Corkie

or thoughts, or...something.

My BF was/is an alcoholic. He quit drinking earlier this year.
Shortly after he quit he started drinkign here and there wihout telling me, I found out and was angry.
he quit ttally again. He's supposedly been sober from around March or April of this year.
We broke up in between there, for reasons unrelated to alcohol.
Mid-August we got back together. For about 1 week things were great. From that point on he'd come over and he'd smell like, what I thought, was beer. I didn't say anything right away. I used to come here before and remember words from other posters and chapters from my book on co-dependancy and figured...just let him do what he's got to do.
It kept occuring. One night he came over and was acting odd, of course he smelled like beer...but again, I think due to wishful thinking, thought...it can't be, he can't be, he knows I'll leave if he's drinking again, there's no way!

So, 2 weekends ago we go away with his family, my kids etc.
he didn't spend too much time with me and the children. (2 of which are his, and 2 were his niece and nephew) He spent a large portion of his time with his Mother and step-father, sister and her husband....all of whom drink. A few times he had come back smelling of beer.

Combined with the lack of respect for me that weekend, I recently brought the whole thing up to him. How I was angry, and that he's been coming around smellig of booze.
he says there is NO WAY he could smell like beer because he doesn't drink. he said if he drinks he'll die, and that there is no way he smelled like it. he also said that he cannot even stand the SMELL of beer anymore! He said that 99% of the time my gut is right but that this time I am wrong. he seems VERY adament that he is not drinking anything! He said that obviously he is eating something that is making this occur.
He came over last night and asked me to smell his breath I did....and it smelled like nothing...just the usual.
he still swears he's not drinking.....here's the thing.....I don't believe him.
I want to believe him, I want to move past this. But...he knows that that is my breaking point. That combined with him lying about it is a HUGE deal breaker for me, and he knos this. Which gives him every reason to lie. He'll lose me!

So my question is: Has anyone ever heard of an alcoholic quitting and then not being able to stand the smell of the very thing they were addicted to for over 20 years?
Does this sound fishy to anyone else?

MsPINKAcres

Hi Corkie,

What I have learned in my journey of recovery is to trust myself.

To trust my instincts, trust the God of my understanding, trust my truths, and that peope say lots of things because they really WANT them to be true, but their actions usually show the truth.

SO I try to base my decisions on ACTIONS not words.

There are many resources available for you to help you deal with this situation - which will probably be on going for the rest of your life if you are going to have a future with this man. Al-Anon, recovery litature, SR, working with your HP, journaling, etc.

He could very well be telling the truth - he could be lying - probably only HE & HIS GOD know.

Can you be in a healthy relationship with someone and allow that person to work on his own sobriety and take care of your own "garden of self"? Set those healthy boundaries and enforce them?

These are just some suggestions of things to do to help in a relationship with a person who has a problem with alcohol/substance abuse.

PINK HUGS,
Rita

smacked

I think its very normal for a non-drinking alcoholic to be repulsed by the smell of alcohol..bout as normal as an ex smoker disliking the smell of cigarette smoke.

On the other hand..I haven't smelled of alcohol since I quit drinking. Unless he's got some really seroius diabetes that is left untreated, there's no way he smells like he's been drinking if he hasn't.

Go with your gut.

Corkie

Thank you both for your replies. I know all about the literature and how helpful SR is....I used to come here under a different name, and I'm wishing now I hadn't told him I came to this site! (He does too, but goes to the other forum, obviously)

I'm still no further ahead in this predicament. There have been issues with lying and trust (in general) in our past so to think of him potentially lying about this upsets me because that's a deal breaker for me, and he knows it. I WANT to believe him. I WANT to believe that he wasn't having a few drinks before coming to my house.
But, the boundaries I set for myself were that if he drank again and/or lied to me again...that was it. I was going to have to move on for good.
This is why this is so important....I cannot live the way i did in the past, and I know it's progressive. So, if he DID drink and lied obviously he's having trouble quitting. If he's having trouble quitting, I cannot risk delving deeper into a relationship out of fear that he starts to drink more, or lie more, or god forbid have my life turn out like it did with him in the past.

I'm babbling....

nodaybut2day

um...spring a breathalizer test on him?

I know, I know, it's not going to solve anything.

