Michel78

What is becoming clear to me is that this relationship needed to end, with or without my drinking problem. It would have ended either way. She simply was not ready for the commitment. I believe getting a lease together freaked her out. She had 2.5 years to get a good look at me (and my drinking - which had been worse prior to moving in). We had practically lived together at my old place for a year before. Was my drinking and wine-bottle-sneakiness the catalyst for change? Yes. But if not that, it would've been something else down the road. I'll confess that I had not been feeling as strongly for her in the final 6 months, compared to our first 2 or so years. I miss the companionship, the friendship. But I would not have had a happy life with her - sober or not.

That said, I am not currently ready for a serious relationship. My addiction is just too unaddressed and unresolved to allow for true happiness with anyone at this time. I do not want to get involved with yet another woman and bring this to the table.

IvanMike

Right before I got clean my second wife left me, and I couldn't figure out why. Sure she used (smoked pot), but not like I did. Every day she watched me kill myself slowly, a small part of her died as well. The bottom line was, she left me because I was an active addict (alcohol was one of my drugs), and being involved with an active addict tends to suck the life out of people and wound their souls.

Delizadee

I still think you are putting too much energy into picking apart the relationship. Try and shift your focus onto how you plan to work on recovery and sobriety.

Once you have a good grasp on your sobriety you can begin to tackle other life issues.

What you're doing is looking at a broken cart wondering why it doesn't work while your horse is lying dead or dying in front of it.

First things first.

teatreeoil007

As you say, michel, the relationship would have ended anyways. And you're smart to have an attitude of not getting involved with anyone else right now until you've addressed your drinking. You are also right that she has her own issues and 'baggage'. Maybe what hurts the most is that rather than come straight to you and discuss concerns, she went behind your back to complete strangers who didn't know all the facts and took their advice to dump you. Talking things over with a third party is sometimes helpful and needful, but sometimes, it just makes things worse and you feel a confidence has been broken. Whenever someone comes to me complaining about someone else I remind myself I am hearing only one side of the story. Well, she has shown her true colors, which maybe you were overlooking for a while and now you can be free to truly work on yourself, which is really easier to do without a dysfunctional relationship hindering you.

Thumpalumpacus

In any breakup, there's blame enough to go around. I ruined a great love with my drinking, but that doesn't mean it was the only factor.

Having said that, I have accepted my responsibility for my misdeeds, and am taking action to ensure I never repeat them. Sobriety and recovery are key elements of that healing.

I still see my ex- writing online about the importance of good communication between lovers, and I sometimes wonder if she reads what she herself writes ... but then I realize that's just a way of taking her inventory.

Take care of yourself. Leave the past behind.

Ariesagain

In all fairness, if what she went to others about was her concern about your drinking, she would have gotten the same advice here as elsewhere...don't plan your life around an alcoholic in active addiction. And there's good reason for that.

One of the really great things about this board is that there multiple perspectives that can be gained because of the many different threads. If I can make a suggestion, you might take a look at some of the posts in "Friends and Family" from people who have loved ones in active addiction and how very painful it can be for them; it may give you some new insight into her side of the story that can help you move into recovery more quickly and with more conviction.

In the end, it really doesn't matter if she also drank, or if she had given you "permission" to drink over the holidays, or whether it was really stealing to drink her gift bottle of wine. Those are all very typical ways for addiction to deflect blame onto others.

Blacking out is a big deal. Repeatedly blacking out and looking like an out of control crazy person isn't a question of her vanity, it's a huge red flag for addiction. It really is "that bad," and as long as we tell ourselves otherwise, we can keep looking for reasons outside of ourselves for staying addicted.

I'm glad you've joined. You're still a relatively young guy who can turn this around and there is wonderful support to be had here.

Michel78

Ariesagain, those are very good points, and I agree. I'll say though that it would've been better had she come to a focused forum like this one, rather than some random forum on Reddit. And/or consult with a professional. Her discussion of my drinking on Reddit didn't bother me so much as her discussion of how crazy and threatening she is accusing me of being (which I was not - I merely objected to her moving out on NYE, but that any other day was fine). Since the breakup occurred almost entirely on FB Messenger, I can view the whole conversation - and I said nothing threatening whatsoever. But the way she decided to spin it to the Reddit cheering section was really low. Her decision to be so difficult about this lease is on her. I said "We have an understanding. X per month through July. Please don't break that." I must've said it 17 times. She wanted to make her own deal with the landlord - and tell him about my drinking (even though it's none of his business). A part of me believes she needed to make me out as some kind of Lifetime Channel movie villain in order to justify breaking her financial obligation to me and parachuting out for LESS money than we'd agreed to. I think that was pretty dark of her to do that. She knows I'm not a crazy violent guy. I really don't know what was up with that. Perhaps at the time she didn't know what I would do - but I hope she's made a note of the fact that I was completely cooperative, had her things out for her, and there was absolutely nothing threatening said or done on my part. I'm a grownup professional man, and I don't do crap like that - and she knows that. Ugh.

