slippery slopes Part II
This is part II of an earlier blog post; read part I here.
Not only did my boyfriend not slow down his drinking, it just got worse. He promised me many, many things when he was drunk. When I didn’t realize how drunk he was. Things that he didn’t follow through on, things that started to pile up. Little things, like we’ll zip up to Chicago next weekend. Big things, like volunteering (without any prompting on my part) to have his vasectomy reversed. When he wasn't drunk, he tried to pretend like the things he'd said didn't happen; pretended like none of it mattered. But it did matter. It mattered a lot to me.
Highlights of the year or so long relationship included a trip north, where he got drunk at a restaurant and was rude to me in front of the server, then threatened the bartender. Then he almost got us kicked out of the Lincoln Park Inn with his drunken antics. That was the first time I really talked to him about his drinking, on the drive home from Chicago. I waited until then because I knew he’d be sober and I knew I’d have a captive audience in the car. He seemed really receptive. Contingent up one thing.
He needed my support. My love. If I stuck it out with him, he really thought he could do it. “Don’t quit,” I implored. “Just cut back. That’s all I am asking you to do.”
Fast forward a month or two.
Not much has changed about my boyfriend’s drinking, except that he got much better at hiding it from me. Waiting until I was in the bathroom at a bar or restaurant to quickly order and down his double or triple shots of jager. Lying to me about going to bars at all on the nights when I was home or out of town. I am starting to figure this out when a friend of his comes in to the city for a visit.
We head over to hamburger mary’s, so I can goose some drag queens and attempt to get my dance on. Hoping to make his friend feel less like he was third-wheeling it, I ask him a number of questions about his time in the service, his wife and kids and the like. Also, I just wanted to get to know my boyfriend’s best friend. A couple of my boyfriend’s quick trips to the “restroom” (read: the other side of the bar, where we couldn’t see him) and an even quicker change in the atmosphere and I realize, something’s going on.
I’ll shorthand it for you and say that my kindness to the friend was misinterpreted by my drunken boyfriend. The friend’s innocent interest in me was also wildly misinterpreted and almost resulted in a fistfight. It was embarrassing. Horribly awkward. Really, just awful.
I waited until the next day to talk to him. When I knew he’d be sick, embarrassed and miserable. And I gave him a choice: Keep drinking or keep going out with me. And then I went home.
It was really hard to walk away from him. But I cared about him too much to watch him do it anymore. I also have too much self respect to put myself through that. And enough experience wrangling drunks to know, I’m not going to spend my life with a hardcore alcoholic. No way. I have plans.
Later that day, well into the next night, actually, I received a cryptic text message telling me that he’d “chosen life.” E.g., he chose to keep drinking. Okey doke. We didn’t speak for a couple of days. Until finally, he called to tell me he’d been thrown out of his regular bar. For almost coming to blows with a (also very drunk) woman.
He swore it was a misunderstanding. I didn’t disagree with that. I had only one question. Whatever are you doing, wasting all of your time and money in that stupid bar?
Is that who you really want to spend every night with for the rest of your life?
It wasn’t, he decided. He cut back drastically on the booze.
Do it, I told him. Because if you put the same zeal and energy you have for drinking into your business, you’ll start making twice as much money in less than a year. And he did. Maybe three times as much.
In the end, he wasn’t the right one for me. We stayed friends for quite a while after we stopped seeing each other- for more than a year, we still talked on the phone and saw each other constantly. Until I told him we had to stop, in order to open ourselves up to meet other people. That didn’t go over very well, but he respected my wishes. Everything was quiet for a few months, except for the random text message or email. Then he met someone else, who didn’t appreciate our friendship.
I have a feeling they broke up. And that something else has started up again. Because over the last few months, I’ve had some odd late night hang-ups.
They usually come in around 1 or 2 in the morning.
So how do I feel about someone trying to quit drinking vs. trying to be a social drinker today?
If you’re drinking too much, you need to think about the reason why. Why are you so unhappy? So unfulfilled? Address it, whatever “it” is, and there, I think you’ll find your answer- and your reason to stop. Not in a support group. Not in a bottle. I think you find what you need to stop drinking within yourself.
And I think it’s important to be really, really honest with the people in your life about your drinking habits. Because lies beget more lies. Lie about one thing and you’ll soon be lying about other things, too. Brutal honesty is painful, but it’s the only way to go. It’s a start, anyway.
Absolutely no one in the ex’s family knew about his drinking. He was careful to hide it from them, too. He hid himself, his true self, from almost everyone. Maybe that’s not really that unusual but it (still) seems strange to me, because in my family, we’re really open about our drinking. I not only know who drinks, I know where they go to drink and how much they drink. I know who was told he could no longer drink in the house (he moved his beer into the garage) and I know who battled drinking for years and is now sober. I know who got DUIs. Who got sober and started drinking again.
We talk about it all openly and honestly, and for the most part, without judgment. Because one thing our family understands is that unless you really want to quit, you won’t. We just try to support each other and understand that we’re all doing the best we can. We all make mistakes. But no one can tell any of us to quit doing something we want to do. We can only do it on our own.
