My Boyfriend is an Alcoholic. Don't Know What to do anymore?

by Crystal
(Canada)

I am 25 yrs old and my boyfriend of 7 yrs is an alcoholic. He has been drinking since I met him, we used to drink together and would always argue. He was the one that couldn't handle his alcohol.

I have 3 sons now and stopped drinking with my first pregnancy (which was twins). Now they are 3 and I also have a baby who is 15 months old, and I am sad a lot, because of his drinking and don't know what to do anymore?

I guess I've been doing the wrong things like arguing with him, but how can you not? He has stolen my money when I didn't even know, he also does drugs. He lies, leaves for days sometimes. I don't know where he goes or who with. I say I'm going to leave him but it's so hard too! I'm not happy that's for sure.

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Answer

Hi Crystal

You're unfortunately going to have to make peace with the fact that you can't control your boyfriend and his alcoholism. Unless he wants to change and do something about his drinking problem, in reality there is little you can do.

So you need to focus on doing what is best for you and your kids, and detach from the destructive choices your boyfriend continues to make with his life. I know its not easy, but for the sake of your own sanity and well-being, unless you learn to let go and find your own happiness irrespective of what your boyfriend does, he'll just end up taking you down with him.

Whether or not that means you need to leave him, no one can answer but you. But you do need to look at why you continue to stay in a destructive and toxic relationship, because you may struggle with codependency. There are organizations like CoDa (coda.org) and Al Anon (for loved one's of alcoholics) that can help you and through whom you can learn to deal with what's happening more effectively.

But the main thing to understand here is that we can't force someone else to change, so we need to learn to control the controllables, i.e. ourselves and the choices we make with our lives. So don't give up your power in all this and think you're helpless. You're not. As difficult and intimidating as it may seem, you have the power to choose differently for your life.

Remember too your responsibility as a mother means you need to do everything you can to provide your children with as loving and harmonious an environment as possible, which usually becomes very difficult to do when in a relationship with an alcoholic. Try and encourage your boyfriend to get help for his alcoholism, and maybe even consider performing an intervention, but if he's not ready for that then you really need to decide long-term what's going to be best for you and your children.

God Bless and Take Care.

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