Threshold

I went to bed on time tonight, only to be woken up a few hours later by the phone ringing. It was my boyfriend, whose been out of communication with me for a couple weeks.

He'd sobered up for a couple months, but started drinking again a few weeks ago. He was drunk when he called.

I'm upset, awake and scratching my head wondering why he called.

He didn't want help, or money, or to find out how I was doing. It wasn't exactly a confession but he did tell me that he chose to drink again to numb himself to the pain of his failed life. That he really just likes to drink..oh, and he mentioned the perks of our relationship being over...he can eat as much garlic as he wants to, and he gets to eat the chocolate bars he once bought for me.

So did he call to insult me?

Someone please tell me, what's the deal with the drunken phone call? What do you want?

While he was talking to me he was banging his head with some hard object as some sort of punishment on himself,not for drinking, but for being such a loser that he has no choice but to drink.

When I started crying, he hung up on me.

so what did he want? My permission to drink?

The only thing I really need to be thinking about is what I want and what I need because he chose booze over "us"...again. I don't owe him anything and he's announced he's officially hopeless, exonerating me from all real or imagined allegiance to him or his situation.

as I type this, I am quite sure he is happily snoring.

Dee74

I'm not a phone guy so I was never a drunk caller, but the ones I've received, I'm not sure there was ever really any logic behind them, Threshold?

Maybe someone else has more insight than I do.

D

blueshades

Who knows why we would call - - did he even have any idea in his state? At any rate, I'm sorry to read that you have to deal with this.

Given that he has chosen this life instead of the relationship you're 100 percent correct: you don't owe him anything!

ACT10Npack

Could have been black out at the time and was just talking about everything. Call him back later when you know that he is sober and ask if he remember calling you. People do stupid things when drunk dialing.

wellwisher

Oh, man, I was a pretty sick drunk dialer.

What would happen is that I'd get a bee in my bonnet, drink, and perserverate on it until things just exploded out of my mouth.

The next morning I was never happy about what I did, if I remembered it.

Do yourself a favor - just hang up. No amount of talking it out will work on someone who is obviously out of their mind drunk.

Sorry this happened to you. Try to get some sleep.

Soulprint

Dear Threshold,

My advice would be this for what it's worth...

It's hard I think because (for me), becoming sober is like looking at life through a new window and your world is changing and your mind needs to perform a 'paradigm shift'.

You are the most important person in your world right now and for the foreseeable future. You do not have to be responsible for another person's 'stuff'. You don't need toxic people/emotions in your life in early recovery (that's what I am finding). And hey you have to be self-full (I don't like the work selfish!) in this journey of life to keep yourself safe and sober.

Just be polite and assertive. "It's a pity you are feeling this way, however I need to get some sleep right now - so good night" and then hang up.

Are you on rhe AA 12 Step Recovery Programme?

With very best wishes,

SP xx

instant

Alcohol is not a performance enhancing drug. In retrospect I now think all the times I got morose, and sobbing when drunk was when my emotional core was being hollowed out by the toxin. Poor b*****d

MesoFreak

Hey Threshold. As I read you post I kind of felt like how my gf would feel after she broke up with me if I drank again. If we ever do break up, I hope it will not be because of alcohol. I am sorry he hurt you. I think that was his intention; to make you feel guilty for some reason, but at the same time him hitting his head seems he is unhappy to have lost you, as well as being really drunk. Your boyfriend sounds a bit like me in the state that one believes he has failed. I am sure he has his reasons as I know I have mine. I do hope he is working on changing those thoughts by doing something that makes him feel less of a failure.

Focus on you and what you want, he made his decision, let him live with it. Like I tell my gf: you would be better off without me (him in your case) anyway

Zee

Oh bless your heart You have to take drunk phone calls with a pinch of salt. The chances are that he won't remember that he called. If he does... it will be another thing to add to his list of regrets. I've done drunk phone calls in the past and regretted them, I have also received them and laughed (because they sound deranged and pathetic) ho hum. Thats the joy of alcohol! Its another tool in my kit for continued sobriety x

DesperadoBlond

The drunk calls I made during my worst drinking days are probably the things I regret the most... I managed to really damage some important relationships, with family and other important people.

I don't think they ever looked at me the same way since.

As for what that call you received might mean: I wouldn't really give it too much importance.

Drawing from my personal experience... I don't remember most of my drunk calls and the ones I remember were made when my mind was in a very distorted emotional state. Out of proportion to reality. It's not like I was telling people lies during those calls, but the things I said were often mean and came from me seeing myself as the victim of just about everything.

If you want to give the guy a break, I think the best thing to do is to ignore the call. Or at least ignore the things he said if they were unpleasant.

flutter

I never made drunk calls, and I didn't have facebook or any other social media forum to get stupid on.. but I know sometimes when I drank I would get overly sentimental, emotional, everything seemed to feel 10x stronger. I guess if I would have made calls it would have been from feeling that way, which isn't fair at all to those of you answering them. Don't answer next time. Pretty much every drunken thing I did, I didn't mean, I didn't remember, and I always regretted it.

DesperadoBlond

Exactly the way I feel about it. I did some stupid Facebook messages as well as calls. The next morning I could not believe my eyes.

It's AMAZING how almost every message you leave/phone call you make, when drank, turns out to be something veeeery stupid. I don't think I ever did or said anything positive to anyone when drunk. Managed to insult and destroy relationships. It's as if Murphy's Law is enhanced x 10 when I'm drunk.

wellwisher

Yep, exactly, and my face still flushes with embarrassment when I think about it.

