johnny2014

hi
i've been dating a 32 year old girl for 5 months now who is 5 years sober and an active member of aa - attending a couple of meetings a week. in essence all is good, except for one pretty major point.
basically when there is any point of contention or disagreement (even about what i would call trivial stuff) somehow this gets blown all out of proportion. i end up being the villain every time and being accused of having a whole heap of character defects, while she assumes some righteous halo type position above me while pursuing her character assassination. this goes on for quite sometime and i end up having to completely ignore her so as to not any fuel to the fire.
i've done quite a bit of reading and have heard of terms such as 'stinking thinking' and 'dry drunk'.
i know ultimately i have to decide if this is manageable or acceptable but it would be helpful to know if this type of thing is common with a person in recovery.
any thoughts gratefully received.

WMJ1012

It's common for both parties to have problems until they each work a thorough 12-step process

There's a difference between sobriety and recovery

lillamy

Hi & welcome to SR!

I'm not terribly familiar with the term "dry drunk" but I don't think I've ever heard it used for a person who's 5 years sober and working a recovery program for that long.

What you're describing -- a behavior in an argument -- is in my experience pretty typical for an actively drinking alcoholic... and it could be that there's a part of her recovery she has not yet worked through.

BUT it could also be that this is just how she fights, alcoholic or not. I know people approach disagreements very differently, and for me, that's one of the main deal breakers in relationships: I could not date or be married to a person who fights ugly.

If this is something that's important to you, maybe you want to reconsider the relationship? Because whether her "fighting behavior" is caused by alcoholism or is just a personality trait, you won't be able to change it. Only she can, and only if she sees it as a problem.

doggonecarl

Exactly. This has nothing to do with it being common behavior in alcoholics or how it relates to recovery. It's about how she relates with you. And it doesn't sound like it's nicely.

Hammer

You have a HUGE marker that you are dealing with a Personality Disorder -- Not Just Alcoholism.

Sometimes the Alcohol is better than what it is covering.

Karpman Drama Triangle >>>

Karpman drama triangle - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia



You do not want ANY of this.

Stung

She must be really hot to take that kind of abuse over disagreements at only 5 months in.

I agree that this doesn't have anything to do with her alcoholism or recovery, this is likely just her. You get to decide if this is something that you can live with.

LexieCat

As it says in the Big Book, "We are not saints." Some of us are further from sainthood than others.

I know many people in AA with years or decades of sobriety that I wouldn't care to be stuck in line with at the supermarket, let alone have a relationship with.

carmen303

Hammer, can you elaborate? Any idea of what type of personality disorder it might be in this case? I've wondered about this myself.

My AB is actively drinking and I've told him we can't see each other unless he stops, but I worry as to the WHY he drinks in the first place. Like you said, he might have an underlying disorder that will come through once he stops.

desypete

one thing i was shown very early on in aa was to leave the women alone in aa i go there for recovery not a leg over

but of course me being me i wouldnt listen and tried to get into all the pretty ones in aa as i honestly thought i could help them lol

the old timers are very good at ticking me off about this as they could see right through me
but there is a much more serious side to it as it was pointed out to me
what happens if i manage to date someone in aa and it all goes pair shaped ? aa would have to people on there hands trying to not pick up a drink on a failed relationship and very oftern amonst the younger in years memebers when a relationship goes wrong they end up stopping going to aa and cutting out recovery out of there lives and very often pick up a drink again

how would i feel should i end up in that postion and one or both end up going back on the drink again ?

anyway i learned my lesson and i stopped looking at the ladys breasts and focused more on why i was there

i had to learn to stop letting my penis rule my head

knowing that your both 5 years around the fellowship should be ok by the way for a safe dabble but the problem you will both find is that with everone else trying to live with someone else in a relationship is hard work
putting up with there bad habbits and them putting up with yours etc

i know one thing someone in aa would have to really be the type that puts others ahead of themselves for me to be interested in them as i put others ahead of myself today so if we both had that one thing in common then i think it might just work but then i dont know, i am really not interested anymore in women in terms of a realtionship i would rather have a pet to be honest and thats not meant as an insult its just a reflection of how hard a realationship really can be for me so i am happy enough on my own

plus i get my own way all the time : )

Hangnbyathread

johnny,

First welcome.

