Need to vent...life with an alcoholic

Hello, I'm a newbie here. Realizing I need to vent frustrations, I found this site. Well, I am in a relationship with a short tempered, alcoholic man with some bad addictive type habits. I told him on our 1st conversation, the kind of person I hoped to find... someone with my own lifestyle, choices & hopefully at least some shared interests in common. So, I made it plain, I did not want someone with particular issues of alcoholism, smoking, gambling, drugs, lying, cheating, etc. No one is perfect, we all have some faults or vices. I was up front about mine, not exactly to the degree of hoarding, but definitely clutter. I do keep most of the house clean but there are always 2 rooms that can be disasters at times, but that's what doors are for lol. 1 is my craft room & the other is what I call the junk room, because it is the sorting area. The sort room is where I figure what gets sold, donated, refinished, repaired or trashed. I am a refinisher/repurposer, I love anything made of real wood! There is also a shed where I do sanding, painting, etc. So yeah, my place will never be considered eligible for Good Housekeeping Magazine, but it is not dirty. I clean, disinfect the kitchen & bathrooms. I wash my hands several times a day. I do have animals outside & their areas, food & water are definitely clean, as they mean the world to me. I have egg laying hens & some are elderly, they will die of old age, I love them. I also miss laughter in life, after losing many loved ones to cancer. I'd been grieving & single for years. So...when we met, I told him the truth, who I am & who I hope to meet. I guess it did not occur to me that sometimes people lie. He basically just agreed with me, said what I wanted to hear, which is really stupid, because eventually the truth about how someone is, who they really are, will come to the surface, when they can no longer hide the truth. So he is a grumpy, short fused angry type, a personality type I've tried to avoid. Plus, he smokes & drinks...2 habits I despise. He basically needs MJ to not be so angry & I guess he craves alcohol. He hid it very well at first, mainly because I am a super busy type & didn't feel the need to check on him. Well, eventually, the truth is undeniable. The smell is what gave him away. The stench...omg, his breath, even his very pores, and his clothes stink up the house, I have to put his coat & hamper into a spare room & shut the door. Forget about kissing or intimacy, that is impossible, unless I want to gag & vomit. The drinking has escalated to a ridiculous amount. He gets shitfaced drunk 1, 2 or 3x a week now, depending on what may set him off, usually crap at work, things usually anyone else would just shrug off. When he is drunk he becomes a stranger to me, verbally abusive, saying ugly, hurtful things, none of which he ever remembers. He can also become physically abusive amd in the past year has 2x. I called the police when he tried to strangle me in December. He left before the police arrived but I told them exactly what happened, and all that did was result in having to appear in court & go report to probation, both an hour drive away, for about 3 mos. Other than costing time, money & gas, it resolved nothing. He has not become physically abusive with me since, but everything else is unchanged. I know...why don't I just give him the boot? Why continue to share life with someone so misaligned with my own life, someone so utterly frustrating & infuriating? Give him the boot, then I won't need to vent. Problem solved. As many of you know, that is easier said than done. He is actually decent, half nice and very helpful more than 50% of the time. I guess that's why I put up with him, as he does try. The times he drinks are the sore spot, they are the times I wish could stop. Ok, that's enough venting. Thanks for listening.

Yes, it’s not easy living with an Alcoholic but respectfully, when you need to call the law into your home to sort your drunken ‘spouse’ who has attempted to strangle you, then it’s really time to sit down & take stock of what & who you need in your life. It’s a disease that your man has, but he has to recognise that & when & if he ever achieves that, then it’s all his effort to overcome his demons. You can hang around to watch it or you can walk away because if he does manage to become sober, he’ll do it on his own whether you’re there holding his hand or not. Yes, you can offer support but quite often it’s repaid with more abuse. I’m speaking from personal experience where the stink was there, the abuse was there, the lack of immediate memory was there 100% & the terrible lack of hygiene was there & she was a very attractive well-educated woman with a successful white-collar career. The drink made her extremely ugly & difficult to deal with. In the end, I realised I didn’t have to take her abuse & I finally walked because I’d had enough & I needed to get on with my life & stop being someone else’s punching bag when their anger came to the fore with the help of copious amounts of alcohol. Yeah, it wasn’t easy but I needed a normal life, so I just set myself some boundaries about what I was going to live & I chose to get away from all the negativity. I needed to be safe from myself as well as from her. You need to realise that no matter what your circumstances, your man has no right to physically or verbally abuse you drunk or sober. Sure, he’s a decent person as they all are, but they’re unpredictable even when sober. You have your values & standards but what about your man?..does he share them? There’s a group called Al non which can help you understand the ripple effects of alcoholism within the family home & the consequences which can be downright dangerous at times. Any addict will test you & sometimes break you but will always hurt you; sometimes physically, but always emotionally. We all make decisions which we feel are the best for us whatever the circumstances & ultimately, we’re all responsible for those decisions no matter what the outcome & no matter what others say. Be well & stay safe.

