parallel

Hello everyone,
I have been together with my alcoholic boyfriend for 1 year now.
I cannot imagine anyone I could love in his place - he is just the dearest person to my heart.

He alternates periods of drinking with periods of trying to get sober with medication - disulfiram. When he drinks his behaviour goes from being very emotionally expressive to being aggressive (not physically, just overall in a very bad mood) to being sad or confused. During some periods he seems to consider his drinking "not a problem" and doesn't want to feel like a freak for not being able to drink with our friends (who do tend to drink too much).
Other times he recognizes that he simply can not drink.

My boyfriend has recently suffered injuries due to drinking. He has tried to get sober, and I have stood by him the whole time and helped him recover from the injuries.

He was genuinely trying to recover and we were having a peaceful time together. However I just couldn't prevent myself from crying out of the blue every afternoon, for no apparent reason, or to get anxious feelings.
We could be doing something good, but anxiety just came at me from out of nowhere.

I know it must be related to the stress and sadness of previous periods (this is a recurrent problem since 1 year now). But it didn't help my boyfriend feel better either - he seemed to get worried about me, and eventually to ruin his feeling of wellness.

Now I think I am experiencing some sort of a breakdown. Unfortunately I haven't managed to get myself together yet. My boyfriend has relapsed into drinking, even though he hasn't been drinking so much that he gets aggressive, but his drinking habit is taking hold of him (he can't resist drinking something each day, and eventually getting drunk every other day), and sooner or later bad things will happen again.

That worries me a lot. As I kept on crying or getting anxious, and now with him being back at drinking, he seemed to get emotionally distant from me.

I know my anxiety comes from the whole situation, but when I try to communicate this to him mostly I feel needy, abbandoned, and I tell him I'm afraid he will leave me or stop loving me. Maybe this is an emotionally inadequate response, that I don't quite understand. Has this happened with anyone alse?

I think that unconsciously he must know that his relapse into drinking is a problem, but consciously he seems to "overlook" that, and he distances himself emotionally from me, somehow making me feel like the one with the inadequate behaviour of anxiety.
He says that he "doesn't understand why I am sad if everything is fine".

He seems to forget about all the bad things that have happened in the past. Many times he didn't remember them the morning after, and I have been the one who has told him about them. Maybe because he doesn't remember he doesn't understand that they worry me even weeks after they happened.

I want to be positive, to laugh, to create a positive environment, but I just can't seem to get out of this situation at the moment.
I feel that it will take some time now for my boyfriend to want to get sober again, and I fear for the next weeks.

Thank you for letting me share these feelings, it feels better to be with other people. And I wish everyone reading my deepest best feeligns.

CeciliaV

Ugh, I'm so sorry to hear what you're going through, but you're definitely not alone. Sounds to me like a form of PTSD. You've had traumatic experiences, and there are triggers that will set off your anxiety in different situations. For me, sometimes it's actual triggers of his behaviors (a certain way he walks/talks/moves), and sometimes it's just perceived triggers (like feeling "uh oh, this is going so well right now, so we're due for it to go horribly wrong, right?!"). Some of those perceived triggers are just my anxiety taking over, and some of them are my gut telling me to pay attention & that something actually IS wrong.

Alcoholics are emotionally all over the place. Mine drinks to numb himself and hide from his problems (although the logical part of him knows it just creates even more problems). He has short swings into being totally distant and non-present, and longer swings through wildly emotional and hypersensitive territory. Each A is different in that way I suppose. But the long & short of it is that when they are drunk, they are not the best version of themselves...far from it. When dry, they can be the most fantabulous people in the world. When not, they can turn into the biggest meanies, jerks, a-holes, and crybabies you will ever see. You, me, and everyone else here DESERVE the best version of our partners, not the crappy drunk facsimile!

I'm slowly learning that I can't make my AH be the best version of himself. I do hope for his sake that he figures out that he does want that for himself and figures out how to go about doing it for real. I can only work on being the best version of me that I can be.

Katiekate

It sounds to me, and I am not a professional that you are traumatized. From what say , there has been abuse in this relationship.

If you are feeling you have suffered some kind of breakdown, might be a good idea to get yourself into some counseling, honey, you have to address your own emotional health.

Your A BF , unfortunately is in the grips of active addicition, it does not get better from here on out, it just gets worse, he does not have the strength nor the capcity to be of any kind of support to you.

It might be time to turn your attention away for your A BF and turn it toward yourself. Your own train seems to be running off the rail, it's not a good situation.

Take good care of yourself and keep posting, Katie

Trilogy

I know. We fret and cry, can't take care of ourselves to eat and sleep, and become devastated over things they can't even remember, or have the ability to remember in a vastly different way than reality. Convenient, self- indulging disease, isn't it? But we are the ones more based in reality and we need to trust our own memories as accurate.

Katiekate

So true Trilogy, it's sickening.

:ghug3

NYCDoglvr

I'm so very sorry for your pain and the tough situation you're in. Have you talked to a therapist about this situation? You may also have come to realize that there's nothing you can do or say that will affect your BF's drinking. One of the hardest things I've had to face is how powerless I am over other people and their diseases. I recommend Al-anon, which taught me tools for coping with this situation. When alcoholic's drink they distance themselves from everyone and focus on alcohol so don't take it personally.

parallel

Thank you everyone for your strength and for the insight.

The relationship has been abusive at times, many times when he was drinking some nights just seemed like a nightmare, and I recognize that in sober days during "drinking periods" thinks aren't much better either. Bad moods, destructive thoughts, getting his driving license taken by the police, etc, these are all sad things that just don't fit with the actual sober person that is so loving, interesting and most of all positive.

CeciliaV I feel what you mean - sometimes our bodies try to warn us about bad things, and we sometimes misinterpret the warnings and direct them towards ourselves through insecurity, but many times they may be important signs..

I am taking everyone's advice and trying to take care of myself for the moment. So I am spending the weekend at my parent's, apart from my boyfriend.

I have been trying some breathing exercises, going to bed earlier and trying to focus on each present moment. It seems to help not to fall into anxiety attacks.
But of course it is easier when we are not facing the actual situation.
But I do feel like my energy is slowly coming back, and will try the best to keep it in the next days.

I just wish I could communicate openly with my boyfriend and that he communicate back, that we could share our thoughts and feelings on this.
Unfortunately that doesn't seem to be possible at the moment, because he just is "not there".
I will do as you say NYCDoglvr and not take it personally...