nez

If I jumped in a time travel machine and set it for 30 years in the past, I would be the "he" in the original post, my wife would be the "I".

If say maybe he does somewhat agree that there might be a problem with his drinking...,what does that get you?

Admission without action, got my wife 5 years of a progressive disease. Even after action, it then got her another 3 years before the first real fruit was borne. Then she got 5 years of me not drinking, but that was about all. I was just not drinking, not really working on recovery. Then it got her 2 years of my best effort at controlled drinking. Actually to outside appearances at that time, I almost resembled a normie, probably because I had always been a "highly functioning alcoholic" (oxymoron). Fast forward to today, and she has finally gotten 14 years of a husband truly in recovery.

Should she have run 30 years ago? I can't answer that for her. I am damn glad she didn't. Was it worth it for her? I can't answer that for her.

Also don't overlook the fact that there are two people that are having problems with his drinking.

Would you say maybe there is a slight chance that possibly you could somewhat agree that you might have a problem with control issues? (not meant to be snarky, truly meant to be helpful, but hard to convey over the internet and sometimes genuineness gets lost in the translation).

Even if your immediate reaction is an emphatic no, keep in mind that control issues could be behind the no. Denial doesn't automatically erase any record of existence, nor does it automatically validate existence. It merely raises food for thought.

TropicalWinter

RUN LIKE THE FREAKING WIND.

Life with an alcoholic is hell.

The effects of life with an alcoholic on you and YOUR DAUGHTER would be devastating and catastrophic.

An active alcoholic is INCAPABLE of being a true partner and INCAPABLE of real love.

Don't settle for less that what you and your daughter deserve.

I will add that my ex AH was a "good guy," not a mean drunk, not abusive, etc. Life with him was still hell. Get out while you can.

AnvilheadII

RUN. end it NOW. don't think for one more minute about trying to CHANGE him.

this is why we DATE. to test the waters, to check the other person out BEFORE making any commitments. he TOLD you he's an alcoholic, you've SEEN the amount he drinks. it IS a problem.

but it's his problem. and he doesn't sound like someone who is just going to STOP because he's "not" girlfriend asks him to. he's a grown man still playing drinking games, for pete's sake.

you have your hands full as it is. with your own issues and a child to raise. DO NOT make things worse for yourself.

HardLessons

PH

In a sense you are extremely fortunate you are at the very beginning of a relationship you are seeing red flags you are reading & questioning

I wish I had been so fortunate. Unfortunately I went down a long hard road a life altering road before I started to deeply question myself. By then it was too late

So while this is difficult for you now to make an extremely important decision at least you aren't in as deep as it would be after investing years of both your & your child's life

Best of luck with your decision

SaveYourHeart

Sitting him down and talking to him about it won't change anything. At this point, I would say let him go. If someday he works the program and leads a life of sobriety, maybe you can consider the relationship again. But I promise you, if you move forward with him and bargain and make promises and boundaries that neither of you will keep, you will regret it and it will bring pain to not only you, but everyone you love. I wish mine had shown me that he was an alcoholic before I married him.

RollTide

As TropicalWinter said...RUN LIKE THE WIND!!!!

Ariesagain

Please understand that right now he is setting the terms: he wants to drink the way he drinks and you are being told right now so you can't come back at him later.

Even more important...addicts/alcoholics are extremely adept at being who you want them to be in the early part of the relationship. If I had a dollar for every time I've read, "perfect, instant connection, soulmate, whirlwind romance" or "felt so right" here, I'd be driving a much nicer car.

Once you're in...you're hooked...the real person comes out. And then you wind up wondering where the magic went and he'll tell you it's your fault (probably because you insulted his drinking) so you'll try harder...rinse, repeat, rinse, repeat. Until you won't recognize yourself.

Your child will then grow up and re-create this situation by becoming him or becoming you.

Don't. Just don't.

Sasha1972

What everybody else said. If he's told you that he has been a "high-functioning alcoholic", I suggest thanking him for his honesty and letting him know this is a deal-breaker. If he tries to minimize it - "I just drink socially now", "I got a little out of control but really not a big deal", "I can quit any time I want" - that would be yet another red flag.

Especially if you have a 12 year old daughter - you do NOT want to put her on the roller-coaster that is life with an addict. I know this because my ex-husband's second ex-wife (yes, I know it gets confusing) brought her 12year daughter into that marriage and it was really not good for the girl - getting attached to this new man in her mother's life, seeing her mom get attached, and then the fallout when it all went south with lots of fighting, and now both she and her mom are "in recovery" from being enmeshed with an alcoholic. X2 feels really bad about what she put her daughter through, especially in early adolescence.