Second. I am right there with you on this. My AGF always fought like this. It didn't take me long to see that alcohol simply made her mean. Here is what worked for me.

Detachment.

You still love and care for your partner. But that other person – the insulting one who embarrasses you and complicates your life – that is the person from which you must detach. If you can do that, you will be much more at ease and able to cope with whatever is taking place around you.

If she got mean, I simply left the room or the house entirely. If she verbally attacked me, I walk away. Even more effective when you do this in public. If she fabricates conflict just to start in on you again. Let it go. Don't engage her. This may upset her even more, but eventually she will decide that this isn't working out very well.

Also this is where I really failed myself. Do something away from her that makes YOU happy. This will help you regain some soul and let her crap roll off you better. For mine....once she started to see I was going to walk away from her tirades, she found herself stopping herself. Other times I would see her ramping up looking for a reason, I'd stop the conversation and go...I'm going to leave now before you start yelling at me. In mines case, it was always drinking that caused this. But perhaps yours is just a pattern that she has because she knows nothing different. She won't do anything different as long as she gets the same results she always got. My g/f can openly says that this is how her house was growing up. She learned by the only example she had.

So now you show her by example what life with you will be like. Or she can pursue a life without you in it.

AnvilheadII

i know ultimately i have to decide if this is manageable or acceptable but it would be helpful to know if this type of thing is common with a person in recovery.

even IF her behavior was "common" in recovery, you still don't have to accept her anger and rage. we teach people how to treat us - so if you keep going back and she acts up again and you go back and she acts up again - your actions are giving her permission to keep doing so.

if you go to a restaurant and the food is just horrible.....you MIGHT go back one more time to see if it was a one time thing, chef had a bad day or whatever. but if each time the food is awful, the service stinks, and the silverware isn't washed properly.....do you keep going back?

we can't fix others. but we can develop strong boundaries about what we will accept and what we will not. and then WE act accordingly.

you're a nice guy, you deserve to be treated well.

meggem

I think mine is a dry drunk. He has not drank in a little over a year, but he still has stinkin thinkin.

For a while I thought he was just going to need a good long time to re-wire his brain (I didn't wait, I left in July).

Now I am starting to understand and discover that not only is he an alcoholic, but he is an abuser. I didn't know that before. I thought the alcohol was causing the abuse.

So, I am a little confused as to what goes with what. He however, does not work a program. I think he sees a counselor once a week but not much else.

Hangnbyathread

If this is a given thing, then this could be an effective program in itself. Professional counselors are pretty effective at addressing an individual seeking help.

Not saying you should re-consider him as a person for you, but I wouldn't want to ignore that this may in fact be of great help to him to be doing.

hopeful4

It's only healthy if they actually apply what they learn in counseling. In Meg's X's, case, not so much. My X has been in counseling for YEARS. He is still an active alcoholic. Sometimes people do counseling just to say that they are doing it. If you actually get the right counselor who knows how to help someone suffering with addiction and apply what you learn for recovery, that is an opportunity.

Not trying to be callous, just familiar with the situation.

Hangnbyathread

Agreed. What you just said applies to any program. The drinker has to WANT help first and foremost. There are how many AA members there by Mandated court order? Go to AA or jail take your pick. You know they will pick anything before jail.

I worked with a man once who lost it ALL because of drinking. After his 2nd DUI, he was faced with a mandatory jail sentence. It was up to the judge to determine how much. He got 6 months in jail, with a Manadatory 30 day medically supervised rehab program. On top of the fines etc. He did the whole stretch as ordered. Got his 3rd DUI within a year of this. As far as I know he is still serving time. IDK. His house is empty and abandoned. His family all gone somewhere. His whole life and all he worked for......gone. He never really ever wanted to get better. Its crushing to think about the grip this has on some.