Honestly, if it looks like **** and it smells like ****, then it's probably ****. Trust your gut.

Corkie

He is very adament that he did not drink. But stuff he says desn't make sense, like "It was probably something I ate" (Oh really? You ate soemthing that made em think you were drinking? And you ate it prior to coming over to my house AND on a weekend we were away??) and he also said he'd take a blood test because it stays in your system for a long time. (I asked him if he thought I was stupid)

I guess I'm struggling with...if I trust my gut and walk away from this...what if I'm wrong?

nodaybut2day

I don't know where your spiritual beliefs lie, or if you have any, but having been an atheist who has been through a smallish ringer with my XAH, I have come to believe in the purpose of HP/The Universe/God/Whateveryouwannacallit. If you and your partner are meant to be, then it will happen. If you are wrong, the something somewhere down the road will bring you two together again.

However, being a strong believer in purpose, I wonder if this isn't a gift from your Higher Power, giving you an opportunity to see to learn how to trust yourself. That's no small gift.

In the end, it's possible to just decide that whatever he says, you've made up your mind because you trust in your instinct.

Hadassah

It's hard to accept that the person that you took vows with would be lying to you. I went through the same thing, before my ah left. He lied to me about everything, and it took me awhile to figure it out. You know what the truth is. Like others have said, trust yourself. Blessings,H

seekingcalm

I was living with my ABF. I moved in on the condition that he stop drinking and get help.

So, he went to AA meetings, sometimes twice a day, and he drank anyway, in secret, sometimes before meetings, sometimes after, before he came home.

And I KNEW, and I smelled it, but he denied it, so vehemently. He made me feel bad for not trusting him. I wanted to believe him...He was going to meetings, reading the Big Book!!!!!

I began reading here, and I had been going to Al Anon, but I was in denial for a long time.

I believed my happiness was completely tied up in him. I was wrong.

When I finally said, "I know you are drinking and lying and sneaking, so if you are going to drink, go right ahead," he admitted it. He jumped at the chance. He said he hated going to AA, and would never go back. Once I removed the fact that I would leave if he drank, then he just drank right in front of my face.

I left shortly after, because it turned out, it really was a deal breaker for me.

Trust your gut. I almost lost my mind trying to believe anything that was different from what I knew deep inside was true.

Al anon has helped me a lot. I hope you will stay here. So many great people with so much to share.
Take care of you.

Learn2Live

I have been in many relationships, some with alcoholics, some with addicts, and some with non-As & As. I have found in ALL of those relationships that it was never so much the details that mattered, but instead it was whether or not I felt I could trust the person. Of course it is the details of their words and behavior that created the trust and distrust, but in the end it always boiled down to "Am I comfortable in my daily life with this person?" and "Do I know in my heart that I can trust him?"

I think you know the answer you are looking for. Maybe focus on learning how to let go.

Bolina

Hi Corkie

Sometimes when we set a boundary and make it known, it sets of a chain of unexpected consequences. If the consequence is a big one, yet the other person wants to continue the action bad enough (and they are a little slippery in character), then it makes a warped kind of sense to hide and lie. Because they want to have their cake and eat it.

If I were in your position, I wouldn't mention it again. Just sit back and smile and observe. Because if he is drinking again, you will know. Without a shadow of a doubt. I get the sense that your senses are highly tuned. But he won't tell you, because he has too much to lose. So, if you are serious about leaving if he drinks, you don't need an admission from him, nor his permission.

Trust your gut. And don't rely on him to confirm it.

KerBearz

Hi Corkie, Welcome to SR!
I read your story and it reminded me of a situation I had with my AH. He was on a court ordered at-home sobrietor that he had to blow into 3 times a day. Well, one day the alarm kept going off ~ he'd redo the test and the alarm would go off again. Finally, he called the company and they told him that the test was showing up as positive.
"How could that possibly be?!"
"There's something wrong with the equipment!"
"Maybe it was something I ate!"
"Do I really think it's possible he would risk things by drinking?!"

