My fiance has been struggling a lot lately with this and it’s taking a toll on me. I’m doing all I can and all I know how to do but it’s getting really hard and exhausting to deal with the constant cycle of abuse and then apology and then abuse and then apology over and over and over again for months. Usually day by day. I have convinced her to go to a counselor for help and she has an appointment set and seemed willing but she has kept up the cycle of drinking and I’m afraid she’ll just ignore it or pretend to go. If anyone has experience helping a loved one through overcome this I would appreciate the help. She is an absolutely wonderful person when she is sober and I love her with all my heart but I’m not sure what else I can do and I don’t want the rest of my life to consist of this.
Former alcoholic here, although I abhor the term, Ill use it for simplicity. Imo, excess drinking is a symptom of other problems. I quit because I didnt want to die like that which is the inevitable outcome. But I had to get my other problems dealt with in order to quit, because for a while, like 10 years, I don’t think I cared, so I needed my doctors help with that. Mainly, I didnt want my grandkids to remember me like that, dying of alcohol-related problems, nor did I want my spouse to die like that, bc we were drinking partners. So I had to get her to quit too, which eventually came down to alcohol or me, so she chose me.
This book This Naked Mind helped me a lot to quit alcohol.
But it was my own decision, not coming from someone else.
Sadly, the stop drinking community on Lemmy is non existent or dead so you have to check the original r/stopdrinking on Reddit. Even if we left that place, this sub is just awesome, packed with useful resources and is something really hard to find elsewhere, you won’t even have to post, just start by reading the sidebar and wiki.
Good luck, my problem with alcohol cost me my 13 years marriage but I got out of it mostly thanks to that subreddit, so anything is possible.
As an alcoholic, you cannot help someone who doesn’t want help. It’s a disease that grabs ahold of your mind and tells you to do things you actively don’t want to do. It’s hard to explain how you can just NOT want to be drunk today but then do it anyways. How you can know you’re hurting the people around you and still do it anyways. Both of my parents were violent alcoholics, but as I’ve grown and dealt with the issues of addiction myself, I’ve learned to have empathy for them.
Whatever you do, don’t marry this person unless you’re 100% sure you can deal with this disease. It may get better but it will definitely get worse for a time. There is no “former alcoholic”. There are only alcoholics who choose not to take the first drink.
I hate to say something so harsh but it’s the truth. I’m glad my girlfriend has endured me but I’m trying. There was a time I was downing 2 pints of bacardi gold every day, waking up and filling my coffee cup with it and drinking all day, sometimes passing out, waking up and drinking some more. I’ve cut back but I made.the decision myself. My girlfriend definitely pushed me in that direction and I’m not trying to take credit away from her trying, but everyday I make that decision myself.
You can push your fiance, but they have to make that decision. Everyday.
The only thing that one human being can do for another human being with an addiction is to love them as honestly and as consistently as possible.
It’s really about focusing on the self, more than focusing on the other person. Basically, you need to give them some hope that the world might be a worthwhile place to be. And you do that by being your best self.
I know it sounds vague, so I’ll try to be more specific. You need to make your side of the interface with that person as clean and as healthy as possible.
Specifically:
- Tell them the truth (including bad news)
- Keep your promises to them
- Don’t make promises to them you can’t keep
People get addicted because their moment to moment awareness is too full of pain to withstand.
For some people, the pain is simple. Their back is in agony, or the withdrawal from their last hit is grinding at them. For these people you can do nothing.
For others, the pain is harder to see and understand: the world is meaningless, their life is hopeless, they are surrounded by a world of shit, they can’t trust, etc. For these people you can’t do much. All you can do is make your little part of the world functional, so that in you they find reason to trust, evidence of meaning, a possibility of a world that isn’t shit.
99% of the work is still hers to do, not yours. But that 1% consists of being consistent and healthy in your dealings with her.
Now here comes the hard part. This is where you face your own real demons, for your sake and for hers. And I think the place to start that journey is:
What is it that you have to heal within yourself, so that you are no longer the kind of person to accept abuse?
Is there any way that you simultaneously stop accepting her abuse of you and give her greater hope of a world worth living in? I think there is. I think, in fact, it might be the same thing.
But it’s going to have to start with a serious, deep look into your own darkness, into the stinky, rotten parts of your own soul that are so scary to you that you’d rather accept abuse than look directly at them.
It sounds really beautiful and all, but the abuse will stay unless real consequences wake them up. Consequences that they cannot talk themselves out of, since they usually are real good talkers.
So take care of yourself, leave them be in their misery or stay a victim. I know what I would choose.
You are either a professional therapist or have a ton of personal experience with people with addiction
Another secular alternative is SMART recovery. They have group meetings in-person and online as well as a Family & Friends program. https://www.smartrecovery.org/
Think about this carefully. Don’t fall into group therapy that costly. You can do this yourself.
I don’t understand your comment. I have found SMART recovery to be free, running off of donations and volunteers. They also sell a few books at a reasonable cost. The only money I have ever spent is donating a few dollars after attending some Family & Friends meetings, and I bought the workbook for something like less than $20.
