Stuckinlimbo

This is my first post and I truly don’t know where to start. My fiancé or ex fiancé hence the username is addicted to alcohol and gambling. I am familiar with both having had family members struggle with one or the other. I heard stories but I never experienced the effects it has on everyone it touches until now. When I first met my fiancé it was amazing, I knew I found the one. He was hardworking, giving and loving. As the relationship progressed and I had moved in, I slowly started to see his disease. Around 18 he started playing poker online and in person and excelled at it. He made a living out of it. Fast forward 10 years he is working a high stress 8-5 job. He started to gamble online and excessively drink to cope. He would tell me he would gamble to get his mind off of work, bills just everything that was stressful in life. He would then get extremely intoxicated and continue to lose. This is an absolute toxic combination. He would stay up all night going through a months paycheck in less than an hour. At this point I could barely understand what he was saying because he was so drunk. I became a victim of manipulation and constant emotional abuse. I was enabling him and I was codependent. After drinking all night and losing thousands of dollars he would become violent punching holes in the walls, throwing glass bottles on the floor, threatening to kill himself. It wasn’t until I called up crying to my best friend of 15 years balling my eyes out scared for my safety, that things changed. She called my brother and told him everything and my brother told my parents. I have been living at my parents for the last 4 months. I have been going to therapy once a week to address my enabling and codependency as well as the emotional abuse I have gone through and still am going through. Me and my ex/not ex still talk almost everyday. Sometimes I feel like I’m talking to the man I once knew who was so kind and loving and other times he’s cursing me out calling me every name you can think of. I feel this responsibility towards his family in a way because I’m the only one he’ll talk to and if they haven’t heard from him they think the worse. I also feel scared all the time that something’s happened to him. I feel so lost and alone. He is fortunate enough that if he wanted to get treatment he could but he refuses. I know many of you have been through this and I appreciate you taking the time to read this.

Be123

Hi - I'm really sad reading this as so much of it applies to my old behaviour, that drove my ex away.

You referred to your ex/not ex as having a disease...one of the best you tube videos I've seen by Dr McAuley calls addiction a 'disease of choice'. Not that we choose it, but that it affects our ability to make choices. That is based on chemical and physical changes to the brain. The link is below if you like that type of thing!

For me, I couldn't choose in the best interests of my ex. This wasn't to do with how much I loved her or my moral compass - I physically COULDNT. I could only choose to feed my addiction. This is hard/impossible for non addicts to understand - how could some love me and yet act so horribly?

This ended for me when she shocked me into confronting it. She destroyed our codependency and it cost both of us a lot. I've taken the responsibility not to drink, and now I'm breaking the addiction my brain is recalibrating and I can begin to make decent choices again.

I don't think this contains any advice so may be pointless!! But my ex wife could've hoped and waited forever and I could not have loved her more...but I couldn't choose the right thing. So she only had one choice, which was to protect herself




https://youtu.be/zYphZvRHm6Y

AAPJ

I became a victim of manipulation and constant emotional abuse....
he would become violent....
threatening to kill himself.....
cursing me out calling me every name you can think of....

The best thing you can do for yourself is to get as far away from him as possible. He's gone over the wall of addiction and may never return. You need to accept the fact that you can't help him and the person you met years ago is no longer there.

D122y

This place saved my life, but it couldn't do that until I was ready.

I didn't get too crazy with my wife before I quit so she never felt in fear from me.

You seem afraid and you need to not feel like that.

Get away. Maybe he can save himself, but unless he wants to quit, it will never never ever happen.

The anguish of quitting and the time it takes is too much unless the addict is ready to suffer like never before for a long long long time.

Thanks.

Anna

Welcome and I'm sorry for your situation.

Clearly, you are describing an abusive situation and I'm glad that you are in therapy. Abuse, mental and/or physical, is never acceptable and abuse will usually get worse over time. Your ex refuses to get help which really says it all.

You are not responsible for his family and being a go-between.

OKRunner

Be123, thank you so much for your comments above. I'm the ex-girlfriend of an alcoholic and I'm still struggling to understand. You said, "For me, I couldn't choose in the best interests of my ex. This wasn't to do with how much I loved her or my moral compass - I physically COULDNT. I could only choose to feed my addiction. This is hard/impossible for non addicts to understand - how could some love me and yet act so horribly?" My ex promised me many times he would do things with me, including dates/evenings he initiated with invitations, plans, football tickets, you name it, and then he just wouldn't show because he ended up drinking, many times by himself at home. I understand that it's over (more on that in a second), and I've started attending Al-Anon and reading the literature, which is starting to help me understand. But the hardest thing to get over and this is where I'm just struggling is that I really did feel he that he really, really loved me. I could see the love in his sober eyes, in his sober body language, in our sober communications. If he loved me ... argh. As a non-drinker, I just can't wrap my arms (yet) around the physical impossibility you refer to.

You also said, "This ended for me when she shocked me into confronting it. She destroyed our codependency and it cost both of us a lot." After reading and studying and practicing how to do this, after being stood up for the umpteenth time (when he would stay home and drink alone), I did a very gentle confrontation where I didn't blame, label, accuse, or anything like that, but all I said were "I" statements (e.g., "I love our time together; I feel sad when our dates don't happen due to drinking."). And he just responded pretty tersely by saying I labeled him an alcoholic (I did not -- I did not use that word or any other similar word, such as addict, addiction; everything I read said not to do that) and then he also said that friends don't label friends and that he was not an alcoholic. What was it that your ex did that was successful such that you realized your condition? What did I do wrong? I'm still struggling with this.

least

If I were in your situation, I would cut all ties with him and tell his family they are on their own as far as contacting him. I've been in your shoes and I know you cannot change him. If he is being abusive in any way, this is unacceptable! Let him go and don't look back. You may not feel it now, but you've dodged a bullet here. Let him go.