My girl friend is an alcoholic

[Bullet]

I really need some advise. I've come to this realization tonight. Let me lay down some background. I was raised in an alcoholic home. I come from a long line of drinkers and have little tolerance for drunks. Now by drunks I am not referring to party folks and people who drink, but rather people who become altered by it, or dependant on it.


I've met a wonderful woman about 7 months ago. But about 4 months in, I noticed that we always have disagreements when she has been drinking. When she drinks, she gets rude, mean, and just plain nasty. I approached her on it and she promised to stop getting drunk.



The next time she got drunk was when my mother came to town for thanksgiving. Now my mom is just plain certifiable. She is hard to deal with sober or otherwise. Well I had to go to work, and left her with my girlfriend to keep her entertained. My girlfriend got drunk. Nice first impression eh? Long story short, they got into a disagreement, my mom went home early and I have not heard from her since. Now my mom is not the easiest person to get along with, hell, she is crazy, and my girlfriend is just nasty as a drunk. What do I do?



A few weeks later, my girlfriend got drunk again, as par for the course we got into another argument. I gave the ultimatum, quit or I'm gone.



That was less than 3 weeks ago. Last night when I came home she was drunk. She tried to be nice, but just could not help herself. I tried to isolate my self to the bedroom, faining exhaustion. She got upset when I did not return the same level of interest for lovemaking. How could I, she just chose alcohol over me.



I am going away for the weekend, with some of the guys. It was supposed to be an enjoyable weekend, but it looks like it's shot to hell. Too much crap on my mind to enjoy it the way I wanted to.



I guess my question is, with only 7 months invested, am I foolish to stick it out, for a while longer to see if she will come around or should I cut my loses now?

[weeder]

Be very very careful here..... Oh my, do I really want to do this? I have to.
You are seeing all the signs plastered right in front of your face.. I saw the signs too...26 years ago. My drunk was charming, good looking sincere, attentive, a great lover.. I ignored the signs. I married him. I couldnt even begin to describe to you what a horror my life was for 14 years. I have described it as Taking a trip to hell and back, over and over again. The consequences of my choice were that after getting rid of him.. I was faced with the overwhelming task of raising two children, on my own. Since your in the early stages of making a decision....
Go to AA meetings or Al Anon meetings now........ So you can hear the stories of the lives people have lived involved with an alcoholic. Ps.. dont fall into the trap of thinking you can help her or change her. As many of us veterans can tell you, weve lived it. They can only help themselves. If you hold her hand, and try to pull her up.. she will pull you down into a black hole.. that is darker than you can possibly imagine.

[Cass]

It will only get worse.

Think about that. You can only control your own behavior, you cannot control anyone elses.

Alcohol does not make someone nasty... that is their personality, the booze enhances the trait. Don't kid yourself, she is not being nasty because of alcohol ~ she is being nasty, because she IS nasty.

Do you want to waste anymore of your time, your future with someone like this? Time to break it off IMO. (Then you will really see how mean she can be)

Good Luck

[koan]

Originally Posted by >>^..^<<

Alcohol does not make someone nasty... that is their personality, the booze enhances the trait. Don't kid yourself, she is not being nasty because of alcohol ~ she is being nasty, because she IS nasty.

Bravo! I come from an alcoholic family as well and have a few alcoholic acquaintances. The nasty ones are because they have personality flaws that exist when they are not drinking as well.

My last boyfriend started drinking while we lived together and would pick until he found I something I couldn't ignore and a fight would ensue. He drank a full 1.5 L bottle of wine a night within three hours. He quit drinking after I scared the crap out of him but it was too late. He had revealed his nasty side and he couldn't hide it anymore. All the things he said and did when he was drinking were the things he thought and hide from me when he was sober. It was all the same guy. We split up when it became obvious that he couldn't control his anger with or without alcohol.

[weeder]

Read about Dry Drunk.. It is exactly what the women here are describing to you. It is the nasty sober personality of the alcoholic. Often more nasty than when they are drinking.

[A Karenina]

I can't add anything of value that weeder, Cassie, and koan haven't already said.

I'm very sorry you're going through this.

[lady cop]

get out now..."domestic violence" is next. one or both of you will end up in a jail cell if you don't cut it off, no waffling about. just end it. and DON'T listen to the inevitable pleas and promises.

[BabyRider]

Do you love your girlfriend? Does your girlfriend love you? Are there plans for the future? If the answer is yes, then there is always hope. Simply blowing off someone who has a problem is not always the answer. If you truly love someone, you want to help them, right? She sounds like she needs help with this. Does she admit there's a problem? Because recognizing a problem is really the first step in fixing it. For you to have even posted this problem shows me that you do care, and that this relationship matters to you. If that's the case, help her. If you love her.

[anastrophe]

i think i'm with baby rider on this one, with most emphasis on "Does she admit [or recognize] that there's a problem?". If she's in denial, you'll have a tremendous uphill battle. i've no skill or experience in this area, really. it's difficult if not impossible to apply the rigors of logic and rationality to matters of the heart ("formula: if you love X, you'll do Y. if X loves you, she'll do Z. if X is in denial, then go to plan 9").
there is always the [dangerous] option of 'aversion' therapy. when she's clearly at the stage of drunk, push more alcohol on her. fill her glass for her. maybe 'spike' it with some vodka to increase the alcohol content. make her sick each time she gets drunk. and by sick i mean really, really sick.

that's my 'i'm not an expert in this field' coming out. i have a pretty good feeling that the above is a very, very bad idea. an alcoholic is an addict. the addict needs the drug. it may not matter if they get sick, they'll still come back to the drug.

on the other hand, i know that sort of aversion has been practiced with some other drugs. not so much in increasing the dosage to make them sick, but in tainting the drug with a substance that _will_ cause a severe reaction concommitant with the drug. but that's the sort of thing that clearly has to be under a professional's supervision - and should also be done with the subject's cooperation. so it's back to square one - until she acknowledges she has a problem, you're stuck.

i just don't know. it's not an easy formula like 'how much do you love her', because that's something that can't be cleanly quantified.

i just don't know.

[BabyRider]

Interesting theory on aversion therapy. If she's that mean when she drinks, wouldn't Bullet be setting himself up for a potentially ugly scene?
Being a bartender, I have some experience with drunks. The nicest most pleasant person can turn into a foaming-at-the-mouth screeching jackass when served too much booze. People saying that she's nasty all the time, the drinking has nothing to do with it, is innaccurate. I know of people who go for months not drinking and are very nice. Normal, reasonable people, who should just never touch alcohol in any form. Ever. AA is probably a good idea for her. If she's willing.