I'm so worried.

As a wom of very near 62 seriously contemplating divorce tell her no way to marry him. My husband not a drinker but I always knew there was something not quite right. We all have personality quirks etc but his puts me I'll at ease. I find now I can't take anymore. I've diagnosed him as having dementia, pa, all sorts. Whatever it is it affects the other partner greatly and will eventually do them mental harm if not physical. So tell her NO.

Lululemon

Thank you so much all of you. You've re-affirmed what I was thinking. Yesterday his mother sent my daughter a horrible message blaming my daughter for wrecking her son's life and that everything was alright until a year ago. (For several years before that they were happy, no sign of him drinking to excess). I guess his parents are hurting too. I'm glad I do not have their phone number. I think they are also in denial. I really do appreciate your comments and kind words.

Can I just say that this is what my brother's Mum thought because she couldn't believe her son could be an alcoholic. She would hide his bottles when he was at home on rehab so his counsellor wouldn't find them. I actually watched my father buy him beers at a party because they didn't want him to feel left our. In their minds, it was all his ex wife's fault who put her down and said she didn't want to be with him any more until he sorted himself out. They enabled him, turned a blind eye to his behaviour and actually asked me not to tell them when he had been drinking even though we were all sat at the same table with him disappearing to the loos with his "squash" bottle and returning, getting steadily drunker in front of the whole family. Quite frankly, he didn't stand a chance.
His ex-wife has remarried, is very happy and you know what? Her current husband hasn't been driven to alcohol despite the years they have been together. Strange, eh?

If she is with him she will never have peace of mind and she will never have any money. She will be watching her back all the time. Alcoholics lie and are good at it. They hide bottles everywhere. They steal money when they can't get any.

He won’t change. Tell your daughter to stay strong and move on. She is not to blame in any way whatsoever and he should not be trying to get into her head and make her feel somehow responsible for him, she isn’t, this is what addicts do! She would have a life of hell if she went back to him, she will realise this in time. Good luck.

Lululemon, I really feel for you and your daughter and totally understand. Your daughter is not to blame. It is difficult to stay away from some one you love but in this case it is for the best. As the saying goes she has to detach from him with love until he is willing to get help and prove himself. It is an illness, I have never heard an alcoholic say guess what when I am older I want to be an alcoholic. I am a recovering alcoholic and have been sober for 23 years and living the best years of my life sober. I found sobriety in AA and it is the best thing I have ever done. Both you and your Daughter could try Al anon where you would get lots of support and understanding of Alcolism.

Lululemon... Your daughter has nothing to feel guilty about, she doesn't force her boyfriend to drink, the choice is his and his alone. If he's making her feel guilty, it sounds as if he's a bit of a narcassist and is using the gas lighting method too woo her back into his life. It would be helpful if she Googled " narcissistic traits" before she even thinks about marrying him, if he is prone to this behaviour, she's in for a hell of a life with him. Trust me on that one. The choice is hers alone, but she needs to be informed first. Good luck,

Thanks to every one of you who has reached out to me. I think she knows in her heart of hearts that she has to end it. And that will be the end of her dreams. But given time I like to think she will have new dreams. I'm heartbroken for her. I cannot be with her and she lives 200 miles away from me. Addiction is such a terrible thing, isn't it. Thanks again.

No, No no, she is not to blame. Please encourage her to step back from the situation , have time for herself to work out which direction she wants to go, best wishes ps ,better to take time out , than trying to get out later on.

My first husband was an alcoholic when I met him but I did not realise it. He spent most of the family income on booze and lost a job because of it. We lost our rental flat as he didn’t pay the rent. After 5 years I left him with 2 small children. After 10 years of getting worse and worse he met a woman who said he would have to stop if he wanted a relationship. Well he managed to give up alcohol completely and I’m actually quite proud that he did. They’ve been married 30 years! So it can be done but I’d say rarely.

dear lululemon, you have received some good advice, please though can you point out to your DD living with an alcoholic is not easy I know from family experience,#. My MIL, Fil and Sil all died due being alcoholics!

@Tell her to leave him before he drags he down with him.
Addicts always blame others for their problems and they are very feckless and weak. He brought it on himself.

Alcoholics can recover. I know because I have seen it happen to someone close to me. He had been a heroin addict as well. Now he is clean and has turned his life around. He has a career, a home and a family - all the things he thought were impossible.

However, it's a long hard road. I know that it is a cliche but it does seem to depend on the addict - whether it is drink or drugs - wanting to change. It's no good if they are just trying to please other people. They have to see that the addiction is ruining their life and really want to be free of it. I also think that they have to have a strong character. A lot of people want to get clean but many of them don't make it.

It's also very hard on the partner. There's a lot of lying, a lot of deception, a lot of false starts and slip-ups. The partner has to be strong. If they have agreed on boundaries - such as "tell me if you have had a drink, don't lie to me" - they have to stick to them. They have to realise that they can't cure the alcoholic and they can't "police" their drinking. And they have to accept that they may reach a point where they have to walk away.

So it's not impossible that the boyfriend could recover and that the relationship could survive. It's long odds, though, and it won't happen unless he takes responsibility for his own addiction. His mum isn't helping either, by trying to shift that responsibility onto other people.

