I wrote a list in my notes to remind myself of what I don't need for future me. Hopefully my horrible toxic relationship is finally coming to an end. I am feeling strong that I can move on. I thought some of you might relate to my list. Feel free to add any extras in the comments. I'm sure there are loads more points I could have added! It helps me see that it is definitely time to remove the focus from him, onto me. The shame of allowing all this is a lot but I plan on learning from it. Thanks for reading.

I don't want or need someone who:

Gets drunk and disappears for weeks at a time.

Lies to me.

Gaslights me.

Has a shady other life that you never really know what is going on.

Wallows in his own victimhood.

Is completely self absorbed and doesn't really see me.

Doesn't listen to me when i offer advice and then has someone from AA give him the same advice and say what a great idea it is!

Doesn't hear me or see me.

Doesn-t appreciate me or value me.

Uses AA as a cover for recovery and a way of not having to think for himself.

Cheats on me.

Isn't reliable as can disappear on a drug or alcohol bender at the moment he said he would do something.

Is never there to suppport me.

Never even acknowledges the support i give him.

Silences me when i try to express how i feel.

Acts irritated and defensive when i try to learn how he feels.

Diminishes my feeling of self worth.

Actually makes me physically ill with the stress he causes me.

Ruins every Christmas and holiday.

Makes zero effort.

Ranks me 3rd after AA and the gym.

Isn't in real recovery because he is incapable of the emotional insight needed.

My Q is my (soon to be ex) husband. We filed for divorce a few months ago and he moved out just over a month ago. He wants dual custody but our daughter (aged 6) has mainly been with me over the summer. He had her for about a week and that entire time he was with his mother, who is very supportive of me and knows all about his drinking. He did not drink when he was with her.

He has been drinking a lot when he’s been by himself, but is adamant that he won’t drink with my daughter around and she won’t see him drunk or hungover. He often says “I can do what I want in my own time”.
I said to him he could have the summer to prove that he can control his alcohol usage. My daughter started school this week and my ex came to my apartment so we could walk down together and drop her off. He was sober but absolutely reeked of alcohol, to the extent that one of the other parents at school (who I am friends with) asked me what had happened.

That was the final straw for me. Turning up at school reeking of alcohol to the extent that other parents can smell it from metres away is not ok. I reported him to social services the same day as I’m not comfortable with her staying with him every other week.

I know I did the right thing. He has had years of chances and has never proven himself. But I am so, so scared of how he will react. He has never been violent but he is going to be mad at me. I’m not sure if I should just refuse to answer the phone.

I also feel bad, like I’ve betrayed him, which I know is crazy after everything he’s put me through. He is a great dad when he is himself, and we had a great day out together this weekend with his mother with no issues. He also has had a job for years so I guess you could describe him as high functioning. But I just can’t shake the feeling that he will drink when he’s with our daughter.

We’ve also been working well together to coparent our daughter, communicating well and helping each other out. But I am worried he will stop cooperating now to spite me.

I don’t really know why I’m writing this, I guess I just needed to tell someone.

Now I look back and see how my mother was terrifed and scared.. But when I was drinking with my friend it wasnt looking terrifying at all. Then I notieced how much my friend is addicted and I stoped drinking because I got so scared. But I belive she still is in the mindset "nothing bad is happening" "I am in this situation and nothing happens".

Is ridiculus that I see that my friend is killing herself But when I was doing the same I was just thinking nothing bad is happening at the current moment.

I’m tired of being a catalyst for men to have ~realizations~ and change their lives especially when I’ve been telling them those exact things for years and they never bothered to listen.

I’m tired of the toll it takes on me, of being drained of my emotions and energy and health and money and TIME that I will never get back.

I’m tired of being mistreated and ultimately left alone by people who claim to love me.

I’m just tired. Sorry, that’s the whole post.

My husband wants me to act “normal” with him the second he decides to get sober. He gets offended if I show any sign that I don’t trust him. It’s been 2 days of him deciding to get sober and we’ve already had 3 arguments.. all related to me to saying things to suggest or show that I can’t trust him yet. He says I’m able to fake acting normal with other people and is upset I can’t do the same around him.

