Got involved with someone who I now suspect is a secret alcoholic....What to do?

[LotsOfDogs]

Hello everybody

So just before Christmas, I started seeing a guy who I've really got to like. For the first few months, everything was good. We were close, there was romance and a warmth between us which I really enjoyed and which I know he did as well. When I met him, he'd just lost his job and so had some time on his hands....I work for myself from home so we managed to spend quite a lot of time together. If we met in the evening, we'd always have a bottle or two of wine and by his own admission he does like a drink. But every now and then I would get strange, garbled text messages and sometimes we would have conversations which would quickly turn into bickering, largely over something that was said and misunderstood to mean something else. At the time I just put it down to miscommunication and plodded on.

During the time I've known him, I've noticed things such as a bad, itchy and flaky scalp, florid complexion, cuts and bruises, slurred speech in phone conversations, constant trips to the bathroom because of diarrhea, bouts of broodiness and reclusiveness where he says he "Just wants to be on his own". Often if I spoke to him during these times, it was obvious that he'd been drinking alone at home. On occasions where I've come over to see him where it hasn't been planned, he's made me wait at the door while he went into other rooms to do something. I now suspect it was to hide bottles (I've found one or two empties behind cushions etc)

He has since got another job a couple of months ago and since then he's changed. He initially said he was too busy to see me as much as he used to, but most nights he does nothing socially and just goes home to be alone. He says it's because he's tired and needs to get used to working again but I have a suspicion that it's more about keeping himself together during the day and then going home to drink in order to keep himself steady and free from the shakes. I believe the term is that he's a functioning alcoholic.

If I'm honest, I think for a long time I've deliberately not seen the signs I listed above. Plenty of people drink more than they should but aren't driven to do it daily in a dependent manner and I assumed he fell into this bracket but in the cold light of day, I'm now pretty convinced he has a problem.

So here's my dilemma. I know from everything I have read that most times, alcoholics rarely change their ways and if they do, it often doesn't last very long. Because of this, their relationships are often turbulent, manipulative and dishonest, usually not ending well. But I am very attracted to him and whilst I hold no illusions about changing him, I wonder if there's anything I can do in this situation other than just walk away (which is what my head is telling me to do in a pretty congruent fashion). I know he's had a rough time over the last 18 months...A family member died in a very slow and unpleasant way and he was the nearest person to it, so ended up managing the illness and then picking up the pieces when he died. I know there's a decent guy in there somewhere but I also know that any kind of recovery or improvement will only happen if he really wants it. I don't want to bail on the guy, but also it's getting increasingly harder to reach him.

For those who may be thinking "He's just not that into you anymore".....The thought has occurred to me as well. But when I have suggested or even said that perhaps it's best we go our separate ways he makes it clear he doesn't want that to happen. In the 10 or so months we've known each other, only one day has gone by when we haven't communicated via text or a phone call. These exchanges are by no means one sided and if I haven't been in contact for a while, he gets in touch with me and wants to know what's wrong.

I'd really appreciate any advice, particularly from people who have experience with alcoholism. It's something that I don't know enough about....I can drink quite heavily and then take or leave it for weeks afterwards without hankering for it. I do understand addiction though, it's just that alcohol isn't my kryptonite.

Many thanks for taking the time to read this through. I'm a guy as well by the way, not that it really has any bearing on the current situation....Just don't want people to get the wrong impression.

 

[PriestTheyCalledHim]

There's nothing you can do. They have to be the one to quit. I'm an alcoholic and I quit drinking 2 years ago; but I wanted to stop before I was 30, and I had stopped using everything else years before quitting drinking.

My ex and I are both bisexual and men, and we had a partnership together. It turns out he's like the guy you are with, and is an alcoholic that hides it very well. We did break up because of this, and other issues. My ex is not alone and he does have someone else there as a roommate who looks out for him.

 

[samnslumberland]

Well, what can you do? He's made a great effort to hide his alcoholism from you, so approaching him about it might (well, most likely) make him defensive. As PriestTheyCalledHim said, he has to quit on his own because HE wants to, not because somebody else wants him to.

My brother is a raging alcoholic. It's really sad, because he's a wonderful guy when he's sober and has a beautiful wife and two children. Despite several divorce threats from his wife, a visit from DHS and several visits from police for domestic disturbance complaints (while in drunken stupors, of course), seeing his father in the hospital with critical health issues due to alcoholism, and many attempts to quit, he's still attached to the bottle. At one point, he was taking medication that made him violently ill if he mixed it with alcohol in order to quit his addiction. This worked for a short period of time and things were going very well for him, until he one day decided to test the power of his medication when mixed with alcohol. He ended up passing out and was very, very physically sick. Rather than learning a lesson and coming to the conclusion that it's not worth drinking while on his medication, he determined that it's not worth taking his medication while drinking and so he quit the meds all together and gave back into his addiction. I firmly believe that the reason that he has been unsuccessful in his quest for sobriety is because he does not see anything wrong with his drinking, other than the fact that it's hurting his family life. He thinks that if he hides his bottles from his wife and keeps his drinking under the radar, everything will be peaches and cream. Unfortunately that's not the case.

