I Am Slowly Learning Alcoholics Will Only Break Your Heart

By

You feel like, if he cared about you enough, then he would give up his addiction. He would go to meetings. He would flush the pills. Pour the bottles down the sink. Ground the powder into nothingness. You feel like, if you mattered as much as he swears you matter, then he would find the strength to turn his world around. You feel like, every time he says he loves you, he is lying because if he really loved you then he wouldn’t be putting you through this much pain. He wouldn’t expect you to clean up his messes. He wouldn’t expect you to keep accepting his apologies because he wouldn’t be making the same stupid mistakes day after day after day.

Every second you stay with him, you grow to resent him even more, because you do everything for him. You stayed through the fights. You stayed through the vomit and the tears and the bruises. And what do you get in return? You get treated like a criminal. You are the one stuck listening to the mumbling that makes no sense. You are the one stuck clearing the kitchen of bottles in case company stops over. You are the one stuck remembering the nasty things he said at night while he blissfully gets to forget as soon as morning hits and the hangover sets in.

You want to help him, but instead you end up getting hurt by him. You start picking up his bad habits. You become angry like him. You become suspicious like him. Your temper becomes worse and your stress grows stronger and you feel like you are losing control of your entire life even though you are the one who should feel stable because you are the one who is running around, taking care of everything, because you have no help from him at all.

Having an active alcoholic in your world who refuses to change, who will not attend meetings and work on coming clean, will slowly destroy you. It will slowly drive you crazy until you wonder whether you are the one with a problem.

I am slowly learning alcoholics will only break your heart. No matter how much love you give him, it will never convince him to change. Nothing you ever do, whether you give him all your attention or threaten to leave the next time he screws up, will force him to treat you with the respect you have always deserved.

Sure, there will be days when he promises change. When he cries in front of you about how he doesn’t want to lose you. When he spits out apologies in order to keep you around for longer. But unless he actually wants to change, unless he actually decides to take that step on his own, he is never going to stop disappointing you. Every argument will be a repeat of the last. You will never stop having the same conversations and making the same wishes on stars.

I am slowly learning active alcoholics, narcissistic alcoholics, alcoholics who refuse to take responsibility for their bullshit actions are not meant for relationships. They only care about themselves. They are only interested in playing poor me. They have to get their act together unless they want to lose every single person who ever gave half a shit about them.