Girlfriend starting drinking again

LegacyUser

Hi,

My girlfriend and I broke up three months ago. She was drinking a lot and it affected our relationship a lot. She would drink 2-3 nights a week, but get blacked out and be a real mess. Bad things happened when I was not with her.
To her credit she faced up to it. She stopped lying to me, her family and friends and stopped drinking. She is also seeing a counselor. That was two months ago. For the most part she has been a lot happier not drinking. We have remained close throughout this, I have tried hard to help her through this. I was hurt badly, but pushed a lot of stuff to the side to help her through this. We both love each other, the drinking was the main problem.
She is getting bored at the weekends. People are out on a Saturday night having fun, and she has to go home early. There is only so long she can put up with drunk people when she is sober. I have reduced my drinking also. Some weekends I don’t drink at all and hang out with her, other times I go out with my friends.
She intends to start drinking again sometime. She wants to drink moderately and be able to have fun with her friends and me. She does not want to go back to getting blacked out.
I am worried it will start of okay, she will be careful to drink moderately and it will progress over time back to her getting blacked out. Does anyone have any experience with this kind of situation? Am I fooling myself to think she will be able to drink moderately? In fairness she changed a lot of things over the last few months, but I won’t sign up for going back to the way it was before.

Thanks for reading.

holyhead

I think your girlfriend may have to consider going cold turkey on drink tbh. If someone drank to the extent of blackout then I think the possibility of them drinking in moderation is a lovable fantasy. Credit to her for facing up to her problem but going back on drink is not the answer. Have you considered the possibility that she may be an alcoholic? Once an alcoholic always one sadly except that some move to the state of dormant alcoholic but like a volcano they can erupt at any time/fall off the wagon. Best of luck with your decision making!

R.D. aka MR.D

My ex has a drinking problem. It was a constant problem between us. He said i was killing his buzz by asking him not to get out of control drunk. Eventually he did something while drunk that resulted in me not being able to walk for a month.

He stopped drinking and was really good for a while. Then he went back to drinking and getting out of control. It wasn't the reason we broke up but when we did break up i realised something.

Basically, he had a drinking problem and will always have one. I don't have one and i quite enjoy drinking without worrying about some one else. People like him can never drink moderately for long. Breaking up with him was the best thing i did for myself.

Consider if you want to spend the rest of your life cleaning up after some one else. Harsh I know but thats my experience.

diverdad

Give her another chance. She was drinking too much on a night out but stopped. She has had some talks with a counsellor and is aware of the dangers and signs of addiction. She may even have been able to unload some of her baggage that was depressing/upsetting her and so not feel inclined to go out and get totally wasted.

You both sound young. I used to drink a lot when I was young but then scaled back until I was drinking in moderation in a social context. This is called getting older and coppin' on to yourself or maturing

If you do give her a chance don't make a big deal out of it, don't put pressure on her and watch everything she does.

If she persists in getting smashed....... drop her. Her problem, not yours. You will not be able to fix her.

nicechick!

Coming from personal experience things may not change! (well in my circumstance),years of tolerating poor behavior from a friend who couldn't control there drinking I walked away. I was the last of her friends to finally give up on her (ten years later) she had lost so much due to her behavior while drinking a nice girl but drunk foul mouthed, aggressive, rude is all but a few words to describe her when drinking.

It saddened me that I gave up but for her though she may have been drunk she did something (she couldn't remember) that hurt me so deeply. I eventually saw her for what she was a miserable drunk who for whatever reasons isn't willing to change. I hope she changes, I hope one day she'll find the courage to stay sober! I want her to find happiness in her future, it may be journey I will no longer share with her but I will still carry that hope/belief that she will change.

Everyone deserves a second a chance but don't be like me wasting needless years

estar

Just be clear that it's her decision to drink or not but that you think it's s bad idea and will not be around for a repeat performance. Being bored on a night out is a small price to pay for not being a walking liability. Perhaps she needs to learn this the hard way. There is a lot of pressure to drink in Ireland and a lot of the ah sure you will be grand brigade. It's hard for a young person to see beyond it to having a problem. aa is useful to see what can happen down the road. No one should drink beyond being able to take care of themselves. adults should always be in control. Who knows though I could be wrong.

username123

As the child of an alcoholic Id have my reservations that she can scale it back and drink moderately, as said, she may be able to do that for a while but it could easily go back to disaster drinking.

However, what stands out from your OP is that she gets bored at the weekends because she has to go home early etc... Why arent you both doing non drinking activities at the weekends? Theres very little point in expecting someone to be able to change their drinking habits unless they change the situations that brought about those drinking habits? Why not go to dinner/cinema/theatre/music gig instead of the pub? Then she wont feel the pressure of being in the same old scene? Or take up some kind of daytime outdoors activity like hiking that could be done during the day on saturday, leaving you knackered and fit only for tea and a dvd on saturday night?