X2 says that all the signs were there at the beginning - just as you noted for yourself - but that she thought that with enough patience and support she could help ex get better. But she couldn't, and he got worse than anyone could have imagined.

So there's a cautionary tale.

2ndhandrose

As the adult here, you can make whatever choice you want.

Your 12 year old daughter, on the other hand, has no say in this matter. Her future is completely in your hands.

To quote TropicalWinter "The effects of life with an alcoholic on you and YOUR DAUGHTER would be devastating and catastrophic."


This is no small thing. For your daughter's sake, I hope you make the right choice.

Wisconsin

Stay away. Stay far, far away. Times one million because you have a child. Times one hundred million because you have a DAUGHTER, and every single second you spend on this man will model for your daughter that it's OK to settle for an addict.

You can search my old threads, but in a nutshell, I was married for 10 years, and had two daughters. XH has issues, but is NOT an alcoholic. During the divorce, I reconnected with my "one who got away" from high school. At the time he was "sober" (actually, a dry drunk) and me having no experience with addiction thought "oh, great! You've got this handled! 3 DUIs is no big deal, because you quit drinking."

We were "a perfect match." We were "made for each other." We lived 500 miles apart, but became inseparable right away. Less than 6 months after we reconnected, we were engaged. Less than 6 months after THAT, we were married. A month later, I was pregnant. When our son was born, my daughters were 10.5 and 7.

Within months of DS's birth, my husband (who always bragged that he was a "happy drunk") was drinking again. Within two years of THAT, he was abusing me on an almost daily basis. Things got steadily worse for the next two years, until I decided enough was enough and started preparing to leave. It took me a full year to actually be able to leave, because we were so dependent on his income and had moved to an area away from family and friends.

I cannot overstate how badly this impacted my daughters. My older daughter, in particular, who was the same age as YOUR daughter is now, when things started to get bad in our house. By the last few months before we left, she didn't even want to come to my house. When she was here, she didn't want to come out of her room. She said many times that she wished my husband was dead. She started dating a young man who was nice enough, but plagued with emotional issues and their co-dependent dance was evident from a mile away. She was only 15, and already repeating my mistakes. My younger daughter craved approval and a good relationship with my husband (her stepfather), and was disappointed over and over and over again. My son was only in preschool, and already repeating his father's bad behavior.

We left in August of 2015, and my divorce was FINALLY final earlier this month. Two years later, and my girls are doing much better. My older DD ended her toxic relationship last fall, and took several months to just do her own thing and have fun before starting to date a very nice, well-adjusted guy a few months ago. My younger DD has had struggles with depression and anxiety, but we have worked hard to maintain a very open, honest dialogue and she knows she can come to me with her struggles. We work on them every day together, and she is much better than she was last fall.

Please, I beg you...do NOT set this example for your daughter. Even if your not-quite-boyfriend is perfectly kind and nice. Even if you are "made for each other" (which, frankly--how can anyone know this of someone they aren't even really dating yet?). Even if your daughter is fond of him now. This will get worse. It will get much worse. I subjected my children to five years of progressively bad abuse and dysfunction. I consider us lucky compared to many people here. We are recovering well. Many are not so lucky.

ETA: if you do have a "state of the relationship" conversation, and you do bring up the drinking, and he does admit he has a problem, then the absolute most I would offer is the opportunity to reconnect AFTER he has a year of sobriety, including working a recovery program and going to a therapist regularly. Mind you, it would not be YOUR job to police that. It would be your job to stay on your side of the street and live your own life, and care for your daughter, while he takes care of his business. Trust me when I say that IF you reconnect and he is in recovery, it will be very apparent. If he's not, it will be equally apparent.

Nedrax

I wouldn't take the risk - low probability that he would change his drinking patterns for a new girlfriend.

In my experience-my ex wife continues to choose alcohol over her son, the unwillingness to change drove her away and she willingly signed over complete custody restricting herself to visitation only with breath tests to avoid having to go into recovery. Initially it may seem manageable and the individual can seem high functioning, but I saw it go from high functioning to low in a matter of months with job loss and infidelity.

I really think emotional intelligence is just not present in relationships with alcoholism, if its both or one of the individuals, in my mind there's no perfect person who would be worth having to deal with all that. Your best intentions and desires for that person to stop drinking will not have a lasting effect IMO, its something the individual has to come to on their own, for their personal well being, not for someone else's.

honeypig

I was married to a "functioning" A for nearly 20 years. There are some good memories of some happy times. There are a whole lot more memories of frustration, emotional unavailability, deception to an extent and depth that I was hard pressed to even believe, and of what I've come to understand as emotional abuse at times.

