My boyfriend is a drunk! :(

[CaliforniaGirl2222]

I didn't send it, but this is the letter I just wrote. Any opinions?

 

 

I know we had a talk about this yesterday, and many other times. I am so very proud of you that you are willing to get help. I am here to support you 100%

 

My only concern is that you have said you would get help before, and you never have. You have gone from admitting you have a major problem, to saying you don't, and just like to go out and have fun. This is what concerns me. Please read what I have to say. Reread it if you have to and please try and take it all in.

 

____, I love you so much. You have my heart. I want to grow old with you. Nobody has ever made me as happy as you do.

 

With that said, when you drink and get past the point of drunk, you become someone else. I don't even want to be around you. I hate that person. That person has hurt me more than anyone in my entire life.

 

If we are out having fun, and you get to that point, the fun stops right there. When you drink, you get to that point 8/10 times.

 

I have thought a lot about this, and believe it or not, some of my favorite memories of us, have been at the bar. Drinking. You are probably thinking "She doesn't want me to drink, says I have a problem, but her favorite memories are at the bar...drinking? " Yes. The thing is, those favorite memories were when we just had a few, talked, laughed, had a great time and were home before 12AM. Since there have been nights where you didn't get completely trashed, it has made me think you are capable of having a few and going home. Then I thought about it more, and those times we left early were all because I always said it was time to go. Each time you would argue and say "no one more", until I got mad, and we would go. Now I realized if I didn't say it was time to go, you would have stayed. You would stay out until 4, 5, 6, 7 or 8AM black out drunk. The only time your drinking is controlled is when you have to leave with someone else. So those 2 out of 10 times you don't get like that, are not because you can control your drinking, it is because you are in a situation where you don't have much of a choice.

 

It is normal for most people to go out with their friends, go to the bar and have some drinks once in awhile. For someone like yourself though, once you get to the point of being drunk, you don't know how to stop. If nobody stops you, you can't do it on your own. You can easily have more than 20 drinks in one night. That is scary, and your risk of getting alcohol poisoning becomes very high.

 

"Binge drinking is now defined by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism as any single episode of alcohol consumption that raises your Blood Alcohol Concentration (or Content), referred to simply as BAC, to 0.08% or above. There’s no time limit—just getting your BAC to 0.08% or above is bingeing.

And here’s the kicker: Getting BAC to over 0.08% in most people happens way more quickly than you realize—for most men, 4 drinks in about two hours, and for most women, 3 drinks in two hours, will do it.

And what many people also don’t realize, or learn the hard way, is that continuing to binge can rapidly lead to severe illness, unconsciousness, coma, brain damage, and death."

 

When you get in this state you can't walk, can't talk properly, you have impaired judgment, you are oblivious to your surroundings.

 

-I have seen you fall many, many times.

-I have seen you stumble in the middle of the road with cars coming.

-I have seen you scream at two guys outside a bar.

-When you are drunk, you look very unattractive. -seriously. Besides, the slurring, and stumbling, your eyes get slanted, blood shot and sunken in, you become very pale, and you look BAD! You have even agreed looking at pictures of yourself. You probably look like this, because your body is started to get poisoned by the alcohol.

-When we have tried to have sex when you are drunk, you have been forceful and you cannot even finish.

 

If you continue this, you WILL lose me, you can lose your job, your family won't respect you, you might get hit by a car, beat up, or pass out and NEVER wake up. Don't think it won't happen to you. The amount you drink in one night is 10 x the legal limit.

 

 

Comments from other people:

 

Debbie: I thought my Bf was bad when he's drunk. But yours -wow, just wow.

 

Bartender from the bar: You know, I think your boyfriend is a real nice guy. His drinking though is the weirdest thing I have ever seen. He will be fine, and then just like a like a light switch he get's drunker than I have ever seen anyone in my life. I have never seen anything like it"

 

One of your friends: (Please don't ask who, I won't say) I love ____ to death. I do. He is one of my best friends. He's a great guy. I don't think he would ever cheat on you. He isn't that type of person. But I can you, no offense, he would choose alcohol over you any day and always will. That is just who he is. " (And really, you have more times I can count.)

 

Other of your friends have mentioned your drinking, and how you have a problem with it. Your dad has spoke with you, and your mom. They are always worried about you.

 

When you go out to these bars, you just leave me. Abandon me. At the times this past summer when I was at the worst of my life, all you cared about was drinking with these friends I have never even met. It's like you have a double life. I don't know who they are, and if they are drunks as well, but enough is enough.

 

I cannot do it anymore, ____. If you cannot stay sober I will leave this relationship. It's not an ultimatum or a threat. What you are doing is a deal breaker for me. Your actions towards me when you are drunk, the hurt and depression I have been through from this is not something I can take anymore. I gave you chance after chance. I can't tell you how many times I forgave you. I can't do it anymore. It is draining the life and happiness out of me.

 

This is going to be something you will need to deal with for a long time, if not for the rest of your life. You need to WANT this for you. Like I said, I won't drink at all. Ever. I will be there and support you always. I love you, and you are strong enough to do this. do this for YOU, before you do this for us.

[chitown9]

Another suggestion for you Laura: get "The Big Book" and read it. It will give you a lot of information....chi

[becomingkate]

We moved in together at about 6 months into our relationship.(Last November) In March, he started to go out more, and things were getting bad. He would get SO drunk. Beyond drunk. Couldn't walk, barley talk, just a complete MESS! Every single time he drank he was like this. Coming home at 6-8AM or sleeping at his dads not even calling me. One time he didn't come home for 3 days. Didn't even contact me once. When he came back, he actually gave me an ultimatum to never speak with my ex again, and that "it killed him we were friends."

