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Wellness Wednesday for February 22, 2023

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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I don’t like asking for random internet strangers for real life advice but I am going through a serious relationship problem and I really need some perspectives from people who don’t know me or my partner.

We are both mid-20s, together for quite a while, living together as well and starting out with decent careers as expats in . We are from very different cultural backgrounds (I am Turkish, she is Latina) but I always felt like we had good communication channels in English and I also speak her language. I am happy and she is too as far as I know. Actively having talks about future and children etc.

Now the issue. When we first met, there was a night out when we both got very drunk. My usual reaction to getting very drunk is to usually throw up, experience diarrhoea, be very uncomfortable for a while and swear I will never drink again. Never done something really embarrassing or regretful on alcohol. Turns out her reaction to getting very drunk is to basically have a full on personality change into a horrible bitch (her description), do very risky things, black out, pass out somewhere with no memory of anything that happened last night.

I was ready to never see this girl after that night but somehow I got convinced that she was genuinely regretful and this would never happen again. Meanwhile I know that her teenage years can basically be summed up as having constant mental problems and repeatedly doing things like this, fucking up her family relationships and academics until getting her shit together some years before we met.

Fast forward many years of never thinking about this stuff, last night on a small Friday evening drinks with her colleagues she has somehow done exactly the same thing and managed to drink herself to blackout drunk. I spent a horrible night thinking she might be dead or seriously injured or passed out in cold outside running around the city with some friends trying to figure out where she might be, and eventually the police found her on the sidewalk with plenty bruises and brought her home in an ambulance. Some of her things are missing and we will need to make sure she wasn’t assaulted or anything like that.

I am lost. We had a short talk in the morning where I made clear the relationship is over if she ever drinks alcohol again. Now she is sleeping and I cannot shake off this feeling that I am making a horrible mistake by not ending it here and now and I will come to regret this. On the other hand obviously I really don’t want to break up with the girl that I see as the love of my life when she is so vulnerable.

I can’t stop thinking that this bipolar—ish behaviour under influence and regular blackouts is indicative of a deeper mental problem that might come out in full force later in our life. Or that some parts of this stuff is hereditary and we will end up with horrible teenagers in 20 years constantly on the brink of drug addiction or whatever. I don’t know if these things make sense or if I am exaggerating.

My mind is in shambles and I don’t want to share this with friends or family because I don’t want her to be labelled as alcoholic or mental. I know in my Turkish friend and family circles this sort of behaviour would be seen entirely beyond the pale unacceptable. Maybe they have a point. I would appreciate any anecdote or perspective or even some medical research on the things I worry about.

From where I'm from heavy-drinking(occasionally!) is not a big deal. However people who become terrible people when drinking are. In fact the drinking is often used to identify these people. So in my uninformed opinion, I would worry about that if anything.

A lot of advice on both sides has been given in other threads, so I'll try to shed some light with an anecdote or two.

One of my friends dated a girl like this: sweet, caring and kind day-to-day, but became a monster when drunk. A combination of undiagnosed BPD and low tolerance for alcohol due to SSRIs led to quarterly, then monthly, then finally almost weekly blowups. She would get belligerent, messy, self-destructive, would actively fight off/try to escape from people trying to help her, it was a simple nightmare. For some people with BPD, alcohol is the perfect stimulant/depressive/uninhibitive cocktail to get them to show a really dark/animalistic side of their condition. Independent of the alcohol, it can begin manifesting in other areas of life.

Alcohol tolerance can shift wildly from person to person and from day to day, depending on food and water intake prior, rest and wakefulness, exercise, etc. People tend to find comfort in keeping up with others, because that keeps their consumption in check (they should only really get as drunk as they next guy/gal). If you're consuming more than everyone else, hard to act surprised when you get sledgehammered. I've had friends of all ages get surprised once in a while by how hard 8 to 9 drinks can hit. In an environment where alcohol consumption is ubiquitous (i.e. the West, South America, and large parts of Asia), getting a bit too drunk is inevitable. @MathiasTRex brings up a good point, the fact that her friends let her get away from them in that state is unacceptable. The number of delirious drunks that jump/fall off high ledges, or even just stumble and hit their hand and suffer permanent damage, would shock you (ask a cop/EMT from your area if you're curious).

