Asklemmy

As an alcoholic, you cannot help someone who doesn't want help. It's a disease that grabs ahold of your mind and tells you to do things you actively don't want to do. It's hard to explain how you can just NOT want to be drunk today but then do it anyways. How you can know you're hurting the people around you and still do it anyways. Both of my parents were violent alcoholics, but as I've grown and dealt with the issues of addiction myself, I've learned to have empathy for them.

Whatever you do, don't marry this person unless you're 100% sure you can deal with this disease. It may get better but it will definitely get worse for a time. There is no "former alcoholic". There are only alcoholics who choose not to take the first drink.

I hate to say something so harsh but it's the truth. I'm glad my girlfriend has endured me but I'm trying. There was a time I was downing 2 pints of bacardi gold every day, waking up and filling my coffee cup with it and drinking all day, sometimes passing out, waking up and drinking some more. I've cut back but I made.the decision myself. My girlfriend definitely pushed me in that direction and I'm not trying to take credit away from her trying, but everyday I make that decision myself.

You can push your fiance, but they have to make that decision. Everyday.

I was an active, functional, alcoholic for many, many years. I stopped drinking for good seven years ago, haven't touched a drop since. There has been a lot of good advice here, however I wanted to offer my (possibly unconventional) two cents.

One of the things that got my attention during my drunk years was being confronted with how much money I was spending on alcohol. That was eye opening and really, my first dim lightbulb moment of 'oh shit' I might have a problem. Maybe showing her how much money she is throwing away each month on hooch?

Second was the realization that all my hobbies revolved around alcohol in some way. Getting involved in some new fresh things that didn't inherently involve alcohol was a big step. Maybe you both could plan alcohol free activities during the hours she normally drinks the worst? Go for a walk in the park, hunt some Pokemon? Get her out of the house and somewhere poeple aren't drinking. Even if it means an emergency 11pm trip to Target for candy.

Third, I would highly recommend therapy. I was drinking to fill a hole in my life alcohol was never going to fill. Once I was on the correct medication, I realized I was just using alcohol as a crutch for my mental illness.

My last advice which I hesitate to give, but which worked for me, is to switch addictions to something a little less damaging. I'm much happier being a evening stoner than an evening drinker. Maybe she would like vaping, or mircodosing on shrooms for a mood elevation?

Again all of these ideas involve her wanting to change, but if some part of her does want to change, than this will help. Also DO NOT KEEP ALCOHOL IN THE HOUSE. Nothing. Not a drop. Throw out the vanilla extract and mouthwash if you have to.

Good Luck Buddy!

If you want to do AA without the god bit, the Satanic Temple has something called Sober Faction (in case you didn’t know, Satanic Temple is an atheist organisation and doesn’t actually worship Satan)

This book This Naked Mind helped me a lot to quit alcohol.

But it was my own decision, not coming from someone else.

Sadly, the stop drinking community on Lemmy is non existent or dead so you have to check the original r/stopdrinking on Reddit. Even if we left that place, this sub is just awesome, packed with useful resources and is something really hard to find elsewhere, you won't even have to post, just start by reading the sidebar and wiki.

Good luck, my problem with alcohol cost me my 13 years marriage but I got out of it mostly thanks to that subreddit, so anything is possible.

https://al-anon.org/al-anon-meetings/

https://www.aa.org/

Al Anon and Alcoholics Anonymous [AA] are two different organizations. AA is for the people who want to get sober, and Al Anon is for the people dealing with the drinkers.

The only requirement to go to AA is to have a desire to stop. Someone can go to AA meetings even if they haven't managed to stop using. AA doesn't charge any fees. There are atheist /agnostic meetings for people who don't believe in God.

Al Anon is about setting up boundaries and supporting people without enabling their drinking.

The only thing that one human being can do for another human being with an addiction is to love them as honestly and as consistently as possible.

It’s really about focusing on the self, more than focusing on the other person. Basically, you need to give them some hope that the world might be a worthwhile place to be. And you do that by being your best self.

I know it sounds vague, so I’ll try to be more specific. You need to make your side of the interface with that person as clean and as healthy as possible.

Specifically:

• Tell them the truth (including bad news)
• Keep your promises to them
• Don’t make promises to them you can’t keep

People get addicted because their moment to moment awareness is too full of pain to withstand.

For some people, the pain is simple. Their back is in agony, or the withdrawal from their last hit is grinding at them. For these people you can do nothing.

For others, the pain is harder to see and understand: the world is meaningless, their life is hopeless, they are surrounded by a world of shit, they can’t trust, etc. For these people you can’t do much. All you can do is make your little part of the world functional, so that in you they find reason to trust, evidence of meaning, a possibility of a world that isn’t shit.

99% of the work is still hers to do, not yours. But that 1% consists of being consistent and healthy in your dealings with her.

Now here comes the hard part. This is where you face your own real demons, for your sake and for hers. And I think the place to start that journey is:

What is it that you have to heal within yourself, so that you are no longer the kind of person to accept abuse?

Is there any way that you simultaneously stop accepting her abuse of you and give her greater hope of a world worth living in? I think there is. I think, in fact, it might be the same thing.

But it’s going to have to start with a serious, deep look into your own darkness, into the stinky, rotten parts of your own soul that are so scary to you that you’d rather accept abuse than look directly at them.

Former alcoholic here, although I abhor the term, Ill use it for simplicity. Imo, excess drinking is a symptom of other problems. I quit because I didnt want to die like that which is the inevitable outcome. But I had to get my other problems dealt with in order to quit, because for a while, like 10 years, I don't think I cared, so I needed my doctors help with that. Mainly, I didnt want my grandkids to remember me like that, dying of alcohol-related problems, nor did I want my spouse to die like that, bc we were drinking partners. So I had to get her to quit too, which eventually came down to alcohol or me, so she chose me.

