Surviving a Relationship with an Alcoholic

Note: When I decided to give Vocal a try and pondered how to set myself apart from all of the other extremely talented people here. I came up with the idea to include a song that related to each article that I post. It may be an original, it may be me singing a cover tune, it may be me singing with a guitar...or an ukulele...or a piano. We'll see how it goes.

The Song: For this article, I'm attaching a song that I co-wrote and produced just before Xmas this past season. A friend of mine wrote a poem called "The Mistress" and I thought it could be a great song.

I removed a few lyrics, added a few, wrote the guitar parts and turned her poem into a song. The poem was from a woman's perspective, so I had my daughter come in and record the vocals. It's pretty much in demo form, but I kinda like the simplicity of it. Although I'm not a big country music fan, the poem definitely brought out the cowboy in my songwriting and guitar playing. I'm proud of how it turned out considering it went from a poem to a recorded song in less than 24 hours. I hope you enjoy it. Please let me know if you like it.

Give the song a listen and pay attention to the words. Listen to the end for the entire story.

Surviving a Relationship with an Alcoholic

First, I should mention that I am not an alcoholic and I'm very grateful that I apparently do not have that gene.

My first relationship with an alcoholic came later in life (I was 41). It was fairly benign at first since she had been sober for 2-3 years and didn't drink at all. She had zero problem with ME having a drink or two occasionally and we even had a small amount of alcohol in the house most times (I'm a beer and a shot of fine tequila guy).

Gwen

"Gwen" had discussed her past with me when we first began getting serious. She had told me that she had been molested by a family member...for many years. She believed his threats and didn't tell anyone until she was in her early 20's and was struggling to the point of seeking therapy.

Unfortunately, Gwen's therapist was an idiot (my opinion, of course) and actually advised her to confront this relative IN FRONT of the entire family. It backfired. Big time. The family was split apart and she was estranged from her father for years because of it.

After that, she began drinking to escape the pain – both her childhood trauma and the aftermath of the family imploding. She drank quite a bit. She lost jobs because of her drinking, wrecked a car and got three DUIs before she finally did something about it.

I did not have any experience with alcoholism. No one in my family had ever been an alcoholic (not to that level, anyway) and I had no clue how AA worked other than the basic concept of a 12-step system.

I dove head first online and learned all I could about alcoholism and how to support someone who was afflicted. I went to AA meetings with Gwen and was very impressed with the extremely personal stories people told about how alcohol had nearly killed them, how it had ruined their lives and how they had found their salvation throuth AA's meetings and the friends and support they had discovered there.

After nearly two years, Gwen and I married. After several years, Gwen began to withdraw. I couldn't figure out why. We were a great match in every major category and nothing had changed as far as I was concerned. I spoke to one of Gwen's friends (and former sponsor) and she told me that there was a thing called an "alcoholic brain" and that it was real and very difficult to escape from. Essentially, she described the alcoholic brain as part actual physical brain damage from years of abuse and part the personality that develops from years of insecurities, abuse and bad decisions.

She went on to say that the alcoholic brain can be irrational and unpredictable. She told me that if Gwen had a relapse, that she’d lie through her teeth if she had to. Wonderful.

Without going into still-painful details, one day Gwen told me that she was asked by a family friend to fly out to the Midwest for a few days and do some creative work for them. She said that she felt that it would help her state of mind and that when she got back (no more than 4 days), she’d hit the ground running and would dive head first into getting our marriage back on track.

As you can probably guess, that didn’t happen. In fact, after three months and zero response when I asked when she was coming home, I filed for divorce. Partially to jolt her into reality and mostly because (and I told her this) I did not sign up for a fucking interstate marriage.

She eventually came home for a brief period - she actually even went to therapy with me. But once the therapist keyed in on her past as the issue, she started to back away again and eventually told me that she was going back to the Midwest. I explained to her that once the plane left the tarmac that we were done. The divorce was to be final two months later.

I was in no position to go looking for a new relationship, but I did meet someone through a client and went out a few times with her. I had been in contact with Gwen as a friend. I was still encouraging her to get better. I went to a concert with this other woman and Gwen’s sister was there (I knew she would be). She told Gwen about the woman I was with, of course. I found out later that Gwen had been Facebook stalking her. Gwen saw a photo this woman posted on her Facebook page that was taken at MY house, so Gwen lost her shit.

A few weeks later, Gwen flew “home” and surprised me. She asked to see me and quite literally begged for a second chance. I was naturally reluctant after the year plus that I had just been through with her. After she flew back to the Midwest, we continued talking. After a lot of promises, I agreed to give her a chance...I did love her, after all, and if she had truly figured things out (her words), I was open to giving it a go.

Almost immediately, she reverted back to her old ways. I was pretty pissed. I got us into therapy because I needed to be able to speak to Gwen through via the therapist to get through to her. It lasted almost exactly one year. A very difficult, unhappy year.

