Isla

Hello, i am new to the forum and new to alcoholism. This forum is reassuring - i can't talk about stuff to anyone because the alcoholic i know says people don't know except his brothers.

I split up with my ABF of 3 months on Wednesday night - he called drunk saying he needs time alone and cant be with a 'true woman' right now.

It's not been very long but it's been very intense. He has opened up to me and been very honest with me and I have listened and been very careful not to judge him. I was so naiive at the start and thought he would be ok now that he had met a good woman and wouldn't be lonely anymore.

He's self-employed, working long hours - burying himself in work. He lives alone and drinks alone at the kitchen table with his house locked for 2-3 days sometimes missing monday at work. He'll get a taxi to bring him a bottle of whisky if he runs out.

When he is drunk he says he is desperate to get help and hates himself for who he is. He says he is lonely and drinks because he is bored bored bored and sick of being on his own just working and working and he needs help and wants me to keep him occupied. He repeats over again that he could have a good life, he can see the good life that he could have, he could see our future together and he has everything going for him and he is afraid he's going to throw it all away but he just can't help it.

When he is sober he is determined that he's going to sort himself out, cut back and he has made some improvements in the house, got his haircut and made a huge effort with me, cooking meals and taking me away on a romantic weekend (with a bottle of malt).

I have told him that I'll leave him alone now to get help because that's what he wants and i gave him the number of the counsellor he saw before. I made it clear that I understand and i'm not angry. He is an intellegent, articulate, funny, kind, hard-working man who knows he has a problem and wants help.

I want to be there to support him but think all i can do now is get on with my life and maybe one day i'll hear how he's doing.

bookwyrm

It sucks but you have the gist of it. Only he can get help for him. You can so easily get sucked into a 'rescuing' mode that will help no one! Have a read through the stickied posts at the top of the forum. There is a wealth of experience and wisdom there - you will realise you're not alone.

Pelican

Welcome to the Sober Recovery family!

You do sound like a good, caring woman with a great head on her shoulders! You are responsible for taking care of yourself. This is your one precious life. Your friend is responsible for finding his own support to beat addiction.

You will find information and support for yourself here.

Your wisdom to accept his choice of seperation will keep you out of the drama of alcoholism. Alcoholism is progressive and gets worse without treatment. One of the red flags (to me) in your first post was that you felt unable to speak to anyone locally about your friends alcoholism. He wanted you to keep it secret. Isolation is one of the symptoms of alcoholism. The addict and loved ones feel the need to pretend (deny) there is a problem with alcohol.

You have made a healthy choice by accepting seperation from the alcoholism and preventing a lifestyle of secrecy and fear of discovery.

(((hugs)))

naive

welcome isla-

you would be wise to pull out now, with only 3 months invested. alcoholism is progressive and it gets worse. it would be good if you take care of yourself. and believe me, i know that it is hard to step away and not rescue the alcoholic.

an alcoholic must hit their bottom normally, before seeking help. all your love and helping will only further enable the drinking, by preventing him from hitting his low point.

it really is best for both of you if you step back and let him run his own life.

it might be helpful if you look at why you would want to be with someone who is bored and looking to you to occupy him.

why not pick someone who is engaged in life? why do you want to save this one? you can't save him anyway, only he can do that.

i have found that the easiest way to get free is to go no contact. what this means is no contact (or information from others) about your man. this will permit you the time and space required to process what has happened and get back on your feet.

i have found that if i remain in contact with my alcoholic, i get sucked back in very easily.

consider stepping all the way away from him, refusing his calls and texts and permit yourself the gift of assessing why you want to rescue him through personal therapy or going to alanon meetings.

welcome again,
naive

Isla

Thank you so much for your replies. It's reconfirmed that I'm doing the right thing by letting him go.

Pelican, i live in a small community and he is from a big family, they all protect him by keeping it quiet I suppose. I know this is the worst thing they can do and helps him continue and it makes me mad. He told me his brothers took him to Accident & Emergency last year in the middle of the night when he was very ill and they gave him 'jellies' but he didn't get admitted.

I can't speak to his brothers because i don't know them well enough to approach them about it.

I believed that being taken to hospital WAS his rock bottom and he was on the up.

I know now that he continues to drink and i am not helping by being there.

I will take your sound advice Naive and cut him off completely but it is impossible not to hear about him on this small island community and I will see him driving around.

I believe he will try to get help but the odds are against him. I stayed because he was sober 4/5 days at a time, we had a good time and i had no previous experience of alcoholism. He told me he wasn't ready and I jumped at the chance to get out.

Brizzlegal

Hi Isla,

I really feel for you. My AGF sounds very simialr to your guy. I have lost count of the times that I have finished the relationship, only to be sucked back in. We have been together for 3 years now and I'm ready to split. I'm sick of the promises (always broken!) that she's going to turn her life back on track. Her car was in an accident last week (not her fault!) and her reaction? Yup, you guessed it drink drink drink! The toll that this takes on me on a daily basis is extreme and I feel that part of me has died and I am not the fun-lover I was. If I was in your shoes now I would do what I shoulda done with my partner. RUN! It's an unwinnable battle. For me that's the blunt reality.

