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Original poster

Am I naive and stupid to get involved with someone who is an alcoholic?

136 replies

PurpleLondon · 18/04/2020 23:55

I've been seeing a guy for about 5/6 months now. We get on really well and have both developed deep feelings. However it has become apparent that he has a serious problem with alcohol. Drinking about 5/6 large bottles of beer almost daily. (He admitted this to me). I know he has been drinking every day this week. This has been going on for years apparently with the severity changing according to his mood and life situation. He is also mentally unstable and has some mental health issues.
There are times when I've met up with him and he's been completely out of it. I've spoken to him about this at length and he always says he wants to change but the next day he is back drinking.
Should I just end things whilst it's still early days? I have two DC and really wouldn't want to subject them to this in the long run. I have no experience of being with an alcoholic. Part of me is hoping he will change.

OP posts:
ByGrabtharsHammerWhatASavings · 19/04/2020 17:27

I've spoken to him about this at length

How many hours of your life have you spent having these deep angsty conversations where you play the unpaid therapist/saviour and he lies to your face about changing? What could you have been doing with your kids instead in that time? What could you have been doing for yourself? That time is gone, you'll never get it back. Life is short, don't waste any more of it on this emotional black hole of a relationship.

theclangersbigplan · 19/04/2020 17:34

Put your children first and end the relationship.

BackseatCookers · 19/04/2020 17:44

You have two kids.

Why are you even considering this?!

Seriously, ask yourself why? Because it doesn't make sense.

KitchenConfidential · 19/04/2020 17:51

Another one who’s been there, for the T-shirt.
Even if it was just you, I’d be telling you to run for the hills. But you have kids - for the love of god, please don’t inflict someone with an addiction on them. Run run run run run run.

MimiLaRue · 19/04/2020 17:57

Part of me is hoping he will change

Oh Dear. He wont I'm afraid. I worked in a detox ward for over a year. The patients there couldn't even stop drinking to see their own children again, if they couldn't do it for their kids, how on earth do you expect him to do it for you? You are in for a world of misery. Addicts lie and they lie constantly- how can he be in love when he's not even sober the majority of the time? He's on a mind altering substance, daily. The things you are experiencing with him, he isnt experiencing them too- his alcohol soaked brain is.
I'm really sorry and I know it sucks but this is a path to misery- the only thing alcoholics care about is alcohol. Try to take it away from him and you'll see a side of him that shocks you. Please be warned.

leckford · 19/04/2020 18:00

Yes

WorkHardPlayHard1 · 19/04/2020 18:03

You know in your heart💝don't do it!! You are worth more than that and you cant change him! 😘

AuntMasha · 19/04/2020 18:21

I have alcoholism in my family and it killed two family members. It eats away at everything and destroys relationships. Your life will be miserable and you will build up hope when he says he’s given up the addiction, only to come crashing down to Earth when he relapses. It will break your heart. Please, please do not get involved with this man.

Notredamn · 19/04/2020 18:59

Yes, you are.
My heart sank when I got near the end and you said you have kids. I don't know why you needed to ask, but you did. So take on board the answers.

YinMnBlue · 19/04/2020 19:15

Be really honest with yourself:

Do you think that the ‘deep feelings’ you have for each other will make it possible for you to save him, in a way that others have not?

Do you feel empathy and tenderness for his damaged soul and want to care for him?

Do you think “I am strong and self sufficient, his problems won’t affect me and of course I will protect the children, they won’t know or be impacted”

Do you think “no one’s perfect, this is one flaw and it’s worth it because in every other way he is great “

Do you think “I’ve invested all these months in this, why throw it away when the next man could be worse?”

Guess what: in every case you would be downright wrong and / or doing yourself a disservice.

IME.

ITasteSpring · 19/04/2020 19:21

You can't save him. You can't cure him.

As someone said to me when I was getting involved with someone with serious problems, ' You cant' fix broken and they break you too.'
Turned out to be right.

DurhamDurham · 19/04/2020 19:24

My brother was an alcoholic and died last July at 50. By the end he's lost his wife, home, job, everything. It still wasn't enough to get him to accept help and support. The last time I saw him he was thin, red, shaking and refusing to let me take him to a medical appt. That picture will stay with me forever and I thank god every day that he didn't have children.

sutchie · 19/04/2020 19:35

Please end it now. I had an alcoholic uncle and saw the damage it did to those he had relationships with.

LaLaLandIsNoFun · 19/04/2020 19:42

You’ve only been seeing him 5/6 months and you’ve seen him out of it on more than one occasion? He’s got a really deep seated problem if he can’t even manage to hide it from you for that length of time.