Gwen Relapses

It was the beginning of December when I first noticed a change in Gwen. She was acting erratic and not at all herself. She told me that she was taking Xanax because she was upset about things and that it made her groggy and “loopy”. From my knowledge, she had never had a drink of alcohol in the six years we were together to this point.

I discovered that she got into a small fender-bender when she was driving my daughter (from a previous marriage) and her friend to our house for a sleepover. She didn’t tell me about it. My daughter told me about it. When I confronted her about it that evening, she made excuses and immediately went to bed. The next day, I discovered that she had been drinking. Day drinking. Day drinking and fucking driving with my 12 year old daughter and her friend in my truck. Holy fuck. I had confronted her over the phone and she was refusing to come home and bring me my truck.

Turns out, she stopped and got some wine, downed it and proceeded to wreck my truck’s entire passenger side (the day after she got in the fender bender) by sideswiping a tree. She was drunk and indignant when she arrived home.

Needless to say, that was more than I could handle or allow. I got every stitch of alcohol out of the house - even discovering some bottles that had been emptied recently - and asked her to leave. Driving drunk with my daughter was beyond what I was willing to put up with after her behavior the previous two or more years.

She started out attempting to get her shit together. She moved in with a friend of hers and told me that she was going to prove to me that she was going to get her life together. I had zero confidence that she would actually do it (from experience) and unfortunately, she proved me right.

Within a few months after she moved out, she began drunk calling me at night. The calls were nothing more than screaming ridiculous accusations at me. I blocked her calls and she’d call me through Facebook, Skype and blocked numbers.

Eventually, I gave her an ultimatum. I told her that I would give her ONE chance to get things out of her system once and for all. I set an emergency appointment with our former therapist for that same day. I told her that after that appointment, I no longer wanted to hear from her. Ever again.

Gwen was a no-show. The therapist and I waited over two hours for her. We both called, texted and emailed her. I had just spoken to her an hour before the appointment and she actually sounded upbeat about going.

I was living in a pretty small town at the time and the very next morning I got a call from a friend who worked for a local law enforcement agency. Gwen had been arrested for drunk driving ON HER WAY TO THE THERAPY SESSION. She was discovered by an officer at a stop sign. Passed out with the car still running and an empty bottle of wine on the passenger seat.

I have not spoken to her since and that’s okay. That became a toxic relationship and naturally the drunk driving with my daughter incident was unforgivable.

The sad thing was that the combination of Gwen‘s past (which I am very sympathetic to, of course) and her subsequent drinking ruined what had been a very sweet and fun relationship. My friends, family and my kids loved her. The sky was the limit, but her alcoholic brain destroyed all potential. It wasn’t because of anything wrong with our relationship.

Melissa

My second relationship with an alcoholic was with ”Melissa”. A year after Gwen moved out, I ran into Melissa at a gig where I was filling in for the lead singer in a high school friend’s rock band.

I wasn’t looking for a relationship, but Melissa was a wild card. See, I wasn’t in the popular crowd in junior high and high school, but Melissa was. I had a crush on her from the moment I set eyes on the new girl at school (she had moved to town from out of state). It wasn’t anything super crazy. I never had her name written in my PeeChee and I never told her about my crush.

Within a couple of weeks, I got a call from Melissa telling me that she had a confession. She had been Facebook stalking me and had a crush on me. Talk about surreal. We went out that very evening and things clicked right away. We were pretty much together from that night on.

Melissa was always a bubbly, sweet and fun person - same as she was when we were kids. It wasn’t too long before I began to see behind the facade. Melissa had secret lives. Secret from almost everyone except me. She had her work life, the friends she hung out with at her favorite local dive bars, her fringe friends she would see occasionally and her family. None of these groups saw everything like I did.

Melissa was a (my fairly educated opinion) manic-depressive alcoholic. She was filled with anxiety almost constantly and the one thing that she had relied on to quiet that inner, anxiety-ridden voice was alcohol. I came to find out that she also would ingest pretty much any substance that was presented to her - pills, weed, mushrooms, etc., but alcohol was her favorite standby.

"The alcohol calms the overthinking in my head." – Melissa

The thing I discovered about Melissa was that she had been in a long marriage with someone who was apparently not super reliable. The two of them together made for a relationship that stunted her growth. Melissa was - BY FAR - the most immature woman I had ever met. Almost no one (with the exception of her closest sibling) saw that side of her. To the outside world, she looked as if she had it all together. She orchestrated her social media posts to reflect as much.

No one else saw how she would drink herself into a stupor and spend the next couple of days in bed. Literally in bed, barely getting up long enough to use the toilet and maybe get something small to eat or drink. During these times, she would not answer texts or calls and would get really upset with me if I showed up at her place to check on her out of worry.

I don’t know how much it plays into everything I just told you about Melissa, but she was also a raging narcissist. My guess is that it was her defense mechanism. One moment, she was the sweetest thing with me and we were very good together. The next moment, she could be the most cruel person I had ever met (verbally). The next day I would get an apology (“Sorry for being a dick last night”) and she would appear to be ashamed of herself.

