My fiance has been struggling a lot lately with this and it’s taking a toll on me. I’m doing all I can and all I know how to do but it’s getting really hard and exhausting to deal with the constant cycle of abuse and then apology and then abuse and then apology over and over and over again for months. Usually day by day. I have convinced her to go to a counselor for help and she has an appointment set and seemed willing but she has kept up the cycle of drinking and I’m afraid she’ll just ignore it or pretend to go. If anyone has experience helping a loved one through overcome this I would appreciate the help. She is an absolutely wonderful person when she is sober and I love her with all my heart but I’m not sure what else I can do and I don’t want the rest of my life to consist of this.
As an alcoholic, you cannot help someone who doesn’t want help. It’s a disease that grabs ahold of your mind and tells you to do things you actively don’t want to do. It’s hard to explain how you can just NOT want to be drunk today but then do it anyways. How you can know you’re hurting the people around you and still do it anyways. Both of my parents were violent alcoholics, but as I’ve grown and dealt with the issues of addiction myself, I’ve learned to have empathy for them.
Whatever you do, don’t marry this person unless you’re 100% sure you can deal with this disease. It may get better but it will definitely get worse for a time. There is no “former alcoholic”. There are only alcoholics who choose not to take the first drink.
I hate to say something so harsh but it’s the truth. I’m glad my girlfriend has endured me but I’m trying. There was a time I was downing 2 pints of bacardi gold every day, waking up and filling my coffee cup with it and drinking all day, sometimes passing out, waking up and drinking some more. I’ve cut back but I made.the decision myself. My girlfriend definitely pushed me in that direction and I’m not trying to take credit away from her trying, but everyday I make that decision myself.
You can push your fiance, but they have to make that decision. Everyday.
I know, we’re both predisposed to alcoholism, we’ve both had family die to it. I’ve struggled with it a little bit myself in my younger years. I know that if she chooses alcohol over us then there’s nothing I can do about it. And honestly it’s right at that point now. I love her and I always want to be there for her, but if she pushes me away I…I mean I know I deserve better and I know I can’t live like that but I’m just going to do my damndest for as long as I can. She’d do the same for me.
My wife and I have known each other for almost 10 years now, since our first date in our early 20s. We’ve only been married for 4, and we have a kid.
She is also an alcoholic, but luckily for me she turned it all around. The previous commenter is on point with everything they’re saying. You can’t help her until she fully internalizes that she needs help.
I think the turning point was when I realized I couldn’t do it anymore. I had to go through all of the stages of grief before I accepted the possibility of our relationship ending if she didn’t take steps to address her problems with alcohol. Then I realized that by trying to “be there” for her I was instead creating an environment where she didn’t need to change. So the most supportive thing at that point that I could do was to be firm and tell her that her last chance was up. I made it clear to her that I still loved her, but that I could not continue with the relationship as it was. And I told her that I’d be there if she wanted to come back after she took steps towards recovery.
I got lucky, but you need to be prepared for this relationship to end in order to save it. At some point forgiving her becomes almost selfish. I didn’t want to loose the good things I had with my girlfriend which made me tolerate her spiral downward. Once she realized she didn’t have that anymore, she made a change. Yours might not. And you have to accept that. You can’t fix someone who’s not ready to fix themselves.
I wish you all the best. I hope you take care of yourself.
I would like to second this experience with my own. My now husband and I have been together 12 years, married for 2. I wanted to marry earlier but he was not ready until I got my act together because unfortunately, I am the one with a drinking problem.
We went through the cycle that OP and others mentioned of daily drinking, promising I would stop, then somehow getting sucked back into any excuse to drink again the next day or a few days later. Always drinking to the point where I was putting others in danger or acting incredibly selfishly. Luckily I was/am not the type to act violently or manipulate others, even when blackout drunk, but my behavior was inexcusable regardless. This went on for about ~4 years in my case. Sometimes better for a period but falling back into the pattern again and again even when I was devoted to trying my hardest.
What turned it around for me was the same as the above comment. My boyfriend of 8 years, who had always been my best friend and closest ally, said he couldn’t do it anymore. If I couldn’t find it in myself to change for him, us, or myself, he wasn’t going to stay and keep getting hurt.
