Haras

My boyfriend is 28 yrs old, I'm 27. We've been together for a year today. When he was 9 yrs old he was raped by his male teacher and he started drinking when he was 11. He's always been 'troubled'. When he was 21 he found out he couldn't have children and that sent him off the edge too. When he was 22 he found out his ex has slept with his brother and then his best friend and he came to her house with a meat cleaver and knife to get the guy and was arrested and sent down for six months, I think jail made him worse. When I met him he promised me he was on the straight and narrow but once I'd fallen in love with him I realised he was a binge drinker alcoholic. I call him that because he doesn't need it every day, but when he does drink, he drinks until he is comatosed. When we started dating last April, he used to get so drunk he'd fall asleep, fight, wake up in a hospital on a drip or get arrested. It finally came to a head in August when we'd both been drinking and we had an argument and he hit me and put his hands around my neck. His parents ran in and threw him out and called the police whilst he put his fist through their kitchen window. I didn't press charges and gave him once last chance but that he had to stop drinking. He DID and he stopped til Jan of this yr. We had five lovely months of how things SHOULD be, he is a wonderful boyfriend and the nicest guy you can meet WHEN he doesn't drink. When he does drink he turns nasty and usually sends me several voice messages and 20+ texts calling me all the names under the sun, usually obsessed with the idea that I'm cheating on him or threatening to break my nose or hurt my friends. I know this sounds like I'm protecting him, I'm not, but when he DOESN'T drink we have the perfect relationship.
In Jan he relapsed on his brother's birthday, gave me a load of abuse and I gave him ANOTHER CHANCE.
He then spent three months sober but then relapsed again and got thrown out the house he was living at, into this other place and it seems he is now drinking again but trying to lie to me about it. He went on a bender the other week and this week and gave me a load of abuse down the phone but then would cry and say he loves me and that he's struggling.
I don't know what to do, I'm at my wit's end. I want to help him but I've BEGGED him to get professional help but the doctors have been ******* him off and not helping him at all.
I was with a heroin addict for six yrs before my current boyfriend and I had a horrible life, I lost my mind for a while and took to mutilating myself and taking drugs. I sorted my head out after I left my ex but now feel like I'm going off on one again because of my current boyfriend.
Any advice would be very much appreciated...
Thanks
Haras...

freefalling

[QUOTE=Haras;2562074] I want to help him QUOTE]



I hate it to break it to you. This is so heartbreaking I know. There is absolutely nothing on this earth that you can do to help him. He has to really really want to get better for HIM and by HIMSELF. All your attempts will lead to nothing for him and you. Take this from a person that has done everything in her power for 24 years to save a man and a marriage. IT does not help! You will get sick yourself.

But you can detach and take back your life and sanity. You are important!You are worth living your life in serenity> Please start taking care of you. We care. We know the pain of loving addicts.

Hugs

bookwyrm

Welcome! Please take some time to read the 'sticky' posts at the top of the forum - I found an amazing amount of experience, wisdom and information in them when I first came here. You will learn about the three C's:

You didn't Cause it
You can't Control it and
You can't Cure it.

Honey, you are worth taking care of. You are worth more than being with a verbally abusive, physically violent alcoholic, regardless of how his life has been up to this point. I'm really worried about you and your situation. How he is treating you is abuse. Why do you think you deserve it?

Pelican

Welcome to the SR family!

You will find lots of information and support for yourself here. Have you tried finding Alanon support groups in your area? Have you heard of codependency? There are meetings for that too. I tried to be a rescuer, fixer and caretaker for other adults. It just left me exhausted and crazy. I needed to learn to love myself and take better care of myself. This site is wonderful for support.

Here are a few words of wisdom from our sticky posts at the top:

5. Helplessness and Neediness of Relationship Partners

Maybe you get hooked by the neediness and helplessness of your relationship partners. You find yourself hooked when your partners get into self-pity, "poor me" and "how tough life has been." You find yourself weak when your relationship partners demonstrates an inability to solve personal problems. You find yourself wanting to teach and instruct, when your relationship partners demonstrate or admit ignorance of how to solve problems. You find yourself hooked by verbal and non-verbal cues which cry out to you to "help" your relationship partners even though your partners have the competence to solve the problem on their own. You find yourself feeling warmth, caring and nurturing feelings which help you tear down any shred of boundaries you once had. These sad, weak, distraught, lost, confused and befuddled waifs are so needy that you lose all concept of space and time as you begin to give and give and give. It feels so good. The rational message needed to establish healthy boundaries from this hook is: "No one is helpless without first learning the advantages of being helpless. Helplessness is a learned behavior which is used to manipulate me to give of my resources, energy, time, effort and money to fix. I am a good person if I do not try to fix and take care of my relationship partners when my partners are acting helpless. I cannot establish healthy intimate relationships with my relationship partners if I am trying to fix or take care of them all of the time. I need to put more energy into fixing and taking care of myself if I find myself being hooked by my relationship partners' helplessness."

and this:

6. Need to be Needed

Maybe you get hooked by the sense of being depended upon or needed by your relationship partners. There is no reason to feel responsible for your relationship partners if they let you know that they are dependent upon and need you for their life to be successful and fulfilled. This is over‑dependency and is unhealthy. It is impossible to have healthy intimacy with overdependent people because there is no give and take. Your relationship partners could be parasites sucking you dry of everything you have intellectually, emotionally and physically. You get nothing in return except the "good feelings" of doing something for your relationship partners. You get no real healthy nurturing, rather you feel the weight of your relationship partners on your shoulders, neck and back. You give and give of yourself to address the needs of your relationship partners and you have nothing left to give to yourself. The rational message needed to establish healthy boundaries from this hook is: "It is unhealthy for me to be so overly depended upon by my relationship partners who are adults. There is a need for me to be clear what I am willing and not willing to do for my relationship partners. There is a need for my relationship partners to become more independent from me so that I can maintain my own sense of identity, worth and personhood. It would be better for me to let go of the need to be needed than to allow my relationship partners to continue to have such dependency on me. I am only responsible for taking care of myself. Human adults are responsible to accept personal responsibility for their own lives. Supporting my relationship partners intellectually, emotionally and physically where I have nothing left to give to myself is unhealthy and not required in healthy relationships and I will be ALERT to when I am doing this and try to stop it immediately."

These were taken from this area of the sticky posts at the top:
http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...tionships.html

Please make yourself at home by reading and posting as much as needed! We are here to support you!

jencee

hi hun, I am no expert on drinking but I do know addiction,I also know violent relationships.From personal experience,NOTHING or NO-ONE can make you stop.Maybe you need to step back from the situation to see that this is a violent relationship or headed that way. You have done so well getting yourself clean,My mum used to say to me that when I got clean I would always pick up a broken bird who I thought I could help or put right. Maybe we do it because it gives us something to focus on apart from ourselves.Hard as it is, if you keep forgiving him you are in effect telling him his behavior is acceptable. No matter how loud your telling him it isn't,our actions speak so much louder.Can having time away from him to let him decide want he wants,be any harder than what you are going through now? He can't make you happy if he is not happy with himself. Good luck x