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Post Info TOPIC: He's twelve years sober.....but still an alcoholic!


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He's twelve years sober.....but still an alcoholic!


I'm brand new here and would like to share my story and get some feedback. 

I have been dating this man for a little over a year. He has been sober for twelve years and some change. When we first dated, I asked him and he talked freely about his sobriety, how it came about and AA. He wasn't active in AA at the time, but still had a sponsor and had some sober friends. He said he had done a lot of AA work for years, and he felt fine not going to meetings, etc. I believed him as he seemed pretty balanced. I have dated alcoholics and addicts in the past, and his long sobriety was attractive to me. He did not seem controlling and got along great with my friends. He has a reputation in the neighborhood for being hard to get a long with (he worked in my neighborhood), but he was so super-nice to me. 

We live together now. In the past year he has been through three jobs, unemployed for four months and counting. He spends his days playing video games and hanging out at home (he moved into my house). He looks for jobs here and there, but I wouldn't call it a real effort. I work full time, have a part time business, volunteer some time to my neighborhood...in short, I am busy!

He has gotten unbearable. He sulks and throws tantrums. If I ask him to help out around the house (help take down Christmas decorations for example) he pitches a fit. If I ask him how is sick mother is doing he gets angry. When I ask him as I leave for work if he has any plans for the day he blows up. Where do I draw the line? When do I say "enough is enough"? If I ask him to leave, he will take forever to do it and make my life miserable in the meantime. Do I hang in there until he finds a job? Ugh. It's tough.

I never knew that someone who had been sober for so long could have a relapse without drinking, but that is exactly what it seems. I am quite sure he is not drinking...we have managed to have that conversation at length. It almost doesn't matte because his behavior is almost the same. I have been tempted to reach out to his sponsor or his sober friends (some of them are out of state but we are friends on fb) and just let them know what's going on. I don't know. 

What I am focusing on is journalling and reading al anon information. Practicing detaching and letting him work on (or not work on as the case may be) his own stuff. It is difficult when he tries to control the climate by huffing, puffing and stomping around the house. 

Thanks for reading! Any feedback or thoughts you share would be appreciated. 

 

 

 

 



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~*Service Worker*~

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Honestly he's probably far closer to a drink than you realize which is his issue. The only issue you really need to know is what do you want. He's showing you who he is today. I'm just at a point in my life that when people show me who they are I believe them. It sounds as if he's dry not practicing any kind of real recovery. Again .. it doesn't matter what he does or doesn't do .. what are you going to do. Sometimes that can be a really difficult answer I mean in terms of doing the actual recovery work and not getting lost in the addiction. My biggest challenge was realizing how addicted to the addict I really was .. it's gotten better in terms of we are no longer together so I no longer have to deal with the in your face things that addiction brings. It has given me enough time away to realize how enmeshed I was in the relationship. I'm still caught because of court at the moment hoping that settles down this year. Keep coming back here and if you can actually make face to face meetings I really encourage you to do so. It's a place that can help change my thoughts open my mind and helps me realize how much further I have to go in this journey AND I don't have to be alone doing it. So I'm glad you are here and hope you will keep coming back. Expecting a sick person to behave like a healthy one is only setting me up for resentments and restlessness.

Hugs S :)

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Senior Member

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I  left my A, and After reading your post it sounds like you are describing a rebellious teenager,which strikes a chord with me, my ex  didn't want to do much of anything and that made me very angry.For some reason he thought the world owed him a living.does he help you financially.I wouldn't be at all happy with carrying the load by myself.I wouldn't think it would be very healthy for a grown man to play video games all day.



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Mary



~*Service Worker*~

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I agree with both of the ladies who replied to you.....SerenityRUS is spot on re:  hes closer to a drink that you think  and also  WHAT do YOU want????

me??? I would not live like this...hes not in AA., hes a DRY drunk and its gonna get worse with no program, hes an addict, its only a matter of time b4 he begins drinking again

do you want to be his financial support all your life???? do you want hospital visits in the middle of the night when he relapses and goes over board on the drinking????

