I am in love with a bloody alcoholic - come and tell me it will be okay

[veronicasawyerheartsjd]

He is in recovery - it has been a month since his last drink.

We met online 4 months ago and things moved fast - he lives an hour away and by the time we met face to face we were spending anywhere between 2 and 5 hours every evening chatting on Whatsapp and the phone. He disarmed me with his honesty and acceptance, and I have not met anyone EVER with whom I have so much in common and can talk so easily to. He is also autistic - so is my son - so he was the first man I have met in 4 years of being single who could have any understanding of what my homelife is like, and he felt that I was one of the rare people who understood the way he works too.

He was honest about his problems with drinking from the start, but was insistent he only drank in the evenings and had stopped before - he was going to try stopping again really soon.

So it goes without saying, when we eventually met up we got on like a house on fire. We spent the weekend together and I drove home and deleted all of my dating apps thinking "when you know you know". He didn't even seem to drink that much. We met again a week later but this time he got hammered. Then dumped me a few days later saying he couldn't see me as he needed to stop drinking and can't get into a new relationship and felt himself getting close.

I was devestated but didn't contact him for 3 weeks - then sent him a card saying I was there if he needed me (he had moved to a town where he didn't know anyone just before we met). The cycle started again. We dated, he finished it, swore he was giving up drinking and would be in touch when he was sober.

I had presuaded him to see a local drug and alcohol service for help with detoxing - a week or so later I messaged him to say good luck with his appointment - it would seem ge had reached his rock bottom in that week - I won't go into it but the long and short of it is I had to travel to see him the next day, call his GP, call his local crisis team and pull him out of a nasty hole (or literally, pull him fitting and ranting out of his bed).

He has been sober since that day. He is attending AA regularly, we speak by email almost every day. He doesn't want to rock the boat and speak on the phone or meet, but has said he wants us to be friends, has bought me a birthday gift and talked about giving it to me some time in the future. He is honest about his limitations and positive about his future, but this is driving me crazy.

I check my emails every half an hour - I think about him constantly. Seriously, I don't fall in love easily, and I don't have a martyr complex, but I feel like I am addicted to HIM.

I am aware that it would be a stupid idea for him to get into a relationship at this stage, but I can't even work out if I am being dumb waiting for him as there is no chance of a positive outcome or if this is something amazing and I just need to give it time and be patient.

I also haven't got a clue how to support him. A lot of the stuff online is aimed at long term partners and close family members of alcoholics.

Has anyone been through similar?

Spiky that blog post made me teary. I want to go round and clean that house and buy her a dressing table. That poor woman.

An ex of mine put me through hell with his drinking.

I wanted to "rescue" him. He didn't want to be rescued. Like you I actually did turn up, haul a very very unwell man out of bed and took him to hospital where he stayed for 2 weeks.

I was dumped by him, but not before I had spent a lot of money and tie and emotion on trying to "rescue" him.

For my own sanity I had to very firmly shut the door and walk away from him. Seven years later he has:

Married
Divorced
Tried to kill himself (repeatedly)
Lost his job
Lost his driving licence
Been to rehab (repeatedly)
Is unemployed

And IT IS NOT HIS FAULT. He blames everyone else for his drinking. There is nothing more soil destroying than being the third person in a relationship. Alcohol means more to him than anything (including his children).

OP don't put yourself through this. If your friend recovers and is strong enough in the future to sustain a relationship then great. But don't bank on it.

Sorry OP I agree with everyone else. Don't go there. It's a massive massive risk and to be blunt, you don't owe him anything.

There is nothing more soil destroying than being the third person in a relationship. Alcohol means more to him than anything (including his children).

This. My ex looked me in the eye and said "I will never love you as much as I love weed". Most of them won't say it explicitly but you will feel it every damn day.

You are in love with an idea not the real him.

Leave him alone.

Recognise that a manipulative alcoholic told you what you wanted to hear and you lapped it up.

You got a huge ego boost from rescuing him. Even if you don't see it yourself, your post drips with it. Oh the power! You are life saver!

Do you lack power and control in your every day life?

Been there, done that, got the T-shirt. I spent 10 years trying to rescue an alcoholic. I left him 20 years ago and he still blaming me for everything that is wrong in his life. In the last five years he has nearly died twice, once from an infection and once from an oesophageal bleed. None of this is his fault. In the intervening years I have found another relationship, with my now DH and got the n with my life. He is still stuck where he was in 1997 and it still my fault.

A new relationship should not be hard work. Knowing what I know now, I would walk.

You might find this interesting Aspergers and Alcohol

Neome thanks for that link - that is why he told me he got addicted to drinking - to cope with being autistic and with the social anxiety that often goes hand in hand with it. I will buy that.

There are too many to reply to each of you but I will try and answer some of your questions and respond.

Me - I suffer from general anxiety disorder, have had to work through addiction issues myself in the past (recreational drugs and codependency) and it has been refreshing to meet someone who doesn't judge me for these things. My mum and step-dad are high functioning alcoholics in denial. My ex (the father of my children) was meant to be me settling for a nice guy I didn't love after some shitty relationship choices but ended up being weak, angry and manipulative and sexually abusive.

