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Post Info TOPIC: Trying to remain strong


Newbie

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Date:
Trying to remain strong


I have been dating a guy who I believe has an issue with alcohol.  He will not admit he has a problem- other than admitting that he sometimes drinks too much.  He drinks every day.  I use to count and then I stopped because of how frustrated and upset it made me.  I think he drinks anywhere between 4-8 drinks a day, but it is hard to tell since he mixes drinks and I do not think he is honest with me if I ask him if there is alcohol in that.  He does mostly mixed drinks.  I've confronted him about it time and time again.  It is tough because I love him and care about it.  I truly want a future with him, but his drinking is ruining our relationship and it feels like it ruining my life.  I feel like I am at odds with myself who knows I deserve someone better and at odds with the person who loves him and wants to help him.  I feel like instead of the relationship getting better, it is just getting worse.  When he drinks too much he sometimes wets the bed at night.  At first I tried to be supportive and act like it was no big deal... now though when i go over his house and i notice the sheets are off his bed-- i instantly ask him if he wet the bed-- just because i know if he did he drank a lot the night before.  This past week he wet the bed three times.  It effects my sleep.  I often wake up in the middle of the night and check his side to see if it is wet.  Sometimes I wake up and it is-- which is gross.  I've also awoken maybe 2 times to him sleep walking... at first i thought he was awake, and maybe he was... but he would be in his bedroom and he would pee on the floor... one time i caught him looking out the blinds while he peed on my side of the bed.  Luckily he hasn't done that in probably a month or two.  I've asked him to see a doctor but he will not.  I feel like I am mean to him at times because I do not know how to handle it.  I call him stupid when it's not that he is stupid.... but the fact that he lets alcohol control his life is stupid.  He makes me feel like the bad guy, when I am just trying to help.  I feel hopeless.  Sometimes I think he takes the wetting the bed out on me... i know he isn't happy about it-- and he will randomly say in a rude way like "sorry to inconvience you.".... I often leave his house at night because I can't take the drinking... it just upsets me soo much watching it.  I've never been able to go more than maybe 5-7 days without me contacting him and then we make up.. .he makes promises and well he keeps then maybe for a few days.. and gradually he goes back to what I want to get away from.  Today is day 3.  Part of me wants to contact him to get my stuff, but I know it is really to just see him-- see how he is doing... for some reason I feel like I am the one who has to say sorry... even though I really shouldn't be.  everything I do... i do to try to help him.  I feel bad because i purposely basically put the nail in our coffin so to speak when i was pissed off and told his mother in front of him that he has a drinking problem-- he response was that she knew.  I was pissed because after another promise-- he broke it... he promised me he wouldn't drink that day... and I caught him drinking a mixed drink...he also annoyed me because he was calling me weak and a quitter because I told him I can't keep doing this.... he made this comment to his brother that I know was directed to me-- that at least the dog isn't a quitter and is strong unlike some people. He says that we should be able to handle it together and that I shouldn't quit-- when my instinct is to run.  I try staying... but i do not like him when he is drinking... I don't like watching it.

 

I wish he would realize he has a problem and want help.  I would stand by him. It's sad because I am missing him terribly, when i doubt he is feeling the same.  I know he claims he loves me, but if he really loved me... why will he not put me before alcohol.  I know I am better off without him... but i love him and I know he is capable of being an amazing person.

 



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~*Service Worker*~

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Posts: 575
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Sorry to hear that you are having a difficult time. I know how difficult it is. His actions, behaviours, really have nothing to do with whether he loves you or not. You being weak or strong, you being a quitter and all the other things that come out of his mouth during this time. It is all due to the disease of alcoholism. When he promises to cut back or not drink at the time he likely means what he says until the next binge.. Do not take it personally as hard as that is. Wetting the bed, urinating on your side of the room is not just a minor inconvenience as he states . This again is the disease trying to minimize, and deflect away the seriousness of the situation. There is help available. Please find a local al anon meeting in your area where you can get the support that you need. You are not alone in this. He is going to do what he wants to do until when and if the consequences of drinking are worse then the benefits to him. I to tried to reason, negotiate, monitor, control the alcoholic in my life to no avail other then driving myself into a serious state of exhaustion and stress. Step one says that we are powerless over alcohol and OUR life has become unmanageable. Whether the alcoholic quits and seeks help or not is out of our hands, what you do with your self is in your hands. Take care.

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~*Service Worker*~

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Posts: 17196
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Welcome DazedandConfused, I am glad that you found us and had the courage to reach out and share. You are not alone.

Alcoholism is a dreadful, chronic, progressive disease that can be arrested and never cured. We who live with the disease are powerless over it and do become negatively affected by trying to cope with the insanity on a daily basis. Since we are powerless over the disease,it is important that we seek a program of recovery for ourselves so that we can learn new and constructive tools to live by and learn to love and support ourselves in a healthy fashion.