He cried when we talked and said that when I would stay out late or threaten to leave when I was drunk, the fear was overwhelming. He’d envision each time that this was it. This is the time I’ve gotten into an accident and was dead on the side or the road, or was kidnapped and assaulted by someone at a bar, if not killed by them. That pain was so real for him and was tearing him apart almost every day for years.
We both have pretty severe anxiety and on top of my family history of alcoholism, that anxiety was one of the reasons I had such a hard time breaking free of the cycle. I went from feeling terrified, overthinking everything, and depressed when sober to feeling nothing or just feeling angry instead of being overwhelmed, when drinking.
When he put his foot down and said he was done and explained to me how incredibly tired he was from being scared and hurt almost every day, that’s when I really started trying.
I made mistakes along the way. Would slip up and drink too much probably once every couple months but I didn’t ever make it back to my lowest point and never stayed out all night again leaving him home alone to convince himself I had died.
We got married 2 years later. I haven’t been able to fully stop drinking but if I do end up drinking too much on accident, I resolve once again to take a break for at least a month to reset myself. Truthfully, each reset is in the hopes I can fully quit for good but I have other issues I need resolved before I will have that willpower.
I recently stated taking an anti-anxiety medication and it has helped tremendously but until I get the courage to seek professional help for some other things, I know each time I drink is a risk. I’ve been doing good though I think. We’ve been doing great. Since finding the resolve to do better, for us, it has been the best 4 years of my life and of our relationship.
I can’t say putting your foot down is the best thing for your S/O but I do know it’s the best thing for you, OP. From there she’ll have a decision to make but be ready to leave if you must. If you stay and your S/O does try, know they will fail again but keep an eye out. If they’re really trying and you see that change happening, you may get lucky and eventually, things will get good and then great. But keep your guard up, your foot down, and don’t take more abuse than you can handle while they’re recovering.
Stay strong no matter what you choose here and please take care of yourself above all else. 💜
Feel free to DM me if you want talk or have questions. This is my second comment since getting on Lemmy so don’t be alarmed at the lack of profile history. I feel very anxious about commenting so I usually don’t. But if my shitty experience can help someone, that is important to me and I feel a duty to share.
It’s not a girlfriend but I have a friend who is in a similar situation. He has a bad drinking problem (among other things) and gets very destructive when he drinks. The rest of us in our social circle were finally able to get him to understand that he needed to quit and if he didn’t we weren’t going to be able to keep dealing with it. He was on the right track for several years but recently started spiraling again after a bad breakup. That’s a recent development so I can’t say how it’s really going to turn out yet but hopefully he can pull through. He’s a good guy when he’s sober and can get out of his own head.
I resent this view even though I know there’s a certain truth to it. I feel like they need to try naltrexone first before he assimilates this view. That’s all I’m gonna say for now…
i think this drug addiction is bad you should take this drug instead
wow thanks western medicine for your input
we need mental healthcare and actual resources for people to get help. and not a stigma on the victims of addiction.
Addiction is a disease treatable with drugs like other illnesses, I’m a former alcoholic and while I never used nal in recovery I’ve heard lots of people praising it, You don’t sound like ya have much experience with addiction issues. Drugs like nal take away some of the pleasure of drinking while still allowing a compulsive drinker to drink, it’s a major lifeline for somebody struggling and imo I way better than an abstinence based approach with higher power like AA
Why dont you look up what naltrexone does before you start running your mouth with nonsense rhetoric?
Also, do you have any actual helpful experience to share or do you just want to be heard when you have nothing to say?
I was an active, functional, alcoholic for many, many years. I stopped drinking for good seven years ago, haven’t touched a drop since. There has been a lot of good advice here, however I wanted to offer my (possibly unconventional) two cents.
One of the things that got my attention during my drunk years was being confronted with how much money I was spending on alcohol. That was eye opening and really, my first dim lightbulb moment of ‘oh shit’ I might have a problem. Maybe showing her how much money she is throwing away each month on hooch?