OK...you tried...you see....and as SerenityRUS says, when people show you who they are----BELIEVE them..

I would go to as many face to face alanon meets as I can to find out why i keep gravitating towards the "fixer uppers "  yea, he was sober but the red flag was  NO PROGRAM....alcoholics cannot EVER leave AA...their thought patterns from the drinking are so screwed up it takes YEARS to get "unscrewed" and LIFE to maintain what they learn....

You need to learn how to take better care of you and to not just hope for but DEMAND for your life, better relationships.....i live alone....the price of admission to my heart went waaay up, thanks to alanon.....the "shoppers" are fewer b/c of the "raised price" but its worth it, I would rather be by myself then living w/someone who is not an equal relationship

you CAN get him out if there is no signed lease, nothing in writing showing that he shares the place iwth you....whose name is on the lease or mortgage???  You said he moved in w/you....whether you rent or own, you can get him out.....he is verbally abusing you and that can preceed physical abuse....he gets pissed off way to easily....time to worry about your physical safety and take action to take care of you

Just giving you my take based on real life experience....the people on this board are the "real deal"  we have been there...done that........what you read here will always be   "no fake....NO BS"  sending you Safety and peace energy......try and find an alanon meet near you....they are life savers....also you might find the location of a domestic violence shelter , hopefully near you, and tell the people there your dilemma about it may be hard to get rid of him....see what they say.................GOOD LUCK.....and BE CAREFUL



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~*Service Worker*~

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Hi Friend of a friend Alcoholism is cunning baffling and powerful disease Even when the drinking stops the
"isms " are alive and well and very destructive You see alcoholism is a 3 fold disease it not only affects the physical part of the person but he emotional and spiritual as well. Stop drinking and the " ism "are active AA is a program that addresses the entire disease and promotes recovery. Alanon is the recovery program for family member who must live with the disease. Please search out meetings and attend.



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Betty

THE HIGHEST FORM OF WISDOM IS KINDNESS

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I agree with SerenityRUS about people showing us who they are. Only you know what you're getting out of having him there with you.  Personally, I don't have any patience for the behavior you described.  I can practice detachment if someone is in a crummy mood but if it's their lifestyle, I'm sorry but I'm just not up for it.  I was with someone with many years in AA who was a big brooder,stomper, martyr and attention seeker. I finally did an honest inventory on what I was getting out of the relationship. It was totally superficial. He bored me, I moved on. Thankfully, I wasn't living with him.  With that said, I took a look at why I had invited such a person into my life to begin with and then I really immersed myself in the Alanon program. Today, if I'm in a relationship, I don't think it's an unreasonable "expectation" that the other person show up for it as a real live participant rather than just taking up space in my life. I'm worth that and so are you. Thanks for sharing. Hope the responses will help you to figure out what's best for you in this situation.  TT



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~*Service Worker*~

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tiredtonite wrote:

 Personally, I don't have any patience for the behavior you described.  I can practice detachment if someone is in a crummy mood but if it's their lifestyle, I'm sorry but I'm just not up for it.  I was with someone with many years in AA who was a big brooder,stomper, martyr and attention seeker. I finally did an honest inventory on what I was getting out of the relationship. It was totally superficial. He bored me, I moved on. Thankfully, I wasn't living with him.  With that said, I took a look at why I had invited such a person into my life to begin with and then I really immersed myself in the Alanon program. Today, if I'm in a relationship, I don't think it's an unreasonable "expectation" that the other person show up for it as a real live participant rather than just taking up space in my life. I'm worth that and so are you. Thanks for sharing. Hope the responses will help you to figure out what's best for you in this situation.  TT


 WOW, TT,  what a great post!!!!!!  I love the "I don't think it's an unreasonable "expectation" that the other person show up for it as a real live participant rather than just taking up space in my life."