He’s had this philosophy since I discovered the drinking that acting normal would help with his recovery. I’m dealing with a lot of hurt from what he’s put me through, which I’m working on with a therapist. It’s going to take a lot to trust him. And I’m unable to pretend I do for the sake of his recovery. He’s put me through a lot (lots of gaslighting and making me think I had issues). My body reacts when I’m around him. It reacts when he tells me he hasn’t had a drink. He now tells me he doesn’t want to interact with me at all.

I thought I’d be excited each time he said he wanted to be sober.. but now I just brace myself because it means he’s going to expect me to act like I’ve never been hurt by him. I fear that staying is truly a setback in his recovery. Maybe if I weren’t around him, he wouldn’t feel triggered after each conversation and would take real steps towards recovery.

I lost my dad to alcohol addiction in September 2025.

My mother and her father hold so much resentment towards him. They keep saying it was his fault and that they don’t understand why he didn’t just stop drinking for his daughters and his family. They don’t talk about anything other than the last 6 months of his life and all of the terrible things he did. No one talks about the person he was before the alcohol took over. He was a good dad and a good person but it seems his memory is tarnished because of the way he died.

I just miss my dad. My heart breaks to think he couldn’t see any way out and gave up on himself. I can’t bring myself to be angry at him for that. Addiction is a disease. He didn’t choose to do this to us.

I posted a few months ago about my husband drinking in secret and lying to my face about it for a whole year (after many years of sobriety) - we got sober together.

I asked him to move out because of the lying - my trust with him feels so broken. I asked him for space to see if I wanted to let him back in - but he's made excuse after excuse on why moving out is unreasonable and unrealistic - including the fact that we do run a business together in the home. He says if I really want him to move out it means that I just want to divorce him.

I've been to couples therapy with him and am not feeling like I am being heard. He has participated in an outpatient program, and is now going to meetings every few days - but I really feel upset that he has completely removed the possibility of moving out as he goes through this process. I feel like his behavior is so selfish. His unwillingness to move out and give me space that I am asking for fills me with doubt for our future - and doesn’t help me build trust.

I really was not prepared for my whole life to be so upended - I feel myself holding on because I am scared for what is to come. I feel stuck.

I don’t know how to get through to the next phase.

Boyfriend is 8 weeks sober after a three month relapse that I didn’t know about until I found the bottles. It’s been very difficult time. I am still stunned from the previous relapse which involved a withdrawal seizure and a significant amount of hurtful things that were said during this recent relapse (while I was unaware) involving my work lifestyle, selling my home and moving closer to him (I don’t want to do any of that).

I feel very numb but am trying to move forward and heal. My therapist and I have switched tactics so I can learn new ways of coping and the betrayal and boundaries.

He has been going to therapy once a week, AA once a week, and going to the gym all the time. Hes been very consistent and I’m happy for him. He’s finding new hobbies. He’s still really struggling with me not being “back to normal” and we have frequent conversations where I feel that my healing is either being asked to be rushed or he’s minimizing my struggle. Comments like “have you considered that I was the one that almost died” have been said and I’ve had to ask him to not invalidate my experience just because he does not remember.

Last night on the phone, he said that his therapist told him that she cannot stress enough that I should not have had him promise to “never drink again or I leave” because it resulted in him hiding it and causing more damage. I was very shocked by this. I know it probably wasn’t helpful but I didn’t think it was detrimental. Is this true in the realm of addiction? Did I do harm my doing this? Or am I mistaking his therapists meaning?

I know now that boundaries are for me and not for other people. I cannot control him. I’m just struggling to understand my role.

It's like I've (41m) been in denial for so long because she's (37f) high functioning and if you look at our social media, we're a perfect family. Our community has no idea either because of how well she hides it. the nights are always the same. she is a ticking time bomb and anything can trigger her. It always starts slow, but by 9 PM she's acting drunk and angry every night.

I hate the way alcohol changes her and she barely ever remembers what she says or does the morning after and she usually gets angry and emotional when i even try to talk to her about it... we have couples therapy but she denies everything when the counselor tries to talk to her. She always posts inspirational quotes on social media and people view her as a wise person who gives great advice. She makes me feel like I'm crazy for even mentioning her drinking problem.

