Wives of Alcoholics Community Group
A forum of healing and help for wives of alcoholics.
I am in a relationship with a high functioning alcoholic. He never misses a day of work due to his drinking. He drinks during the week, but does not go to the bar every night. Sometimes he drinks at home. Some days he is a happy drunk, but he goes to a very dark place when he drinks excessively. He then rants for hours about ridiculous things and picks arguments with me. He follows me around ranting and pacing through the house. He is very angry with his family which is the root of his depression and drinking, but won't tell me why. We are not married, but have been together for over five years. He has had a drinking problem for the last two years, but it is progressively getting worse. He has recently been talking about not having any reason to live any longer. He says if he dies, he dies. It is what it is.
I read all these stories and they are heartbreaking. I never dreamed I would be dealing with this, but I am sure you are all thinking the same thing. I cannot even imagine how much this problem is magnified with children in the picture. My heart goes out to those of you who do. We do not have any children. His family knows, but seems to have given up on trying to help. He has never been drunk in front of my family, so they don't know.
Got him to agee to one therapy appt and he is now trying to back out and accusing me of forcing him. He has found every reason to not go. I realized he is not ready to change and deal with his pain and that I must make a decision to leave or live with this. Such a difficult decision because I do love him and want to help him through his pain. However, his pain and addiction is destroying me in the process. I don't think I can do it much longer. I am mentally drained and exhausted. I admire all of you for having the strength to deal with it. I just don't think I have it in me to take much more of it.
All good advice that you posted. You are so right. I am trying to force something that is likely not going to happen because he does not want it. I am going to try and focus on my needs like you said. Have not done that in a very long time. Will be hard, but am going to try. Thank you for posting your thoughts. I know were directed to DSTRICK, but are very helpful to me as well. So thank you. :) All my best to you.
A quick update. Last week, my boyfriend texted me a note saying good bye. It was about midnight and he had not done that before. I feared the worst. I called him and he would not pick up. So I texted him if he did not respond right away, I was going to call 911.
Not an ideal way to handle things, but part of me suspected that it might be more for drama effect. I just did not know for sure. He immediately responded via text and was very irate saying I had no legal right to do that and this is his business, I will be hated if I do that, etc...
Interestingly enough, he has not threatened suicide since. May be too soon to tell, but I think he was using the threat as a way to get to me and it was working. We shall see.
I know one should always take suicide threats seriously. So I will still be watching for this, but am hoping if he was doing it to gain sympathy, it will stop now.