My kids will never be around an active alcoholic as a father figure. In my head my boundary is that he will never meet them if he drinks again - in fact, if he can't stay sober I will have to walk away completely for my sake and theirs. But if in the future we can have a relationship I would give him a chance.

Him - no family (they are highly dysfunctional and he has cut contact). He has two close friends but both live hours away and one of them is in, erm, residential rehab abroad at the moment (they were alcoholics together). He moved from the other side of the country just before we met to make a clean break and get away from the "scene" he was on in his home city and the people he hung around with, in order to stop drinking. This is why I felt I had to help him. He has made no friends since he moved to this county apart from me. There was no-one else to help him.

He has tried 3 times before and relapsed. He has also told me he doesn't want to die and is aware that he probably will if he relapses again.

I get it. I get that most people would say I should run for the hills. I would like to give him a chance as I have been there too, experience similar problems and I am a good Mum and sorted member of society now.

He hasn't asked me for a chance - we don't talk about relationship stuff at the moment, we keep it light not heavy - I know this is a delicate time for him and he knows that too.

But loads of you are right, for both of us we can't have a relationship at the moment beyond friendship

Oh, and as well as being aspie, he suffers from PTSD and anxiety. Hence the mental health services involvement.

I think if you want to help him as much as you seem to want to you need to let him go. In order to recover and become stable he needs to do that himself. If you're there you are probably replacing one crutch for another. He needs time, space and recovery. It's an illness and you being there is not helping him (and I see how well meaning you are). He needs to go through a process himself, for himself only, otherwise it won't work. I am very good friends with an alcoholic who is now sober but he's not 'recovered' and every 5 years or so he falls off the wagon and has to start again. There's no magic wand to be waved. It's hard, unpleasant and sad. It's no life for you waiting for him. I'd let him go OP

Have you ever done any soul searching re your background?

I see a lot of red flags from you in your posts. Someone mentioned CODA meetings earlier. I don't know if it's possible for you to attend, but I would certainly look into addressing your rescuing tendencies.

Seriously, you don't know this guy. And the fact that you have reached the conclusions that you have about him (and you) is worrying.

Your boundaries are all fucked up, if you don't mind me saying. And that's because I was there once, so they jump out at me. Regardless of what happens with him, you might want to look at the boundary thing.

There's a good website called Sober Recovery with excellent forums. Please don't post (cos you'll get sucked in to helping him) but do read the sticky threads on the Friends and Families of Alcoholics forum. I think some of those threads might help get your head around some of this enmeshed thinking you have at the moment.

Flora is spot on. Prioritise your DC don't introduce this man into their lives.

What sendintheArdwolves said with bells on.

I am worried I will go mad just trying to be his friend, but it feels wrong not having him in my life now.
I was going to say the above smacks of codependency before you said yourself that you've suffered with co-dependency. You cannot cure him or help him.

I don't think you can have a friendship with him either as it's not a genuine friendship as you obviously want more. I'm sorry to be blunt, but you need to leave him alone before you end up more involved in this codependent nightmare which will not end well.

Alpaca it has the same affect on me. I've not read it for a while.

veronica

I do not think you should even be friends with this man because your own boundaries in relationships are still pretty much skewed due to your own background of codependency, alcoholism and being a rescuer and saviour. Infact I would argue that your boundaries are basically non existent.

He has attached himself to you and you to he because of your respective backgrounds; there is nothing else that is tying you together really. This is really a car crash of a relationship and you will both end up dragging each other down. The last thing both of you need now is a relationship with each other; its mired in an unhealthy codependency and you are confusing love with this. You ignore the red flags here at your own emotional peril. I do not think that you know what a mutually loving relationship is; its certainly not this and your parents never bothered to show you what that was like either. Their primary relationship was and remains with drink; it was not you and sadly no-one thought it fit to protect you from their alcoholism. You as a result remain profoundly affected and mired in rescuing, a need to be needed and codependency.

You want to be the one to rescue and or save him. I would argue that he does not want your help and you are woefully underqualified and now well overinvested to help him. You cannot help him. If you really do want to help him here, you will have no further contact with him and instead deal further with your own issues relating to codependency and rescuing/saving others. Being either in a relationship does not work.