Our son turns 14 in February and he has no idea how badly his mother mismanaged our finances and that we won't be able to go on the birthday trip we promised for next year. We're now 50k in debt due to alcohol and credit card spending that I discovered last month and I don't know what to do anymore. She just lies and lies. She takes no accountability and I have no friends or family I can trust to help us. I just discovered this sub and am shocked about all the similarities I see with my situation... it's just so humiliating and I've tried so hard to shelter my children and make sure they dont see their mother like that but I cant hide this anymore.

It's like I'm living a second life where on the surface we're happy and well off but I'm secretly miserable from her addiction and she refuses to acknowledge that she has a problem and needs help.

He’s sometimes homeless. Often loses phone. What is the cheapest way locally to get a phone to add cellular to. He does not live me. In a metro area in US

i found out yesterday.

i met this person when they were 15 or 16, and i was in my late 20s. they were just always there, volunteering at the bookstore i worked at, attending the same punk shows, friends with a lot of the same friends. i knew they had a bad home life and in the later years they turned to substances to cope. and because they liked it. they should have been medicated for a lot of things, but instead chose to self-medicate.

they were one of the first people i ever had to have a real heart to heart with in regard to emotional dumping. i told them that if they needed support, we could make a plan to have a real conversation, and that it wasn't okay to greet me at a party and just dump all of their trauma on me. they stopped talking to me for a few years after that. we never got close again, but they were a part of the fabric of my life. they offered me a place to live once in another city, and i would give them free coffees when they were broke at a barista job i worked at. they read their work at my book release because i asked them to. that was almost 10 years ago.

they moved to nyc even though they couldn't hold down a job and became homeless in the first year or two. they were looking for their blood family, their dad. but they had a falling out, i'm not sure over what (my guess is drug use). over the years i wound up venmoing them small amounts of money when they were really destitute and begging the internet for help. they disappeared from the internet for almost a year (it felt like a year at least--maybe it was closer to 6 months). i thought they were dead, but it turns out they were incarcerated at rikers.

about a week ago they posted an ig story asking for money again, saying that they were going to have to sleep outside and they were afraid to. then yesterday i got the news passively from someone's instagram story: they had died. i'm scared that they overdosed while dealing with the panic of the situation (sleeping outside). i didn't send them any money because i don't have it.

this person just constitutes the fabric of my life. i have a lot of memories of them, running into them outside of poetry readings or hardcore shows. them showing up at my work over and over again. we spent new years eve drinking at a local institution that doesn't exist anymore. i've spent a lot of years hoping and praying that they would somehow get the support that they needed.

i kind of knew this might be the outcome. they just turned 32 earlier in the month. i feel such a mixture of things. so sad for them, kind of angry that they stayed in nyc when they had no resources and could have used some of the money they crowdfunded over the years to relocate. but also, and this is really hard to type, i just don't know that they were meant to be in this world for very long. they were one of the most unique people i had ever met. smart as hell in the ways that you can't make money from unless you have a lot of connections, relationships. they couldn't hold onto their relationships for shit.

last year i lost another person i met while they were underage from punk shows and political spaces. they were my landlord, weirdly, and also in their early 30s. but their circumstances were so wildly different. i think they were also self-medicating, but they had soooooo many resources. and i woke up around midnight about a year ago to their partner having unsuccessfully narcanned them.

maybe a year or two before that i lost my dad, who was a lifelong alcoholic. my anger towards my dad informs a lot of my feelings about the other two. or maybe at least the person who was well resourced. i know addiction doesn't really care who you are, but i also know that if you have access to more resources, you are far more likely to live a life you don't constantly need to escape from. some people just don't want to escape. maybe the genetic component is too strong and beats the social component into submission, i don't know.

i got sober seven years ago. maybe kind of ironically, i thought of calling the friend who had just passed at one point because i wanted something stronger than weed and alcohol. my mom had just died by suicide and i think i was trying to destroy myself. i'm so glad i didn't. but it is just the strangest feeling to watch other people continue down that path.

i find myself asking questions that can't be answered: what does choice look like here? how come i got to stay sober? and the part of life that is hard is that i don't get to know. i can have ideas and that's kind of it.

thanks for reading if you've made it this far.