But again, it doesn't really matter now. People do wrong to each other in this life. All I can do is move on. Own my part of it. Learn to look for red flags in the future. And above all, get alcohol out of my system for good. I can't have this holding me back any longer. 20 years is enough...

IvanMike

Sorry, I had to cut my original post short as my girlfriend came home and it was time to pay attention to her.

As more than one person has said, at this point, the relationship and what she did or didn't do are irrelevant. To be honest, when I first got clean I lacked the ability to see what had actually happened in my own relationships. Over time, and with the help of my sponsor and others in NA, (and a lot of stepwork) my perspective on what had happened altered considerably.

What is important now is staying clean/sober one day at a time and getting involved with a plan to keep you that way. - If not, getting dumped by your girlfriend will seem like a walk in the park compared to the way life ends up.

EndGameNYC

It seems as though my post doesn't accept the letter that comes between 'j' and 'l'.

Just as she *new about you and your drin*ing "2.5 years" before moving in with you, you also *new the things you wrote about about her, and apparently believed that it would be a great idea for you two to live together. This despite the fact that you felt less connected to her over time.

I needed to face some harsh realities in order to get sober.

Active alcoholics are not the best judges of how their drin*ing affects other people, or how bad their behavior is while drin*ing. Living with an active alcoholic is a nightmare, and not having physically abused your XGF is not a consolation prize for her because things weren't worse than they were or could have been.

I turned my XGF -- a loving, sensitive, bright and responsible woman -- into a homicidal maniac. When I made amends to her after I got sober, I did it unconditionally. It may not always be fair but, yes, we have a leg up in the responsibility department when it comes to the dissolution and destruction of relationships. All other things being equal, guess who gets busted in a two-car accident, without witnesses, when one of the two drivers has a BAC at almost any level? Sometimes even when there are witnesses.

People who get sober tend to live better lives than those who don't. We're also at much higher ris* for things li*e cancer, heart disease, stro*e, diabetes, anxiety, depression and serious medical conditions in our internal organs. And we tend to die a lot younger than our non-alcoholic peers.

It's time to close your decidedly one-sided postmortem on your relationship. Cutting her down to size, criticizing her for being insensitive, immature, and not having a mind of her own -- even if true -- will not bring you peace of mind. You're hurt. That much is clear. But you won't get unhurt by blaming her for the demise of your relationship.

Getting sober after my XGF had enough of me and my drin*ing was the best thing I ever did for myself. I too was hurt. But I respected her for her decision. I was under no illusions about how I destroyed our relationship, including wearing out her good will and being emotionally, and sometimes physically, absent for her. My only regret is that I waited a year-and-a-half following our brea*up to get sober.

chrcarlson

She seemed to indicate she was upset with your drinking. The need to tell her parents and landlord might indicate her level of maturity. That being said, I try not to get too caught up in trying to figure what motivates others. Actions are a better indicator.

I drank for 30 years and quit. I just had enough. Too much trouble and anxiety. Like the kind you are having but over and over. It's an AA thing but once I admitted to myself I was alcoholic and couldn't drink normally it became easier. I can have another drink anytime I wish but I'm quite sure where it will lead. You sound like you know as well.

Thumpalumpacus

Truer words, never spoken.

Peace of mind only comes from owning our own behavior, taking responsibility for our own actions, and then taking action to ensure we don't fluff it again.

Nowsthetime

Hello and welcome:

I am so glad that you found this place. There's lots of great advice I just want to add that I think that you should start educating yourself about addiction and start reading into AVRT. I hear AV A lot in your post. You ask what your step one should be? Make a plan. Let me be clear though, if you are still thinking that you will drink you probably are going to so first you have to accept that drinking is off the table for you. As you said in an earlier post you can moderate for a little bit but then you end up where you started which is what happens to a lot of us. I was a binger and blacked out a lot. You really don't know how you acted while blacked out so who knows what you did or said.

I hope that you decide to quit drinking. It's not easy but it is worth it. Use this place as much as you need to. There's always support here.

JoeCree

At the beginning you will have anxiety about almost everything. But you have to take it one day at a time, stop worrying about the future, you need to tackle the present first.
There is nothing wrong with doing solitary things at first, it helps you to be happy with who you are and to grow stronger. Alcohol is a crutch that keeps your leg broken. It's time to work on that limp.

teatreeoil007

Many relationships do not work out for various reasons. For some people addiction is a "deal breaker". For others it's being the only bread winner. For others: infidelity. Abuse. Financial strain. Lack of being a partner. Emotional coldness; unfulfilling sex life; whatever. This relationship is over and while it's hard to take, (and how it was done) it could be a blessing in disguise.

