Thank you for help! Honestly, I do not want the chaos. I meant what I said that I want her to be happy even without me. I'm just not understand why she won't just go out and find another man. Why try to come back to me? I've moved on and I want her to do the same.

1. Once you've 'wired' your brain to depend on alcohol it's too easy to fall back into the habit of drinking. Think of it like someone who's given up smoking. They usually have to stop completely - having one now and then leads them back into the habit.

2. She may or may not want you back. Just because she's an addict doesn't make her a bad or dangerous person, but when she drinks the inhibitions might be suppressed enough for her to text you. She doesn't sound super obsessive to me though.

Congratulations on moving on and meeting someone new. It's a great reward for your strength of purpose.

Some people recover, some don't. It usually has nothing to do with the person they're in a relationship with--they just get sick of feeling like crap and having everything in their lives suck so they get sober--if they do the work and have the commitment they'll stay that way. If not, they won't.

It sounds to me as if you secretly HOPE she will, that she will want you so badly that she will do anything--even changing her life--to get you back.

I wonder how your current g/f would feel about that? I'd suggest letting the alcoholic GO. Even if she were to get sober--go to rehab, go to AA, whatever--it will only stick if she's doing it because she desperately wants it for herself, not to get you (or anyone else) back into her life. Let her find her own path, and you concentrate on your own.

I don't think it matters why she might or might not try to get in your life again
but only what she brings if she does by your allowing it.


Re-read your first post and ask yourself if you want that, or even the potential of that, in a life partner.
Look at the person you are with now.
Make a good decision.
Thank you for the update RR :)

So glad someone said this. I agree completely. I did not fall in love with an addict who needed fixing. I fell in love with someone who had his stuff together and was doing well and didn't need me to fix anything. I am honestly a little too focused on myself and my own life. That's my problem in relationships. I focus too much on my own needs and what's going on with me and am not there enough for my partner. Now that my addict relapsed and left me I am in tremendous pain. I miss the relationship. I miss our love. And I miss our future plans. But I feel no desire to fix his problems or help him out. When he says he is going to get fired I think "good!" He chooses to steal money, he should get fired. And I am friends with his boss. I could swoop in and try to talk the owner into paying for rehab and letting my ex keep his job, but I don't want to. Do I care if he gets arrested for dealing or possession? Nope. He deserves it.

So yeah, pain at the ending of a significant relationship does not always equal codependency. It's always worth looking into, but it's not the diagnosis 100% of the time. Sometimes pain just means you aren't a sociopath. IMO.

Same here. I married a lovely woman who had _no_ dysfunction of any kind, in her or her family. We had a simple, normal marriage for 20 years. It was only after a terribly painful disease that she became addicted to pain medication.

So do I. In my case I had to make new plans and a new life. Took me awhile to get over the grief of losing all that, but I'm well on my way now :)

Mike :)

There's no way of knowing what's truly going on with her. There are so many possibilities:
She may not have found another man because she was too busy drinking.
She may not have found another man because she was busy working on attaining and keeping sobriety.
She may still be drinking and has found a new man.
She may have stopped drinking and has found a new man.
She may have found another man.
She may have found him and lost him.
She may have found him and things may have been great until he also decided that her drinking wasn't a good thing, so she's now thinking he's not "the one" and wants to leave, but not without a safety net.
...

So many more possibilities and none of it really has to impact you if you don't want to let it. And she hasn't contacted you, yet, right? Things sound like they're going well with you now, why borrow future worries?

1. Is it true that "once an addict always an addict"? Is it possible that when my AXG does find another man she may be healed of this addiction?

2. Is it true that addicts try to come back to the person who loved them and really tried to help them, even though this person (like me) has moved on with someone else?

no FINDING another MAN won't fix her....that's not how it works. that is not why we have people in our lives like a walking bottle of pain reliever. you tried to fix what was not yours to fix....by putting conditions that no alcoholic can adhere to.....by trying to CONTROL her disease. the moment you did that you ceased being a BF and became a Caretaker/Enabler.

if you really didn't want her to be able to contact you, there are ways to prevent that. all has a bit of a soap opera feel.....you've MOVED ON but the ex is still there lurking behind the curtain, who will he choose? make sure you are VERY clear that you are DONE with the ex before getting further along with the newly moved onto person. and make sure the new person isn't just a stop gap measure.