Justkeepsmilin

I’m a mother of 3 adult children. I like to think I’m strong, independent, and I try to be a good role model for them. I am their rock. So everything I do I try to make sure I don’t look weak to them. I have been with my AB for about 3 1/2 years. He’s not a mean, sloppy, or terrible drunk. He’s actually just sometimes obnoxious. Difficult to have conversations or a partnership with. We can have a two hour conversation that goes nowhere. He cooks dinner for me every day and cleans. It took me about 6 months to suspect he had a problem. Then probably another year or so to know that he did. We did not live together, so he was not right in my face for me to really tell. It came down to him always having an excuse for his “why”. Then I would back off because I thought once it passed, he would be ok. I will say that he has not been dealt the best of hands over the past couple of years, but again, any excuse. When we met he lived with a very, toxic friend, and they enabled each other’s drinking. Since I’ve been with him he has used all of the following for excuses. Some are bad enough that I tolerated it trying to be understanding. Getting Covid, two back surgeries, mother died, brother died, close friends died, toxic roommate, loss of jobs (due to drinking), a really bad hurricane where we live, the list goes on and on. In my mind, I kept thinking that I needed to help him overcome these obstacles. If we did, then he wouldn’t have the excuse to drink. So we whittled away at it a little at a time. Over a year and a half ago, he lost his job. Which made it worse living with the toxic roommate. So he started staying with me more and more. This became tricky because my 31 y.o. son lived in the same house. My son is a veteran who receives disability for mental health issues. I love my son but living with him is no picnic for me, and I was working to get out of that situation as well. Well, January of last year when I was about to pack up anything he had at my house and send him packing back to his roommates, his roommate called and said he had to move completely out of there. I instantly felt trapped. Trapped in a house where my son didn’t want him there, and I wasn’t sure I did. He was sitting around drinking all day. Not working. Not looking for work. I found bottles everywhere. We argued about it nonstop. I have a fairly stressful job, and I’m at work 10-12 hours a day. I made him go to detox. He went for 5 days. He did not follow up with anything. He was back to drinking within a week. The fighting continued. He would lie and say he wasn’t. It was and still is so very exhausting. Working long hours and coming home to hours of arguing about whether he was drinking or not. I was so stressed, it felt like my hair hurt. I could feel myself detaching. I would threaten him of being homeless and not having me. I was trying to prepare him for the inevitable or to wake him up. Finally, one day I told him to get out. He took off and basically threatened to kill himself. I was mortified. I found him and brought him back home. Again, discussing his need for treatment. That never happened. Then I came home from work after hours of arguing with him as to whether he was drunk or not, and I lost my mind. I threw stuff, I yelled, I shoved a bottle of vodka in his face and told him to drink until he wound up dead. He is not a confrontational drunk. He laid there hiding under the covers. Scared of me. I literally went bat**** crazy until I fell into a curled up crying ball. We laid there crying together for a while. In that time, my heart that I had hardened against him, melted. Still, I did not make sure he received the professional help he needed. He switched from vodka to beer. Got a good job. Got caught up on all his debts. Was giving me weekly money for rent. I just bought a house this February. I am 49 and it has been a dream of mine for over 20 years. The reason I work so hard. We finally have a home for us. Free of my adult son. I felt like we were finally heading in the right direction. No. His beer drinking became more and more. Earlier and earlier. I’d talk to him at one in the afternoon and could tell. He was supposed to be working. Talking to clients. Bosses. So the fighting about it continued. Before I got the house, he blamed our living situation. That he didn’t feel like it was his home. More excuses. I feel like I cleared every obstacle out of his way, and nothing worked. Almost two months ago, I went out of town with my daughter and her husband for a few days. He could not go because of work. He binge drank tequila the whole time I was gone. Which has now opened up the vodka drinking almost every workday. Weekends with me, he is mostly fine. He has started been starting as early as 9 AM. Drinking, working, driving, at clients houses, on the phone with people. I believe he is on the verge of losing his job. He is wearing me down and each day I lose a piece of me and love for this poor, broken man. I poured my heart out to him Tuesday of this week. Told him what it’s doing to me. Told him he needed to take steps to fix it or we would be done. So he drank about it and passed out for over 3 hours in the AM. The next day he ignores me for several hours then when I do hear from him, I can tell he’s drunk again and driving. I told him he didn’t do anything I asked of him, and that he needed to pack his bags and get out. He just argued that he wasn’t drinking. Later in the evening he texted that he’d be late getting home because he was going to an AA meeting. I knew he was only doing it to appease me but was hopeful he’d get something out of it. He came home after and apparently went drunk. I didn’t know that was a thing until I looked it up. The next morning I spoke with him and again he sounded like he’d gotten an early start. I asked him to please do not drive. I have kids, family, friends out there. I spoke with him again a few hours later. He was out driving. Boom. The anger grabbed me again. I told him, I needed a break. A two week break. That he needed to find somewhere to go. He argued. I would not budge. I realized that I had to have this for myself, my sanity. I’m exhausted from the arguing, the lying, the gaslighting, the worrying. I told him I didn’t want to even talk to him while we were on break. (I so wish I would’ve stuck with this). He made a big production of getting his stuff and leaving. I was fine until I came home and realized he took my gun. That opened the door of worry and having to communicate with him. He returned it the next day but the communications did not end because I was worried about his mental health. He told me he was staying in a very bad area because that’s what he deserved. He was going back and forth yelling at a homeless person to leave him alone. I told him you’re not poor. You can stay anywhere. He did it just to make me worry more and give him what he wants. I expressed my concerns to my 27 y.o. daughter who is the most loving person I know. She basically said, she’d never tell me what to do and that nobody ever knows what the other person really goes through but that we had chosen him to be a part of our family and that we should try to help him. So we went looking for him. We found him yesterday after he finally told me where he was. Not in a bad neighborhood. All lies. He was staying at his work office. Which I initially expected, but he said he was elsewhere. Now he’s home. Comfy in bed. Fighting his hangover. I’m at a loss. I feel completely manipulated again. Now I’m afraid I’m stuck. I made promises to him that I’m not sure I can keep to lure him into giving me his location. I hate that I have to use me or our home as leverage to try and get him to wake up. I’ve expressed to my daughter that she should get on here herself. That it can be very enlightening. I see the stories and know that he can only help himself. We will as a family come together and try to steer this man to the help he needs. This will be my last attempt though. I know he definitely has underlying mental health issues that he’s trying to treat with alcohol.

