My boyfriend's drinking scares me
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My boyfriend's drinking scares me
| Fri, 03-19-2004 - 9:26am |
I have recently started dating a 35 year old man whom I have been friends with for about two years. We dated in the past but only for about three months. We broke up due to communication problems. We really didn't know and understand each other well enough. As time went by though...we reconnected again and have since learned a great deal about each other, became closer than ever, and have professed our love for each other. We are now exclusive again and he asked me to move in with him in the fall of this year. We are thinking long term committment here. One problem, his drinking scares me. There are times when he drinks that he doesn't remember things that he has said or done. His memory just blacks out. (I have heard this is one of the symptoms of alcoholism) Just recently he was drinking at one of his favorite local bars where he has a lot of friends there on his day off of work and he got a call from a female friend complaining to him the next day about how he was mean to her at the bar. My boyfriend said that it bothers him that this happened because he doesn't remember being mean to her or even having talked to her. It scares me because how do I know that he does not go out drinking some nights and does stupid things that he has no recollection of until someone tells him about it. He could be doing anything. It scares me and makes me feel insecure with him.. I told him that it scares me and it makes me nervous to hear about things like this with him and he agreed with me. He said that it bothers and scares him too and does not like having to have to make an apology the next day to his friends for somehting he did that made someone uncomfortable. What do I do? My boyfriend is a wonderful man with a great heart but just the same I am wondering if I am making a mistake giving my heart to a man like him and considering moving in with him in the fall.

He says it bothers him - does he say he's going to do anything about it? Has he tried to stop drinking?
Personally I would not move in with him, b/c of the drinking concerns but also b/c I won't move in with someone until we are married or engaged. If you move in together and things don't work out, it is MUCH harder to break up b/c you not only have to break up, you also need to find a new place. And so people stay in unhappy relationships sometimes out of inertia. With the added issue of his drinking problem, I wouldn't even consider it, especially as long as he is doing nothing to resolve his problem.
Are you doing better with the communication problems that you had when you dated before?
If you move in with him, you're asking for trouble. It's good that he seems to realize he has a problem.
He should go for alcohol counseling. If that is not available, he should try Alcoholics Anonymous. Not a group everyone likes, but it is widely available and essentially free. At a minimum, it might get him to stop drinking long enough to think about his problem and what to do about it. There are other approaches to alcoholism besides AA. As far as I can tell, none of them has a great track record in the sense of working for most people.
But I've known people who successfully dealt with alcohol problems through AA, or on their own, leading either to total abstinence or greatly modified and reduced drinking. Your boyfriend is not hopeless by any means, but unless he does something, he's headed for trouble.