How to deal with an Alcoholic

Hi everyone. I've been reading a lot of the posts here. My case is a bit serious too. It is my Fiance, he is an alcoholic and he is in denial.. He goes on cycles, 3 or 6 months of sobriety but then a beer and he starts the cycle again. He wouldn' t look for  help from anyone , he says AA meetings do nothing to him,i have suggested Therapy; he is so selfish...I lost my Father to Cancer last year, i was alone because he was drunk, everything is taking its toll on me to the point i became having a lot of stress and then panic and anxiety attacks 3 months ago., I am under meds now. He was sober for alnost 8 months and then he started to drink 3 weeks ago. I wish I could help him, but he always look for bad excuses to give us his reasons to drink. He had a very difficult childhood,he  just started to have a realtionship with her daughter again, we were making plans and then the relapse..I feel so sad, and  my condition with my anxiety is the last thing i need right now, but I do Love him and want to help him. Any advice Please...

[Tita72]

How to deal with an Alcoholic?

[remar]

I've been married to an alcoholic for almost 35 years and I've found that you can not "deal" with them. You can do all the begging, pleading and threatening you want but unless he's ready to do this for his own self first he's probably not going to quit.
Have you thought about leaving? Would that be an option for you?
I understand about the anxiety because I have it myself.
Please keep posting, okay. We're here to listen and help if we can. I'm really sorry about your father.

[Tita72]

Thanks for the advice, yes It is true, i've begged him so so many times to quit, he says yes i will but it is a lie a s soon as he feels "ok" can be a 6 months period,then he feels "thirsty" again...with no therapy he cannot be. I have thought about leaving him so many times, because of this, i find it so selfish of him he wouldnt even consider to go to AA meetings, but it is up to him to realise he has a real addiction. He has a great heart even when Drunk, but the whole thing makes me so sad...Not sure If I can cope anymore. I feel so scared of start over again...

[remar]

Any kind of change whether good or bad can be very scary. I do understand that and I understand why you stay.
It's hard to know how an alcoholic works. There are so many different reasons why they drink. Maybe your fiance has problems with self esteem, anxiety, maybe he's afraid to quit for good.
I go through the same thing with my husband, the anger that is. To me it would be so easy to quit if I knew I could lose everything. But, I'm not an alcoholic.
What I would recommend you try is to take care of yourself. You may have to put up boundaries like me and my  daughter do with my husband. We refuse to have anything to do with him if he's drunk. He likes to argue and everyone knows you can not argue with someone who's drunk. It's a total waste of time.
Are you in counseling? If not, that's another thing I would recommend.There are also Al-anon meetings you can attend.

[dominosarah]

Turn the focus on you, there is nothing you can do for him.  He has to want to help himself.  Check out Alanon or a therapist.  Your physical and mental well being needs to be your first priority right now.  You dont have to live in his addiction any longer.  Addicts are masters of manipulation.  I always said i could of sold ocean front property in Minnesota to the right person.  Take care of you, learn the tools you need to start living again.  Just becuz he is on a self destruction course doesnt mean you have to follow him.  Let him live in his addiction, you dont have to anymore.      sara

[rpooo]

  "Addicts are masters of manipulation" he he Better watch that Rpooo-bear he's on the move! ha ha jk :)

[Jaybay]

Ditto what Domino said.  Hit some Al-anon meetings and do whatever you need to do to get some sanity back into your life.  The old "If you loved me" plea does NOT work.  In fact, you have no more control over his drinking than he does.  

Alcoholism is a relapsing disease and it takes a huge commitment, determination and AA support to stay sober.  Your fiance still thinks he can control his drinking alone.  Going to meetings is only part of AA.  If he were really working the program he'd have a sponsor and would have called that sponsor when he started feeling "thirsty" again.  He's just not ready to truly embrace sobriety and recovery and he may never be ready.  

[littlebit667]

I have been married to an alcoholic for 34 years.

  Truth is I did not know he was one until 8 years into our marriage.  This is what you are in for:  

Drunk at Thanksgiving, two kids disappointed.  Drunk at Christmas..same result.  Forget to pick me up at work several times.  Calls from the police, he is in the drunk tank and get him in the morning, etc.  Lost 3 jobs due to drinking.  Paying DUI fines because of drinking. Left him in jail for 5 days, went and got him out after one day, left him to walk home 10 miles after scaring the kids to death driving drunk. He has stolen from his son (ATM card) and his daughter (beer from her refrig).   Am I co-dependent???  YES!  

