Is my boyfriend an alcoholic??
 

Hi, I have been with my boyfriend for a year now and I am slowly starting to think he has some sort of drinking problem. He is 34 years old and all he wants to do on the weekends is go to the bars. He gets mad if I ask him to go to dinner and a movie on a friday night and if I end up convincing him to go, he complains the whole time and wants to go to the bar after the movie. And when we go to the bar, he is the drunkest person there no matter what. He drinks beers really fast and if I ask him to stop for the night he keeps going anyway and always ends up getting to the point where he stumbles around and slurs his words. He tries to run away from me in the bar and tries to talk to girls when I am not watching. I have just gotten use to it by now.

I'm not sure if he is an alcoholic or not because he doesnt drink during the week accept a few beers after a pick up hockey game that he plays in. He never has withdrawels. But whenever the weekend rolls around, he's a completely different person and gets so wasted. When we first met, he was so nice to me and charming and now he basically ignores me and then gets trashed on the weekends no matter how bad i tell him thats its bad for him. He does hold down a job but it is very flexible and he can go and come whenever he wants. I am so confused...can he be an alcoholic if he only gets really drunk on the weekends???

Sure he can. Binge drinkers can go days, weeks, sometimes even months between binges. Is he an alcoholic? No one here can say, but he is, at the very least, a hard drinker. Whether or not he is an alcoholic, it doesn't sound like he treats you the way you deserve to be treated. He sounds like a jerk, to be honest. You deserve better.

Yes, he can be an alcoholic and only get drunk on weekends. The key is how you react to alcohol when you do drink. Your BF sounds like he has some issues. What's worse is alcohol is progressive - the weekday drinks and hangovers will get worse (by the way a hangover IS alcohol withdrawal).

But enough about him, what about you? Is this what you want in a BF? What are you going to do about it?

I am at a crossroads because he is not the same person now that he was when I met him. At first he didnt drink at all for the first 2 months and he took me out to dinners, movies, football, baseball games etc. Now if we do something, it has to include going to the bar. We dont do anything else. I sit at the bar and watch him get out of his mind drunk and sloppy. I have asked him to limit himself but it doesnt matter anymore, he does whatever he wants. He never gets hangovers. He can get up the next day after drinking all night and be fine which worries me. I feel like something is wrong with him because no one else I know gets as drunk as him on the weekends and I am not happy with his behavior. I feel like I have to watch over a child. I am most likely going to break it off because ive already asked him about 5 to 10 times to cut back, but it never happens.

Well, he is an adult and if he wants to drink himself into a stupor every day, that's his right. It's also your right to decide if that is what you want to have for a boyfriend. He's not going to change just because you want him to. He's going to continue doing exactly as he pleases. It's time for you to look out for what is best for YOU.

Welcome to SR. We're here to support you. :grouphug:

You are right. This isnt what I want in a person. I wouldnt be on this site if I didnt think he had a serious problem. I dont want to be told by him anymore that "maybe if you liked to drink more, we would get along better". Thats not normal. His world is drinking and its creeping into my life. I need to get out before I lose friends and family over being with him.

Well, that is your decision to make, but if you do decide to get out, be ready for his quacking. That is his promises to cut back or even quit drinking. His assurances that you mean more to him than alcohol. His willingness to do whatever you ask of him if you'll just stand by him. Even if those quackings don't come right away, chances are better than good they will come after you leave the relationship. Just be ready for them and don't fall for it. Good luck!

Hi duqld1717 and welcome to SR

I would also agree that your BF sounds like he has a serious problem with alcohol and the fact that it is becomming a problem for you is a classic sign that his drinking has become unmanageable. (He is not managing to maintain a healthy relationship with you) This really was when I found out that my AH of 22 years was an alcoholic when I asked him (many times) to cut down and he couldnt. In my frustration, I eventually asked him to choose between me and the beer and the beer won. That doesnt sound normal does it - 22 yrs of married life or beer!

I too have heard the line 'if you drank more, we would get on better', I have also been told that he was going to go out and look for someone who enjoyed drinking as much as him, so that he could enjoy his life more. They are all variations on a theme of taking the focus of them and their drinking and making it about you. You see, you start to believe that maybe they dont have a problem, maybe your not good enough for him, maybe he would be better with someone more suited to him and maybe he is looking for that someone. It chips away at your confidence and self esteem until you get stuck.

