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.
https://al-anon.org/al-anon-meetings/
https://www.aa.org/
Al Anon and Alcoholics Anonymous [AA] are two different organizations. AA is for the people who want to get sober, and Al Anon is for the people dealing with the drinkers.
The only requirement to go to AA is to have a desire to stop. Someone can go to AA meetings even if they haven't managed to stop using. AA doesn't charge any fees. There are atheist /agnostic meetings for people who don't believe in God.
Al Anon is about setting up boundaries and supporting people without enabling their drinking.
Thank you very much, I wasn't aware of the distinction, I'll look into that. I have been debating calling the national alcohol abuse hotline myself and just seeing if they can give advice on how to deal with this myself.
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.
Yeah I've tried directing her to the /stopdrinking community but she doesn't want to do that. She's had some bad experiences with people online. And I guess people in general. She does like to read though, maybe if it's a book she'd be more open to it, thank you
Yeah my idea was not to send her on Reddit but send you there so you could find good resources and maybe ask the same question if you feel like it.
I hope you will find some good reading material there that you can gift her (and she will love to read).
Oh duh, thank you, I can't believe I didn't think of that myself sooner. Yeah maybe I'll go there too. Though I haven't even opened that since they killed RiF
It's not exactly a switch you can just flip off, and your loved one probably doesn't think they have a problem. Personally, The amount of time it took for me to start pumping the brakes to quitting 100% was about 2 years.
What I know now, and what it took me so long to figure out, is that I can't have the same relationship with alcohol that you might see in movies/tv. I'd quit for a couple days, maybe even a week, and then I'd drink on a Friday and inevitably I'd take it too far, and then I'd be drinking again. I thought a "healthy" relationship with alcohol was possible for me, and it simply isn't.
I also didn't realize that I had formed so many habits around my drinking. Hanging out with friends? Gotta drink. Doing my hobbies? Drink. Feeling thirsty or hungry? Drink. Feeling anxious? Again, drink. Giving up drinking would throw me into a very very deep depression, because I couldn't find enjoyment in anything anymore.
What really helped me out was weed/delta 8 gummies. I would come home after work, and I'd be super depressed, and all I'd want to do is lay down in bed and not move. I'd eat half of a pretty strong weed gummy and watch bad anime... and that was enough to tie me to my bed and not drink. Over the course of months I then had to relearn how to find enjoyment in anything.
In retrospect, giving up drinking was the best decision I ever made. I didn't fully appreciate how awful the long term effects of alcohol are, and how much of a general malise it put me in. After the first year of not drinking at all, I lost a ton of weight, I started sleeping better, and I was sooooooo much less of an anxious mess. But you need to understand what you're asking of this person... you're asking them to take the first step in a months long depressive slog where they have to relearn how to live like a normal person.
My advice to you is to imagine you're dealing with a profoundly depressed person who's only barely keeping it together. Do you want to have a screaming match with a depressed person while they're trying to get a few scraps of enjoyment in their life at night? Do you want to make an already depressed person cry when they're their most venerable during a hangover? Your goal should be to convince your partner that giving up drinking is what they want, and take it from there.
If you want to do AA without the god bit, the Satanic Temple has something called Sober Faction (in case you didn’t know, Satanic Temple is an atheist organisation and doesn’t actually worship Satan)
I do know the satanic temple yeah, neither of us are religious. She might actually be a bit jazzed if it's from there honestly, thank you, I'll look into it
I've been thinking about getting Allen Carr's book "Quit Drinking Without Willpower". I used his book " The Easy Way to Stop Smoking" to stop smoking in 2008. I had smoked for almost 30 years and then quit immediately after reading that book, with no cravings.
She has to want to do it. AA can be a great community (depends on group) but the God part shits me off. There are secular versions and online meetings. Other CBT models exist. A good read / listen is ‘Breaking Addiction’ by Lance Dodes. Talks about the underlying background trauma which the addict (of anything) will need to analyse and come to terms with.
Yeah she has an appointment with a non religious help group soon, AA would just make it worse for her I know. The thing is when she's sober she really DOES want to get help. And then she gets cravings and she caves and it's always just one but then just one turns into two turns into 6 turns into 12....She hates herself the next morning and it's real regret. She wants help, and she knows she needs it, but she's just struggling with actually going through with cutting everything out
Yeah it’s fucking hard and doesn’t really square up with reason and logic in broad daylight. I know.