I feel like I’ve said way too much but also like I have so much more.

LucyIntheGarden

Hello Justkeepsmilin,

Though you may feel your situation is extreme and that you may be losing your mind, I can assure you that most people who live closely with someone with advanced alcoholism will become as sick as you feel today.

You wrote: "We as a family will come together to steer this man to the help he needs."

There is not a single person in your family who is qualified, who has any idea, how to do that.

While you have been obsessed with changing him, with saving him, with getting him "professional help", you have become ill, emotionally, mentally, physically, and it is you who in fact must change and who needs professional help.

Whatever wheels are turning in your mind to get him the "help" you think he needs, reverse those. Because it is yourself you must plan to fix.

It is not necessary to deal with kicking him out today or next week. Why? Because you are mentally unprepared for it. Because if he has an accident or harms himself, you will think it's your fault. This would again be the outcome of believing you have control over the uncontrollable. But it is what happens. People incorrectly take on responsibility and blame for the actions and the fate of the alcoholic. And because experience has proved that he will come back and you will take him back, because you yourself are unwell.

So. Your situation will not improve until you get some serious help for YOU. This can be a commitment to Al-Anon meetings every week (all over town, wherever you can sit yourself down and as often as you can). Combined with at least 8 appointments with a professional counselor. Are you mentally saying to yourself "I can't do that. I'm too busy. I don't have the extra cash. I hate groups. He's the problem, not me."

Well, those thoughts are your flashing light to seek help. What you have is a serious case of codependency. If you get better, your daughter will also benefit. Her loving nature could one day place her in a similar toxic relationship.

Your motives have been driven by love and kindness. But with alcoholism, you have to learn a different way.

LucyIntheGarden

I would also like to add: get the gun out of the house.

There should never ever be a gun in the home of an alcoholic.