Thank you for your reply. I know I will be ending the relationship at some point. It is not easy. He uprooted from a different state and moved in with me. When I do get to the point where I seriously want him gone, I will undoubtedly have be the one to pack up his stuff here in the house. The heavy crap he has in my garage is another matter...am engine, an old truck he supposedly was going to restore, and he has his tools strewn all over. He has made an awful mess out there, it is worse than when he moved here. It will be a nightmare with his temper and if he decides to get drunk...it will get very ugly and I will no doubt need to get someone to be here. I will also worry about what he will do, damage my things, maybe come back to do damage later, because in a drunken state anyone is capable of anything. I do not think he did anything harmful to his exes, but when drunk he says things like burning the house down with so and so in it. He says terrible things when drunk, but never did any of them...but still, just hearing that talk is very scary. He has keys to everything here. I worry about my animals, too. When drunk, who knows what may happen...that is my fear. I kinda think he is all talk no action for the most part, but when I heard shit he said before about his exes, wow, it did scare me. I almost want to try and look up an ex of his to get their version of events & what he may have done, just to get a real true story and what I may be store for. Ugh, I should have just stayed single.

I've gone to Al-anon before, decades ago. I cannot believe I was stupid enough to let an alcoholic into my life, but had I known he was one, I would never have even wasted my time getting to know him at all. Whatever...here I am now, he is in my life because I asked him to move here, and his truth is out, after the fact. Al-anon worked great decades ago because I lived alone. I changed my phone number so alcoholic acquaintances could no longer call and wake me up on a work night at 2am for a drunk to get a ride to an after hours bar across state line...yeah, some real doozy types there. People I grew up with as kids...I just changed my phone number and cut all ties and completely omitted them from my life. Seriously, it was basically everyone that I knew at that time in life! That's how much alcohol permeates our society. I mean, really, it still does. Basically 90% of all venues revolve around freaking alcohol, at least in this region. Even the few Meetups around here, the meet and greet is where? A freaking bar! Ugh! There are literally no social venues that omit alcohol. The only events that do not revolve around alcohol nature hikes or events for children. I went on a few nature hikes, but it is hard to go when they occur mostly during working hours. Those hikes were really just walks, all geared for retirees, much older folks. I am no spring chicken, but I do not act old & will never retire. I will most likely be working right up to the time & die lol. Yeah, anyway, distancing yourself from an alcoholic is easy when they are not related to you or do not live with you, so ties can be cut completely, no problem. If it is a family member or if the person living with you, cutting ties is extremely difficult. There is only 1 Al-anon in-person meeting in my area, and the time & day are not convenient at all. I will try to find something online that I can pop in on. Unfortunately, I work a lot and have limited free time, where he would not be with me. After work it is animal chores, shower, dinner then bed for me. My 1 day off is not really off, I bust my butt working at home, cleaning, outside animal chores & yardwork. When I attended that one meeting locally here, he happened to be drinking that night... When I got home, I saw that in his drunkedness, he put something on the stove to eat for dinner, and forgot about it! Luckily, the house didn't burn down, but my pan was ruined. Also, apparently he was looking for me, pissed off, and threw open a door so hard, the doorknob punched a hole in the wall. Then I saw him passed out in bed fully clothed & I lost it, my peeve is...you shower before you even come into the house, let alone crawl into my freaking bed with the day's dirt and pollen All over you. I woke him up and told him to get a shower. Then I physically tried to get him off of the bed...And that's when everything escalated with him, eventually putting his hands around my neck. So yeah, he really didn't apply enough pressure to strangle me, but his hands were in position to. It was hard to explain. It's like the motion he was going to, but he was so drunk, he was staggering, and both of us ended up falling into a door, it gave way, we both went down. And of course, when we hit the floor he let go and wasn't strangling me anymore, but I was so pissed off, that's when I called the police, he got my phone & threw it. It flew across the room, into the laundry room, landing behind the dryer. Then my phone rang! When you call 911, they will call you back! I told him, "Well you know who that is! Get my phone!". He climbed in top of this monster dryer, couldn't reach, so he tipped the dryer forward, hitting it against the doorknob & denting the top of the dryer. He did finally get the ringing phone, handed it to me, grabbed his keys and promptly left. What a drama fiasco! A total remembrance of drama shit from my 20s. I have not dealt with any drama since then... And that has been decades. I do Not miss it. I know there was nothing humorous about any of this yet Somehow , when I conjure up the image of him crawling on top of that dryer drunk, grunting as he was trying to reach my ringing phone... It's surreal because at the moment, obviously, I was not laughing, but I was thinking simultaneously This might make an entertaining movie. I know...I am an odd one, right? So yeah, anway, I went to that 1 Al-anon meeting , and that was the result 😆. (Again, my humor is off beat and has been inappropriate at times.) Ok, I am Not blaming the meeting of course, & forgive my odd sense of humor. So time is ticking, and I am going to be late for work as we speak. So let me get off of here. Again, Thank you for your reply and listening. I just feel like I need to vent. That's why I found this site because I certainly do not want to talk about my freaking problems, but this time I need to. I do feel better.