Second was the realization that all my hobbies revolved around alcohol in some way. Getting involved in some new fresh things that didn’t inherently involve alcohol was a big step. Maybe you both could plan alcohol free activities during the hours she normally drinks the worst? Go for a walk in the park, hunt some Pokemon? Get her out of the house and somewhere poeple aren’t drinking. Even if it means an emergency 11pm trip to Target for candy.
Third, I would highly recommend therapy. I was drinking to fill a hole in my life alcohol was never going to fill. Once I was on the correct medication, I realized I was just using alcohol as a crutch for my mental illness.
My last advice which I hesitate to give, but which worked for me, is to switch addictions to something a little less damaging. I’m much happier being a evening stoner than an evening drinker. Maybe she would like vaping, or mircodosing on shrooms for a mood elevation?
Again all of these ideas involve her wanting to change, but if some part of her does want to change, than this will help. Also DO NOT KEEP ALCOHOL IN THE HOUSE. Nothing. Not a drop. Throw out the vanilla extract and mouthwash if you have to.
Good Luck Buddy!
I’m with you on the stoner thing. I have tendency to abuse substances, though thankfully haven’t developed alcoholic tendencies (seeing my best friend become an alcohol was enough for me to seriously try not to abuse it in the first place).
The weed helps give me that change in sobriety that I really enjoy w/o nearly the same damage to my mental health and body. That said I’ve definitely abused it, so I had to still set some basic parameters on myself, cuz making weed my whole personality would have had a negative social impact even if my body was cool with it.
I had a similar experience in that I drank and “functioned” for a good 15 years. I didn’t really see it as a problem since I was able to maintain a job and climb up the career ladder, while a lot of my social circle was doing the same thing. I eventually got into enough trouble and sought therapy, which helped me stay sober for a really long time. Now, I can have a few drinks here and there, but they are limited and far apart. The vast majority of the time that people are drinking, I really don’t want to, but that took a lot of sober time and realization that I don’t like alcohol, being drunk, and especially hang overs. I just liked not feeling overwhelmed, anxious, and sad. The thing is, when we are anxious and depressed for so long, we think that’s what life is. It takes a long time of being sober and rebuilding a new life to escape that pit.
I agree with everything that @FollyDolly@lemmy.world said. What really helped me what getting into therapy, a healthy supportive circle, and going 2 months without drinking. Those two months were essential because they helped me realize some important things.
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Like they said, I was blowing a ton of money on alcohol which I didn’t realize until I stopped drinking and saw my bank account at the end of the two months. All that money I ended up inadvertently saving I was able to spend on cool new things like a new computer or upgrades for my car.
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The other thing was realizing that the vast majority of my friends weren’t really friends. They were drunk assholes, and so was I. After being sober for two months, I noticed that I didn’t like my social circle at all, and eventually ended up choosing to cut them out of my life because all they really wanted to do was drink and started unnecessary problems. I found out that I didn’t like being around drunk people, that the things I thought were fun when I was drunk were not fun at all, and that I didn’t like who I was when I was drunk.
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The last important realization was that I was really avoiding problems by drinking. I didn’t ever resolve anything. I would instead bounce from problem to problem and drinking the emotions of the problems away to pretend they weren’t there. If you would have asked me while I was drinking if that’s what I was doing, I would have sincerely said no. However, once I stopped, I was able to recognize that I had to do something with those emotions by resolving them in a healthy way as best as I could.
As far as how to help is mainly to stop enabling them if they don’t want to stop drinking. By this, I mean stop fixing the consequences of their behaviors. It’s really hard to do because you care about them, so it may help to understand that the best way to help them is for them to suffer their consequences. This is what will trigger them to realize it needs to stop. Regardless of what they do, do not fix their consequences for them. That is what they need to get better. It might even mean that you will lose them for some time, and that’s okay. It’s part of the process. If they get healthier, they will eventually come back. Don’t be scared of losing them. It might be what both of you need.
Another thing that would help is to encourage them to stop drinking for about 2 months. How I did it was to just think about it as I was not drinking for that day only. I didn’t have to figure out how I would stop drinking for eternity, just that day. The next day I would do the same thing. In order to help with this, I created a schedule of things to keep me busy in the meantime that wouldn’t allow me to drink. The funner and more engaging the activities, the better. So instead of not knowing what I was going to do all weekend, I would have an entire schedule of events that would not match with drinking and would keep me busy enough to not think about it.