Not only did my boyfriend not slow down his drinking, it just got worse. He promised me many, many things when he was drunk. When I didn’t realize how drunk he was. Things that he didn’t follow through on, things that started to pile up. Little things, like we’ll zip up to Chicago next weekend. Big things, like volunteering (without any prompting on my part) to have his vasectomy reversed. When he wasn't drunk, he tried to pretend like the things he'd said didn't happen; pretended like none of it mattered. But it did matter. It mattered a lot to me.
Highlights of the year or so long relationship included a trip north, where he got drunk at a restaurant and was rude to me in front of the server, then threatened the bartender. Then he almost got us kicked out of the Lincoln Park Inn with his drunken antics. That was the first time I really talked to him about his drinking, on the drive home from Chicago. I waited until then because I knew he’d be sober and I knew I’d have a captive audience in the car. He seemed really receptive. Contingent up one thing.
He needed my support. My love. If I stuck it out with him, he really thought he could do it. “Don’t quit,” I implored. “Just cut back. That’s all I am asking you to do.”
Fast forward a month or two.
Not much has changed about my boyfriend’s drinking, except that he got much better at hiding it from me. Waiting until I was in the bathroom at a bar or restaurant to quickly order and down his double or triple shots of jager. Lying to me about going to bars at all on the nights when I was home or out of town. I am starting to figure this out when a friend of his comes in to the city for a visit.
We head over to hamburger mary’s, so I can goose some drag queens and attempt to get my dance on. Hoping to make his friend feel less like he was third-wheeling it, I ask him a number of questions about his time in the service, his wife and kids and the like. Also, I just wanted to get to know my boyfriend’s best friend. A couple of my boyfriend’s quick trips to the “restroom” (read: the other side of the bar, where we couldn’t see him) and an even quicker change in the atmosphere and I realize, something’s going on.
I’ll shorthand it for you and say that my kindness to the friend was misinterpreted by my drunken boyfriend. The friend’s innocent interest in me was also wildly misinterpreted and almost resulted in a fistfight. It was embarrassing. Horribly awkward. Really, just awful.
I waited until the next day to talk to him. When I knew he’d be sick, embarrassed and miserable. And I gave him a choice: Keep drinking or keep going out with me. And then I went home.
It was really hard to walk away from him. But I cared about him too much to watch him do it anymore. I also have too much self respect to put myself through that. And enough experience wrangling drunks to know, I’m not going to spend my life with a hardcore alcoholic. No way. I have plans.
Later that day, well into the next night, actually, I received a cryptic text message telling me that he’d “chosen life.” E.g., he chose to keep drinking. Okey doke. We didn’t speak for a couple of days. Until finally, he called to tell me he’d been thrown out of his regular bar. For almost coming to blows with a (also very drunk) woman.
He swore it was a misunderstanding. I didn’t disagree with that. I had only one question. Whatever are you doing, wasting all of your time and money in that stupid bar?
Is that who you really want to spend every night with for the rest of your life?
It wasn’t, he decided. He cut back drastically on the booze.
Do it, I told him. Because if you put the same zeal and energy you have for drinking into your business, you’ll start making twice as much money in less than a year. And he did. Maybe three times as much.
In the end, he wasn’t the right one for me. We stayed friends for quite a while after we stopped seeing each other- for more than a year, we still talked on the phone and saw each other constantly. Until I told him we had to stop, in order to open ourselves up to meet other people. That didn’t go over very well, but he respected my wishes. Everything was quiet for a few months, except for the random text message or email. Then he met someone else, who didn’t appreciate our friendship.
I have a feeling they broke up. And that something else has started up again. Because over the last few months, I’ve had some odd late night hang-ups.
They usually come in around 1 or 2 in the morning.
So how do I feel about someone trying to quit drinking vs. trying to be a social drinker today?
If you’re drinking too much, you need to think about the reason why. Why are you so unhappy? So unfulfilled? Address it, whatever “it” is, and there, I think you’ll find your answer- and your reason to stop. Not in a support group. Not in a bottle. I think you find what you need to stop drinking within yourself.
And I think it’s important to be really, really honest with the people in your life about your drinking habits. Because lies beget more lies. Lie about one thing and you’ll soon be lying about other things, too. Brutal honesty is painful, but it’s the only way to go. It’s a start, anyway.
Absolutely no one in the ex’s family knew about his drinking. He was careful to hide it from them, too. He hid himself, his true self, from almost everyone. Maybe that’s not really that unusual but it (still) seems strange to me, because in my family, we’re really open about our drinking. I not only know who drinks, I know where they go to drink and how much they drink. I know who was told he could no longer drink in the house (he moved his beer into the garage) and I know who battled drinking for years and is now sober. I know who got DUIs. Who got sober and started drinking again.
We talk about it all openly and honestly, and for the most part, without judgment. Because one thing our family understands is that unless you really want to quit, you won’t. We just try to support each other and understand that we’re all doing the best we can. We all make mistakes. But no one can tell any of us to quit doing something we want to do. We can only do it on our own.
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