Lululemon - Tell your daughter NOT to feel guilty, NOT to go back and take NO notice of the fiances mother. I'm the mother of an alcoholic son, who I love dearly, but after 18 years of feeling guilty in case his upbringing caused it, feeling sorry for him and all the opportunities in life he's missed, and doing everything imaginable help him stop drinking, I have finally given up. The truth is this: alcoholism is a terrible affliction that even the nicest people have. But the alcohol changes that personality. Alcoholics always blame anybody and anything for their drinking. They lie all the time to get you to do or give them what they want. They will spend every last penny on booze, be unable to hold down a job or take responsibility for anything. My family have all suffered mentally due to one persons drinking, the shame, stigma, guilt, mind games, setting one person against the other. Its endless. The fiances mother is probably going through this and is in denial. I've done that too. Eventually you watch their health deteriorate and know that they will die before you do. But only the alcoholic can choose to get help and stay sober and nobody means more to him than the alcohol does. I have huge respect for recovering alcoholics who have to fight everyday to stay sober. But if you can avoid getting involved in the first place, then save yourself and any future children you hope to have, the heartache that living with an alcoholic brings.

My sister married an alcoholic. She ran away from home (very young)with him when my Father got involved. It's not worth it. They were married a long time 50 years until he died and you could say it worked but my God she went through a lot. He did give it up but it makes a person restless - it's like scratching an itch, always busy to avoid it somehow. She did once admit that if Dad had kept away, she may have finished it. Who knows. Anyway, just my input.

Very often an alcohol problem is secondary to another issue. He needs to get help and get sober away from her then they can both reevaluate the relationship after that. I hope to goodness she stops blaming herself as it’s not healthy for ether of them.
Wishing you all the best, you’re right to worry but your support will mean the world to her I’m sure x

What a nasty position for your daughter to be and I really hope that she doesn't cave in to his emotional blackmail!
It isn't her fault that he is like he is. Not as if she was feeding him the alcohol, was it?
I have had several friends either engaged to or married to someone and in a similar situation to your daughter. One in particular caved in and went back and despite all his promises, her fiance was still drinking to the point that she just about stopped going out socially with him because he either was falling over and injuring himself or picking fights.
It's the alcoholic's decision to stop and unless he does of his own volition, she is better away from him, hard as it might be.

I believe your daughter should get out of such a relationship asap. It can be very difficult of course if you feel you love the person behind the illness of alcoholism and /or drugs. Sounds hard but the longer a person stays with a person who has such an addiction they themselves become part of the problem in that they can become the ‘enabler’ in trying to help and control a situation they have no control over. Then they find they have got themselves in a situation believing they cannot detach themselves without receiving professional help for themselves! Then before your daughter realises her own life has disappeared as she has drained all her own energy on trying to control her partner’s addiction! She will have become addicted to the partner’s addiction! Please don’t let her get into that trap.

I am sorry but it won't be ok. He'd need to be totally dry, without any relapses, for at least 2 years before I'd even think about giving it another go. She may be willing to sacrifice her peace of mind to risk living with him, but what if children came along? I have read far too many memoires of people who grew up with an alcoholic parent, and how it blighted their lives.

My friend's daughter is just about to have the house repossessed. She can't afford the mortgage on her salary alone and her alcoholic husband isn't working. He has had so many chances to 'get clean' but the drink is more important. My advicr would be for goodness sake DON'T MARRY HIM unless he is prepared to give up drinking first.

Typical behaviour of someone who has a drink problem blaming others and saying all would be ok if... Your daughter had a lucky escape

Everything that your daughter needs to know are in these pages.
I had a friend who knowingly married an alcoholic. His own mother told her not to marry him. But she did, because he said he needed her help to give up drinking.
He didn't stop. He became violent and she was terrified to go home after work.
Please tell her not to have anything to do with him. There are people who can stop drinking, but they can relapse any time; for example at family occasions when someone can hand him a drink without knowing the consequences .
Please warn her, it is not her fault, and once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic. Even though they never touch another drop, the fear is still there.

I know of one person whose partner was an alcoholic and did manage to give up the drink, by complete abstinence. However, I know many more people whose alcoholic other halves did not manage to give up the drink.
A very good friend married someone who turned out to be an alcoholic. He never worked, so everything was from her efforts, she had to keep getting him to the hospital when things went wrong, She had a rotten life. He became violent and eventually, she divorced him. He was entitled to enough to get himself somewhere to live but he didn't. As she said he pissed it up the wall, sorry to be crude but that's what happened, he died of alcohol-related causes at 50. The time between divorce and death involved him getting together with a fellow alcoholic and continuing to abuse her whenever possible
She joined AA support for family members and some of the stories she heard on there were hairraising, what the alcoholics put their families through

If [and I hope she doesn't,] she gets back together with him she would be well advised not to marry, and to keep good records of what she has spent on what to make it easy when they split eventually

I was married to an alcoholic. She has to make her own decision but imo she should run and keep on running. Alcoholics are arch manipulators. She's already wondering if it's her fault. That shows he's already in her head. He'll build on that to make it all her fault. Then she'll never escape because the guilt will be too great. Took me 37 years to manage to escape. Sadly others never do.

Some alcoholics do go into recovery and make better lives for themselves, it's not always hopeless. There was someone on here fairly recently who had bern sober for some time.
We should give credit to those people who struggle with addiction and then manage to overcome it.

Alcoholics are very good at pointing the finger at everyone else to blame for their drinking. It is never their fault. They become controlling and deceitful (hence the hidden bottles). Nobody can help them. It has to be him that recognises his addiction and decides to do something about it. Actions speak louder than words here. Having endured 3 years of abusive hell from my alcoholic husband before our divorce I have one word to say to your daughter. RUN.