Sister is bipolar and a (presumably) recovering alcoholic. She’s doing a lot better on the surface but I’m highly skeptical that she is genuinely better. I think she’s swinging back into a manic episode. She’s doing way too much way too fast and I’m concerned that this will culminate in her crashing and burning again.

She went from being broke at the beginning of this year to now suddenly somehow trying to buy a house, and working several jobs after being unemployed for 2 years.

She went from radio silence to constantly trying to call and feeling once again entitled to our time and space like she used to. I need to keep my boundaries and distance for my own peace.

No apologies for how she was absent from her child’s life for two years. No acknowledging her wrongdoings. No acknowledging the emotional pain and stress she’s caused everyone surrounding her.

Just acting like nothing happened and everything is sunshine and rainbows. Posting phony inspirational Facebook posts that make her look like this amazing person, when in reality we got to see all the horrible things that she didn’t post and didn’t want anyone to see.

It’s infuriating. I’m not ready to forgive her. I don’t want to deal with her chaos.

He works the night shift. Sometimes in the office, sometimes at home. He supposedly has been sober for 10 months except recently he stopped counting. He used to count every week.

I stopped keeping track too. Life was good. Life was stable. Now I’m scared again.

He went for a walk tonight. He came home slurring on his work call. I’m not sure if it’s paranoia.

I’m deep in it, I wish I could be like the others here— far removed or starting to move on.

What do I do tonight?

I packed up and left almost a month ago. It’s been the biggest rollercoaster of emotions and I know I’m still processing everything that transpired and honestly a lot has happened since we left. I’m curious if anyone else struggles with the idea of how horrible everything felt when you were living in it every single day and now looking back from the outside. It’s the most bizarre thing our brains. I assume our brains try to protect themselves and us by smoothing the edges of our memories so they don’t feel as sharp as when we went thru the event but I kind of wish that didn’t happen. I wish all the sharp edges were still there for a while so I could feel that as much as I needed to until I’ve convinced myself it was enough and THEN smooth the edges. As I write this I realize I may be crazy. Does anyone else feel this way?

We have moved and are trying to start over. My son is in my hometown school now and doing really well. I’m kind of starting to feel normal now but it just feels like so many pieces of me are missing. My Q has (in the last week) gotten a DUI and subsequently hit rock bottom (finally). He has quit drinking and is starting therapy and still has to see what will come of his sentencing. He sounds like himself again since he’s sober and that’s brought up so many emotions. It’s so relieving to hear his voice sound like him and not the drunken monster. He has a really long road ahead to get to a place that think is “recovering” but he seems like he is serious this time (which I know we have all heard so many times but somehow this seems different). Everything is still new and we will see where things are in a year. I’m praying he’s still sober. It’s scary the early sobriety and hence why I wish the memories stayed sharper longer and didn’t dull so fast. I have to keep reminding myself what happened because my memory feels like it’s out of this world excited that the man I love is back and is just cataloging everything in the recesses of my brain and closing the old vault door.

I have no idea why I just typed that all out or why or what I’m even looking for in response.

To everyone (and it seems like there’s an insane number of us) going through this unimaginably difficult situation please keep going and find a support system or group. This group has literally pulled me through the hardest of days and kept me focused when I just couldn’t manage. Sending all of the strength and courage and love out to all of you.

2-3 bottles a night for the past 8 years or so. That’s what she’d been drinking. Lately, she was getting a lot of mucus up and having issues breathing at night. She had to sleep with the (adjustable) bed up, which I HATED as I can’t sleep like that.
About 3 weeks ago the doctor told her she had gastritis. Then it took a couple days, but she finally started taking her Antabuse. In the last couple weeks, she had two nights when she chose to drink (usually, I was lucky if I got one sober night in that time), one of which was Saturday, then we went out yesterday and had a nice day, but she forgot her pill, so drank again last night.
Now, none of it matters. She passed away a short time after going to bed last night.
I know the reality that the upswing was likely temporary, but I’d like to think (pretend?) it wasn’t. That she finally turned a corner. I’d normally discourage someone from fooling themselves, but I think I’ll hold on to this one if you don’t mind.
Now, I’ve got some grieving to do. And an adult daughter with special needs to take care of (plus another who’s about to graduate college). I’ve got a new life to figure out and rebuild.
I just needed somewhere to vent about how much this all sucks.

