is called for.

I have found that those can be found at therapy, couples counseling, or the appropriate 12 step program such as Al-anon. I have also found here can be helpful.

Thank You for that clarification Daisy, I loved what you wrote

smacked

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds (reads) as if he was a drinker when you met him.. just playing devil's advocate here, what's changed that has you concerned? You knew he drank, and decided to be in the relationship, ya know?

Sounds like he finds alcohol to be very important to him, that would definitely be a red flag to me, regardless of my beliefs on drinking.. it would just not be healthy for me to be in a relationship where it was a priority over anything, "alcoholic" or not.

It also seems as though he isn't planning to change, and you've "promised" not to "fuss" about it. Are you really happy with this being the way your relationship is?

I don't mean to really be negative, but he is your boyfriend.. not your husband that you have 3 kids and a house with and 10 years more of your life invested. My point in that is that it sounds like an early relationship that might be easier and less painful to nip in the bud if it's not the right one, now. I hope that you can find a way to step outside of this a bit (and I think you've done a great job of that by coming here and letting us talk to you!), and decide if really truly this is someone that enhances your life and cherishes your emotional and physical well being. No one less than that deserves your heart, hun.

sosad2008

The thing you should be thankful for is you are not married. And sounds like you are not living together?

This sounds like my husband in initial stages- a weekend drinker. now he drinks heavily every day. I would say apart from the drinking my AH is as good as gold, but that does not help any because when the alcohol takes over...that becomes his best friend. You ever see those movies where some strange virus enters human's and they become a different person (like that movie "I am Legend"). Well that is an alcoholic. That sweet nice person goes away and they will stop at nothing to get what they need. Read my thread (didn't know my husband was an alcoholic now I am stuck).

I did not know anything about alcoholism until i realize my husband was one and i started to research it. if i had come on this website i would not have gotten married. i would have seen the hurt and pain it causes and that it seems that it seems the only way out - is to get out of the relationship.

Don't be fooled by thinking its okay because he holds a job and you haven't seen him falling down drunk. The fact that he has a driving job is also scary. If he gets a DUI I bet he will jeopardise his job and career. Those arguments you have on sunday about his drinking sound eerily like mine - they don't get better.

concernedgirl

I am so appreciative of everyone's feedback. I remember early in our dating life we were about to make the one hour trip from where he used to live to where I do live. We were going on his motorcycle, so he packed a little bag. Clothes? check. deodarant, check? toothbrush? check. A bottle of wine? check.....I remember thinking..how odd.. But as a person never really exposed to much alcohol, not sure if that is normal or not. I remember making a big scene about it sayng something to the effect of " are you kidding me?" and he looked stunned.
His drinking, from all reports, has actually towned down a lot in the last year or so. It is just hard for me to understand how a person would be so "devoted" to a substance that they are supposedly not hooked on that they would not give it up for the person they supposedly love. I know there are some control issues there to consider, but if I loved someone, and something I did just really upset them, I would probably stop doing it unless it was something I felt was essential for my health or spiritual well-being. Sometimes, I feel that drinking is like a security blanket for him (which I can't understand). Yet, he has a hard time understanding people with weight issues....imagine that. I tell him that it is not different than his issue..He even made the comment that he just can't see how a person can drink a full can of coke and then go right back for another one. I told him I can't see how a person can drink a full can of beer and want another one... He just can't see the correlation....
Well, he and I are not talking right now, so I certainly have time to think about all of this. I have a student who lost her mom and little brother to a drunk driver. I am starting to hate alcohol more and more everyday.

silkspin

My H's drinking didn't bother me for a long time while I was drinking and socializing alongside him - but as we got older and it stopped for me and not for him, I realized there was a problem. He was a weekend binger, like an eternal university student.

I couldn't understand either why he couldn't just stop it like everyone else. I tried and tried, and talked with him, which eventually led to fighting which eventually led to more anxiety and thinking about it and on and on. This will get you nowhere. It doesn't matter why he finds it so important; he simply does. He may have a problem or not. You mention that you don't know how someone can't give up something that another finds upsetting, that you would unless it's essential. You are right, there is a control issue here. You are defining 'essential' by your yardstick, not his. We are all on this earth to live out our lives as we wish and see fit, and no one else has the right to infringe upon that. The others are right. Can you accept him as he is? I'd say you can try to stop examining why he drinks and start examining why you put up with it if it hurts you. Think of what you can do to improve the situation without expecting him to do anything. And, if he is in fact an A, then we will all warn you now that you won't win against it - they will choose it over just about anything. My A when he was drinking would tell me that our new baby made him want to be a better man, and he was still coming home wasted on a Friday night after leaving me all evening with a newborn. It's that powerful.

Freedom1990

I am a recovering alcoholic, I was married to an active alcoholic, and my oldest daughter is an active alcoholic/addict.

I've found that I need to be true to myself. This means that alcohol has no place in my life.

I spent far too many years compromising my beliefs for men/relationships, and I am no longer willing to do that.

I don't even take a front seat to my oldest daughter's alcoholism anymore.