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Drinking patch?

My partner has a drinking problem.

  • Should I stay or should I go? If not, what do we do? About us: SO and I have been together for 3 years, lived together for 1. We are in our mid-late 20s. We are both in the same (soul-crushing) industry but he probably hates it more than me. Relationship: For most part it is truly a great relationship. We have fights here and there but in my mind he is a caring, sensitive person who treats me well. For instance, I've had a bad run at work and he has been extremely supportive. I would not be as competent at handling work stresses without him (not in a dependent way, just emphasising how much I value his support). "Deal-breaker": He has had issues with his drinking. When I first met him he was going through a rough patch with a breakup from a long term partner and death in the family. He would habitually go out with friends and get completely obliterated, destructive and aggressive. I would put this on a Drinking Problem Scale - 8 out of 10, more because I imagine it could be alot worse, but in my mind this was unacceptable. The drinking tempered off when we started hanging out and eventually going out many months later. It basically ceased to be an issue (he still drank, but not in a way I viewed to be problematic). When his job began to take its toll (we work very long hours in a high stress environment), he started to repeat the same drinking behaviour. The jobs do encourage the work hard play hard culture, so there were many boozy functions where he would be encouraged to drink. However, there were at least 5 occasions in which he was so drunk he would lose all bearings and wake up the next day not knowing what he had done. Throughout these episodes there would be varying degrees of aggression to other people. DPS 7 out of 10. After enough times of him being sorry the next day, I gave him an ultimatum to stop drinking (instead of the previous "cut back") and sort it out in therapy or I would leave. This is because I believe he is self-medicating because he hates his job and is deeply unfulfilled by it (his words not mine). He stopped drinking altogether and went to therapy. After about 3 months of this working, he decided he had dealt with the issues he had. I agreed with this and he slowly started drinking again. DPS 1 out of 10 (pretty standard level of drinking, would get tipsy but thats about it). A while after that he stopped going to therapy as he felt better and it was getting expensive. He has started to make plans to leave his job, which is great but has opened a whole new can of worms of "what to do once i leave". I feel that since December to now, we have had another 3 incidences of: - We are at social function - He starts drinking - He starts "acting up" in that he behaves in a more outrageous, and attention-seeking way (including PDAing with me in front of other people, which I try to laugh off). - I pull him aside to talk about how I think he is getting drunk. He says he is fine, but agrees to watch it. - Within half an hour he is a completely different person. Last night he told an equally drunk (and known to be a bit of a bogan always up for a fight) acquaintance "not to mess with him because he would fuck him up" and proceeded to grab a bottle of spirits the other guy was holding and pour it onto the ground. - I walk away because I don't want to make a scene. - By this point he is a completely different person, I can't engage with him because he forgets what just happened, he denies being drunk. - We have a fight either that night or the next morning. - In the morning he is completely repentant. Repeat ad nauseum. DPS at least a 7 but not to the same degree as when I first met him, although that may be because I didn't know about it to the same degree as I do now. Question: I've booted him out of the house and spent the day with a good friend. He has agreed to give me space but was puppydog-ish everytime we spoke. What should I do? I feel that after typing this out I should just break it off. I am sick of being on edge at every party that he is going to get out of hand and that he might get into a fight. I don't think it is normal or healthy for people to act in this way. I am sick of him being sorry about it the next day only for it to happen again. On the other hand, we have a great relationship otherwise, and I really love him. I am mindful that this question does not sound like I do, but please take my word for it that he is in every other way an amazing partner. I would rather not lose this relationship. If I do not break up with him, how can we go forward to deal with this issue? Thanks, and apologies for the long question.

  • Answer:

    My vote is complete abstinence or it's over. I had a boyfriend with a substance abuse problem once who used to get so sad-puppy when he treated me like shit that I stuck around a lot longer than I should have. My new policy for dealing with such folks is called Don't Be Sorry, Be Better! (tm)

nvly at Ask.Metafilter.Com Visit the source

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This won't really answer your question of whether to stay- but I can be a REALLY REALLY nasty drunk. It doesn't happen every time, but once it had happened a few too many times... I had to get REALLY REALLY honest with myself that the fact was: I had become a nasty drunk. 10/10- an angry, manic, destructive, nut case. (the only difference was that this was not in public) Nobody likes to admit that. I am a really great person, I'm pretty, I'm funny, I like to do fun things. Mr. Pony loves me a lot. He would never want to break up with me. But I could never lie to myself and pretend that my behaviour was okay. He didn't deserve a relationship with someone who couldn't control or admit their behaviour. And saying sorry and being sorry, doesn't make ANYTHING okay... and if I didn't knock it off we would have broken up. I knew that he would get to a point where he just couldn't take anymore- no matter how much he loved me. And... I've got a life to live, you know? I didn't like feeling guilty about how I'd treated someone all morning, waiting for them to forgive me- I'd rather go shopping and have brunch. So I all but stopped drinking. Maybe say to him: You're awesome, I love you, but I can't be with a nasty drunk. I'm really sorry! Then see (not what he says) but what happens. And then when he starts to drink, just leave. But my fear for you, is that this could become something that will start, eventually, happening at home... you could get hurt.