Michel78

I need to take a harder look at the concept of relationship "deal-breakers." I have been too forgiving in the past. Thinking more deeply about this concept will help me to be in better shape when it comes to my own issues, as well as having a better ability to screen future partners. Had I done so from day one with my ex, I would have never entertained the idea of a serious relationship with her. Unfortunately, I was carried away by her beauty. Drop-dead. It's a mistake we can all make, I suppose. I'm starting to realize that my decision to enter into this relationship is the same thing that makes me drink - immediate gratification, addictive-ness, not considering the whole picture/long-term/what's-in-my-best-interests. Or, to go even deeper, a perception that there is a void in me that needs filling. And whether it be booze, or a woman, or career-success.... I have to get to a place where I am okay with me, and with being alive from one minute to the next without any of that. The booze is but a symptom. And the fact that I'm still going on about this woman 3 months later is another indicator of addictive thinking. This is someone who was bad for me. Someone who caused me much anxiety. Someone who did not inspire me. And ultimately someone who treated me terribly at the end. Why am I not more self-focused? Is this (person, place, thing, behavior) good for me, or bad for me? Bad? Okay, cross it off the list. Good? Okay, let's see how it goes and invite it into my life gradually and sensibly. I have set up a ridiculous life-mechanism - try to succeed, do well, accomplish a lot, have the "great girl", etc, etc, and when the chips are down, drink to console myself. And then, because the addiction is already present and active, even when the chips are up I keep right on drinking, you know, to "celebrate". Ugh. This is not what life is about! Everything I'm doing is based on addictive thinking. And so my decision making is completely out of whack. And it's especially out of whack once an intoxicating substance is clouding my thinking. Satisfying the ego is not happiness. Pleasure is not happiness. Validation is not happiness. Without happiness, attempts to stop drinking are futile. You can "will" yourself sober I suppose - even for years and decades. And yes, you'd get a gold star for your "will" - but you will be miserably thirsty I bet. And you'll crack at some point, because you haven't solved the core problem for which alcohol is the main medication. I'm thinking that the only way up for me is to truly get into loving myself, valuing myself, and being happy to be alive, in each and every moment, even the painful ones.

Delizadee

My friend, you are not going to think yourself sober.
You're also not going to think yourself happy.

I have a disease of the mind.
It's called thinking.
My diseased thinking makes me choose to keep drinking when it is clearly keeping me from being happy and achieving good things in life.

My diseased thinking has a name:
Addiction.
And until I deal with that and get firmly in check,
NOTHING is going to work itself out.

There is no reinventing the wheel. You addiction mind is giving you 10,000 reasons not to deal with the fact at hand: you have a drinking problem that led to a relationship breakdown.

You cannot control another person.
You cannot control all of life.
You CAN control yourself and your drinking by not doing it.

I would hasten to make a recovery plan. if you are expecting to be happy before you commit to not drinking or right after you do quit, you may be sorely disappointed.

Worry about the horse.

Fix the cart and all that shiz after you trust enough that the horse can stand on its legs.

teatreeoil007

Very well said!

RallyAly

I did not think happiness needed to come before sobriety but I didn't expect sobriety to lead so directly to being happier. It's hard to emphasize enough how much drinking amplifies and fuels a host of negative feelings, including bitterness and feeling deeply wronged. Many people talk about feeling better about themselves as a major change and generally feeling physically better helping their moods.

That has certainly been the case for me but, boy howdy, things that used to really wind me up in relationships, work, traffic, etc., just don't have that same hold anymore. And while I've worked on my sobriety and planned and such, I haven't really worked on any of those emotional areas, it just was a pretty amazing result of getting my brain off booze (and some contribution from mindfulness practices I had begun before).

I had had therapy for about a year, ending about a year ago and that was definitely a good foundation for sobriety and I likely would not have really been in a place to commit to sobriety without it, not knowing what I know now. But if I had a time machine, I'd go back and tell myself "get sober, keep at it for a couple of months before assessing - then do therapy or whatever, you'll have a hell of a head start and a much clearer ability to understand yourself and others."

JoeCree

Michel78 - i have mentioned before to other members, but you noted "chess" as an activity you enjoy. It is not as solitary as you think. I have an app from chess.com and play daily. You are playing against real people and I have made some pretty cool friends there too.
I play 1-3min games, so my mind doesnt have a chance to wander. You can use your enjoyment of chess as an excellent tool in recovery.

Michel78

Today is the day. Drinking is done. I feel so low right now I can't even describe it. But I know that I will not break free of the darkness with alcohol in my life. Enough. Any advice for day 1? This is going to be profoundly weird, especially by evening.