Newbie, looking for some words of wisdom
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Thread Starter
Join Date: Jul 2013
Posts: 2
Newbie, looking for some words of wisdom
Hi all! I'm new to this site and not really sure how to begin.
I've been with my alcoholic boyfriend for 10 months, but his addiction has only recently become "real" to me. Last month it came out that we both cheated on each other. He had always been very detached and casual about our relationship but this sent him over the edge and he went on a week long bender of not just alcohol, but also cocaine, pain killers, and xanax with almost no food or sleep. He began having panic attacks and eventually confessed some longstanding suicidal feelings and hopelessness, as well as some serious feelings for me that caught me completely off guard. The craziness has passed, but we are more enmeshed than ever.
Both his mom and I have confronted him about getting treatment, but he doesn’t have health insurance and insists he isn’t addicted. He bargained to stop using for a week to prove he isn’t addicted, which satisfied none of my concerns. He is a high functioning alcoholic and seems to fly under the radar as a “heavy drinker”. The people he surrounds himself with also use heavily and seem to capitalize on the same façade I feel is a symptom of his sadness. I think most of them are unaware of the extent of his depression/substance abuse. He is only 26, and considers himself “old”, “f**ked up”, and “jaded”.
I’m here because I have codependency and abandonment issues stemming from my childhood with an addict parent, and I’m growing more and more frustrated with my inability to end this relationship. My boyfriend is genuinely sweet, generous, attentive, and invested in our relationship and I love him, but I feel anxious and unfulfilled. I have broken up with him once or twice before, but never for more than a week. He is the only man I’ve dated who won’t let go and given my past, that is incredibly difficult for me to say no to. I can’t believe I can write this all out and still lack the conviction to cut the cord.
I hope someone here can share their experience and maybe give some words of advice.
I've been with my alcoholic boyfriend for 10 months, but his addiction has only recently become "real" to me. Last month it came out that we both cheated on each other. He had always been very detached and casual about our relationship but this sent him over the edge and he went on a week long bender of not just alcohol, but also cocaine, pain killers, and xanax with almost no food or sleep. He began having panic attacks and eventually confessed some longstanding suicidal feelings and hopelessness, as well as some serious feelings for me that caught me completely off guard. The craziness has passed, but we are more enmeshed than ever.
Both his mom and I have confronted him about getting treatment, but he doesn’t have health insurance and insists he isn’t addicted. He bargained to stop using for a week to prove he isn’t addicted, which satisfied none of my concerns. He is a high functioning alcoholic and seems to fly under the radar as a “heavy drinker”. The people he surrounds himself with also use heavily and seem to capitalize on the same façade I feel is a symptom of his sadness. I think most of them are unaware of the extent of his depression/substance abuse. He is only 26, and considers himself “old”, “f**ked up”, and “jaded”.
I’m here because I have codependency and abandonment issues stemming from my childhood with an addict parent, and I’m growing more and more frustrated with my inability to end this relationship. My boyfriend is genuinely sweet, generous, attentive, and invested in our relationship and I love him, but I feel anxious and unfulfilled. I have broken up with him once or twice before, but never for more than a week. He is the only man I’ve dated who won’t let go and given my past, that is incredibly difficult for me to say no to. I can’t believe I can write this all out and still lack the conviction to cut the cord.
I hope someone here can share their experience and maybe give some words of advice.
Member
Join Date: Jun 2013
Posts: 199
Magiccat, your wisdom is right there in your words and I know you know that. You are wise and I think you can also be courageous, and it sounds like you're very close to taking steps that are not only healthy for you, but brave in how much you've had to overcome from your past.
I'm not an expert on any of this, but i know support helps a lot. Be true to yourself. Come here and post often. Get to Al Anon. And like many people have said here so well, make sure you are taking good care of YOU.
I'm not an expert on any of this, but i know support helps a lot. Be true to yourself. Come here and post often. Get to Al Anon. And like many people have said here so well, make sure you are taking good care of YOU.
Member
Join Date: Jan 2013
Location: New York
Posts: 877
Hi Magiccat,
I've got codependency and abandonment issues too--I think a lot of us on here do. And like you, it's hard for me to say no to someone's adoration. I couldn't leave my exabf either. I wanted out for so long but could never manage to free myself from his manipulation and emotional abuse. In the end he left me because I got too involved in his addiction.