If you haven't heard or understood all the responses you've gotten here so far, my repeating them once more won't make a difference. What I would like to share, though, is this piece of wisdom, posted by an SR member some time ago:

I'm not going to be very eloquent here, but when people who aren't in it use the phrase "functioning alcoholic" or imply that the situation isn't that difficult because the alcoholic is able to maintain a job and doesn't beat anyone, or because they "obviously" care for their families, those people are dismissing the biggest parts of what makes humans who we are. The fact that a person can hold a job, can move about the world without stumbling and hurting themselves or others, that they can make a sandwich for their kids - those functions don't make a human a full and complete human. A robot can do all of those things. To truly function, a human has to be able to do more than that, and honestly a human doesn't need to be able to do the things above to be able to "function" as a human being. The other things - like connecting to others with truth - are so much more important. I've come to the realization that there's no such thing as a functioning alcoholic. There may be physically capable alcoholics, but that's as far as I can go.

Carlotta

The only thing I can see in the foreseeable future is heartbreak. You got some excellent feedback here but I just wanted to welcome you to SR and join the chorus: Run.

You have a 12 year old daughter and you really don't want the drama, stress and toxicity which comes with being in a relationship with an active alcoholic. Early on, people always put in their best foot forward. If he already drinks that much and is so open about it with you it can only go South from there.

Don't set yourself up for martyrdom. Believe me when I tell you that love does NOT conquer everything (especially addiction).

pocketbook

Thank you so much, everyone, for your comments. I'm overwhelmed by the responses and I have read every word. I'd reply to all of you if I could. I am so sorry for all your pain and suffering and intend to refer to your past posts.

I especially needed to hear "if I had a penny for every story that began with love at first sight/whirlwind romance..." and "you're not smarter than everyone else/he's not different than everyone else".

Cutting ties is going to be so painful for me, someone read correctly that despite what I say I'm already emotionally invested in the relationship...

I plan to do something along the lines of the below. I'll keep it short. Tell him I have feelings for him but I can't be with him. And I won't contact him in the meantime. I won't hold out any hope for change or seeing him again but maybe someone being so blunt with him will plant that seed in his mind.

We're going on a date tomorrow, I can't imagine it happening unless I see those red flags.

I hate for you to feel your advice is falling on deaf ears but if I'd put as much considerate energy into a response I'd want an update, I know in my heart I will probably date him until I am convinced. Maybe that will be one date, maybe six.

What I can say without a doubt is he won't be coming into my daughters life for a second.

She hasn't met anyone I've dated since she was a toddler, which is lucky because I've never had a healthy relationship (clearly my own issues must play a part). That's why I'm so crushed to see my fears confirmed on this one. I might still be learning to protect myself, but I hope I'll continue to protect her and know when the person - and time - is right.

PhoenixJ

Pocketbook- I have not read the other shaes. Thankyou for your serious and important (to you) post. This may seem like a technical point- but no alcoholic is one who 'functions' well. I could have defined myself as h/f'ing for years. What that meant was I could appear to be functioning, as I had a job, family, career- blah. While inside the fear, anger of myself increased slowly over the years. I came from a family while not in poverty- we never owed a home. My goals in life was family, a new home and to reach a certain level of achievement in my career. I thought all of this would then make things right. The gut wrenching fear, pain would go- because I would have proved to myself I was a good person. So I functioned, drank more and more- and hid it well for a long time. Until I could not hide it. Then with irony as my self esteem ebbed to an all time low..I achieved all of the things I had set my life's path on. It all seemed a lie- because I was drinking heavily- and had all I could have wanted, but I almost felt cheated.
No judgements- but a cautionary tale. I drank too much and became a stranger to myself. Dysfunctional drinking- by drinking too much, persistent hangovers, secretive behaviour, absenteeism from work, isolating, and when confronted (atwork in the end and by family) about my drinking- I would pursue lots of different activities to show others I was serious about not drinking. Which allowed me to show, but not change. So be careful. Complete honesty- with tact and a dash of humanity would be how I would talk to someone if in your shoes (which I am not). Alcie's feel shame in their guts. It is not as if it is a normal person hiding drinking on purpose- as a life goal. For me- I was unwell and did not understand that support from others- to be accountable and be completely honest was vital. A big part of this (which I avoided for years) was AA.
Empathy and support to you.

thotful

Pocketbook, have you considered attending a 12-step support group as well (such as Al-anon) - it might help to hear about other's experiences with having an alcoholic parent, sibling, spouse, etc.