Also, get rid of all the alcohol in the house. Avoid anywhere they have drank. Engage them in a new world that has no reminders of drinking. Have them join social circles where drinking is discouraged so they can see that not everyone drinks. That means no bars, maybe no restaurants, no beer aisle, etc. Anywhere they used to drink is off limits for some time, especially those first few months. After a while, they could potentially slowly introduce those places into their life.
Importantly, if they are a daily drinker, they may need medical detox because alcohol withdrawal can kill. This is a serious matter. In my experience, alcohol detox is very compassionate and caring. They hook it up with a place to be super relaxed and give meds to slowly avoid the withdrawal symptoms. There’s no agony or pain. It really isn’t a poor experience at all.
On relapse, it’s possible and even likely that they may relapse. Rather than see this as a failure, understand that it’s part of the process. Prepare for relapse by having a plan ahead of time on what to do if there is a relapse.
Lastly, really try to avoid shame. Shame will just trigger the desire to drink to push it away. Instead, be direct and compassionate. Talk about behaviors and experiences you don’t like, not about how you don’t like them. You still like their authentic self.
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If you want to do AA without the god bit, the Satanic Temple has something called Sober Faction (in case you didn’t know, Satanic Temple is an atheist organisation and doesn’t actually worship Satan)
I do know the satanic temple yeah, neither of us are religious. She might actually be a bit jazzed if it’s from there honestly, thank you, I’ll look into it
You can do AA without subscribing to a god. I chose nature for my higher power
How did that go for you? I know it’s a personal thing but if you would be willing to expand on your experiences there in AA a little I would appreciate it, thank you
It went great, i went to meetings and actually travelled a bit to share my story with people at other meetings. The whole point of a “higher power” is to acknowledge there is something bigger than yourself. I’ve been sober about 4 years now.
The main thing I think is important for people to get help is that they have to make the choice, if you force someone to get sober tbey will resent you for it. It is a lot of work and I am tremendously lucky I had my wife by my side. Hopefully that helped, i’m happy to answer dms if you have more questions
+1 this. “A higher power as you personally understand it”
Every large city has atheist/agnostic/secular AA groups.
Fucking neat
This book This Naked Mind helped me a lot to quit alcohol.
But it was my own decision, not coming from someone else.
Sadly, the stop drinking community on Lemmy is non existent or dead so you have to check the original r/stopdrinking on Reddit. Even if we left that place, this sub is just awesome, packed with useful resources and is something really hard to find elsewhere, you won’t even have to post, just start by reading the sidebar and wiki.
Good luck, my problem with alcohol cost me my 13 years marriage but I got out of it mostly thanks to that subreddit, so anything is possible.
Yeah I’ve tried directing her to the /stopdrinking community but she doesn’t want to do that. She’s had some bad experiences with people online. And I guess people in general. She does like to read though, maybe if it’s a book she’d be more open to it, thank you
Yeah my idea was not to send her on Reddit but send you there so you could find good resources and maybe ask the same question if you feel like it.
I hope you will find some good reading material there that you can gift her (and she will love to read).
Oh duh, thank you, I can’t believe I didn’t think of that myself sooner. Yeah maybe I’ll go there too. Though I haven’t even opened that since they killed RiF
I feel you, I still have Apollo installed on my phone…
https://al-anon.org/al-anon-meetings/
Al Anon and Alcoholics Anonymous [AA] are two different organizations. AA is for the people who want to get sober, and Al Anon is for the people dealing with the drinkers.
The only requirement to go to AA is to have a desire to stop. Someone can go to AA meetings even if they haven’t managed to stop using. AA doesn’t charge any fees. There are atheist /agnostic meetings for people who don’t believe in God.
Al Anon is about setting up boundaries and supporting people without enabling their drinking.
Thank you very much, I wasn’t aware of the distinction, I’ll look into that. I have been debating calling the national alcohol abuse hotline myself and just seeing if they can give advice on how to deal with this myself.
It’s not exactly a switch you can just flip off, and your loved one probably doesn’t think they have a problem. Personally, The amount of time it took for me to start pumping the brakes to quitting 100% was about 2 years.
