What happens in a relationship with someone who has a problem with alcohol is there is no room for ANY healthy relationship as long as the ALCOHOL addiction use comes first for the individual. It is recognized as a mental illness. Truth is after spending time reading about it with what is known now compared to when I was so much younger, what I am learning makes me see it in a different light.

There is a lot of talk about narcissists and gaslighting and how hard that is on the person on the receiving end. However, people who have alcohol addictions DO practice gaslighting. They make up things to fill in the blanks of what they can't remember. They don't want to know they have a problem so they gaslight others and themselves. They can be nice and friendly and then they can be down right mean. And it all depends on where they are in terms of their alcohol consumption and withdrawl where their body and mind is craving the alcohol. Yes, Jamie Lee Curtis described it perfectly too, "it's being at war with self" and for a friend or spouse or family member, it's more of being their victim and living around their "constant war with self".

It's hard when society normalizes drinking alcohol. When I was young it was extremely normalized and I was not one that cared to consume very much. I remember how others tended to make fun of me because of that too. I used to have two glasses of wine and switch to tea. And then I switched to gingerale so they would not make fun of me and think I was drinking. All my life I had to deal with those who ran to alcohol while I ran from it.

I gave up singing on stage because of it. I got attacked on stage, stalked, chased in parking lots, and pushed into my car by a drunk and he began trying to pull off my dress and fortunately a friend pulled up and stopped it. It contributed to my desire to be a private person, something I had not consciously realized. I did not drink much at all when I performed, I had to pay attention and the singing and music was what relaxed me. All the things said about performing? They are true in that everyone wants a piece of you. Adding alcohol into that mix is especially toxic. It doesn't matter how I felt, all that mattered was how that person under the influence felt. When I was young none of what I have posted was explained and a lot of it is knowledge gained many years later.

I loved my father but he did have a problem. My therapist told me to watch this series called "Mad Men" and I only managed to watch one episode or two and it reflected what it was like for my parent's generation. Drinking alcohol was so normalized, during business lunches and dinners and happy hours. So, it was not all that unusual for men like my father to think they did not really have a problem. It was assumed those that had the problem were the ones that had to drink even in the morning and every day. Those who had the problem were those who could not work and earn a living. Yet many learned how to work and have a problem with alcohol unknowingly, mostly because it was so prevelant.

The more I learn about it, the more I appreciate how my husband chose to stop rather than lose me. He had to learn how to live his life very differently. He had to learn how to make different friends and distance from the friends he knew as drinking buddies. People have said some very MEAN things to me over the years too. I try to keep in mind that it's people who still have problems and don't want to know, or people who don't really understand what "love" means. Yes, there are times you love someone that loves you enough to stop and try, and there will always be those who will condemn. The one thing I have learned is there will always be those who don't care to respect the journey and what it means. So again, I have learned to be private about it because I know the consequences of sharing it. I do admit, it is very much a part of the ptsd I struggle with.

I am grateful to those who commit to the journey of learning to live their lives sober. It made it possible for my husband to learn to do the same with a lot of support. It IS important to see this ELEPHANT because it does cause so much pain. It's too hard to argue with someone who is actively engaged and if they need to choose the alcohol over a healthy relationship, then it's time to completely distance. Otherwise, they keep pulling you into their disease just as a narcissist practices "hoovering". And they don't even realize it and want you to enable them and babysit them instead while the keep embracing their disease.