misspony

I gave him an ultimatum to stop drinking (instead of the previous "cut back") and sort it out in therapy or I would leave. He stopped drinking altogether and went to therapy. After about 3 months of this working, he decided he had dealt with the issues he had. I agreed with this and he slowly started drinking again. Your boyfriend is a binge alcoholic who has repeatedly proven he cannot moderate his own drinking. Were it me, he'd agree to therapy to deal with his stress management, meetings and 100% sobriety, or we'd be over.

DarlingBri

Should I stay or should I go? At this point it sounds like you still want to stay, even though you're aware of the difficulties. Great! No one's perfect; we all have our problems, and it's nice to have a patient and committed partner by our side. But have a think about how far you're willing/able to extend yourself in these ways. You have your limits, and if you stretch yourself beyond your limits, you'll hurt yourself, and you won't be able to be there for your partner. If I do not break up with him, how can we go forward to deal with this issue? Can you agree before going out that he will only have a certain number of drinks? It sounds like the drinking getting out of hand is the main immediate problem. Let him know (again) how negatively this is affecting you, and then ask him, for your sake, to only have only a certain number of drinks when going out - a number to be agreed upon between the two of you. Also, when you go out, can you (the two of you) also ask a mutual friend who will be present to keep an eye on his drinking, too, so that it's not just you having to deal with it?

paleyellowwithorange

You can't control your boyfriend's drinking. Full stop. There's really no more to discuss about it, whether you're thinking about his terrible job, his anxiety about finding a new job, the therapy he got, the times he was sober, the times he drank to a level 1 on your scale. Forget all of that. There's literally no use spending another second on any of those topics because the true and single topic actually is: You can't control his drinking. Please go to an Al-Anon meeting TODAY. If you don't like that meeting, try another, because they're all different. There's only one thing that you can control in this situation, and that's you. (I speak from personal experience.)

BlahLaLa

He can't control his drinking and many of the answers above presume that he can or that *you* can control his drinking. I can't urge you strongly enough to go to an http://www.al-anon.org/meetings/meeting.html meeting. Really. Find a meeting and go today. Everyone at the meeting will be struggling with the same question - what to do when someone you love is destroying their lives with drinking.

jasper411

Al-Anon groups might be a good resource for you If you decide to stay

Heart_on_Sleeve

- Within half an hour he is a completely different person. Last night he told an equally drunk (and known to be a bit of a bogan always up for a fight) acquaintance "not to mess with him because he would fuck him up" and proceeded to grab a bottle of spirits the other guy was holding and pour it onto the ground. I don't understand how he thinks this is at all acceptable behavior, or how you think this is only 7/10 on a "Drinking Problem Scale." If my partner got drunk and threatened physical violence to others at a gathering on a fairly routine basis, "no more drinking, full stop" would be the bright line for me. Your partner clearly can't handle moderate drinking, because it sounds like most of the time when he has any drinks, he drinks until he gets drunk and it affects his behavior. I mean, I can believe that there are different standards for what constitutes "moderate drinking" in Australia (I presume from "bogan") than there are in the US, where I am, but surely "He gets drunk and belligerent" doesn't count as "moderate drinking" in your social circles?

Sidhedevil

I am not a fan of AA or things like that personally. That's treating the symptoms and not the illness.  Um, have you ever been to an AA meeting? It does not sound like you have. Much of the literature is focused on the exact opposite of what you have said here. The first priority is to stop the drinking, but there is a wealth of focus on allowing your peers to help you focus on the underlying issues... If you are not familiar with AA perhaps you should refrain from advising the op on whether or not it could help her alcoholic boyfriend. OP, you should try an Alanon meeting and see if it helps.

pazazygeek

Thanks for all the answers. Is aggression still a problem if it is only ever when he is drunk and he finds a way to be properly sober to the point that it never "comes out"? Or is this an innate problem that will never go away? His explanation, fwiw, was that the whole incident with the acquaintance was a joke and that everyone could tell he was joking. I couldn't tell, and even if he was, I was nervous that the next drink would tip him over into being serious. I think I will give it some time for us to be apart before we have a conversation about anything (whether it be an active treatment plan or just to break up). I am attending an al-anon meeting tomorrow night.

nvly

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