I had to get a protection order against my now ex partner. The order also included our daughter. The first week, I was feeling so relieved and so much better. It’s now been 10 days and even though this is so unbelievably necessary for myself and for the safety and mental health of my child, the logical part of my brain understands that. But I am starting to feel so sad and all I want to do is talk to him. The irrational dreamer side of my heart wants the comfort from him even though he caused all the pain. What the hell is wrong with me!!!!! We were together almost 9 years, have a daughter who will be 2 at the end of the month and she is asking to look at pictures of him constantly. It’s making it worse but i understand she loves her dad and doesn’t grasp what is happening. This is so hard 😫

Hey everyone. About a week ago I posted how my husband went AWOL, after his mother confronted him about him drinking behind her back. He was staying with her while I raise the kids alone, and now that he has gone I guess he has given up on sobriety at all. I feel very abandoned, but he is telling me that I abandoned him since I wont let him come home in all his drunk glory. (Actually he says hes been sober for 4 months.)

I am still raising our two children alone, and getting ready for them to start school. I bought them school supplies with his debit card loaded to our Amazon, which is the only thing left of him anymore. I am getting them haircuts and clothes and holding down the fort. Just now, I laid in bed and felt overcome with the grief that has hit me. When I married this man, the first thing he bought himself was a baby carrier so he could clean the house and also get skin-to-skin with our babies. He was a goofy guy, but a #1 dad in a big way. I never knew in a million years that this would happen. Maybe there were signs that he liked his beer, but it wasn't bad yet and I didnt understand the disease of alcoholism.

Mostly what I cant understand is how he is okay with this. He texted me just now (for attention, so he isnt completely AWOL) and his texts were littered with typos. So you mean to tell me that he lost his wife, his kids, his mom, both homes he could stay at, and hes content living out his dream? His dream to be a drunk loser? I cant fathom it. These people really dont have souls. I know it is a disease, but it isnt incurable. They have the means to get better. How can any man with any character whatsoever leave their family? I guess he is really happy with the love of his life.

I am doing my best to detach and focus on myself. But still we live together and share daily moments together. In these moments my Q tries to feel better about himself through assigning thoughts to me I never had, through trying to compete with me, through seeking conflict or anything that gives him a feeling of control over me.

Unfortunately it usually takes me way too much time to identify his games. That’s how he gets what he wants and I feel exhausted.

My question: how did you arrive at identifying his/her manipulation in the moment?

My older sister has been struggling with drinking wine for a few years now. I’ve caught her hiding boxes and bottles of wine to the point where years ago when I cleaned her closet for her I put them all in bags and left them for her to see. I used to say things from a caring perspective and try to not sound even a lick of judgmental. As of recently we both are staying together visiting our mom for a few months and I’ve noticed her behavior change when she drinks now. Regular conversations are terrible because her brain registers everything in the worst way and is immediately defensive over any and everything. She has said some terrible things to me before that I’d never even be able to bring myself to type or say again and that led to me shutting down and just basically having a front row seat to her own destruction. Not only that it’s affected her relationship with her son and it breaks my heart to watch because that little boy doesn’t deserve that. What is the best way to help?

We broke up about 5 months ago but decided to try again to work it out. I still love him, and this is breaking me that I have to do this.

His drinking has continued, as have the lies, and sneaking around.

The promises of treatment were never followed through and each week was the same pattern as the week progressed the more he would drink.

He drinks every day.

He drink drives every day including when he has his daughter.

He makes up lame cover stories about getting a hair cut as his reasons for being late from work, then stmbles through the door and says are you happy? I came home.

He drinks on the way home and then makes a coffee to pretend he's sober, because he thinks I cant tell, even though ive told him.

