This is good for you to do where you talk it out here and have some support and time to lay things out so you can make your own choice about what to do. I think you are a good person and you just need support to sit with you so you can make the wise choice for yourself with this challenge. Sometimes another person is drowning in their own crap and the healthiest thing to do is distance so they don't pull you down with them.

Sadly, many alcoholics/addicts find out once they get sober that they have ptsd. It's all about looking for an escape. A way to not feel, or at least find a positive feeling instread of feeling emotional misery. His choices are not working for him though. He is choosing drugs that are "depressants". And not only that but while alcohol increases dopimine? It also damages that area of the brain from producing dopamine naturally.

This boyfriend isn't just drowning, he is choosing to dive right in to his suffering. And you can't stop him and all you are doing is putting yourself "there" so he can have someone to lash out at when he is not "high" in a good way but "high and coming down and ANGRY".

When I was young one of the things I noticed about alcohol is that it acts like a truth serum. I noticed that if you wait until the adults have some alcohol in them, you can ask them stuff and they tell you stuff. Yet, I also watched how the adults behaved when my parents gave parties and how as the night wore on they started acting more and more stupid and sloppy and more and more incoherent.

Incoherent: Adjective
(of spoken or written language) expressed in an incomprehensible or confusing way; unclear.
(of a person) unable ot speak intelligibly.
(of an ideology, policy, or system) internally insistent, illogical.
(of waves) having no definite or stable phase relationship.

Alcoholics tend to drink to somehow search for a sense of "stablity", unfortunately all it does is bring about more and more instability.

Your thread title is asking a question and I am trying to help you recognize how your boyfriend's diving into constant alcohol and pot use has simply made him more incoherent. So his behaviors towards you are not rational and functional, but instead reflect his anger about the fact that he is still unable to truely escape his own issues. Hense what is quoted below:


And he knows this too, so he is choosing to "punish" YOU for HIS problems. This is not anything YOU can win either. That's why I suggested you just walk away and let him think he has won. He has already made it a point to let you know he will NOT allow you to have ANY power. He would not even let you just go to bed? If you don't let him control YOU then he will "throw you out"? Let him win, and think he threw you out. You owe him NOTHING and you have every right to say ENOUGH.

The decision is YOURS to make with this challenge. In all honesty, that's what MOST people want, they want to make their own choices. I try to just sit with someone, try to help them see important things about their situation, but I allow them to make their own decisions. My husband is a recovering binge alcoholic. I had to learn what that meant and notice how it was affecting me. I finally told him "you have a problem and I can't live with it anymore, if you don't get help and fix your problem, our relationship is over". That night he went to his first AA meeting and learned he did have a problem and he has been sober now for 28 years. Yet, just stopping was only the beginning he had a lot of growing up to do and it was still an ongoing challenge for me to handle as his partner.

One thing I KNOW is you can't FIX his problem and it isn't being fair to yourself to expose yourself to his ongoing issues that he is clearly taking out on you. If you keep going back all your are really doing is giving him permission to abuse you and treat you badly.

Will he go into some kind of rage and do some kind of smear campaign? Probably, and if he does it only confirms you did the RIGHT thing by walking away and disconnecting.