I am you, only 30 years in, with children (grown adults), a life time together, and finding it impossible to stay or leave! Alcoholics have a good side, that can sometimes make it really difficult to give up on and you get stuck. You are still in the very early days of a relationship 1 yr in and have quickly picked up that you deserve a whole lot better - why settle for less than?

Please carry on reading and posting on this site and you will soon learn that there are very few 'happy ever ending' stories on SR whether the alcoholic gets sober or not.

You are absolutely right. That is NOT normal. That is a very alcoholic way of thinking. And his behavior at the bar, carousing with other women, tells you that he ACTS the same way he THINKS. This guy is bad news.

I am so glad to know that there are other people out there that have experienced the same things. Sometimes I look at people who are in healthy relationships and I think what is wrong with me that I cant be in a healthy relationship too. Maybe if I just behave better or not nag him or tell him I love him more, we would get along better. After awhile you do start to believe that you are the problem in the relationship. Being with him is really starting to affect my relationships with friends because all I do is worry what he's thinking or going to do next. My job is also starting to feel the effects. I am less focused than I use to be because all I can do is focus on his feelings. Now I know that this is simply the life of dating an alcoholic. You slowly lose yourself because they want you to be as low as them. I believe now that the problem has nothing to do with me and he would have these issues with anyone that he dates in the future.

I agree with Eightball - glad you are seeing this BEFORE you get entangled in marriage and children. There are men out there who will treat you better than this. You just need to move on from this experience and find those men instead.

I wanted so much to be the problem in my marriage - I tried for an entire year to be that problem. Why? Because then I could fix it myself! Because ultimately we all realize in that little corner of our rational minds that alcoholism is a problem we can't fix for anyone else. Your rational mind brought you to this forum. Listen to it!

So sorry this is happening to you. You are not alone, though! Good luck in your journey.

I have had other relationships in the past and none of them compared to my current relationship. I was never mentally or emotionally abused as much as with my current boyfriend so I can tell this is not normal. I am starting to understand that this is all him trying to unload his deamons onto me. He doesnt think normally because I feel like he's always so preoccupied with himself and his needs and wants. I need to sit down and think of how i'm going to break things off because its going to be hard for me and I'm sure hard for him.

I read this the other day and it has been sticking in my mind as I continue on my journey, reading books, going to Alanon, coming here, trying to detach. It finally dawned on me that for the past 6 or so months I have been doing all these things hoping to fix myself so AH will recover from A and what I really need is to do these things for me to get my living back and have a good life with my children with or without my AH. Thanks TG.

Back to duq, I met my AH when he was 34 and it sounds like he was similar to your bf. 20+ years, 3 children later and AH not only continued drinking on the weekends but everywhere in between.

In this last year, finally he is seeking some help and guess what I get - to start back to where we started. He is out of our home now and says he is not drinking but seems to be really out of it after every other weekend that my son does not spend with him.

Long story short, we don't have a marriage relationship and probably haven't had one for the past 6 years and maybe even the 10 years before that was when it started deteriorating.

The love I have for him is not enough right now to keep me going in this and it may never be enough unless he truly recovers and even then I don't know - one day I might, not today.

I'm reading a lot of good things here on this thread. duq, you seem really insightful into your situation.

You are right. The downside to this is that an alcoholic is an adult. They can legally do whatever they want. When you are watching a child, you are in charge and can keep a child in-line. But an alcoholic gets to act like a child and there is nothing you can do about it. You become more like a prisoner or hostage.

Not true! I am that person. My exBF and his wife got a divorce. His ex-wife was not a big drinker. I drank like a fish. He seemed to think that our relationship would work out better because I drank. We fought like cats and dogs. Of course, I wasn't there nagging him about his drinking and trying to make him stop. But you just can't make a relationship work on alcohol because bad decisions are made, you overreact and are emotional to things and just plain old self-destruct.

Yup! I finally got out and got sober. I can see exactly that now. They want you to be as low as them so you will stay.

I'm glad to see how much of this you are seeing. Good job!

Sounds like you know what's going on. There's nothing I need to tell you except to say that alcoholism is progressive. It gets worse--not better. He'll drag you down with him and put you through hell of you let him. He'll even say it's all your fault.

And you are right. He'd have these issues with anyone he's with. You can do better.