If not for the nostalgia of our beginnings, I wouldn't have lasted as long as I did. Then as time went on and I became close with her family, it made it tougher for me to cut and run. I was there for her if she made the decision to finally get control of her life and head, but I was determined not to let the situation "get me". It was not a fun relationship most of the time.

The pandemic in 2020 didn’t help her state of mind. She became increasingly distant and it was obvious that she was drinking heavily - even by herself. She couldn’t handle that her dive bar hangouts were closed. I’ve never been a guy who hangs out at bars, so she would meet her girlfriends frequently.

She became more depressed and would only resurface occasionally to see me. We live ten minutes from each other. At this point, I had become numb to everything and was letting her push me away. Some of her family (who I love...and it’s mutual) were in town for a visit early this past summer and they all came over for dinner. Melissa was putting on a show (my cynical view, of course) for them by being sweet to me (she hadn’t been kind to me for weeks).

Before dinner, we were on my front porch and she was in tears with her head on my shoulder. She sobbed that she was only sober on the days she worked. I (and not for the first time) assured her that I was there for her and would do anything she needed to get through it. We had discussed rehab many times before, but the next day - every time - she would not want to talk about it. As I had done many times before, I told her that I would handle things and be there for her. I meant every word I said - even though we were very disconnected at the time. She thanked me and said, “I know.”

We went inside and she went off into another room to have a heart to heart with her family member. Later, her family member took me aside and said, “Whatever you said to her out there, it was the clearly right thing to say.”

We had a nice dinner and I started playing the piano. We were all singing and laughing. Melissa kept drinking. By the end of the evening, she had turned cold towards me. When the Uber arrived to pick them up, she left without a hug or a kiss. Not even a goodbye. It was to be the last time I saw her. I still have no clue what she was upset with me about...it was probably nothing of consequence – the alcoholic brain strikes again.

I was pissed at how she had - once again - turned on me. I spoke to the family member who was visiting and discussed breaking up with her (I had assumed it was inevitable for many months). Melissa’s relative told me that no one in the family would blame me if I broke up with her. But, true to form, Melissa‘s narcissism kicked into gear and she refused to speak to me or see me.

Almost a week went by before I heard from her. She pulled the “You can’t fire me because I quit!” bullshit move. She was too immature and her brain too alcoholic to have an adult conversation about a long-term relationship and she was clearly STILL not ready to face her alcoholism.

So we’re clear, her closest relatives had informed me about her alcoholism and immaturity years ago. This isn’t just my opinion. They were hoping that she’d finally grow being in a healthier relationship with a guy who loved her and stuck by her through the crap, but she simply didn’t allow that to happen. She'd rather hide behind the facade and not allow anyone in to see just how messed up she was.

Last year, I went to a few Al-Anon meetings to get some insight and hopefully some solid advice on how to navigate this relationship. If you’re not familiar, Al-Anon is for the family members and those closest to people who have problems with alcohol and drugs. I learned quite a bit and discovered that her family and I had been playing into Melissa’s ploy all along.

We were all allowing her to play us like fiddles. None of us wanted to rock the boat, so we let her get away with her crap. When she would neglect even the simplest adulthood items (registering her car, paying bills, filing her taxes, etc.), one of us would step in and take care of it for her, rather than letting the consequences of life smack her in the face.

Mind you, Melissa has a VERY good career and makes VERY good money. She had the means - and the time - to take care of these things, but her immaturity coupled with her depression, anxiety and alcoholism messed with her head and she would simply ignore things until it was almost too late.

I’m a very patient man when it comes to my loved ones. I’m there through thick and thin, no matter what it takes, but I have a limit. I will not allow someone to treat me like shit when I am constantly dropping everything to care for them or rescue them. Those are stories for another article. You’ll have to trust me on this for now.

The Bottom Line

I’m no licenced therapist or doctor, so if you are in a relationship with an alcoholic or close to one, seek help for YOU. I have experienced the alcoholic brain many times in my life and what my ex-wife‘s former sponsor was right. When the alcoholic brain feels pushed or cornered to the point where they MUST do something, it will lie and cheat to whatever degree necessary to escape the pressure. Apparently, it will also give up a good partner before facing it’s demons.

If you find yourself in a situation with someone like that, reach out to other family members, a doctor or therapist. Do your research online. Find others who have been through similar situations (Al-Anon) and make sure you don’t take it all personally. If you’re in deep like I was, you’ll probably feel as if there’s something you can do or even that it’s YOUR fault.

The ONLY one who can help the person you love who is afflicted is THEM. If they don’t want to put in the work to get help, they aren’t ready. Sometimes they will need to hit rock bottom before it gets through to them. Sometimes it takes hitting rock bottom more than once. Sometimes they never get there and you have to be okay with that...for your sanity and your own well-being. You can’t let someone else’s demons take you down with them.

You have to be healthy and strong for YOU and your other loved ones. Also, if your loved one who is fighting alcoholism DOES finally reach out for help, you need to be ready to step up and be there for them. You have to be okay yourself in order to do that.

Don’t go down with the ship in the process.