Yes, sometimes we do do the stupidest of things. After all that went down with my attempted relationship with an alcoholic, which left me wondering, I turned around a few years down the track to help a mate out, who was overseas at the time, with his alcoholic brother. I shared a house with him where he was retired but constantly pissed but he knew he had a problem & was trying to get on top of it. He was a well-mannered bloke & was another well-educated person & an electrical engineer who worked most of his life underground in coal mines mapping out & routing electrical cables. Pissed, he was an obnoxious bugger whose special kind of abuse with anything handy as a weapon tested the boundaries of human decency. I have no doubt that he would have succeeded overcoming his disease as he was a very determined bloke. It was the process of it all & his constant relapsing which finally wrecked me. It was eye opening to watch his struggle to get sober & stay sober. He’d beat himself up something vicious when he failed to stay sober. He fought, my God did he fight it to get sober, only to grab another bottle the next day & he’d gulp it straight from the bottle. I finally woke up & got away from it all after asking myself some serious questions to do with my own wellbeing. I just didn’t need to be there full stop as I wasn’t helping the situation. In fact, when I look back, I was just an enabler to him. Unfortunately, he isn’t with us anymore as he succumbed to cancer which the doctors tell me can be alcohol abuse related depending on what you drink & how much you drink. Yep, sometimes we have this silly need to help others only to become gluttons for punishment. There’s always someone else to use as far as an addict is concerned…& nobody gives a damn if you end up a wreck because of what you did to try & help others. I have religiously avoided anyone of any gender who has drug & alcohol addiction issues for years now & I just won’t go there anymore. Good luck to them but someone else can help them sort it. If you just have the need to vent, then you're welcome here. You can tell silly/funny stories & act the giddy goat to feel better without any judgement or you can just plain tell it as it is...there’re always posters here on the forum who will ‘listen’ to your issues no worries. Be well & stay safe.

Guest713 - I only have time for a quickie, but - I agree totally with Manalone and in fact would go one step further to ENSURE you stay safe (by not taking any more chances). You'd better read this - and, bear-in-mind he could be a Narcissistic-Sociopath (NPD co-morbid with AsPD). And ask the Police to keep your report file open...AND SHOW THEM THIS ARTICLE; these days, they should know better: "Why strangulation in domestic violence is a huge red flag" - https://naplesshelter.org/strangulation/ You ought to know, you're addicted as well. To him. All victims are (google something like, 'why victims of narcissists & sociopaths have such a hard time leaving') to find out WHY it's so hard to walk/run away in a more timely fashion.

PS: And keep posting. Make this your diary of all events. The fact it's timestamped and we deliberately have no editing facility for posters messages means it would count as court evidence if you needed it. Meanwhile: ((((((((((HUG))))))))))))

PS Mannie: "& nobody gives a damn if you end up a wreck because of what you did to try & help others." (Pouty lips and small voice): I do...? Anyway, his brother should have been doing that. He delegated it to you. Did HE give a damn?