Talk about having my abandonment issues triggered! I did not know what to make of being abandonned by someone I had failed to leave for three years, someone I wanted out of MY life. This was a VERY hard blow for me. I really wish I had left him and saved myself this pain. I'm ashamed on top of everything else.
If your BF is really an alkie like you say he is, his first love is booze and only booze. He will act like he loves you but he is incapable of love in the true sense of the word. If you want out of the relartionship, fight through the discomfort and leave. There are many of us on here who can attest to the amount of pain you will be saving yourself. Your bf may act devastated but if he is an active A, the only loss with the potential to devastate him is the loss of alcohol.
Keep posting. SR is such an amazing source of support. We are glad you are here.
I've got codependency and abandonment issues too--I think a lot of us on here do. And like you, it's hard for me to say no to someone's adoration. I couldn't leave my exabf either. I wanted out for so long but could never manage to free myself from his manipulation and emotional abuse. In the end he left me because I got too involved in his addiction.
Talk about having my abandonment issues triggered! I did not know what to make of being abandonned by someone I had failed to leave for three years, someone I wanted out of MY life. This was a VERY hard blow for me. I really wish I had left him and saved myself this pain. I'm ashamed on top of everything else.
If your BF is really an alkie like you say he is, his first love is booze and only booze. He will act like he loves you but he is incapable of love in the true sense of the word. If you want out of the relartionship, fight through the discomfort and leave. There are many of us on here who can attest to the amount of pain you will be saving yourself. Your bf may act devastated but if he is an active A, the only loss with the potential to devastate him is the loss of alcohol.
Keep posting. SR is such an amazing source of support. We are glad you are here.
I Love Who I Am
Join Date: Sep 2009
Location: Midwest
Posts: 3,210
My boyfriend is genuinely sweet, generous, attentive, and invested in our relationship and I love him, but I feel anxious and unfulfilled.
I can't explain why this phrase jumped out at me, but it's so telling.
Keep coming back. I also recommend the stickies at the top. Classic reads is my favorite.
Welcome!
Getting there!!
Join Date: Mar 2012
Posts: 5,750
Working on your codependency issues will help you gain strength and knowledge. I highly recommend the book Codependent No More. Also, alanon and/or a therapist may be a wise idea to work on some of your childhood issues.
Keep the focus on you or you will become as unhealthy as he is.
Welcome to SR.
Keep the focus on you or you will become as unhealthy as he is.
Welcome to SR.
Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Jul 2013
Posts: 2
Thank you for all of the welcomes! I've been in therapy for almost 2 years now and it's unsettling to see how comfortable codependency still is for me. I've been lurking this forum for a while and I'm glad to have finally joined.
Member
Join Date: Dec 2010
Location: Midwest, USA
Posts: 2,899
First, hi and welcome!
I want to challenge/questions these statements in bold.
The problem is that sweet, generous, and invested, are sitting right alongside cheating, detached, and unstable. I like to say that it's good for us to remember that Jekyll and Hyde lived in the same body. You get one, you get the other. Personally that's not an equation that I want to live with anymore.
The second is the "given my past" part. What is it about your past that keeps you in this relationship? Do you feel free to be angry with the way you were raised in an addictive household? Do you feel free to feel indignant about the casual and manipulative way your ABF treats you? Your parents are not you, your past is not you. Every day gives you the opportunity to try something different, to be someone new, to do new things, and to try on a new way of living. I'm going to suggest gently, because I've been there and know it's hard to see a new way of life, that perhaps it's not that the chains are holding you down, but that you're holding onto the chains.
I was in therapy for a long, long while to see that new way of life. What I know now is that when I don't exercise my newer, healthier choices, I find myself mired in all the old stuff that otherwise dominates my life: addicted people, pushy people who don't respect my boundaries, depression, darkness, and anger at myself and others. I like this new way much better.
I’m here because I have codependency and abandonment issues stemming from my childhood with an addict parent, and I’m growing more and more frustrated with my inability to end this relationship. My boyfriend is genuinely sweet, generous, attentive, and invested in our relationship and I love him, but I feel anxious and unfulfilled. I have broken up with him once or twice before, but never for more than a week. He is the only man I’ve dated who won’t let go and given my past, that is incredibly difficult for me to say no to.
The problem is that sweet, generous, and invested, are sitting right alongside cheating, detached, and unstable. I like to say that it's good for us to remember that Jekyll and Hyde lived in the same body. You get one, you get the other. Personally that's not an equation that I want to live with anymore.