Al-Anon is that program. Face-to-face meetings are held in most communities and the hotline number in the white pages. I urge you to search out meetings, keep an open mind and keep coming back here. There is hope and help



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Betty

THE HIGHEST FORM OF WISDOM IS KINDNESS

Talmud


Senior Member

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Posts: 373
Date:

I can well understand the worry and the fear around an alcoholic. A friend of mine is one. She akways has an excuse. She did something to her ankle recently. We were supposed to go out on her birthday then she disappeared. Next thing she is out if action for more than a week. I have not been to see her for a couple of days. Obviously that relationship is different than yours. Neverthekess the elements are there drinking till something embarrassing happens. No sense of the effect on other people. There is a generalized sense if not caring For me that is terribly difficult because I have my own needs. I.don't kniw what your needs are but I hold my needs pretty highly these days. I have my own issues too. My own problems which I am 100 per cent responsible for. I know the al anon program helps me to detach. Detachment t doesn't come easily. I.certainly have to practice even day. I don't just have to practice around alcoholics either. I have to practice in all kinds of situations The al.anon program has helped me get to place of saying my needs are just as important as any alcohols. U have the right to want a life that isn't suffused with worry and anxiety. I have the right to put myself first without feeling that is selfish. Maresie

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Maresie


Senior Member

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Posts: 210
Date:

Hello my friend and welcome to MIP. I just saw your post and felt l needed to give you some ESH.

I too have met/briefly dated a person who actually wet the bed when drinking. It was a very brief situation (actually two people if memory serves me well enough...both were while I was in college many moons ago..lol). Anyway, I also had an A father (in recovery for 10 + years before he died) and I have an A husband (married almost 21 years, now sober in recovery 15+ months).

The fellows from college wetting the bed from alcohol consumption was a deal breaker for me because I knew they had this issue and I could not deal with it. Perhaps some will see that as being judgmental, but I see it as something I could not overcome, no matter how much I cared about the person. For me, a person who has such serious physical reactions to alcohol (and does not have this problem when not drinking) is a very sick person. I can also remember at the height of my father's alcoholism, he would sometimes "mistake" where he was after "passing out" in the bed and I knew he urinated on the night stand a couple of times. This was NOT normal for him and was a big wake up call for me. It let me see how truly sick he had become (and I was still a child).

Wetting the bed can be caused by very many things and if a person suffers with this issue there are medical things that can help, as can sleeping with protective undergarments! It is obviously not a big concern to someone who repeats the behavior often without taking serious precautions. Making the other person the "bad guy" for not wanting to sleep in pee is irrational and unrealistic and sounds to me to be a genuine alcoholic (or mental health) behavior. I am not judging, just making a personal observation. What would you say to a friend in the same situation? Smell alone would have to be a noticeable in the home and eventually on the people inhabiting it. Smells permeate all porous fabrics, and clothing and shoes are very porous (just ask anyone who has had a cat spray their clothes or shoes and had to throw them away).

My older sister wet the bed for many, many years, but there were medical concerns and, once addressed, the behavior subsided immediately. In her case, she had a bladder which was too small to hold urine throughout the night and had to have her bladder stretched (as a child). When this did not fully stop the behavior, my mother read up on the condition and realized she may be lacking in a certain vitamin. Sure enough, vitamin supplements did the trick and she never wet the bed again.

Likewise, my step-son wet the bed at out house (and tried to cover it up by putting a towel over it and/or throwing his wet clothing into the bottom of the closet. Naturally, this didn't had anything. He was 12 or 13 when the bed wetting was at its worst, so we tried diligently to find the reason, while also buying him personal protective underclothes that only he knew about and allowing him privacy to dispose of them in a closed-lid trash can, which he emptied himself at the end of the weekend. It was very difficult to protect his feelings and yet still protect the bedding and other items in our home, but we did not want to hurt his feelings if we could prevent it. For me, there is no way to hide the smell of old urine....period. The end result was that he felt safe in our home and not in his, because his step-father was abusive and the home stayed in constant turmoil and was always loud. When he was here, bedtime was quiet and he was sleeping so hard he could not wake to empty his bladder. This problem resolved itself when he grew up a little bit and the step-father died (don't need to get in to that). There is no need to get in to the abusive situation here.

What I am trying to say is that medical reasons for this problem do exist, as do products to prevent destruction of belongings from it. If this is a medical issue only, then the A would most certainly have addressed it by now. However, if the problem is linked to alcohol, as it was with my father ant the college boys (and sounds to be with the person you describe), please consider how sick he must be from alcoholism to continue to do this and blame others for not wanting to sleep in it. Please try some AlAnon meetings and see how you feel after a few months. Nobody will tell you what to do, but if you re-read your own post as if a friend wrote it, things may be much clearer for you. AlAnon can really help you if you give it a try and nobody will judge you for staying with or for leaving any relationship. That is your decision, and yours alone.

I wish you all the best!


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There, but for the Grace of God, go I.



~*Service Worker*~

Status: Offline
Posts: 3613
Date:

I also had the problem of wanting to be with someone who had big problems.  I tried and tried to find a way to fix his problems, and to convince him to fix his problems.  I did not address the question I most needed to address - not until much later.  I will state it outright, even though, if you are like me, it will be a little uncomfortable.  It is this:

What factors mean that you are staying with a person who has such a severe inability to participate in a relationship?  Why do you feel that staying with someone who refuses to stop peeing in the bed you are in is better than moving on?

Those questions are much more important than how to fix him. (Even if there were a way to fix him, which unfortunately there is not.)  There is light at the end of the tunnel, if you take care of yourself.  We've all been there.  Hang in there.  Hope you will keep coming back.



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