I just walked away from a guy who had alcohol issues and was in denial about it. I keep on second guessing myself, but deep down I know it was the right thing to do. I grew up with an alcoholic mother, and I have no desire to repeat the past.

I guess I'm looking for a bit of reassurance. He was in complete denial that alcohol was an issue for him. He labeled himself as a social drinker. These were the issues that I saw.....

He would drink a case of beer to get drunk, and when he did, he was extremely hateful and defensive. I saw a normally kind and loving person turn into a mean spirited and nasty person. His excuses? It was the playoffs... Well, I know that was the excuse THAT day, but what about the rest of the time? And the racist stuff? It was so nasty I don't even want to repeat it. Yeah, sober to drunk was like night and day.

He had issues waking up in the morning after drinking, but was never his fault. It was the alarm's fault or whatever. One day he was supposed to be up early to take care of his son, whom his ex was dropping off early in the morning. He had been drinking the night before and didn't get up. Of course, she comes over, sees the empty bottles, knows he overslept, and flips her lid. He tells me and doesn't understand the big deal. He knows he was drinking the night before, but says it didn't affect him in the morning....Uhm, if you can't get up the next day to take care of your kid, then yeah, I'd say the drinking IS affecting you!

Which leads me to this.... He said that a major reason that he split from his ex was that they weren't compatible, one point of contention was that she didn't drink and had issues when he did. At first I bought this story, but then when I started to see how much he was drinking, I realized that he was just blaming his ex for his over-drinking. Yes, easier to blame her than to take responsibility, right? According to him, she didn't have a problem when he would drink in a social setting, just when he did it at home. Of course, he gives me the example of her flipping out when he had one beer after work, but my intuition tells me that what he isn't telling me is all the other times that he was at home drinking to excess.

There were other things too.... He minimized his dad's drinking. Once he told me about how his dad just cold turkey stopped drinking hard liquor and switched to light beer. In my head I'm thinking "AND?!?....Uhm, there are plenty of problem drinkers out there who only drink light beer!" but of course, I didn't say this at the time.

He knows his mom is a hard core alcoholic. I guess he compares himself to her and thinks "Oh, I'm not that bad so I don't have a problem." Or something like that. I know he talks about his mom a bit, and knows she has a problem. I just wish he could see it is an issue for him, too. He oftentimes uses the excuse that he is just a social drinker, but I know that isn't true. He drinks a lot, drinks alone...

He lost his job right after his ex left him. He lost his job because he was constantly oversleeping. I have no idea if this is alcohol related, nor will I ever know, but it seems to fit the pattern, especially since he can't even get up the next morning after drinking in order to take care of his son. And of course, since he lost his job, he's about to lose his house as well.

I honestly thought he was just in a run of bad luck. Yeah, he's had a lot of crappy stuff happen to him in the past year. But when you add in the alcohol factor, a little light bulb goes off and you start to realize that he isn't an innocent victim in all of this like he pretends to be. He acts like everything just happened to him, like he had no role in anything, whatsoever.

I confronted him about the issue and he just wrote it off as one of my PTSD episodes and said his drinking wasn't a problem. He said he was a social drinker and would never give it up. Well, lets just stop right there. I have NO problem with people who actually ARE social drinkers and just have a drink or two, and it doesn't have a negative impact on their lives. He told me that MOST people enjoy a few drinks now and then, and that MOST people don't have a problem when others drink. I was LIVID at this point and just shut him down. This was the same minimization crap that my mother used to throw my way to try and make me feel guilty for having issues with other people's drinking issues. Ugh.

I was and still am conflicted that I did the right thing? Deep down I know I did, but I still second guess myself. I did everything that I could do to fix the situation, but it wasn't enough. I confronted him, and he was in complete denial. I know you can't help someone who doesn't want help, or even denies that there is a problem. I think I am especially sick that for as much as he claimed to have loved me, and as much as he told me how wonderful I am and how I was the best thing to happen to him in a long time, when it comes right down to it, he rather have alcohol than me. Yes, just like with my mother.... I know its an addiction and I know what its like when the addiction takes hold, having grown up with it in my house. I am just sad, sad that someone would choose alcohol over love. Love like that doesn't come along every day. But at the end of the day, I know I have to put myself first. I can't let myself go down with someone else's sinking ship.

Thanks for reading, I know it was long, but I had to get that out.