Threshold

Wow, thanks everyone, what a lot of really helpful thoughts here to wake up to.

I LOVE that term "self-full" as opposed to selfish. Yes, yes YES!

And it had never even occured to me that he might have been in black out when he called. I was just assuming he knew what he was doing, and meant what he said. Duh...giving WAY to much weight to something that is probably no more memorable or meaningful to him than a beer burp.

I really really needed that perspective, thank you SO much.

It will be hard, but I know you all are right that I just shouldn't take the next call, and most likely there will be one sooner or later. Why put myself through that when it really does no good for either of us.

I am in my own recovery program and I know deep inside that I did not get sober only to keep dragging a drunk around with me. I don't mean to live with my life hostage to alcohol through another person.

I had been hoping to get a call, wanting to know how he was doing, well, i got it alright. ouch.

DesperadoBlond

Threshold,

that's what I figured from your initial post. You hoped for a call from him. Sadly it didn't turn out to be the kind of call you hoped for. *sigh*

I think you're correct in not giving too much weight to what he may have articulated. In hindsight, I SURE hope people don't give weight to the things I said during my drunk calls.

I'm especially sad about some very, very mean things I said to my beloved sister. Unfortunately she does not seem completely convinced that the things I said during my drunk calls weren't to be taken to heart... It's been several years and I think on a certain level the damage cannot be repaired completely. Black outs are a bitch, especially since it feels a tad unfair. I know I was the one who allowed myself to get drunk, but who the heck is the person who said all those mean things? I was shocked when she told me about it - much later.

SlimSlim

Threshold:

Sorry your sleep was broken by the call.

Carolyn Knapp talks about drunk dialing in her book "Drinking: A Love Story" and if I recall correctly, she said she got the term from AA. Anyways, its common enough that it has a page on Wikipedia and there are even apps to prevent drunk dialing:

Drunk dialing
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search

Drunk dialing is a pop-culture term denoting an instance in which an intoxicated individual places phone calls that he or she would not likely place if sober. The term often refers to a lonely individual calling former or current love interests.

I have this disease late at night sometimes, involving alcohol and the telephone. I get drunk, and I drive my wife away with breath like mustard gas and roses. And then, speaking gravely and elegantly into the telephone, I ask the telephone operators to connect me with this friend or that one, from whom I have not heard in years.
—Kurt Vonnegut[1]

"Drunk texting" is a related phenomenon, and potentially yet more embarrassing for the sender as, once the message is sent, it cannot be retrieved; the message will most likely be misspelled (due to being drunk), and it might be reviewed and shared among many.

In media

The New York Post,[2] the New York Times,[3] and the Washington Post,[4] have all reported on drunk dialing. Cell phone manufacturers and carriers are helping callers prevent drunk dialing. Virgin Mobile has launched an option to help its users stop drunk dialing by initiating multi-hour bans on calling specific numbers[5] and the LG Group introduced the LP4100 mobile phone, which includes a breathalyzer.[6] Although the breathalyzer function was incorporated to help the user assess fitness to drive, rather than fitness to phone, the owner can program the LP4100 to restrict calls to specific telephone numbers on certain days or after a certain hour, a feature that might help limit drunk dialing by eliminating calls when the user is more likely to be intoxicated. Some reports indicate that this phone, or a planned future version for U.S. release, would activate the call-blocking function in tandem with the blood alcohol content results from the breathalyzer.[7][8]

My son once drunk dialed me from Antigua at 2 in the morning because he couldn't get the dinghy started to get home!!! I asked him what he wanted me to do in the wee hours of the morning 2,000 miles away??? Found out the next day he couldn't start the dinghy because it was out of gas. LOL.

NoFireWater

Instant, what a great statement "Alcohol is not a performance enhancing drug" boy is that the truth...

Threshhold, sorry you had to go through that. Such a bummer hoping for a good call and getting that instead. I wish he'd sober up with you, as it sounds like you still have feelings for him and want him to get help. You never know, that might happen in the future. For now, you may have to just file him away under "not right now" and keep him out of your way. You can always let him know you'll be there to help if he decides to get sober.

Threshold

Slimslim, I am LMAO...because, and until you shared that info I had not put two and two together..my boyfriend HATES that country song "I need you now"

he always translated it as "it's quarter after four, and I'm real drunk and I need you now. I'm drunk and horny and I need you now."

um yeah!

maybe he hates the song because it's like looking into a mirror and hating what he sees?

I hope this thread is helping others here as much as it's helping me.

freeatlast1313

when my xabf was really into a vodka binge I would literally recieve sometimes 20 or more voice mails of incessant quacking, I was at work mind you. He would vassilate between professing how I was "the holy grail of women", missing me, love of his life. The next few would be accusing me of everything from cheating to starting the middle east conflict not to mention being called every degrading name a female can be called. In the worst part of my codie disease I would listen to them all for the entertainment value and to know where he was in his binge timeline. So sick of me, like looking at a train wreck, you know it will be ugly but you just cant help but check it out. Good times. NOT.
When I ended this insane relationship I blocked all ways he can communicate with me. He can still leave voice mails because block on my phone just means it goes straight to vm w/o ringing but now I simply erase without listening. New number coming soon will solve this.

noquickfix41

Yup..this is how my story went too. SOOO EMBARRASSING!..He probably doesnt even remember..but he had you in his mind somewhere.