What I know now, and what it took me so long to figure out, is that I can’t have the same relationship with alcohol that you might see in movies/tv. I’d quit for a couple days, maybe even a week, and then I’d drink on a Friday and inevitably I’d take it too far, and then I’d be drinking again. I thought a “healthy” relationship with alcohol was possible for me, and it simply isn’t.
I also didn’t realize that I had formed so many habits around my drinking. Hanging out with friends? Gotta drink. Doing my hobbies? Drink. Feeling thirsty or hungry? Drink. Feeling anxious? Again, drink. Giving up drinking would throw me into a very very deep depression, because I couldn’t find enjoyment in anything anymore.
What really helped me out was weed/delta 8 gummies. I would come home after work, and I’d be super depressed, and all I’d want to do is lay down in bed and not move. I’d eat half of a pretty strong weed gummy and watch bad anime… and that was enough to tie me to my bed and not drink. Over the course of months I then had to relearn how to find enjoyment in anything.
In retrospect, giving up drinking was the best decision I ever made. I didn’t fully appreciate how awful the long term effects of alcohol are, and how much of a general malise it put me in. After the first year of not drinking at all, I lost a ton of weight, I started sleeping better, and I was sooooooo much less of an anxious mess. But you need to understand what you’re asking of this person… you’re asking them to take the first step in a months long depressive slog where they have to relearn how to live like a normal person.
My advice to you is to imagine you’re dealing with a profoundly depressed person who’s only barely keeping it together. Do you want to have a screaming match with a depressed person while they’re trying to get a few scraps of enjoyment in their life at night? Do you want to make an already depressed person cry when they’re their most venerable during a hangover? Your goal should be to convince your partner that giving up drinking is what they want, and take it from there.
The only thing that one human being can do for another human being with an addiction is to love them as honestly and as consistently as possible.
It’s really about focusing on the self, more than focusing on the other person. Basically, you need to give them some hope that the world might be a worthwhile place to be. And you do that by being your best self.
I know it sounds vague, so I’ll try to be more specific. You need to make your side of the interface with that person as clean and as healthy as possible.
Specifically:
- Tell them the truth (including bad news)
- Keep your promises to them
- Don’t make promises to them you can’t keep
People get addicted because their moment to moment awareness is too full of pain to withstand.
For some people, the pain is simple. Their back is in agony, or the withdrawal from their last hit is grinding at them. For these people you can do nothing.
For others, the pain is harder to see and understand: the world is meaningless, their life is hopeless, they are surrounded by a world of shit, they can’t trust, etc. For these people you can’t do much. All you can do is make your little part of the world functional, so that in you they find reason to trust, evidence of meaning, a possibility of a world that isn’t shit.
99% of the work is still hers to do, not yours. But that 1% consists of being consistent and healthy in your dealings with her.
Now here comes the hard part. This is where you face your own real demons, for your sake and for hers. And I think the place to start that journey is:
What is it that you have to heal within yourself, so that you are no longer the kind of person to accept abuse?
Is there any way that you simultaneously stop accepting her abuse of you and give her greater hope of a world worth living in? I think there is. I think, in fact, it might be the same thing.
But it’s going to have to start with a serious, deep look into your own darkness, into the stinky, rotten parts of your own soul that are so scary to you that you’d rather accept abuse than look directly at them.
You are either a professional therapist or have a ton of personal experience with people with addiction
It sounds really beautiful and all, but the abuse will stay unless real consequences wake them up. Consequences that they cannot talk themselves out of, since they usually are real good talkers.
So take care of yourself, leave them be in their misery or stay a victim. I know what I would choose.
Two things:
- Threaten to leave her after a fallout with alcohol. When she is the lowest with a bad hangover this will help her realize it can get even worse!
- Leave her if she does not stop.
My wife did the same to me. Only thing that really worked.
She needs to decide it is time to stop drinking. Otherwise it will never happen.
Maybe move in with a relative to show you are serious and only come back after her first session with a therapist.