Try the book. I listened to it while driving, on Spotify. It makes sense and involving discovering triggers relating to past trauma which the addict is trying to escape.
you're in a tough situation. ultimately the decision to change is hers: either she will or she won't and there's nothing you can do to change that.
good luck, take care of yourself
don't nitpick or criticize or yell or grief them. they know. trust me: they know. it'll only make things worse if you reinforce the shit thoughts they already have about themselves.
just support and be nice, patient and help.
jack trimpey rational recovery is godsend. allison carr the easy way. 30 day trial is good.
psychiatrist for naltrexone or other blockers are, legit, the secret.
support groups to talk to people things like life ring, other secular groups they can google.
id avoid AA. no, i won't elaborate
It's make or break time. Either she gets into a program to quit and actually quits, or you leave. Even if you love that person.
My experience is that you will be tempted to help them, but by helping you keep enabling their addiction. Not only that, but costs you a lot of energy to do this too. It's not a balanced relation and the abuse will not stop, it will only get worse. It will cost you a lot, and it's much better to take your loss now and leave.
So protect yourself, stand your ground. She either quits completely with your support or she loses you.
Good luck. I have seen some of what an alcohol addiction can do, and I absolutely do not wish it to happen on anyone else, but in particular the victims of the alcoholic.
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.
never tried it, but heard it's highly effective. get hammered with them and film the whole thing. then show it to them.
Have done this, not video, but texts. She was horrified and embarrassed and swore it would never happen again. And then it happened...like, thirty more times. So I don't think that'll work unfortunately
I'm answering from the point of view of the alcoholic person you're trying to help, change. I was that person.
Went on for years. People kept telling me risks, I should stop, it was affecting relationships, health, work, etc.
I'd say: I don't have a drinking problem. I'm able to hold jobs. I drink to help cope with certain things. Everybody uses something to cope, alcohol is mine.
For years. Where things changed, late 30s.:
Getting sicker. Medical 420 became a thing. Finally found med that helped with insomnia. Introduced to dbt, cbt. A good psychiatrist.
It's good you care, are trying to help. You might be able to. But... the person has to be ready, willing to recognize they have a problem.
Oh, also, alcoholics anonymous never worked for me. There are secular options. Harm reduction, moderation management worked best for my situation.
Do you really love this person? I mean really, like truly. Cuz you have to realize that this will most probably be like the rest of your life.
I did a similar mistake, married the wrong person out of pitty for her (I wanted to help her). Do understand, people don't change, at least not at the age of 25 and above (I assume you're both not in your teens). Damaged goods is not something I'd be willing to accept again as my life partner. Now I'm stuck with her for the next 15 years or so, till the kid grows up.
Think about having children with this person long and hard and whether you could endure that with a person like that. Marriages come and go, you 2 could get divorced, no harm no faul, but children are for life.
Neither of us want children and yes I really true love her. I'm not planning on leaving her I just want to help her through this. I know she can do this and I believe in her and I'm not going to give up on her until she gives up on herself. I'd take a bullet for her no second thought.
IDK what to tell you... mood swings will most probably be a part of your life. She drank for a reason, it made her feel good. When she doesn't have that fix, she's most probably like you experience her now. She might get better with time (less abusive), than again, chances are (from my experience) that she won't.
Well I had issues with drinking myself when I was younger and I got through it decently fine. I'm sorry you've had such a bad experience yourself but I'm really hoping it doesn't turn out that way here. Though I do know the possibility exists. When she's sober she still says she wants help. As long as she doesn't give up entirely on herself I'm not giving up on her either.
Hope is our biggest asset... as humans... and our biggest downfall... I had hope as well.
Sorry for saying this, but from my current perspective (experience), nah, I wouldn't take that chance. If I was in your place (not having to live through what I have, and still doing it BTW), yes, I most probably would take that chance as well.
A friend of mine once told me, entering a marrige with hope doesn't end well. From what I've seen around me (other examples and my own mother and father), yes, in most cases, it doesn't end well.
Basically, you're getting "damaged goods" in the start. If you feel like you're also damaged goods and need a lot of work (from one perspective or another), that's fine I guess, but I never felt like that. Sure, everyone has his/her quirks, no doubt there, but this is big. When pushing comes to shoving (as does from time to time in life), she'll probably just go into recession and start drinking again... and this will happen from time to time, not too often, bit then she'd go to rehab, you won't be with your partner for an undisclosed ammount of time... I mean, really? Is that what you'd want your life to be like? Talking from experience here, my family's and my own, trust me. Yes, people can change, but these are rare cases. Most of the time, they don't.
My 2 cents...