Good Luck with whatever path you choose. It's not easy.

CAPTAINZING2000

Sad, how family and friends will enable an alcoholic.

zgjjs

I am new too.
My husband is an alcoholic. 1 year ago July, he turned himself in at work because he had alcohol on his breath and wanted to beat others to the punch. Since then, it has been a major rollercoaster ride. He went into a program that was helping a little, but because he was taking pain pills for a back injury could not stay.
Now, he has a counselor that he sees maybe once every 2 wks and during the "rest period" he will drink a bottle of rum along with his pain meds and act out which amounts to degrading insults and remarks, the usual.
He says he likes to drink and when he drinks, even though he knows the consequences, the first swallow makes him feel "free".
I couldn't take it anymore and left for the wkend. (The first program we went to calls that leverage and would not approve of my coming back).
Now he's drinking near beer and since reading the threads on that now know he is hiding the real thing.
When he is sober, he is a nice, funny, caring and loving guy.
When he's not he is the most resentful, foul-mouthed, bitter person I have ever known.

Jadmack25

Quote from zgjjs: (( When he is sober, he is a nice, funny, caring and loving guy.
When he's not he is the most resentful, foul-mouthed, bitter person I have ever known. ))

He isn't 2 seperate people, one nice and one nasty. He is one and the same person, whether he is being nice, caring, funny, loving, or nasty, resentful, bitter, foul-mouthed.

Alcohol doesn't change him, it takes away inhibitions and self control and lets him run amok if that is what he feels like doing.

My RABF is a quiet and rather shy man.....alcohol kicks the walls down, and suddenly he is able to be Party man, Mr Know it all, and the "Stud". For years I believed that if I could kill off Mr Hyde, it would be fine....I couldn't do it, because he IS both Jeckyl and Hyde, but as he is sober Hyde is under control.

He and I know that from his first drink of beer, Hyde is ready to rumble.
We also know that come that first sip, I will be ready to cut the contact and it will be goodbye for good.

Your AH says his first swallow makes him free, and that is the horror of this disease, as it may make him think and feel free, while chaining him further into slavery.

I would love to ask him, "that swallow makes you free to do what?
Abuse, insult, be nasty and unloving to others, hold grudges and make someone elses life misery."

Funny how they see drinking as freedom for them, but it can mean imprisonment and torture for those closest to them.

God bless

TakingCharge999

Hi Isla,

I vote for "Stay away". Sometimes the only way to show real love is to get out of their way.

Isla

Thank you. I am trying to be strong - i just keep thinking of him there alone and start crying but its his choice. He wants me out the way so he can drink. A hard pill to swallow.

Isla

If I hadn't found this forum last week I don't know where i'd be. Possibly i would have come to the same conclusions (that complete cut-off is the only way) but it could have been a lot longer getting there!

i saw my axbf yesterday driving around town, and the day before. I'm on holidays and getting things done, keeping busy. He is self-employed and looked like he was out in the van working. But the amount of times I saw him became ridiculous! It became SO CLEAR. He was very busy being SEEN. Friends texted me saying 'i've seen him about, he's definitely sober today'... This man is well practiced in covering up, reassuring people that's he's working. I saw him parked up in different places around town. The thing that got me most was he looked fine and he was sitting there stuffing his face with a sandwich at 11am and drinking tea.

Here was me, moping around, reading alcoholic success stories, calling the local support centre for advice, second guessing what he'll do next...

I wasn't EATING.
I was neglecting my friends.
I'm supposed to be on holiday. Holiday i'd EARNED.
I'd been looking up alcoholic sites during my working day
I'd been checking my phone constantly during my work
I'd stolen (!!!) a book on alchohol from the work library (I work in a hospital)

i have SO MUCH CLARITY now that I'm away from it. It's a grim, black world that sucks you in.

Jadmack25

This is your, holiday, as you said..you have earned it, but so far it has been spent wondering, studying and worrying about him, the him you have decided to let go.
Think of what you would have wanted and planned to do for yourself, if you had not met him and go and do it.

You will not be free of his addiction if you do not let him go, really let go.

Give him a few minutes in your head, pray he finds recovery, peace and healing...ask for these blessings for yourself and then refuse to think about him for the rest of this day. Spend this time on you and something you enjoy, that gives you pleasure.

God bless

iwantcontrol

isla, I just wanted to say that in a way I wish i'd done what you're doing now 3 months into my relationship. It really does draw you in fast and it's very hard to escape once you're there. Well done. My relationship was also very intense at first and i was also naive about the whole thing. I didn't start looking into information about alcoholism etc until I was already hooked in, as I didn't realise that was really the problem. Congratulations on escaping now and saving yourself all the heartbreak later. It's probably still really difficult now but i wish you luck

Linkmeister

Me, too, Isla. I just ended my 2.5 year relationship with the A in my life. It's hard at the present time for me, but I am working through all of it with help from Al-Anon meetings and friends and SR.