That was my move tonight yeah. I’m just looking for help on what to do moving forward. I had issues with alcohol myself when I was in my early 20s so I can empathize with what she’s going through, and I got through it, so she can too
My dad chose the booze in this scenario. From tenured university professor with a family to dying alone, homeless, on the other side of the country.
It may work, it may not. You are not (hopefully) the only one who wants to help her. Find the help, don’t take on the burden alone.
Don’t make a threat you are not ready to follow up on. If you go back on your word, then she can too.
Unfortunately she doesn’t really have any support besides me. At least, none that she trusts herself. I’m trying to encourage her to make friends and branch out a bit but she’s very anxious and shy which, I get, I am too. And yeah I’ve been really bad about saying “no more drinking” and then letting her convince me with “oh baby it’s just ONE I PROMISE it’ll be fine tonight” and it never is. But I put my foot down last night and I do intend to stick by it this time because I’ve tried a gentle caring lax attitude and that didn’t work so this is it now I guess.
Then it’s a journey you are both on. There is no victory, only constant vigilance. Stop being in the position where ‘only one’ is even an option.
I say this having seen my sister go through this too- fortunately more successfully than my dad.
Good luck man, find help. If not for her, then for you- it’s won’t be easy going alone.
Thankfully I have a fairly large support network of family and friends I can rely on. I’ll be okay no matter what happens. I just want her to be okay too
Former alcoholic here, although I abhor the term, Ill use it for simplicity. Imo, excess drinking is a symptom of other problems. I quit because I didnt want to die like that which is the inevitable outcome. But I had to get my other problems dealt with in order to quit, because for a while, like 10 years, I don’t think I cared, so I needed my doctors help with that. Mainly, I didnt want my grandkids to remember me like that, dying of alcohol-related problems, nor did I want my spouse to die like that, bc we were drinking partners. So I had to get her to quit too, which eventually came down to alcohol or me, so she chose me.
She has to want to do it. AA can be a great community (depends on group) but the God part shits me off. There are secular versions and online meetings. Other CBT models exist. A good read / listen is ‘Breaking Addiction’ by Lance Dodes. Talks about the underlying background trauma which the addict (of anything) will need to analyse and come to terms with.
Yeah she has an appointment with a non religious help group soon, AA would just make it worse for her I know. The thing is when she’s sober she really DOES want to get help. And then she gets cravings and she caves and it’s always just one but then just one turns into two turns into 6 turns into 12…She hates herself the next morning and it’s real regret. She wants help, and she knows she needs it, but she’s just struggling with actually going through with cutting everything out
Yeah it’s fucking hard and doesn’t really square up with reason and logic in broad daylight. I know.
Try the book. I listened to it while driving, on Spotify. It makes sense and involving discovering triggers relating to past trauma which the addict is trying to escape.
Absolutely, they have to WANT to stop. Otherwise it simply won’t work.
Not to be that guy but OP should seriously consider whether you want to spend the rest of your life dealing with this. It won’t pass.
I’ve been thinking about getting Allen Carr’s book “Quit Drinking Without Willpower”. I used his book " The Easy Way to Stop Smoking" to stop smoking in 2008. I had smoked for almost 30 years and then quit immediately after reading that book, with no cravings.
you’re in a tough situation. ultimately the decision to change is hers: either she will or she won’t and there’s nothing you can do to change that.
good luck, take care of yourself
The only suggestion I can make is to get her to the Dr and get naltrexone prescribed. The nice part about it is if she follows the plan, she still gets to drink. She just needs to wait the 90 minutes and redose if an when relevant.
Sinclair method or protocol is what I would suggest but it requires buy-in from everyone.
Would also recommend you guys come to an agreement that no spirits/hard liquor is allowed. Its honestly an uphill battle until she’s on the weaker stuff
The folks of AA and Al-Anon have endless experience with this and are there to help you.
Don’t hesitate to reach out in that direction.
Nut up and leave their ass. This sounds harsh, but in my experience people dont change until they have to contend with the harshest consequences of their actions.
They’ll cry crocodile tears and promise that they’ll do better from now on and to just give them one more change and everything will magically be better.
Maybe they put up an act for a bit but it always goes back to square one.
Stop tolerating abuse just because you love them or are afraid of being alone again. You are partially complicit in this by deciding to continue the relationship.
