I'd have to say no I did not. I was only seeing him a couple of times a week...not enough to put a big picture together for a while.

Of course...I didn't know I was an alcoholic either. I just knew I liked to drink and seemed "really good at it."

It bugs me that I was so clueless when I met my AH, one of my therapists pointed out to me how he was so much older and still partying with college age kids, not really ever adapting to a real life.

What is really bad for me and maybe just admitting to this right here out loud on SR might help me in my recovery is that I was clueless for probably 15 years into our marriage. Talk about having my own issues.

Same with my ex...has no real developed life of his own at 34, has a roomate in a small apartment surrounded by all bars, goes out with college girls, plays beer pong, doesnt work much...when i wanted to get more serious and wanted to do more grown up things, he resisted me. Didnt think much of it at the time but now its almost sad how behind and under-developed he his.

Goldengirl...what was the turning point for you that made you realize you were an alcoholic?

When he told me "I am a recovering crack addict with 5 years clean," I thought that meant he was STRONG. Doh! Talk about naive.

Thinking back to basically all of my relationships, I think that I have a tendency to get too involved, to be a people pleaser. I think with my AXBF, it was a codependent relationship that developed because we were both emotionally needy. Other guys would have run for the hills if I started acting needy and doing some of MY "crazy" behavior. I think that I've only had one semi-normal long-term relationship in my life (and I've had a few...).

Working with a therapist and reading a lot of self-help books has led me to believe that it stems from my childhood (sexual and emotional abuse). Now, I have to figure out how to live and react differently. It's doing things that may not be comfortable and really taking the time to figure out what I like, need, etc.

I think age 29 is a pretty good cut-off point. If a person is not done playing beer pong and hanging out at bars and parties by age 29, I'd be willing to bet there will be problems being married to or in a committed relationship with that person in his or her 30s.

I didn't realize my AH was an alcoholic until many years into the marriage. I wasn't raised around alcoholism and thought that all alcoholics were raging, mean, and beat their wives/gfs types. My AH has a quick fuse but is not physically abusive so I thought he just liked to drink. I was soooo naive back then, but I don't blame myself now. I was taught to look for the good in others and to stay in a marriage through good and bad. We all live and try to learn from our mistakes. As long as we learn from them and try to make ourselves a better life, I believe we are following the path our higher power has planned for us.

I talked myself out of the awareness that he was an alcoholic because I was pregnant with #1 and didn't want to admit that I had made the biggest mistake of my life marrying an alcoholic. So I spent almost 20 years trying to make it not so. You know, because my love would change him. Right.

People-pleasing tendencies aside (and I have strong ones!), in my particular dime-store analysis, I REALLY believe in the whole idea of wanting to rewrite your script. In my mind, it's very clear. While my life was made so much better when my mom threw out my dad when I was 12, I still always hung on to the hope that one day they would get together again.

That dream was dashed when he was found dead on the street in the Bowery--he was 43, I was 18. I was pretty devastated.

Fast-forward 5 years and I meet a guy who looks like my dad, has many elements of my dad's personality, and, surprise surprise, drinks like my dad.

I think I would have done ANYTHING to buy back the abandonment I experienced, and pretty much did that... I gave up my Self to ensure that he would never leave me. Basically, I was a shadow in the film of "he and I together happily ever after."

I think that's why I stayed for 34 years... it's why my counselor told me I had to work through the sadness of my dad's leaving/dying before I could move on. I stopped going to therapy at that point.

So, other guys haven't been the Square Peg/Square Hole match that AH and my father were, and so I wasn't so compelled to give up so much. My life has been a LOOOOONNG movie version of the Parent Trap, where me, the little kid, makes it a mission to get the parents together one way or another.

Session over.

[QUOTE=Learn2Live;2854216]--

Honestly, I could probably write a good three pages or more listing all the ways I conformed to someone else's idea of who and what I should be. But ultimately, what I know (now) is that I can't allow myself to be manipulated and controlled anymore. I take responsibility for the role I played in all these relationships.
-It is up to me to build and maintain my self-esteem so that I don't compare myself to others anymore.
-It is up to me to parent myself, to take care of me, and to maintain a relationship with my Higher Power, so that during times of stress I do not run to other people to take care of my needs.
-It is up to me to know what I want out of my life, and to do the work that will get me there, instead of giving it over to someone else.
-It is up to me to maintain my sobriety and avoid the people, places and things that "make" me drink. It is up to me to avoid participating in activities that I will regret later on.
-It is up to me to know what is my responsibility and what is someone else's, and not to do or spend money on what I do not own.
-It is up to me to know what is within my control and what is not, and not accept responsibility for, or try to change, that which is not within my control.
-It is up to me to remain aware of the games people play, and to avoid toxic people.[QUOTE]

This is pure gold.
Thanks so much for this!:ghug3

No way...although in the early days we hung out at the bar! LOL! But everyone did in college (it felt like).
He drank. I saw that, but he didn't overdrink. I saw him visibly drunk maybe 2x in all the time I knew him.
But as the relationship progressed, I denied the issues I saw.
I came across hidden bottles, he gave me a BS excuse and I bought it.
I came across empties in his car, he gave me a BS excuse, I bought it.
He lied about smoking, I caught him, he cried and promised to change and I accepted that (felt sorry for him, even and felt closer because of it).
I've learned alot about myself in this process...and am still learning!