If a relationship is THAT much WORK and more misery than pleasure, then i need to look at me...what is my payoff?? financial??? a fear of some kind of being by myself??? or a behaviour pattern taught to me by my family of origin???  i would be "up close and personal" with step 4 till I found out......

SO true and this includes friendships, any relationship.....I SO agree.....good for you...taking care of you



-- Edited by neshema2 on Saturday 24th of January 2015 09:56:33 PM

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~*Service Worker*~

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Hi. Welcome to MIP. You've received so much good information here. I'm just going to respond to one sentence in your post: "When do I say enough is enough?" When I reach that point, I'm ready to make a healthy change for myself and by listening to myself, I know exactly what that change needs to be. Enough is enough when I say it is enough. Everybody has their limits in relationships. One of my codependent issues had to do with reaching my limits and stepping right over them into dysfunction as if they didn't exist. Those limits were there for a reason. They were part of what defined me. If I stepped over my own wellbeing, it wasn't the other person's problem that I got used, abused, manipulated. It was mine.

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" And what did we gain?  A new life, with purpose, meaning and constant progress, and all the contentment and fulfillment that comes from such growth."

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~*Service Worker*~

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LOL! John!!!! Good one.

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"Darkness is full of possibility." Leunig



~*Service Worker*~

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I have experience in dealing with a dry drunk. My AH was sober for 15 years. He calls it 'sober', I call it 'dry drunk'. He quit drinking about 6 months before we got married and I always wondered why he acted like such a big baby and so selfish over the years. Sarcasm and condescension and temper tantrums were the norm in our lives. He was always proud of his sobriety(ahem...being dry), but when he started drinking again a few years ago, he would defend himself by saying, "Oh, I'm more mature now and I can stop at any time. I can drink socially now, why don't you join me? I can drive better drunk than I can sober, watch me.

And, so I did watch him....in horror! Not 6 months into his new binge drinking and he was already arrested for a DUI. He was 3 times the legal limit. He did jail time and then had an interlock breathalyzer on his car for 18 months, which got extended to 24 months when he tried twice to start his car drunk.

Honestly, your post described my AH to a T. I lived with that for the past 20 years and I am finally choosing to say "NO MORE". We are married, have a home together, have a 16 year old son, and I stayed because of all those things.

I like what TT said above about someone just taking up space in our lives and that it's hard to make time for that or have patience for it. My sister's X was just like this but he was never an addict. Just selfish, immature, and entitled. He is now living with girlfriend number 3. He begs, borrows, and steals to get what he wants and then gets a free place to live for a while. He's 37 years old with 2 kids, lives across the country from his children, and mooches off of people until they catch on to his game. Then he goes crawling back to his parents who put up with him for a few months while he finds a new woman to seduce and use. And, no, he does not have a job. He puts in just enough effort to please the woman of the month to show her he's looking, but really, he's not. He has been unemployed for 3 years now and my sister lost her house, filed for bankruptcy, and nearly lost her sanity while divorcing him.

Take what John's note above says and run with it!

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Thanks, everyone for your heartfelt replies....and a couple of good laughs! I've been taking some time to digest this information and take a look at what I am doing, what I want and what I need to change. I am not ready to make any big changes right now. For now, I am able to focus on myself (typing this from my home office, which is my sanctuary) and practice detachment. I have a lot of big issues to think about. My fear (if I dare to go there) is that this is just another example of a relationship that is in a string of failures. I am beginning to see my role in all of it and why I am attracted to "fixer uppers' as one of you put it. I am determined to make healthy changes for myself, whether this relationship makes it or not. 

 

I do need to get to a meeting, and soon.  I've been finding a lot of good information on this site and on podcasts, and that has been a help. I've been very busy with work this week (that's a really good thing) and planning some fun things for myself this weekend. 

Thanks for listening!



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