The second is the "given my past" part. What is it about your past that keeps you in this relationship? Do you feel free to be angry with the way you were raised in an addictive household? Do you feel free to feel indignant about the casual and manipulative way your ABF treats you? Your parents are not you, your past is not you. Every day gives you the opportunity to try something different, to be someone new, to do new things, and to try on a new way of living. I'm going to suggest gently, because I've been there and know it's hard to see a new way of life, that perhaps it's not that the chains are holding you down, but that you're holding onto the chains.
I was in therapy for a long, long while to see that new way of life. What I know now is that when I don't exercise my newer, healthier choices, I find myself mired in all the old stuff that otherwise dominates my life: addicted people, pushy people who don't respect my boundaries, depression, darkness, and anger at myself and others. I like this new way much better.
Member
Join Date: May 2012
Location: Florida
Posts: 6,781
Magic, welcome! It sounds like you know exactly what you want and are just lacking the conviction to follow through, which many of us here can relate to.
Keep reading here & you'll see what is in store for your ABF & your relationship as his addiction progresses. With all that you are facing: heavy drinking, drugging, suicidal impulses coupled with every excuse in the book to NOT quit or change anything in his life, you can ONLY be concerned with you. (I mean seriously - no health insurance? RAH doesn't have any either but AA is free! He HAS options but they don't feed his "poor me" tragic attitude & require him to take some responsibility to make changes happen in his life.)
None of us can tell you what to do but I can say that if *I* was only 10 months into a relationship that already had THIS much dysfunction & I could see it as clearly as you seem to be able to, well, I'd be out the door as quickly as I could disentangle myself without repercussions.
You sound relatively young yourself so consider: Is THIS how you want to spend the next foreseeable years of your life, or do you want something different/better?
Keep reading here & you'll see what is in store for your ABF & your relationship as his addiction progresses. With all that you are facing: heavy drinking, drugging, suicidal impulses coupled with every excuse in the book to NOT quit or change anything in his life, you can ONLY be concerned with you. (I mean seriously - no health insurance? RAH doesn't have any either but AA is free! He HAS options but they don't feed his "poor me" tragic attitude & require him to take some responsibility to make changes happen in his life.)
None of us can tell you what to do but I can say that if *I* was only 10 months into a relationship that already had THIS much dysfunction & I could see it as clearly as you seem to be able to, well, I'd be out the door as quickly as I could disentangle myself without repercussions.
You sound relatively young yourself so consider: Is THIS how you want to spend the next foreseeable years of your life, or do you want something different/better?
Member
Join Date: Oct 2012
Location: New England
Posts: 350
Picture yourself with him in 20 years - he'll be that much "old"er, that much more "effed up and jaded," and where will YOU be? Do you want children? Do you want them with THIS guy? Is this the guy you want to buy a house with? Retire with? He may get better, he may not. Is that how you want to spend your one and only life? Florence makes an excellent point when she says that along with Dr. Jekyll you get Mr. Hyde. He's part of the package. Not sure that is a good deal for you...but only you can decide that.
Codependence and dysfunction are more comfortable because they are what we know. The unknown is scary and that is not comfortable. It's a leap of faith to believe that it will be better in the long run, isn't it? I'm glad you found SR.
Codependence and dysfunction are more comfortable because they are what we know. The unknown is scary and that is not comfortable. It's a leap of faith to believe that it will be better in the long run, isn't it? I'm glad you found SR.
Member
Join Date: May 2012
Posts: 1,295
Anxious and unfulfilled.
Did these feelings contribute to you cheating on him? Perhaps, but there is more to it than that. I would investigate within myself how I justified cheating on him, and find out where the logic was flawed, because it was.
I understand how his using makes a lot of the crazies in the relationship between the two of you.
But crazy is on both sides in all dysfunctional relationships, and this is one of the first things we discover when we take a hard look at relationships with an alcoholic. We can analyze him until the cows come home, but only you can take a look at yourself and what you are doing to contribute to those dysfunctions.
The anxious I get, simply from his using. It keeps us on the edge of our seat, never fully able to relax, never knowing how the using crazies will be acted out next.
The unfulfilled part, now that is interesting and warrants more introspection. What is it you need that you aren't getting from him? This is an answer within yourself, and you will not find the answer by focusing on him. Does the unfulfillment stem from yourself as well as relationship-wise? I would focus on this with your therapist.
