The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:
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Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.
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Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.
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Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.
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Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).
Jump in the discussion.
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There's a whole body of literature devoted to treating alcoholism (and also what people affected by / close to alcoholics should do). I am no expert here, but if you feel like classifying your partner as alcoholic, some of what comes to mind is setting boundaries that protect you (maybe this is what you mean by breaking up should this behavior recur again). To be fair, I sometimes worry that pathologizing alcohol use isn't productive.
Here's one of the top google hits I got, one suggestion that stands out to me that you should consider is:
This is only one approach that they mention and your mileage may vary, but maybe a dose of this in whatever intervention you pursue would be useful.
I think you (or a dispassionate observer in you and your partner's vicinity) should do some very careful analysis of the problem. Some people use therapists/counselors/religious entities/etc for this. People in relationships with alcoholics are often recommended therapy for themselves. What triggers/motivates the undesirable behavior? It may be a combination of factors (stress, relationship issues, friends who are alcoholics, dissatisfaction with life, unhappiness, just wanting to have fun and let loose, they feel like they aren't in control).
Have you considered setting up a way for your partner to get blackout drunk once in a while in a safe way? Like maybe they want to do this every 6 months or so.
Make sure you are safe, focus on your own needs first, support your partner as you can, including by separating if that is the appropriate intervention. This shit is hard, but you can do it. Good luck!
Edit: punctuation
No and honestly I don’t think that’s a good idea at all. When I mean blackout drunk, I truly mean it. The whole night is totally blacked out in her mind and she is quite scared of this sensation. Plus we don’t know if this might have been an interaction with something wrong with her brain chemistry and best not trigger this.
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