I’m a mother of three adult children, and I strive to be a strong, independent role model for them – their rock

Nichole’s Story

I’m a mother of three adult children, and I strive to be a strong, independent role model for them – their rock. I don’t want to appear weak in front of them, so everything I do, I make sure not to come across that way.

I’ve been with my alcoholic boyfriend (AB) for about 3 and a half years now. He’s not a mean or sloppy drunk, but he can be obnoxious at times, making it difficult to have conversations or feel like we’re in a real partnership. Our talks often go nowhere for hours.

On the positive side, he cooks dinner for me every day and cleans. It took me around 6 months to suspect he had a drinking problem, and probably another year to know for sure. Since we didn’t live together initially, his alcohol abuse wasn’t right in my face. He always had an excuse for his drinking, and I’d back off thinking once that period passed, he’d be okay.

He hasn’t had the best few years – getting COVID, two back surgeries, losing his mother and brother, friends dying, living with a toxic roommate who enabled his drinking, job losses due to alcohol, going through a bad hurricane where we live, and more. I kept thinking if we overcame these obstacles together, he wouldn’t need to drink anymore.

About a year and a half ago, he lost his job, making the living situation with his toxic roommate worse. He started staying over at my place more often, which was tricky since my 31-year-old son, a veteran with mental health issues, lived with me too. Living with my son is no picnic.

In January last year, I was about to kick my boyfriend out when his roommate said he had to move out completely. I felt trapped – my son didn’t want him there, and I wasn’t sure if I did either. He just sat around drinking all day, not working or looking for a job. I found bottles everywhere. We constantly argued about his drinking.

I have a stressful job where I work 10-12 hour days. I made him go to detox for 5 days, but he didn’t follow up with any further treatment and was drinking again within a week. The fighting continued as he lied about not drinking. It was so exhausting coming home from long hours at work to argue for hours about whether he was drunk or not. I was so stressed my hair hurt. I detached emotionally and threatened that he’d be homeless without me, trying to wake him up.

Finally, I told him to get out. He took off threatening suicide, which mortified me. I found him and brought him back home, discussing treatment again, but it never happened. After one big argument when I came home, I lost my mind – throwing things, shoving a vodka bottle in his face telling him to drink until he died. He’s not confrontational when drunk, so he just hid scared under the covers while I had a meltdown, ending up a crying ball on the floor. As we cried together, my hardened heart melted for him. Still, I didn’t ensure he got the professional help needed.

He switched to beer, got a good job and paid off debts, even giving me rent money weekly. This February, at 49, I bought my dream home I’d worked so hard for over 20 years. Finally a place for just us, without my son. I felt we were headed the right way. But no – his beer drinking increased, starting earlier and earlier in the day, even before work interacting with clients and bosses. More fights about his drinking followed, with him blaming our old living situation for an excuse.

Almost two months ago when I went out of town for a few days, he binge drank tequila the whole time, opening the door to daily vodka drinking, even working drunk, driving to clients’ homes intoxicated from 9am onward. I believe he’s about to lose his job. He’s wearing me down daily; I’m losing pieces of myself and love for this broken man.

I poured my heart out to him, saying he needs to get help or we’re done. He just drank about it and passed out. The next day he ignored me for hours, then was drunk driving again when he did respond, arguing he wasn’t drinking. I told him to pack his bags and leave. He claimed he’d go to AA just to appease me. He did go but showed up drunk – I didn’t know you could “go drunk” to those meetings.

The next morning he sounded drunk again. I asked him not to drive with my kids, family and friends out there, but a few hours later he was drunk driving again. I angrily told him I needed a two-week break from him and he had to find somewhere else to stay. I wish I’d stuck to my word and not communicated, but I got worried when he took my gun and made me talk to him.

He made a show of packing up, acting like he was in a bad area to make me worry more and give him attention. My loving daughter said we chose him as family so we should help him. We went looking for him and he finally admitted he’d been staying at his office, lying about his location.

Now he’s back home, nursing a hangover in bed. I feel completely manipulated again and afraid I’m stuck. I made promises to get him to disclose his location that I’m unsure I can keep. I hate using our home as leverage. My daughter suggests getting support on forums herself, as I know he’s the only one who can truly help himself. As a family we’ll try steering him towards help one last time since he clearly has underlying mental health issues he’s self-medicating with alcohol.

I feel like I’ve overshared but also like there’s so much more to this situation.

Note: All names and details have been changed to protect the privacy of the individuals involved.