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?

Oh for goodness sake. This isn't about you. It's about your kids. If you want to wreck your life then go ahead but you'd be dragging your kids with you.

All the posters smoothing your ego, plump as it is, either don't understand the full impact of an addict in children's lives or choose to ignore it.

I repeat: this isn't about you.

Nobody is trying to tear you down, just trying to get you to be realistic. He's their dad, he's got as much right to have the kids as you have

Sorry kinky I think you have got the wrong thread

Just read the whole thread.

I think there is some excellent advice on here and I think you have ignored it OP. You are in denial.

It's not good enough to back off 'for a while'. You need to walk away from this guy now, and go completely no contact for at least one YEAR. If he stays sober for an entire year, think about getting to know him again.

What am I basing this on? I've never been romantically involved with an alcoholic thank God but i have a close family member who was an alcoholic and who went through rehab and did the 12 steps. His counsellors, who were fantastic, strongly advised him not to see anyone or form any romantic relationships or a full year after starting recovery. Alcoholism is a disease which affects the brain and behaviour and it takes around 12 months to re-set and re-wire the brain and to form new patterns of behaviour. In his case, the desire for drink went fairly quickly, but the self-loathing, low self esteem, guilt and other psychological issues took much, much longer to deal with (and are still being dealt with a year on).

Walk away. Come back in a year from now and re-evaluate.

As I recall Alanon Family Groups describes alcoholism as a family disease. Recovery literature talks about it being cunning, baffling and powerful.

Difficult though it is I believe the Alanon suggestion would be that the OP focuses on herself and her children.

In my experience it is not possible to force an alcoholic to drink or to abstain from drinking.

CBT takes a different approach to recovery which also has a lot of success.

I have an alcoholic dad, have had my own addiction issues plus a sister with heroin issues.
Pretty much every romantic relationship I've had has been with someone with some kind of addiction. They often seem ok at the start, or I was very good at ignoring red flags...
The addict in me was addicted to the emotional highs of those relationship despite the hideous lows. A relationship with an addict whether active or not is a riot of emotions. We become addicted to the strength of feeling we share with them. I think someone posted about sunk fallacy costs on here, it's easy to fall into the trap of thinking 'I've invested so much time/energy/emotion I can't just walk away now' and hope that they will change.
Sometimes they do change and occasionally they change for good. My dad could go for a year sometimes two without drinking, everyone so proud and happy all goes well then he starts up again and it's hell for everyone.
Now he's pretty much permanently pissed, lives in a care home, wears a fucking adult nappy and still tries to manipulate and control with charm.
From my experience I don't believe any good can come from this, I know how they tie you up in knots, how you will become on edge, suspicious and paranoid, wondering if it's booze u can smell or cheap aftershave.
Not knowing where he is , disappearing for days on a bender but telling u he was so ill with man flu that he couldn't even get to his phone.
getting stuck in pointless circular arguments where both of u know he's lying but you're so used to the charade you keep playing the game anyway.
He gets so hammered he can't remember why he was sharing a bed with that girl but it's purely platonic.
One day he lets his guard down and is a snarling spiteful silly monster in front of your kids or he falls asleep so pissed that he's oblivious to the fire that's starting around him. I actually know three men who've been in fire situations due to their addiction, one of them lost his leg.
Another guy I know was comprised while his small children were wandering the streets, found nearly a mile away with no shoes and luckily it was a kind stranger who found them and called the police.
I have been stolen from on more than one occasion, by addict boyfriends and by my dad.
I have bales out more feckless men than I care to remember, I have accepted all their shit because they accepted and understood my shit. The nurturer in me was desperate to salvage something from these relationships and I bent over backwards to enable them whilst thinking my love could fix them. I'm sure it all boils down to not having decent parental role models. Both my parents were damaged people and subconsciously I keep choosing damaged men then trying to turn them into the parents I never had when they can't even parent themselves. Good luck op, remember ur addicted to the drama. If u loved with him long term that drama would soon become your nightmare x

*sulky
*comatose
*baled

Woops

Oh and I should say, my dad was a very handsome and charming man (poor man's George best)
He could get any woman he wanted and had many codependent marriages and relationships.
Now he's properly broken, the only women he could get now are ones like him. He has done nothing of consequence for either me or my brother (from another mother) .
He has let us down umpteen times and we are living proof that even the person you profess to love more than anything in the world does not come anywhere near their devotion to and desperation for alcohol. Stay safe and let him get on with it, no harm meant just a subject I feel passionate about. I have wasted a lot of years on these kind of people and had my sense of self and my sense of reality completely warped and eroded.
My boundaries are all over the place and I will struggle to trust another man until I can can cut this pattern once and for all.

tread with caution. and remember, when you can't have something you inevitability convince yourself that must be the special one to complete your life... that is not the truth. particularly not if he is an alcoholic! i speak from bitter experience..

if it's ~true love then his time spent in recovery won't prevent that. but don't buy into the (falsely idealised) idea of a relationship with him.

You may protest you won't let him near your kids. But his effect on you, their primary carer, will be all to apparent to them. And the worse thing is, his effect on you will be so subtle (to them) they won't be able to name it: all the more decimating.

Eg when he finished it /you saved his life (high drama!), how were you on the mummy front? The chances are you weren't present, you weren't a calm, relaxed and happy mummy. Yy you probably put up a good show for their sakes but kids register the deep disquiet /grief one goes through with an addict.

Talking of not being present, do go to CODA. You insist you have put codependence behind you but your story very clearly differs.

Please don't think you're 'not as bad' as some of the stories on here. I'm talking about your addiction here.

Also please don't think he's 'not as bad' as the stories on here. He really is: signed up member of the alcoholic community, down to his poor sad story of how he got here.

All the posters smoothing your ego, plump as it is, either don't understand the full impact of an addict in children's lives or choose to ignore it

Arsey as fuck but anyway

I know what i'm talking about and don't choose to ignore it.

I'm not sure if i'm reading a different thread but OP has made it pretty clear that she's backing right off. It might be the "i am running in the opposite direction and never looking back" that you seem to require, but it's huge progress from the start of the thread and that deserves encouragement.

You're never going to force someone to take your advice by being a twat to them. You might get them to think by offering a bit of compassion mixed with truth.

Bullying is a shit way of supporting people.

Well said clopy

I also know what I'm talking about Clopy. We may both not agree with the way we're both approaching this but I take on board what you've said and I will consider it.

It's the kids that stick in my craw. The kids. That op is even considering this appallingly damaging relationship, damaging even on face value, is kind of pissing me right off. So yes compassion - for the kids.

As for plump ego, there really is no question that op's ego is currently rampant. Addicts have to come to terms with the whole ego issue. It's not so terrible.

Morris is spot on.

WTF would you have this person in your DCs life.

If I wasn't with DH, my DDs would deserve a step Dad who was a fantastic person in every regard.

This man is not a fantastic person.