Someone very wise told me that the pain I am going through now was like having a tooth out-after the freezing wears off, the pain is pretty intense and a reminder of what was causing the ache. Once that pain subsides, your mouth heals and the pain subsides-there may be a twinge now and again, but it won't last forever and soon, it all goes away. I'm at the post extraction part now, feeling the pain but knowing that soon, it will pass.

It was so hard for me to make that final break-my EXABF is sober but has shunned any form of recovery and still behaves as if he were still drinking- bitter, angry, manipulative and controlling.

Yes, I still love him, but as TC said, showing real love often means walking away.

kittykitty

I'm proud of you for going no contact. I recently did it with my ABF as well... almost the same scenario...
Relationship was short lived but sooo very intense. Felt like we were made for each other from the get go. From what I understand, alot of relationships with As are like that, really intense. Everything with them is intense.

When he was sober, he wanted to quit drinking, and would for 4-5 days, just like you said. Then he would drink and the a**hole in him would show up again. "i'm only going to drink on the weekends" or "no more hard liquor, just beer." Shame.

He still tries to contact me alot. Text messages, voicemails, emails, showing up at my work, leaving notes in my door at home. All the time to apologize, and tell me how he is going to change, how i've opened his eyes to a new world and how hard he is going to work to be a better person for me. The concept of doing it for himself is foreign to him, so I don't want anything to do with his "changes". I do feel it is better to let him do it on his own. If he sincerely wants to change, he HAS to do it for himself and no one else, or it isn't genuine. All the more reason for me to stay away from him. That is really the best thing I can do for him is let him follow his own path.

I've been going to Alanon since right before I met him (I have another A in my life that I needed help with). The only reason I was able to get out of the short but toxic relationship I found myself in with this new one is because of Alanon (and this forum). Alcoholics, and other people in general, will do whatever they want with their life. Whether it's drinking, gambling, lying, cheating, whatever. It is their God given right to live their life as they want, and I need to give them the dignity and responsibility to do just that, without my intervention.

That being said, I and only I can decide if I want to stick around and watch the destruction. I care very much for my ABF, but I love myself ten times more, and I deserve a life without embarrassment, humiliation, and fear. I deserve to not stress about whether the bills will get paid or not, because he would rather spend what little money he has on beer instead of groceries. I deserve to feel comfortable in my own home without worrying about him coming home drunk and accusing me of cheating. I deserve to be out with my friends and not wonder if he has too much to drink will he call me names in front of them. (All of these things he did at some point, btw) So I choose not to be a part of his life. I love him, but it's just not fair to me. I deserve more than that. And so do you. No one should take a backseat to someone else's addiction. We are all worth so much more than that.

coffeedrinker

Me too, Isla.

I am just now in the process of terminating the relationship that I thought would develop into the love of my life. Truth is, he IS the love of my life. But my life ain't over. And I am learning to understand that it took me so long to decide to leave for a reason. There were lessons there for me, to carry me into and through the rest of my life (with or without a significant other).

Isla, please try not to stay stuck in rejection mode. Even if he wasn't the one to ask you to leave, it still is really for the best. For BOTH of you.

ZGJJS, welcome to S/R! Have you "introduced" yourself by starting a new thread?

kittykitty

Amen coffeedrinker! I can't tell you how much I have learned about myself through this whole experience with my XABF. I learned what is acceptable and what is not, what I really want out of a companion, what I deserve, man I've learned sooo much about myself. This experience has made me so much more confident, more grounded, and more self aware than I have ever been. It's a wonderful feeling to come out of something realizing that A) you are still alive, and B) that you are a better person because of it.

tpen

Thank you to those you have shared their experiences as I am understanding the answer to the question I have. I don't know the abbreviations, so please correct me where necessary.

Have been involved in a serious relationship for 20 months. Was told 4 months ago by her that she was a recovering alcholic, did not like who she was when she drank, and wanted help from me. For me to also stop. I drank with her, but have always drank socially when going out. We have had repeated breakups and fights and I had never fully understood why. I now realize what was causing the problems and am upset with myself for buying her wine twice. I have broken up with her stating I cannot trust her and want honesty in my relationship. I told her I loved her and hoped for a miracle.

My heartache and question in one is: I want to continually have communication with her because I miss her so much, but do know inside it is the wrong thing to do as she knows I care. How do I stop and walk away when I care and love her so much, or was committed to her?

tpen

Struggling and wish someone would reply.

Am now observering XGF frequenting myspace alot during the day. It tears me up to know that she is communicating with a man so soon after I broke it off. I sit her and wonder why?