 

OMG, everything you've written is what I would have written, had I been here back in 1998.

 

Dale and I met in September of 1990, and it was love at first sight. I was 25 and he was 23, and it was like fireworks went off! Here's a pic of us from that year:

 

 

 

He moved into my apartment in January, three and a half months after we met. He was kind to my daughter, who was seventeen months old at the time. We went everywhere and did everything together, and he really, really loved me. He looked at me with total adoration.

 

We partied a lot in the first year, before I realized he was a binge drinker. I noticed that when we were out with friends, he got completely wasted - couldn't talk, couldn't walk. Sometimes his head hit the table at NYE functions! I was embarassed and very concerned, and within the first two years I asked him to control his drinking half a dozen times. He always cried and admitted his shame, but would not seek help.

 

In year three, his binge drinking continued, but I still married him. He was the first man I'd loved, and I had such hope.

 

Over the next several years, we had a lot of problems with money and I ended up working two jobs, so I wasn't home a lot. The drinking would improve for two weeks then he'd fall hard. I threatened to leave so many times I can't give you a count.

 

In 1998, things got extremely bad. By then I'd worked my way up to retail management and was working two nights a week, and he was drinking as much as he could while I wasn't home. One night he didn't come home from work and left my eight year old alone at home. She called me crying because she was alone and scared and thought she heard an intruder in the back yard. I had to call in another employee so I could go home, and knew it was going to look bad on me professionally - I was livid.

 

When I got home he was there, beating me by a few moments. A huge fight ensued, where I threatened to leave him. I'd threatened before, but this time something had changed. I actually saw the murderous rage come into his eyes - it was like a veil was dropped and all I knew was that we had to get out of there or die. I called for my daughter to get into the van, and ran down the stairs behind her. As I was backing out of the driveway, I saw Dale step out onto the balcony with a shotgun in his hand. He raised it under his chin. I excelerated. I thought he'd kill himself right there, but a second later I heard shotgun pellets hit the van. My daughter was sitting in the back screaming and crying; I felt such a rush of adrenaline that I felt my body go weak and my mind exploded. I almost lost control of the van. We got to a convernience store and called 911. The tach team came to the house and arrested him, and he was charged with attempted murder.

 

I didn't leave him.

 

That year, the charges were changed to unlawful use of a firearm and he got 30 days in jail, which he was permitted to do on weekends. Every Friday when I dropped him off at the remand centre, and every Sunday when I picked him up, I paid for calling 911. He made sure I knew that it was my fault, and he was nasty. I think to make sure that I didn't say a word about the beer he was "allowed to have because his life SUCKED because of me."

 

By now, people reading this must wonder WTH I was thinking, staying like that.

 

I loved him. I thought that the man he'd been when we met, would come back.

 

There are a lot of other stories, some involving dementia brought on by drinking, some with more violence and psychosis, involving knives, DUI's and friends and family. The bank closed our account due to his NSF charges. I was written up at work. But I stayed.

 

In 2001 I tried to leave again, because all the psychologists, accupuncturists, anti-depressants, marriage councillors and antibuse (a drug that makes you violently sick if you drink) didn't work. But then he was Dx'd with cirrhosis, and was given one year to live. He asked me to stay and I agreed. He quit drinking eight months before he died, so he could make the last few months count. Here's a pic of him at a karate event two months before he died.

 

 

 

He was a third degree back belt, and the technical director for a shotokan karate organization. He died ten years ago. To be honest, it really messed us up. We lost friends over the whole thing, people couldn't respect me.

 

NOTHING I EVER DID ever helped. He was the one that needed to want change. I feel that what I did led to his death - I am also culpable for NOT leaving, for NOT taking a stand. If I had left, maybe he'd have gone into rehab, gotten the help he needed. Since I didn't change, and he didn't change, he died.

 

Everyone always thinks that their store is different - that's it's special or unique. It's not. I believe that your BF is just around the corner from all out addiction. My advice, if you love him or yourself - is to take a stand. Tell him that you'll only be in his life while he's actively seeking treatment, and while he's in treatment you can be friends, but not lovers. He needs a full year of sobriety before you go there again.

 

All the best to you and your BF. I hope he finds healing before things get to the point of no return.

[AutumnBorn]

Laura, I found out the guy I'm in love with is an alcoholic, too. I didn't know until we moved in together. He couldn't hide it indefinitely. Now, we're in the same house and his employer has started a civil action against him because they paid him 500k in advance for some work he hasn't completed and probably won't. That money is in a retirement account, which they can't touch. What money he has on hand is some cash in a baggie in his studio. (This is cray cray, as my daughter would say.)

 

Yesterday, today, and every day for the coming 8 days, I intend to gently tell him he needs to go into detox and rehab. If he continues to say he doesn't need it, on day 10 I'm going to tell him to move out.

 

Stay tough. That's what I intend to do.

[AutumnBorn]

Update: My boyfriend is now a drunk in recovery! He comes home from rehab tomorrow, has learned some skills on how to live sober, is repairing his relationship with his employer, and is the most caring, kind, sweet man ever. He's amazing. In fact, he's so into the whole recovery thing, it could become one of those co-dependent relationships:

 

T: "Oh, honey, I've got a meeting tonight. Let's go see a movie tomorrow."

 

Me: "Another one? You went to a meeting at noon."

 

T: "Yeah, but this is the Thursday night meeting. I only went to the meeting at noon because Rick wanted me to try that new group with him, give him my impression."

 

Me: "T., are you seeing someone else?"

 

T: "Yeah, about 100 people, every day."

 

Me: "Sometimes twice a day."

[becomingkate]

I'm so glad that you updated us - good for him, and all the best to you two!