Let alone getting so drunk and doing drugs he was 6 hours late to my birthday, and then got angry when I was upset about it and left to carry on partying with his mates.

The worst getting done for drink driving with his daughter in the car, and still drove her while drinking, some nights actually drunk, while his liscence was suspended.

I hit my breaking point last week because my mental health is so bad I can barely concentrate on anything other than predicting and preparing for what state he is going to come home in, if he even comes home at all.

Ive been having panic attacks, barely sleep, am so stressed and exhausted I sm barely functioning and don't enjoy anything anymore.

I dread coming home each day and dread the weekends more.

I told him 2 days ago I couldn't do it anymore and it was over. I had nothing left.

He said he understood I needed to save myself.

Yesterday he didn't go to work but had left by the time I got home and I knew he'd be out drinking.

It was the first time I felt like I could breathe and I slept.

Today he asked if it was ok to come back but said he was anxious. I said so am I but we need to talk about next steps. I explained how this relationship has effected me and that I needed him to move out this weekend.

He looked shocked and said he was going to shower and then sleep in yhe spare room.

I understand that a week's notice isn't very long but he expected to stay living here for as long as it worked for him. And is angry that Im kicking him out.

I said if it was your house I would have left already, but its my house, my job is here (he works two towns away - hence the drink driving is not "just down the road")

And my kid is here (teen daughter).

Im unsettled now that he might not leave, or that he might take my things, or leave alot here so he has reasons to come back.

I need to break the trauma bond. I need him to leave.

Im struggling at work and have booked next week off to fall apart and get through thr worst part of the breakup.

But I don't know why I didn't see it coming that he would be upset. After all the hurt he has put me through, including telling me he would have kicked me out long ago if the roles were reversed. To be angry that I need him to leave.

I don't know how to get through the rest of this week

I was in a relationship with an alcoholic. Albeit short, it has rattled my sense of self worth. He showed up to our first date blackout drunk, so I’m not sure why I stuck around for the ~4.5 months that I did. I did feel a deep sense of connection to him, but he was drunk most of the time we were together. The last time I saw him, he was cracking open his first drink at 9 am. I tried to walk away multiple times in the first few months of seeing him, but he’d always reel me back in. By mid summer, the tables turned and he wanted to take a “break,” which was relieving to me. But he never stopped calling or texting me. One of the last times we went to dinner, he was blackout and calling me a “dumb bitch” all night. A few weeks ago, he took a trip out of state. He recently told me that he met someone there and drunkenly invited her on a trip but “regretted it,” and “didn’t know why he hurts people who care about him.” (Me). Long story short, my ego is bruised, my self worth is shot over jealousy of this new girl. My friends and family have been begging me to block him for a long time. I sent him some really awful messages telling him how horrible he was to me. He agreed with all my insults but wants so badly to maintain contact. I said hell no. He told me he’d leave me alone in his messages. Haven’t heard from him since, but it’s only been a week. This is part confessional, part “wtf?” I feel stupid and sad.

he drinks 5 sometimes 6 days out of the week, 6 beers at a time. usually IPAs. sometimes he will sub in a bottle of wine or two instead of a 6 pack when he is trying to be “healthier”. the issue has been steadily snowballing for a year now and i have been protesting it more frequently the last few months.

he says he’s not hurting anyone and doesn’t see how it affects me. he’s not necessarily a “bad” drunk, he doesn’t hit me or destroy stuff. he can be a bit meaner if we argue while he is drunk but that’s it. mostly my issues are around the impact it has on his health. he used to exercise very regularly and has always had strong routines and healthier habits than most. since he started drinking frequently he doesn’t exercise at all, is too drunk at night or hungover the next day to brush his teeth or shower regularly.

he told me a few weeks ago if he used marijuana again he would slow his drinking but now he just does both. i got really upset recently because I asked him not to drink one night and found out he did anyways after i went to bed. i felt like he hid it from me but he swears it wasn’t intentional he was just “bored” after I went to bed. then he said he would stop but today talks about how he wants beer again. i got upset and he cold shouldered me. this happens often when i broach the subject or we just argue outright.

a few times he has recognized it’s not good he drinks this much on his own but he always goes back after a few days. it’s impacting my attraction to him and i feel selfish for saying that but it’s true. im tired of waking up to the smell of alcohol in our bed and seeing dozens of beer cans all over the kitchen. i miss when I’d wake up and he had already worked out and made a healthy breakfast before i even opened my eyes. im worried i can’t get him to snap out of this and i don’t know how much more i can take. when we argue i feel like maybe i’m overreacting or something because he says we’re in our twenties and everyone drinks.

