Pain Princess

I am in a relanshinship with a wonderful woman named Stephanie for 2 years now. We met at 16 while taking Japenese at a community college in Washington. There have been several tribulations including forced seperation for over a year by my family (they disaprove of our same sex relanshinship), her cheating on me while I was in another state, her mother, whom is divorced from her father, deciding to ship her off to Cali from Washington once I was able to scrape up enough money to get out of Arkansas (where my fam dragged me) to Washington, struggling to make enough money to be together in California, and most recently her father alcholism. Every hurdle in our life always seemed like the worst it could get. I never imagined exactly how difficult it would be to live with an alcholic whom has fed his addiction for well over 15 years.

He'd wake me up at all hours of the day and night to drive him to the liquor store to buy a bottle. If he ran out of liquor while the stores were closed he'd accuse of us stealing his bottles, and if he'd spent all his money he'd accuse of os stealing his cash. He'd demand various amounts of cash or threaten to kick us out. The final straw, which was honestly more like an anvil, was when he tried to kill us. He had been drinking at his mother and grandmothers house heavily for 5 days, and when they couldn't handle him any longer they dumped him at our door step.
A few side notes: his grandmother is Russian, doesn't know how to write,and the sweetest woman you could ever hope to meet. While in her home, he punched a hole in the wall, tried to steal his mothers car and destroyed it in the process, and threatened to kill them both in their sleep.
Steve, Stephanie's father, is homophobic while drunk. And violent. While in a fit he tried to throw the living room into Steph and my bedroom. After a while he called his brother and threatened to kill himself. This was pretty common so his brother didn't take him seriously. I got fed up and called the police, whom simply said naughty naughty, go to bed and sleep it off. Once the cop car was out of the driveway he called Steph to his room where hit her with his pillow to harshly knock her head against the wall. When she said don't you hit me he yelled at her that she deserved it. Then he got out of bed and tore the phones out of the hook. The only room in the house that still has a door that Stev hasn't torn down is the bathroom, so we fled there to get ready for work. Steve knocked down the door, ripped down the curtain and "accidently" swiped the curtain rod against my calf. I think he was suprised that we were nude and shortly after fled the bathroom, only to take a seat in the living room and stare at us while we took a shower. When he was looking away I ran over and closed the broken door as best I could. We both heard some odd noises, but he was leaving us alone so we ignored them. Right after we turned the water off there was a knock on the window. It was the same police man whom had come before. Steve's brother got worried and heard Steve his my girlfriend so he called the cops. They found him hiding in his room. We found the gas line to the heater pulled out and signs that he had attempted to sever it, the fire alarms all dismantled, and a lighter not 5 feet from the heater.

My mother got me a plane ticket to Washington for me a few weeks back and I flew back to my parents early this morning. Stephanies flight leaves on the 8th (flight was booked, she's moving to safer family on the 3rd)

I've been told that as long as we enable him he can never recover, and now he does seem to be making honest attempts to be sober, but I'm worried that leaving him will only hurt him more. I'm stealing his little girl away from him and leaving him alne with his alcholic mother, whom has enabled him so much she's litteraly given him her home. I don't think anyone here could say I should have stayed, but I just need to know if anyone thinks there's anything else I can do to help him and his mother from a distance? And how can I keep my lover from continuing this family cycle of alcholism. She wants to stay sober as much as I want her to, is there anywhere we can go together to help her reamin strong?

~Crystal~

gelfling

Your leaving will not help your partners father become sober. Have either of you gone to alanon meetings? It's important to know that no one caused the disease and that it's totally up to him to seek sobriety.

Leaving was probably the best thing you could do for yourself. Please get to meetings and pick up their literature. Time to get to know what the disease is all about and to learn how to take care of yourselves.

Blessings and Happy New Year

BlueMoon

"Leaving" is something *positive* we do FOR OURSELVES - period.

It's not a threat/bluff or punishment *against* the Alcoholic.

My actions never turned ANY one into an alcoholic -
and they never *saved* an alcoholic either - (except *me*.)

MY 'leaving' was and *IS* for ME.
MY sanity,
MY safety,
MY happiness - - -
it truly *IS* allllllllllll about *ME* - - -
ME learning to live a HEALTHY life.

I cannot 'fix' or 'save' any one else ...

and - the ONLY PERSON who can keep *me* sober - is *me*.


Blessings,
Blue

Pain Princess

*sigh*
I just don't like the thought of someone whom means so much to my girlfriend hurting himself and others like that.

Thank you for further clarification.

~Crystal