 

[steve022]

Hello everybody

So just before Christmas, I started seeing a guy who I've really got to like. For the first few months, everything was good. We were close, there was romance and a warmth between us which I really enjoyed and which I know he did as well. When I met him, he'd just lost his job and so had some time on his hands....I work for myself from home so we managed to spend quite a lot of time together. If we met in the evening, we'd always have a bottle or two of wine and by his own admission he does like a drink. But every now and then I would get strange, garbled text messages and sometimes we would have conversations which would quickly turn into bickering, largely over something that was said and misunderstood to mean something else. At the time I just put it down to miscommunication and plodded on.

During the time I've known him, I've noticed things such as a bad, itchy and flaky scalp, florid complexion, cuts and bruises, slurred speech in phone conversations, constant trips to the bathroom because of diarrhea, bouts of broodiness and reclusiveness where he says he "Just wants to be on his own". Often if I spoke to him during these times, it was obvious that he'd been drinking alone at home. On occasions where I've come over to see him where it hasn't been planned, he's made me wait at the door while he went into other rooms to do something. I now suspect it was to hide bottles (I've found one or two empties behind cushions etc)

He has since got another job a couple of months ago and since then he's changed. He initially said he was too busy to see me as much as he used to, but most nights he does nothing socially and just goes home to be alone. He says it's because he's tired and needs to get used to working again but I have a suspicion that it's more about keeping himself together during the day and then going home to drink in order to keep himself steady and free from the shakes. I believe the term is that he's a functioning alcoholic.

If I'm honest, I think for a long time I've deliberately not seen the signs I listed above. Plenty of people drink more than they should but aren't driven to do it daily in a dependent manner and I assumed he fell into this bracket but in the cold light of day, I'm now pretty convinced he has a problem.

So here's my dilemma. I know from everything I have read that most times, alcoholics rarely change their ways and if they do, it often doesn't last very long. Because of this, their relationships are often turbulent, manipulative and dishonest, usually not ending well. But I am very attracted to him and whilst I hold no illusions about changing him, I wonder if there's anything I can do in this situation other than just walk away (which is what my head is telling me to do in a pretty congruent fashion). I know he's had a rough time over the last 18 months...A family member died in a very slow and unpleasant way and he was the nearest person to it, so ended up managing the illness and then picking up the pieces when he died. I know there's a decent guy in there somewhere but I also know that any kind of recovery or improvement will only happen if he really wants it. I don't want to bail on the guy, but also it's getting increasingly harder to reach him.

For those who may be thinking "He's just not that into you anymore".....The thought has occurred to me as well. But when I have suggested or even said that perhaps it's best we go our separate ways he makes it clear he doesn't want that to happen. In the 10 or so months we've known each other, only one day has gone by when we haven't communicated via text or a phone call. These exchanges are by no means one sided and if I haven't been in contact for a while, he gets in touch with me and wants to know what's wrong.

I'd really appreciate any advice, particularly from people who have experience with alcoholism. It's something that I don't know enough about....I can drink quite heavily and then take or leave it for weeks afterwards without hankering for it. I do understand addiction though, it's just that alcohol isn't my kryptonite.

Many thanks for taking the time to read this through. I'm a guy as well by the way, not that it really has any bearing on the current situation....Just don't want people to get the wrong impression.

He seems to drink very heavily, but that does not always mean he's a true alcoholic and if it does, it does not mean that he would be that way for life. He seems like a decent guy that just has somewhat of a drinking problem. The deaths in his family probably triggered these problems for him. He may be a serious alcoholic, but he might not be. The complexion thing sounds pretty serious but if it was just occasional, it might be nothing serious. Alcoholism is a very broad spectrum from just liking to drink too much or too often all the way to full on delirium, insanity, and death. Alcohol is basically a toxin and the getting drunk is really just poisoning yourself so if you have a little every now and then, it doesn't really do any damage. Drinking a case of beer every night, for example, would likely poison the hell out of you and you could die very easily. It sounds like although he's somewhere between the two, he could be leaning towards the more serious end if your noticing the complexion issues and the cuts and bruises on a frequent basis. If it's every now and then, well then, it happens sometimes. I sometimes wonder if I drink too much as well, but I don't get to the point of feeling the uncomfortable, toxic effects of it much like the throwing up, diarreha, etc. From my experiences with getting that, I have a feeling if he does this too often the guy's body is going to basically shut down if he keeps doing that so often.

 

[LotsOfDogs]

Thanks everybody for the responses.

I've decided to back off and try to find something a little more easy to deal with! I really hope he sorts himself out but I think I've realized there's nothing I can do to help.