THis thread obviously is striking a chord with me! (Particularly your comments, L2L!)

Things that lead me to give myself up/people please

1. Jealousy/comparison/feeling "less than": someone is/was so great, I think I should be that great. If I am not, i have to deny that I am less than they because to admit I can't do what they did or do means I am not good enough. If their skills were so loveable and I don't have them, I must be unloveable, not good enough, not valuable. This comparison can come from others or I can generate myself. If either deny my issues or just strive to be enough. This happens often at work.
Healthy response: Let go of expecting myself to be like someone else. Accept my issues and limits and find means to support my success around my limitations.

2. Pity: They are so sad, stuck, powerless, miserable, or helpless that I pity them and don't have the heart to demand what I need or expect anything from them. My AH pulls this sometimes.
Helathy response: Get clear on a) my needs and b) my expectations and stick to it, regardless of external response

3. Guilt/responsibility: they say its my fault or are just plain mad or upset. Immediately, I begin to figure out what I can do to please them or fix it.
Healthy response: I keep ahold of myself. Observe my fear at their upset. Stay conscious! Asses what is mine and what is their junk. Self soothe. Choose my actions or response.

4. Low self worth/obediance: Someone is bossy (or literally, my boss...or an older man) and I can't seem to do anything other than automatically please and comply
Healthy response: Keep ahold of myself and stay conscious. Observe my desire to please. Self soothe. Choose my actions or response.

Boy, there is work to do there! I find it interesting that this shows up at work and in my primary relationship. I feel a need to "make them like me" in all cases. I think this is a combination of my dad having left when I was 5 and having a hard time fitting in at school.
While I love alot about myself and feel I have alot of strengths, the little kid in me is DESPERATE to be liked, validated, told she is enough and valued. She is SURE she is going to be found out to be unloveable, unlikeable, a problem, a drag, not good enough.

Good stuff.

So very interesting!

I had no idea what an alcoholic acted like. Sure, we watched days of wine and roses and who's afraid of virginia wolf in high school, but that stuff didn't stick because I wasn't around alcholism ever to my knowledge growing up.
I was clueless, and it was a LDR.
And it was so obvious to anyone who was paying attention and wasn't completely naive like me.

But--the kicker is--look at how many women on this thread have "daddy issues". Reread this thread if you don't remember--I'm not going to quote them all.
Gulp.
Add me to the list.
My ex looks, acts, and talks like my father. My mother and some siblings pointed it out immediately how very similar he looked to my dad.
My dad didn't drink, but he was an abusive tyrant.
And when I failed a second time to make that intimacy connection and get it right--it darn near killed me.

This shows up for me at work a lot too. I've learned that a lot of it has to do with the culture in a particular workplace. It also has to do with the thoughts, actions and behaviors of the boss. I do not do well with bosses who see subordinates as people who they must control, people who are "less than," or there to serve them.

I have great difficulty with bosses who pass the buck and blame those who work in subordinate positions for what is not working. I could go on forever about this but the long and short of it for me is, wherever I FEEL there is toxicity, there is usually blame, shame and finger-pointing coming from someone, usually someone of "authority" in the workplace. All the usual mechanisms of sickness we deal with and talk about every day with alcoholics and drug addicts in our lives can also exist at work. (Is there no escape from this madness??? :gaah) Just because someone has a JOB, does not mean they are not SICK. Some bosses are not sick. Some are. I run from sick people.

You know I can't really remember my moment when I realized I was one. I was a binge drinker and so my first drunk experience, I remembered thinking I had "found it." It was only once every couple of months...then once a month...then every couple of weeks...then almost once a week. When I started dating him, I do remember the moment I realized it had become everyday. It was a sunday afternoon and I was passing out on his couch around 4-5 in the afternoon like I had done for a few Sundays in a row. I'm not sure I thought about it much...I was just doing it. Kind of like how you get up everyday and take a shower and go to work.

Because he was a happy drunk, I never thought he would become mean. But a "happy drunk" isn't really happy. That's just a mask.

And then we were fighting all the time. And week after week I would think, maybe next time I won't say that wrong thing or I won't react to him getting mad at me or whatever. (it was an abusive relationship.) And I finally had this moment where I realized that you just can't make a relationship work on alcohol. It sounds so stupid now, but at the time I just couldn't wrap my head around that. Because it's legal and so many people drink, for some reason I thought there was nothing weird about what I was doing. Crazy huh? Guess that was the denial.

Now that I'm sober and so far away from it, I can't believe I was doing that!!