For me, my father is an active "functioning" alcoholic. Functioning being that some have bluntly referred to as 'a drunk with a job'. My father is still married, still has his job, doesn't have DUIs (that I know of), and hasn't gone to jail. These might be with the added tag-line of "at least...not yet" - as it's been argued that alcoholism is a progressive disease and it will simply get worse.

One thing I found to be completely absent from just about every alcoholic is emotional connection. It seems to be a common theme for me. An inability to take responsibility for actions. Saying "sorry" just doesn't happen - the alcoholic is always right.

I never connected with my father emotionally. I envied other people with father's that are present. He was physically there, but never emotionally. Could I talk to him about being turned down when I asked a girl out? Nope. What if I was feeling sad about something? Could I talk to him? Look for support? Nope. Did he express any interest at all in my life? Nope. I doubt he made it to only a handful of my swim meets as a kid - or read a single one of my poems. Ask me about school? Nope. Ask me about college? Nope. Attend my graduation? Nope. Just constantly physically present - but never present for when it really counted - present for ME. He was only present for himself. Completely selfish behavior.

I wrote my father a letter about it - He hadn't met my daughter (who's almost 2 now) - I asked why he hadn't followed up with my offers to see him. Brought up all of his daily drinking and his lack of presence in my life - asked if he wanted to get sober.

Get this -- my counselor said the following, "if this letter doesn't reach your father...nothing will." That's how powerful my words were;

Guess what happened?

Absolutely nothing. Nothing at all. Not a response of "f*** you, I'm fine." I'm an awesome dad, you suck. "let's talk", "let's go to counseling" -- "I feel really bad, let's try to fix this" -- NOTHING. Not a word. ZIP. NADA.

That is NOT FUNCTIONING in my mind. Who gives a crap if he has a job. He hasn't spoken to his son in two years, and when that son reaches out and says he wants a relationship with you and is wondering what's going on - he didn't even have the courage, the decency, to tell me why.

One of my counselors said that the FIRST thing that's damaged with alcoholism is not the job, not the duis, jail-time, etc. That's the more obvious stuff. IT's the relationships. It slowly tears them apart. The alcoholic retreats more and more inward - more and more AWAY from the people they love. Because the bottle is their priority and nothing else matters.

In Al-anon, we say that the alcoholic is wrapped around the bottle, while we from Al-anon are wrapped around the alcoholic - they are our addiction. And we ourselves need to be WOKE UP from that. That we need recovery for ourselves to our addiction to the rescue, to the fix, to the directing of traffic, to taking responsibility for getting someone else sober, to taking control.

So, my suggestion is to start a process of looking inward on yourself. You can't make anyone else do that for themselves. Take a good look in the mirror. Attend some counseling - attend Al-anon, and start working on recovery for you.

I love my father and hate his disease. I haven't seen my mother in a long while as well. Alcoholism is completely devastating to relationships. That stuff gets hammered from the get-go.

By the way, what does it say on our gravestones when we die? Does it say, "had a job and didn't go to jail" -- No, it says, "loving father", "loving husband", "loving son", etc. In the end, relationships...connection is all that matters in this life. And alcoholism tears that away from a family. Like dropping a grenade in the center.

I had to say goodbye to my father. I don't think less of my mother because of the situation. But, I have set boundaries for myself in making an effort to get healthy. For now, that has resulted in them not being in my life. So be it.

Take care of you.

FallenAngelina

Not just anyone is attracted to an active alcoholic. There are always reasons that a person is drawn to such a situation and you would benefit enormously by looking into your own reasons. A good relationship doesn't happen because you meet the right person, it happens because you are the right person - and if you've never had a good relationship, then the person to start looking to change is yourself, not a potential partner who drinks. One, you will not change him or probably even "plant the seed" of inspiration for him to change and two, he's not the one who needs to look at changing - you are.

Healthy relationships aren't about protecting yourself. They happen when two people are comfortable with and respect their boundaries, but there is no sense that either needs to protect himself from the other. Healthy relationships happen when each partner is healthy.

I've been grateful for the alcoholic in my life because knowing him has made many of my problematic thought patterns clear to me. These are ways of relating that have been going on long before he came into my life and led to disappointments. Whether you continue with this man or not, you can benefit from having known him by looking into your own part in how you approach relationships in general. You'll be very glad that you did. You'll be a lot happier and you'll see a big change in the kind of person that you attract the next time around.

AnvilheadII

Cutting ties is going to be so painful for me, someone read correctly that despite what I say I'm already emotionally invested in the relationship...

it won't get any easier the longer you remain involved!!!

dandylion

"I think I will go down to the bar and have a drink while I am thinking about quitting"

tomsteve

i have a feeling a few of us have witnessed literally loving someone to death.