Well, he kept up that line of bs (with me believing him) right up until the police showed up to arrest him. It seemed totally out of the realm of possibility that he would risk his freedom for a beer. Later he admitted to me that he'd been drinking. He just figured he could get away with it. I will never again underestimate the power of the drink. Trust your instincts!

missphit

Corkie,
your story is a familiar one to me too. i've smelled beer in the past when my AH was not drinking, but really was....i didn't trust my gut and he said he didn't drink and it must have been something he ate....i know today, that i cannot be with someone i cannot trust and that always leaves be suspicious and can't be honest about his actions....it would be easier for me to know the truth, but it is not something he can do, so i can no longer live here and he will have to find someone else to lie to, but that's just me. Trust your gut and think about what you are feeling and do whatever is best for YOU, not for him. that is your only responsibility.

Corkie

Update:

One of the the times I said he smelled like beer, he's come up with a story.
he emailed me a little while ago and said that there was something he didn't tell me. He said that he had driven his sister to the grocery store and the beer store. (I knew this part, and I was VERY unhappy because his Mom and sister asked him to go to the beer/liquor store for them. Talk about being unsupportive!) Anyway, he tells me today that in truck on the way back, his sister opened a beer, reached to change the radio as he reached forhis iPod and she spilled beer on his hand. He said he freaked out on her.

I'm sorry, but I'm calling BS on this one! Even if this DID happen, why wouldn't he tell me? Why keep it to himself until now? Why wouldn't he come out with it when I asked him about the smell? I smelled i on his breath by the way, not his hand.

ARGH!

dollydo

Ahhh, does not compute. Me exabf always lied about his drinking. He really thought I was as dumb as a box of rocks! I wasn't.

Trust your gut, it won't lie to you!

jmscby10

it sounds like he is feeding u a line of **IT

stilllearning

"he still swears he's not drinking.....here's the thing.....I don't believe him."

I remember being in this place soooo well. My XABF never, not once took a drink around me. His behavior changed completely some months into the relationship and I immediately knew, on a gut level, what was going on. Lied to myself. Eventually he came clean and swore that he was done "this time." One night he came over late - we went to bed and he -reeked- of beer. I was half asleep and asked whether he had been drinking. Oh, the %^&* storm that followed. I didn't "trust" him, yada yada ... you know the drill. He said he had eaten Indian food before he came over (?!)

I learned quickly not to ask - and to lie to myself about what I knew. Which is crazy. It's a hallmark of the disease and I've since read on the boards about people breathalyzing an A then having the A tell them the machine must be broken.

Looking back I realize how futile it was to expect an A to be honest about their drinking. People who don't have a problem with alcohol don't lie about their alcohol consumption. People who do, do. But I pretended to buy it, then I stopped asking. And truly, it wouldn't matter whether he had come to bed smelling of vanilla and molasses - by that point his behavior was harmful and unacceptable and that was all I really needed to know.

As a postscript, when I got the last of my stuff back he packed some of it in a reusable grocery bag. At the bottom was a receipt for a six pack of beer and the date on it was that Saturday that he'd eaten "Indian" food. No idea whether he meant for it to be in there (I suspect not) but that receipt was really important to me at the time. I shouldn't have needed a piece of paper to show me in black and white what I knew but at that stage, I still did.

You don't believe him - and this is probably because he's not telling you the truth. So what now?

Hugs,

SL

LaTeeDa

Or maybe, since there were no napkins or paper towels available, he had to suck the beer off his hand. LOL

L

coffeedrinker

Because he didn't think of it at the time. And now, the stakes are higher. As you said, this is a deal-breaker, and he doesn't want to lose you.

I am sorry you have to go through this. But go through it you must, so that you can learn whatever lessons life has in mind for you. As we all do.

They are so, so, so convincing. They learned to be long ago, as a self-preservation tactic. The convincing-ness comes very easily after a lifetime of using it. Mine was so frickin good at it, my head was spinning so much I'm surprised it didn't fly off like a kid's top.


And, sweetheart, glad you're here. This is a very wonderful forum, as you know from your history of visits. Just wanted to make it official:

sesh

If someone smells of alcohol it can mean only one thing: he was drinking.
Hon, he is an A. And he doesn't want to lose you. So he lies.
To me this sounds as simpe as that.
It has nothing to do with you, lack of love, lack of respect of whatever, only with the disease of alcoholism.
I suggest you read stickies at the top of the board, there is some great wisdom there that can help you learn more about this disease. I reread this thread few days ago, and I'm thinking maybe it would do you good to read it
http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...cters-1-a.html
take care