Quitting Alcohol Might Deathblow Your Love Relationship
By: Karmen Jurela
Tags: Relationships, Codependency, Breakups, Addiction, Love

Quitting Alcohol Might Deathblow Your Love Relationship

Would you still dare sobriety?

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Since I have survived a co-dependent relationship with a then active alcoholic, the issue of addictive relationships has been an object of my personal journey and research. Some time ago, I wrote the article Why do People stay in co-dependent Relationships. Shame is a significant part of the answer.

Another factor for maintaining the relationship is fear:

Fear in co-dependent relationships

The addict fears losing the only person who is still standing by them after everybody else is gone.

All the lying and cheating that accompanies alcoholism lead to the loss of friendships, credit cards, driver’s licences, cars, jobs, homes, child custody from former relationships, families, you name it.

Listening to the whispers of the subconscious survival instinct, the alcoholic will always fabricate new urgencies, which never fail to convince their partner to stay by their side. After all, it is the loyal enabler who covers up and lies for the “accidents”, casualties, broken agreements, and pays for the bills.

To lose this person equals a life threat.

The enabler fears losing what most human beings consider life purposes or at least reasons for a fulfilling life, like

Love , no matter how questionable it is

, no matter how questionable it is one’s hopes (and illusions)

(and illusions) Recognition by the partner or the environment

by the partner or the environment The possibility of future projections

projections Sex

The good times together

together A marriage or a family

or a Belonging

and last but severe and compelling: the fear of dying. Alcoholism is a deadly and progredient disease. Every additional day exacerbates the illness and impedes the escape from it. Death threatens to come closer.

How relationships start

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We know that very often potential partners meet at business events, parties, or in bars and clubs where it is common to drink alcohol. Dating usually involves dining with the notorious requisites of “one or two glasses of good wine”.

In the beginning, a pathological drinker is very hard to tell from a bon vivant. A person who never had to deal with addicts does not recognize them, especially when they manage to live as high functioning alcoholics, which very often is the case.

People come together, built relationships, and merely, in the beginning, they set the fundaments for one becoming the enabler and the other, staying or becoming the addict.

The established relationship

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Many partnerships embrace daily habits like drinking beer or wine together in the evenings or inebriate themselves at the weekends “partying”. Connoisseurs suit themselves in mixing and drinking cocktails to appear as bon vivants instead of heavy drunkards.

If one of the partners wants to quit drinking or taking drugs, this often leads to crises or even a break in the relationship.

The person who ends the addiction feels unsupported and misunderstood. The person who stays with the consumption accuses the other person of being distant and leaving the common path.

The Catch-22

However, the enabler fails to leave the relationship. To break up would mean to admit having enabled the decline of both the beloved partner and the relationship.

Therefore, the co-dependent needs to maintain the relationship on every cost.

For the addict, it is similar: the disastrous relationship is the last straw to still believe in a life worth living. Addicts who want to start a sober new life fear how the significant other will react; will they support or will they drag them back to life how it used to be: vine with dinner, champagne for birthdays and beer for fun.

It is hard to leave the co-addictive relationship for both partners.

Both believe that both the significant other and themselves will not survive separation.

This fear keeps drinkers drinking and enablers sticking around.

If you consider quitting alcohol, do you think your relationship will last? Will your sobriety end the relationship?

Does it always have to be like this?

It may well be that two different life plans are not compatible.

But this also happens in many other contexts:

vegan + omnivore

conservative + green

religious + atheist

Heterosexual + Bisexual

Children yes or no

It depends on whether BOTH can tolerate, accept and love the better half, even though they stand up for and do things that you reject for yourself.

What is behind it

I think there is no better teaching exercise for tolerance and love than a love relationship.

You always choose the people with whom you can dig deepest.

If you don’t want to dig deep but continue to blame the other person, you will probably have to deal with the same stuff in your next relationship.

Life is a striking teacher in this respect! Incorruptible.

*****

Thank you for reading.

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https://medium.com/mental-health-and-addictions-community/is-the-end-of-your-co-dependency-the-end-of-the-relationship-f18233e04761