HaveAGreatDay

Hello. I have not posted before, but feel this community may help put to rest my ambivalent feelings about leaving an alcoholic.

I fell for her almost immediately, though it was a very brief introduction. There was no drinking. Months later I saw her again, a group of us having a good time socially drinking, including her. The moment we were alone, it was like she hit a switch and was very flirty and cute acting towards me in a way that I was actually taken aback by. Something was slightly off here my intuition told me.

The next get together we spent the afternoon talking about her difficult childhood. She really opened up to me. I had enough to drink after a couple beers, but she continued drinking and soon was inebriated. I left the party feeling that something was off again, not so much over the drinking, many have made that mistake before, but elements of her behavior.

Soon we dated, but some flaky behavior surfaced. I began to suspect she had a drinking problem. I have never experienced this with someone before. We only went on two actual dates, a third date cancelled and the fourth dropped by me when I suspected she would flake. My anxiety had enough and I walked away.

Months later she was in a serious accident, due to drinking and had entered a program. I found out then that she was a high functioning alcoholic, and had been since her teens. A month after the accident we connected, she telling me she was now sober, entered AA etc. She was very open about it, no blame or denial. She knew why she drank. We started dating again, me naively thinking that I would take one day at a time with her sobriety. She was very responsible, no flaky behavior, but she came on VERY fast this time in the relationship, again, making me a bit uncomfortable.

Ultimately I could never truly relax and trust what was happening between us. I started to suspect she was using the relationship as another addiction. I soon learned that she should not have started a relationship at the beginning of sobriety. My anxiety alarms went off again, and I finally put an end to the relationship.

I miss her, but signs of immaturity for her age, impulsiveness, a long trail of men who have come and gone and her growing intensity towards me within a very short period of time simply scared the heck out of me. I sensed this relationship was eventually going to hurt me.

I began learning about alcoholism. I now realize I made the correct decision to move on. I am the white knight type, so eventually I would have been sucked into doing everything I could to "help" her stay sober.

Though I really wanted it to work out, I believe after reading many posts here by all you good people, that regardless how much my heart may disagree with me, I made the correct decision to move on and never look back.

Tuffgirl

Welcome, haveagreatday. Glad you got something from reading here. I know I do.

I am sorry your relationship didn't work out, but agree that no matter how much we want something to be a certain way, its time to let it go when it has proven over and over again its not.

She needs a few years to get her life straightened out. And who knows what the future holds. If its meant to be, it will be again one day. And maybe she'll be in a better place in her life at that point.

Keep reading and keep coming back!
~T

amy55

Hi and welcome to SR,

There were so many flags there that I stopped counting !!!!!!!

You may not know a lot about alcoholism, but you can sure pick up on the red flags!!!!!

nbay2013

Hi haveagreatday; You are awesome for listening to your intuition and honoring your observations. My Ex-AB lived a long way from me when we were first dating...(two years), HOWEVER, I remember thinking at the time, that every time we got together, usually every other weekend, we had cocktails and I was concerned after awhile. This was new for me and I truly enjoyed this as my daughter had just gone to college; I was "empty nest" and was pretty open to adventure and partying even though I am a pretty lite drinker. But I remember thinking that for me it was a temporary thing, but for him it was probably normal and daily. I remember asking him about his drinking, because I had zero interest in someone with addiction issues. He reassured me he did not. Now I know that is when he went undercover with his drinking. He hid it from me. But you can't keep that up. He moved to town two years ago and it took about 6 months for everything to unravel. I think, hopefully, I have better skills now in seeing cues.

Hugs,

Carrie

Carlotta

Congratulations on dodging the bullet. I wish that like you I had followed my intuitions instead of following my heart.

Shadydeal

You are very wise!

Impurrfect

Welcome to SR and congratulations for following through what your gut told you just wasn't quite right. It took me decades and my own decent into addiction (to deal with it) to figure that out.

I do miss "the person they COULD be" but now I know..what COULD be and what IS, can be two totally different things.

Hugs and prayers,

Amy

funkynassau

Congrats on ending this relationship before it really got started, you indeed would have been sucked right in and it probably would have ended badly. Hopefully this lady will get herself together and maybe down the road you can be friends.

I fully believe in listening to my instincts and my gut feelings. I recently ended a friendship with a guy who is a full blown alcoholic, who was making my life miserable and too stressful. I feel a lot better now.

unsureoffuture

I am sorry things didn't work out as you would have wished but I am so glad to hear you trusted your instincts.

When I was dating my now ADH I had this nagging feeling that something just wasn't right. I never in my right mind knew it was alcoholism. We were young, socially drank just as everyone our age did. I didn't think anything of it. He was withdrawan alot and I thought maybe if he got on some antidepressents things would be perfect. I wished I would have listened to my gut back then. Tommorow will be my 11 year anniversary with ADH and looking back now I can see it all relates to alcohol. If I could go back, I would never do it again.

You probably saved yourself a lot of pain and heartache by ending things now. I hope you find someone who truly appreciates all you have to offer and can give you just as much as you give them.

Hammer

Dodge the bullet. My words exact.

Great Day, you did not likely just miss an A, but the profile you were describing is very close to some typical mental illness that tracks along with alcoholism.

atalose

You made a very wise and healty decision for yourself.

HaveAGreatDay

Thank you all for your helpful words. As she is a mutual friend, I am sure I will see her again sometime down the road and see how she is doing. I very much hope she will find the help, strength and happiness she deserves.

HaveAGreatDay

Hello Hammer,

I am curious about the typical mental illness that tracks along with alcoholism that you mentioned in your post. Can you elaborate?