You have to pull yourself up, raise yourself, your standards. If his using is unacceptable, so too, you have to decide that cheating on your part is. Every time we raise our self up, and make one more thing unacceptable in our own behavior, we raise ourselves one step farther from the crazies, commonly known as dysfunction, and we can see it better, however it manifests itself. It clears our vision. It is also how we get stronger, it is the direct path, the only path as far as I can see to inner-strength.
Boundaries are not only what we are willing to put up with in the behaviors of others. Boundaries are also what we are willing to accept as "acceptable" in our own behaviors.
I am not judging you. I have cheated myself. If you thought I was judging you, re-read it without that thought in mind.
Did these feelings contribute to you cheating on him? Perhaps, but there is more to it than that. I would investigate within myself how I justified cheating on him, and find out where the logic was flawed, because it was.
I understand how his using makes a lot of the crazies in the relationship between the two of you.
But crazy is on both sides in all dysfunctional relationships, and this is one of the first things we discover when we take a hard look at relationships with an alcoholic. We can analyze him until the cows come home, but only you can take a look at yourself and what you are doing to contribute to those dysfunctions.
The anxious I get, simply from his using. It keeps us on the edge of our seat, never fully able to relax, never knowing how the using crazies will be acted out next.
The unfulfilled part, now that is interesting and warrants more introspection. What is it you need that you aren't getting from him? This is an answer within yourself, and you will not find the answer by focusing on him. Does the unfulfillment stem from yourself as well as relationship-wise? I would focus on this with your therapist.
You have to pull yourself up, raise yourself, your standards. If his using is unacceptable, so too, you have to decide that cheating on your part is. Every time we raise our self up, and make one more thing unacceptable in our own behavior, we raise ourselves one step farther from the crazies, commonly known as dysfunction, and we can see it better, however it manifests itself. It clears our vision. It is also how we get stronger, it is the direct path, the only path as far as I can see to inner-strength.
Boundaries are not only what we are willing to put up with in the behaviors of others. Boundaries are also what we are willing to accept as "acceptable" in our own behaviors.
I am not judging you. I have cheated myself. If you thought I was judging you, re-read it without that thought in mind.
Member
Join Date: Jul 2010
Posts: 821
Hello and welcome.
I'm one of those that would say it gets harder.
I married my AW.
I had a lovely child with my AW.
I bought a house with my AW.
I've lived through active drinking, sober living and now relapsed living with her and it all sucks.
It's tough as hell.
My son is my saving grace. That said, I would have to take a long time considering if I'd put your shoes on and do my life over again. Think about that for a bit and perhaps you'll see just how much harder it gets.
I say run like the wind if you can. I didn't.
I also noticed that not only is he suffering addictions but you said you both cheated on each other. That's no way to start/continue a relationship.
I'm one of those that would say it gets harder.
I married my AW.
I had a lovely child with my AW.
I bought a house with my AW.
I've lived through active drinking, sober living and now relapsed living with her and it all sucks.
It's tough as hell.
My son is my saving grace. That said, I would have to take a long time considering if I'd put your shoes on and do my life over again. Think about that for a bit and perhaps you'll see just how much harder it gets.
I say run like the wind if you can. I didn't.
I also noticed that not only is he suffering addictions but you said you both cheated on each other. That's no way to start/continue a relationship.
Member
Join Date: May 2011
Location: Memphis, TN
Posts: 2,884
Hi and welcome.
Let's see if I can put this in perspective.
Alcoholism is a progressive disease. It only gets worse unless there is a commitment to recovery.
So, as you go forward things will continue to get worse. Read the "things a Normie doesn't know" threads ( 1 and 2 ). There you will find out about ER visits, rehab, detox, more ER visits, therapy, al-anon, verbal abuse, cheating, dishonesty, police visits to the house and on and on.
It is hell.
Now the question you have to ask yourself is that you are standing at the gates of hell, do you really want to walk in there?
Your friend,
Let's see if I can put this in perspective.
Alcoholism is a progressive disease. It only gets worse unless there is a commitment to recovery.
So, as you go forward things will continue to get worse. Read the "things a Normie doesn't know" threads ( 1 and 2 ). There you will find out about ER visits, rehab, detox, more ER visits, therapy, al-anon, verbal abuse, cheating, dishonesty, police visits to the house and on and on.
It is hell.
Now the question you have to ask yourself is that you are standing at the gates of hell, do you really want to walk in there?
Your friend,
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