Why did I not leave him?  Still working on that one.  Yes, I love him...I do not love the drinking him.

Fast forward to now.  He has not worked in 15 years.  He does not drink as much, but that is because he no longer drives and I watch the money like a hawk.  But, he still manages to drink occasionally.  We did find out after 15 years that he is bipolar and that is one of the reasons he drank.  Self medication to try to handle the pain.  But, by that time he was in pretty deep and alcohol had it's grip on him.  I worry about my son...will he have that problem??  Time will tell.

It is up to you what you do.  You at least have a heads up before you have kids.  You are young enough to leave him and hopefully find someone who is not a drunk.  It is your choice.  

[mlwitt11]

I am dealing with the same problems now. I have been with my boyfriend for a year and a half. When we met I drank as well, not every day like he does, but on the weekends I would drink and drink too much. But over the last several months I've quit completely. I never had a problem with drinking, and I realized that the fun I did have wasn't worth the feeling after, I gained weight and felt bad about myself and decided that even the occasional beer wasn't necessary, anyway, it never tasted that good to begin with. But my boyfriend has been a different story from the moment I met him. I don't know if I didn't see it at the time because I drank then too or just wanted to overlook it, but he is a severe alcoholic. He also had serious medical issues that included severe stomach pains, vomiting, etc and no one could figure out why. It didn't appear to be triggered by the drinking as he had had the problem since he was a child and I believe one of the reasons he started drinking as heavily as he does was because of the pain, also he had lost his job because of a sudden warehouse closing, and his previous girlfriend had broken up with him several years before we met. He apparently hadn't been in a serious relationship since then. Atht eh start of the year we finally got a possible diagnosis for his abdominal pain and he went out of state in February for a clinical study after the episodes of pain progressed from occasional to several times a week. He underwent a blind procedure (so to this day we still don't know exactly what procedure he had done) that ranged from possible severance of spincter muscles to temporary stents. He had issues with pacreatis after that but once that cleared up he didn't seem to have any more problems! Until he started back to drinking excessively. After several trips to the ER brought on by binge drinking he pledged several times to quit. we believe that the drinking is causing his liver or pancreas to become inflamed, the pain is similar if not worse to the pain he had before his procedure. He started a new job just over a month ago and had stopped drinking after being sick for several days and missing work. It seemed he had finally learned that the pain he was causing himself (and me) was no longer worth whatever pleasure he had foundin drinking. And for a month he has been doing wonderfully! He did have a few beers at a friend's birthday party but no liquor (which was his major issue) and he didn't drink to the point of blacking out. I thought perhaps this time we were finally on the way to recovery. Then last night he drank half a bottle of rum. He passed out on the couch, and after swearing he had only had a few drinks the night before I looked under the cabinet (where he keeps his bottle hidden) and saw half or more was gone. He has promised me several times he would stop drinking, that he wants a life together, that he doesn't want to hurt me, he wants to get better. When they are sober and don't crave alcohol, they mean it. I have finally admitted to myself he is an alcoholic, I have also admitted to myself that there is nothing I can do to help him if he doesn't want to help himself. I have been doing reading about dealing with alcoholics and have looked into going to al-anon meetings. Both of my parents were alcoholics, and my mother had serious depression issues. She passed away almost 3 years ago and my father struggled even more with his drinking after her death. Enough for me to know that I cannot continue to deal with another alcoholic in my life. My parents were wonderful parents, and loved me very much, but when they were drinking they were not the same people.

I refuse to allow his problem to become my problem as well. And as much as I do love him, I know that this is not what I pictured for my life. I don't enjoy the nights when I have had to sit in the ER for 5 or 6 hours and then go to work the next morning. Or when I have to clean up after him, or help him to bed, or all the times I have wasted my weekend or evenings sitting around because he was to drunk to do anything.

You have to consider that this is a very long and hard road, and is it worth it in the end to stay? I love my boyfriend very much, but he cannot quit drinking, and I cannot help him until he decided to get help for himself. And neither can you. I am trying to put my priorities in line and decide if what I want and what he can offer are one and the same, and I am realizing they are not. You have to do the same.  We all want to know what WE can do to help an alcoholic, but the answer unfortunately is not very much if they don't want help for themselves.

[aaleyah644]

so true! addicts are master manipulators