Thank you.

Hammer

There are several. Some of the Personal Disorders (long term, chronic Mental Health) track in long-term addiction and alcoholism. Some of those Cluster B -- PD's are:

Personality disorder - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

But back towards yours -- not saying this is it, but it has some of the early hallmarks . . . .

Romantic BPD Relationships - What You Need to Know About Romantic BPD Relationships

How a Borderline Personality Disorder Love Relationship Evolves - Roger Melton, M.A.

If so, believe me -- you dodged a bullet.

HaveAGreatDay

Hello Hammer.

Very interesting. BPD is the very first thing I zeroed in on when I started researching aspects of her behaviors. The fact that I was even researching relationship behaviors points to the effect the interaction with her was having on me. Later, when I found out that she had a genuine alcohol problem, I simply attributed the behaviors to the alcoholism.

I do not know enough about her past relationships, whether they ultimately trended in a typical BPD arc. I did in a round about way ask her close friend if she had any anger/rage issues in her past relationships, or with her friendships (this would have been a strong marker of BPD), but she seemed to think not, though other indicators, her childhood, very quickly fitting in with me, telling me things that made me feel good, the way the relationship seemed, to me, to be developing too quickly etc., points to the possibility of BPD. Many aspects pointed to BPD accept the confirmation of anger/rage. The way it left me feeling also points to a recovering partner of a BPD relationship. An injured sense of self and what the heck happened? She turned it on fast, made me feel good fast, and when I told her it was best to back things off, she seemed at that moment to turn it off again. I could see it in her eyes and her demeanor. This really took me by surprise and shook me. I thought maybe she was just not that into me, and that was OK if it was no big deal to her, but the way she had deeply and emotionally opened up to me, the things she shared, the way she had been acting towards me, one would have thought that some emotion would have been expressed.

Ironically, the fact that she was only recently sober, was down on the list of concerns I had. I could objectively see the alcohol problem on its own, which I thought I could work with, but I could not put my finger on why I was feeling the way I was towards her, very enamored but also very leary, and the overall vibe of the thing. Now I know the alcohol issue should have been enough to make me pass on the relationship, but it seems there was something else going on.

Writing all this down makes me realize I am still emotionally untangling myself from this experience. Hopefully others can see this as a case study. Possible BPD along with an alcohol component, now that is toxic mess best avoided!

spiderqueen

Good for you ^^^. I am too.

I'm fairly certain my stbxABF suffers from this as well. I was with him for the last 3 years, and believe it or not, 20 years ago, too! (long marriage and kids in between for me.)

I wouldn't wish this combo on my worst enemy - not the having of it, or the living with it.

Meanwhile, we loved them, and it's ok - it doesn't make us idiots or monsters ourselves, though at times, I know I felt like one.

Best to you in your continuing recovery.
SQ

HaveAGreatDay

Hi Spiderqueen.

I agree about "I wouldn't wish this combo on my worst enemy - not the having of it, or the living with it". I feel really sad for this person. The pain she feels, and her frustration with not being able to deal with her issues along with the drinking problem. She basically made it clear she drank to not feel anything. My gosh, what a sad way to go through life. Of course I was very empathetic and caring. I can now understand why it is easy to fall in love with someone like this.

I hope you are able to fully move on emotionally from your own situation.

Argnotthisagain

Interesting about the anxiety you recognized. Even better: you reacted appropriately and protected yourself.

That's a real positive that you felt anxiety and identified it. Some of us are trying to learn what is safe and what that feels like, because Unsafe feels familiar. It doesn't set off the appropriate alarms. I remember feeling nervous and having some extreme emotional reactions but did not realize what they meant (wrt the exA).

My mother was a very sick BPD. Not good. I'm spending a lifetime digging out from that avalanche.

Hammer

For more on what it looks like from the Been There Done That end of things . . .

http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...-disorder.html

http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...er-thread.html

my own experience and unfortunate source of knowledge in the topic.

HaveAGreatDay

Hi Argnotthisagain,

I find your comment about anxiety very interesting. Since many others deal with relationship anxiety, I thought it worthwhile to put down some words that may be helpful.

I have had issues with strong anxiety in past relationships, and they ended once the anxiety wore me down. Usually pretty quickly.

With this relationship, as with the others, the anxiety popped up pretty fast, and low and behold, away from the relationship I ran. This time though, I knew it was coming. I knew that objectively this was not an appropriate relationship, but I was denying those feelings, instead, desperately wanted to follow my heart, which felt something strong for this person.

Soon enough the anxiety came, and I could no longer ignore the issues, so I ended it. I felt so down that once again my anxiety dictated my love life. BUT, I have begun to realize that in most of those relationships, the anxiety that was triggered was simply a way for my brain to YELL at me that something was wrong, and I knew it was wrong. In those instances, there was genuinely something that was not working for me, so the anxiety was indeed justified.

I do know anxiety for many people is irrational, so in those cases, my experience does not apply.

I feel if I did not have such strong anxiety, at least I would be able to give the relationships more time before running away, so that I could be sure the issues were not blown out of proportion. But I can see how someone who does not have strong anxiety reactions to a possibly negative relationship, how they indeed could stay in the situation longer than they should, allowing themselves to become strongly attached to the other person, making it difficult for them to leave without a lot of pain. In my case, the anxiety is very uncomfortable and debilitating, so staying is not an option.

I guess we learn more about ourselves each time we stick our necks out. It may feel like 5 steps backwards, but in the end, we take 6 forward.