Two things:

1. Threaten to leave her after a fallout with alcohol. When she is the lowest with a bad hangover this will help her realize it can get even worse!
2. Leave her if she does not stop.

My wife did the same to me. Only thing that really worked.

She needs to decide it is time to stop drinking. Otherwise it will never happen.

Maybe move in with a relative to show you are serious and only come back after her first session with a therapist.

It's not exactly a switch you can just flip off, and your loved one probably doesn't think they have a problem. Personally, The amount of time it took for me to start pumping the brakes to quitting 100% was about 2 years.

What I know now, and what it took me so long to figure out, is that I can't have the same relationship with alcohol that you might see in movies/tv. I'd quit for a couple days, maybe even a week, and then I'd drink on a Friday and inevitably I'd take it too far, and then I'd be drinking again. I thought a "healthy" relationship with alcohol was possible for me, and it simply isn't.

I also didn't realize that I had formed so many habits around my drinking. Hanging out with friends? Gotta drink. Doing my hobbies? Drink. Feeling thirsty or hungry? Drink. Feeling anxious? Again, drink. Giving up drinking would throw me into a very very deep depression, because I couldn't find enjoyment in anything anymore.

What really helped me out was weed/delta 8 gummies. I would come home after work, and I'd be super depressed, and all I'd want to do is lay down in bed and not move. I'd eat half of a pretty strong weed gummy and watch bad anime... and that was enough to tie me to my bed and not drink. Over the course of months I then had to relearn how to find enjoyment in anything.

In retrospect, giving up drinking was the best decision I ever made. I didn't fully appreciate how awful the long term effects of alcohol are, and how much of a general malise it put me in. After the first year of not drinking at all, I lost a ton of weight, I started sleeping better, and I was sooooooo much less of an anxious mess. But you need to understand what you're asking of this person... you're asking them to take the first step in a months long depressive slog where they have to relearn how to live like a normal person.

My advice to you is to imagine you're dealing with a profoundly depressed person who's only barely keeping it together. Do you want to have a screaming match with a depressed person while they're trying to get a few scraps of enjoyment in their life at night? Do you want to make an already depressed person cry when they're their most venerable during a hangover? Your goal should be to convince your partner that giving up drinking is what they want, and take it from there.

She has to want to do it. AA can be a great community (depends on group) but the God part shits me off. There are secular versions and online meetings. Other CBT models exist. A good read / listen is ‘Breaking Addiction’ by Lance Dodes. Talks about the underlying background trauma which the addict (of anything) will need to analyse and come to terms with.

The only suggestion I can make is to get her to the Dr and get naltrexone prescribed. The nice part about it is if she follows the plan, she still gets to drink. She just needs to wait the 90 minutes and redose if an when relevant.

Sinclair method or protocol is what I would suggest but it requires buy-in from everyone.

Would also recommend you guys come to an agreement that no spirits/hard liquor is allowed. Its honestly an uphill battle until she's on the weaker stuff

I've been thinking about getting Allen Carr's book "Quit Drinking Without Willpower". I used his book " The Easy Way to Stop Smoking" to stop smoking in 2008. I had smoked for almost 30 years and then quit immediately after reading that book, with no cravings.

you're in a tough situation. ultimately the decision to change is hers: either she will or she won't and there's nothing you can do to change that.

good luck, take care of yourself

Nut up and leave their ass. This sounds harsh, but in my experience people dont change until they have to contend with the harshest consequences of their actions.

They'll cry crocodile tears and promise that they'll do better from now on and to just give them one more change and everything will magically be better.

Maybe they put up an act for a bit but it always goes back to square one.

Stop tolerating abuse just because you love them or are afraid of being alone again. You are partially complicit in this by deciding to continue the relationship.

They say everyone has to find their own rock bottom before they can begin to heal, and for me that was true. I had to lose almost everything in my life, my friends, my home, my girlfriend… The only things I had at the end were my dog and my car and junk. You can’t really help someone, until they help themselves.

The only way to help themselves in my experience is for them to recognize that there’s no such thing as a good amount of alcoholic, and go cold turkey straight up. No weaning, no “I drink socially.” Or “I drink on weekends.” (This is dangerous and if they do so, it should be a medical detox with the proper medication and under supervision, depending how addicted they are. They can die from quitting cold Turkey without medication).

There is scientific evidence that if one is an alcoholic, the alcoholism can literally overpower even the strongest of willed individuals. But only after the first drink. That first drink is the one that fucks you. Don’t have the first drink, ever.

By tolerating the cycles of abuse and apology, you’re actively enabling them. You need to set hard boundaries. Before you get hurt badly. For your own safety, do not even exist in the same place as them while they’re drinking. If they have a drink, go to a friends or your families house, and tell them you won’t come back until they’re sober. You’re basically telling them it’s okay to cyclically abuse you if you stay.

The folks of AA and Al-Anon have endless experience with this and are there to help you.

Don’t hesitate to reach out in that direction.

It's make or break time. Either she gets into a program to quit and actually quits, or you leave. Even if you love that person.

My experience is that you will be tempted to help them, but by helping you keep enabling their addiction. Not only that, but costs you a lot of energy to do this too. It's not a balanced relation and the abuse will not stop, it will only get worse. It will cost you a lot, and it's much better to take your loss now and leave.

So protect yourself, stand your ground. She either quits completely with your support or she loses you.

Good luck. I have seen some of what an alcohol addiction can do, and I absolutely do not wish it to happen on anyone else, but in particular the victims of the alcoholic.

Another secular alternative is SMART recovery. They have group meetings in-person and online as well as a Family & Friends program. https://www.smartrecovery.org/