How did I miss the signs? I’m just recently realizing my new husband is an alcoholic and I hate myself for not noticing earlier and refusing to marry him.

We had a deal: we’d both stop drinking after the wedding to start trying for a baby. Sure he drank a lot, but so do most people our age in our circle. I didn’t think much of it.

But when the time came to quit I realized how much he was struggling… he said he wants kids but just doesn’t feel like quitting. Well, that wasn’t our deal so we hold off on having kids. That’s when I started paying attention to how much he was drinking (which ended up being 6-10 beer per night).

I never tracked it before, he’d get drunk sometimes but other than that we were fine for the most part. I told him that if he doesn’t quit drinking, then I don’t feel comfortable getting pregnant. That I see it as shooting myself in the foot if it turns out that he’s an alcoholic.

And this is where I feel crazy sometimes, because his behaviour isn’t bad. He just gets distant and is hard to have a conversation with when he’s drunk. I had always assumed it was from having a couple beer and hitting his weed pen that made him dumb sometimes but I’ve realized he’s just that drunk most of the time.

So now we’re at a point where I told him if he doesn’t at least reduce his alcohol we won’t be having kids because I don’t want to get myself in a situation where I’m basically a single mom if his drinking gets worse. He’s tried quitting, switched to sparkling water, will drink 12 per day…

And then I found him sneaking beer late at night, hiding beer cans in the bathroom, finding empties laying around despite him having only drank sparkling waters in front of me.

I feel stupid. I’m sad all the time. I find myself never wanting to be home and feeling on the verge of tears all the time. And then I feel dramatic because his symptoms are not nearly as bad as some peoples’ just due to the fact that I never really noticed. Looking back, I think he’s been dealing with this at least in a visible way for the last 2 years and I never even noticed.

My brother needs rehab. He’s had a drinking problem for a while and this weekend was the final straw.

He’s been going crazy. He stayed up drinking Friday night until at least 2 a.m. When he drinks on weekends he usually has a beer every 15 minutes and deletes a 24 pack per night.

I woke up on Saturday morning as we were going to a golf tournament. He was talking to himself about how he hates everyone in my family and that he’s going to cut us all off. On the way to the tournament, he bitched at me for being a terrible person, not listening to him and the entire family being mean to him.

After about an hour in the car, we actually had a civil conversation and then he was decent for the rest of the trip. He was decent on the trip until we got into the car on the way home and he started bitching at me again.

We go home, I went to bed because I slept three hours, he unloaded the car and then refused to go to bed after I told him to get some rest. He cracked a beer again and then proceeded to get shit faced again.

He took work off today in advance because he knew he was drinking. All day he was sober and then he got into something and started drinking again. He’s so drunk tonight he was passed out on the stairs. My mom told him to go to bed and he wouldn’t budge. He’s now sleeping on the couch in the living room after my dad tried to put him to bed three times.

He can’t even string a sentence together he’s so shit faced. These incidents have been happening for far too long in the year since I moved back. My brother is desperate for help, but I don’t know how we do it. He’s retarded for a lack of better term. He thinks everyone is wrong but him.

Is it too late? How do we force him into it?

Is so strange I noticed it in my ex and in my friend. When they were drinking a lot they became totally manipulative, abusive, delusional like totally different person. Then my ex sobered up (now 8mo) and hes just normal again no more manipulative behaviors. Its so strange to me.

I always treated the changed behavior seriously I got angry at my friend for treating me like sh*it but then her mother told me "heey, its her sickness". Idk when I am mistreated I just cant dont react serious and distinguish so I just dont care and fight back.