FormerDoormat

My boyfriend's drinking didn't trap me. I trapped myself. Recognizing the cause of my entrapment made it easier for me to escape the trap.

prodigal

If your co-worker "drinks too much" too then I'd most likely deduce he's an A also. If you're expecting to get any sense out of someone who drinks too much, I doubt you'll get any intelligible insights into why A's behave as they do.

If you want a one-way ticket to insanity, sit around pondering why an A does anything. Addicts generally don't even want to know what's going on in their own heads, so why should we be figuring out someone else's issues? I have enough to keep me busy on my side of the street figuring out my own.

Perhaps you should seriously consider giving Al-Anon and/or counseling a try. Finding out what's going on inside your own head is the first (and I believe truly essential) step to getting out of the drama-trap your AH is trying to keep you trapped in.

JMO, but I'd call his bluff. My exAH did this a few times - threatening to throw me out, divorce me, blah, blah, blah. So one night after he'd threatened me with divorce, I calmly replied, "Fine. Let me know who your lawyer is by the end of the week. I'll contact mine." He folded like a house of cards.

Barbara52

Unless you are under lock and key, you aren't trapped.

We all choose to stay in our situations for whatever reasons we have. But we aren't trapped. There are always alternatives. Maybe not the alternatives we would optimally want, but always alternatives.

I stayed as long as I did for all sorts of reasons: reluctance to admit I made a mistake marrying the man, reluctance to admit I was powerless over his alcoholism, fear of change, and all sort of other reasons. But I was never trapped.