Run for the hills

aWeaponCalledtheWord · 19/04/2020 20:10

i’m a recovering alcoholic (6 years sober next week, weather permitting).

i destroyed my life through my drinking. i knew i was hurting people but honestly? i didn’t care. it was all about me, and my pain, and my self-pity.

there were a lot of rock bottoms on the way to the last one. each of them terrible, and frightening, and dangerous. i thought i was invincible. i very nearly died. i lost everything, and i mean everything. i was as rock-bottom as it gets and i am lucky and grateful to have survived it.

i finally got sober with AA. a little while into recovery, i met a man through online dating. i knew he liked a drink. i thought it was fine, that as long as I was sober, all would be well. i fell in love and moved in with him, all in the knowledge that he was at best an incipient alcoholic. i think in my grandiose early sobriety i thought i could save him.

OP, you cannot save an alcoholic. they can only do it for themselves. i stayed with my ex for 5 years, all the time things deteriorating, knowing i had completely fucked up. in the process of trying to save him, i let others down and am still living with the fallout from that.

i finally left him 8 months ago. his race to the bottom is accelerating. i miss him - i loved him very much. but the man i fell in love with disappeared a long, long time ago. he lives in chaos now, and i don’t doubt it will kill him in the end, because he just doesn’t want to stop.

please take it from someone who has lived both sides of this - you must not involve your children in this doomed relationship. and it is doomed, has been since the start, because you don’t know who he is, not really.

value yourself, protect your children, and stop this, now. i guarantee that you will live to regret it if not.

LunaDeet · 19/04/2020 20:30

One of my friends is an alcoholic. He is so lovely and we’ve had a lot of interesting conversations. The reason we are friends is that I have a partner and a child and can keep the relationship at arms length. It’s such a shame he happens to be an alcoholic because he has so many good qualities. But he is. His life is pretty crap, his only true love is alcohol and his life has been shaped by it.

You honestly can’t change this man OP, no matter how many good traits he has. It’s a horrible disease and he really isn’t your problem. Please walk away and never introduce him to your children.

RoLaren · 19/04/2020 20:38

As the daughter of a woman who thought she could save her alcoholic husband (my stepfather) I beg you: Do not inflict his misery on your children. They will suffer it for a lifetime. Please, please don't.

Opentooffers · 19/04/2020 21:06

He'll stop for you, he'll stop for your kids, if you make a home together he'll stop, when he sees what it's doing to you he'll stop, when you split up, he'll stop, when he ralisezes it's affecting his health he'll stop ... except, years down the line, he hasn't, then he's dead....
You can waste your life in hope for change, or get out asap, combined with mental health issues he won't stop, because alcohol is the crutch that allows him to not have to address his MH problems, easier to forget than face. He'll drink to celebrate happiness, he'll drink to commiserate in sadness, there will always be a reason to have a drink to avoid his emotions .
You said he's been like it for years, that's lots of time where chances to change have already happened and been ignored. You will not be the magic pill to make a difference, you and your kids should wish for more than that in life, because it's always better to be on your own than with an alcoholic. Pick being on your own in preference to this, someone better will come along - but if not, you will all still have a happier life.

echidna1 · 19/04/2020 21:20

You are lucky that you have found this out now

My exH managed to keep it hidden until he moved in with me.

Then his drinking escalated; he was drinking heavily every day (and even more so out of my sight) but I refused to believe that he had a drinking problem because he was working every day, managing 56 people, and alcoholics were, well, you know, down and outs on a park bench drinking meths.

Once we had our DD, it all started to go horribly wrong. It was one more responsibility that tipped him over the edge into full blown alcoholism that he could no longer control and he lost his job as a result.

Al-Anon saved me when I hit my rock bottom (helpline number 0800 008 6811 (0800-2200 every day)).
Sadly he never hit his own rock bottom, and he died this time last year. He was only 52. My DD was 15.

Please please please, listen to us all.
We have been where you are now, and we know exactly where this will lead.

You are not the cause of this
You cannot control this
You certainly cannot cure this

Please please please end this now for all your sakes.

AuntMasha · 19/04/2020 21:42

My brother was only 45 when he died. I grew up in a family where my father drank secretly. You would find empty bottles and glasses hidden about the house.

Believe me when I say that it impacts on children’s mental health and self-esteem to be around that kind of behaviour.

Blibbyblobby · 19/04/2020 22:35

You can't save him
You can't change him
You will waste your life trying.

Get out now.

Nootka · 19/04/2020 23:09

Alcoholism wants death but will settle for misery. Don't do it, get out now and I speak from living with an active alcoholic. It's a nightmare and sucks the joy out of the house.

Holothane · 19/04/2020 23:20

Leave and leave now, I’m very lucky I don’t want a drink but my ex was terrible binges missing for days, I’d never wish that on anyone.

Graphista · 19/04/2020 23:57

As the child of an alcoholic I BEG you to have no more to do with this man for your children's sake.

You WILL ruin their lives if you do.

I am 47 and I am still deeply emotionally scarred by the experience and always will be.

Prisonbreak · 20/04/2020 00:28

I say this as the daughter of an alcoholic who drank himself to death... please leave. You do not want this for your life. It doesn’t get better. I know that’s not what you want to hear but it’s the truth. Please save yourself
In a way I couldn’t