If you have kids PLEASE don't allow an alcoholic into their life, especially as its not their father so there is really no need. Take it from me, my dad has been an alcoholic from before I was born and to this day, still is. Broken promises, violence towards my mother and others, seeing him so drunk and in withdrawal that he has had to be resuscitated. My mum was and still is completely infatuated with him, she puts him first. I didn't get on with my dad, because of his issues with alcohol. It was always "oh this time im giving up for good" he would go to the doctors, get referred to counselling, get medication YET a few weeks later he would be back drinking. He has been to rehab THREE times, and he is still an alcoholic. My mum put him first, always. I resented her for it, I told her that if she was any kind of a mother she would have thrown him out soon after I was born. She didn't care about the impacts it would have on me. Every time me and my brother stayed at my nans house, if my mum didn't pick up the phone we would cry and be worried until our nan drove us to hers to say good night to her because we where so scared that she wasn't answering the phone because he had got in to such a state that he had done something to her. That's no way for a child to feel like or go through. I moved in with my nan at 15 and haven't seen either of my parents since (I am 21) the whole experience have given me multiple issues BPD and bipolar. Just.. Don't

You are right - my actions and words have codependency written all over them - and a lot of alcoholics relapse. I will spare you the talk of how different and respectful he is - how he has been the first person to admit how his negative actions towards me so far have been out of order, and how I am going into this with open eyes and some understanding that life and situations are not black / white. It's fucking complicated. But do believe me, I have seen enough abuse and addiction in my life to not bring an abuser or an "active addict" into my children's lives.

I need to tread carefully, go slowly and do some soul searching.

Haven't read the full thread but wanted to say 3 things.

@FirstShinyRobe said:
Be very careful. Many alcoholics are extremely good at mirroring.
And I can't agree more because it happened to me. I just thought because he's a big guy he can pack it away, and he had such a professional job I didn't consider him alcoholic. He was my perfect soulmate and I couldn't get myself hitched fast enough.

Years later, long after I had realised what I was truly dealing with, he went to AA, counselling through the GP, and got himself dry. That's when the trouble started. He was at least honest enough to admit to the fact he had played a role to trap me and keep me off he scent that he was drinking so much, and now that he's 'got' me and he's stopped drinking, he doesn't need to keep up the pretence any more. Wow. How did I miss that? He went from compliant and semi-interested, to being antagonistic and unfriendly. He was much harder to live with as a sober person than a drunk. I think the term is 'dry drunk'.

So that's number 1. Number 2 is that your post brings up a red flag for 2 reasons. One is that you come across as a rescuer. There is nothing you can do to make him stay dry, or even to help him. It's 100% him. It has to be. I suspect your parents may have led you down this path? Either way, it won't help if you keep going after him at the moment. Then, finally, a relationship based on getting to know you through any other method than race to face is an illusion. It's false. You have this person at the touch of a button, like a secret invisible friend. They say all the right things and seem to be with you in all your important thoughts and interactions. It's completely different than real life and it's dangerously misleading.

I seem to remember Alanon family groups talking about compassion for the alcoholic.

This is how co-dependency forms from anxiety.

You meet someone who understand you, and you develope a connection. Your anxiety is reduced, you feel relaxed, you get a flush of relief every time you see him and he is nice to you. But then he becomes erratic. Your anxiety spikes. You want to get back that feeling of relief, so you do everything you can to help. When you get a positive result, the feeling of relief is even more intense. But that makes the next bad patch worse. You get more and more anxious with every erratic episode, and so this man becomes both the cause of anxiety AND the source of relief from that anxiety. You are now trapped in an anxiety loop. Anxiety, relief, anxiety, relief etc etc etc.

You need to look after yourself and your DC, and that means you have to break the loop.

This is a disaster in the making to be totally blunt.
This man is not emotionally available for a relationship and it sounds as though you aren't either. It sounds as though what you are describing is an addiction to the intensity and the unpredictability of this 'relationship', rather than love.
You seem as though you are trying to rescue this man, or save him somehow, and perhaps you also get some feeling of being needed and therefore having some power and control. This is not love.
Recovery is a long hard road and he's only just begun. He cannot offer you anything and you're waiting around for crumbs.
To save yourself pain, the best thing you could do is to stop contact and stop go cold turkey with the obsession. If you're meant to meet up with him sometime in the future when you're both more stable then you will.
Until then, this just sounds like a recipe for pain, for you. You'll just get pulled into the relationship high and low again, and wash, rinse, repeat.

You're like the addict who says 'just one little drink /flutter/cake/shag/toke won't hurt. I know my stuff, I'll go carefully'.

The only solution is putting your drug /practise down. You know this. You can't flirt with it and hope it's all going to be alright somehow. You know it won't. Cunning, baffling, powerful and all that.

I admit op I'm kind of pissed off you're considering this when you have kids, one of whom has autism. All your excuses and justifications sound so addict. Noone understands eh..

Literally the only way this will be ok is if you cut him off. You will get over him in time and he won't have the opportunity to fuck up your life and your child's.

I was married to an alcoholic and make dozens of promises to change and he never did. He became abusive and violent over time and after trying to leave a few times I finally did last year. It's totally down to you, he may stay sober but mine didn't! He tried and managed a few months at a time but always went back to alcohol. A family member is also an alcoholic and he will never give it up. The difference is though he tells me he never intends to and deliberately does not date etc as he does not want to hurt anyone plus he is just daft when drunk.

You do not need 'to tread carefully and go slowly'. You need to turn around and walk quickly and decisively in the other direction.
You are putting your needs above his wellbeing - that is not love.
Respect his clearly stated wishes. You do not know better.
You can not save him.
This is not different.
Stop - now. For all your sakes.