From your post, it's not entirely clear if she falls more under the former (alcohol highlights {un,under}diagnosed condition) or the latter (sometimes can't keep up with the social drinking, and somewhat stupid/irresponsible drunk). In either case though, going forward, extra caution is definitely warranted around alcohol.

Thanks for anecdote. I believe there was a period in her life when she went to therapy for destructive behaviour and benefitted a lot from it. So much so that I didn’t feel the need to ask much about what was the reason exactly but perhaps I should.

I will reply under another comment about her friends not helping her.

I don't think you can do this alone. If she knows she has a problem and is genuinely committed to working on it, then you have to decide if you want to be at her side for this. How to do this and which practical steps to take - from just resolving to never have an alcoholic drink again to involving specialists in mental health or addiction (can be very hard to do this step, and support here would be crucial but it never can come from outside - she should realize by herself that she needs it, otherwise it will all fail). If you have been together for a while, and you love her, it may be worth it for you. If she is not ready to realize she has a problem, and it looks like just living with it is not tolerable for you, then "one more time and that's it" is just delaying the resolution because you're afraid to face the consequences. There will be next time, and you'll be in the same situation as you are now. You two need to do the hard work - to figure out whether it's going to be you together fixing the problem, or you both going your separate ways. I don't see any other option here.

I believe she is committed enough that I don’t think medical intervention is not necessary at this point. When I was writing this I wasn’t sure how she would react when she properly woke up but I am glad she understands the severity of what happened and was not defensive in any way about it.

We had an informal understanding that she doesn’t drink beyond slightly tipsy for years and she has been keeping it that way herself until last weekend. She can’t explain why she decided to ditch this and get shit faced drunk all of a sudden (it doesn’t help that she doesn’t remember almost anything). So in the future we decided to formalise it so that she only drinks when I am there, or only with a friend that we agreed upon who knows about her problem. Right now I trust her to keep this promise

We had a short talk in the morning where I made clear the relationship is over if she ever drinks alcohol again.

If this is genuinely how you feel, that one additional incident would end your relationship, you should probably break up with her right now. "First the man takes a drink, then the drink takes a drink, then the drink takes the man." Once one begins drinking, it often becomes difficult to modulate appropriately. It is unrealistic to expect to marry a woman with an alcohol problem in a society where alcohol is common and available, whether that problem is primarily addictive or that use would lead to blackout, and expect to go through life never having a single problem. Odds are that she will at some point do this again. You can probably prevent it from being a serious problem, hopefully make sure she is safe, but to expect her to never touch alcohol again as a professional in America is probably unrealistic. Odds are she will drink again, it's just a question of frequency.

That said, given your overall description, I don't think you should or need to break up. You're upset right now, I've been there, but give it a few days and see if you still feel the same way. An issue once every four years isn't ideal but can probably be handled, you can maybe make sure she doesn't drink in ways that could put her in danger. Think hard about it, no partner comes with zero downsides or issues. I have a deliriously happy marriage, but there have been things (perhaps not as bad) that I could quite easily have called hard-red-lines and dumped her over.

I agree with your analysis the most. It might be reasonable to draw a fairly firm line that OP views getting black-out drunk as a very serious problem, but even then it should be expected that at least once every ~5-10 it could plausibly happen. If it's truly unacceptable, continuing the relationship is a waste of time. If the benefits of the relationship outweigh that, then continuing the relationship is worth it.

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:

Rather than obsessively monitoring your spouse’s drinking behavior, keeping constant tabs on their whereabouts, attempting to discard their alcohol, lecturing them, forbidding them from drinking, or pleading with them to stop drinking, you may choose to practice the art of actively releasing control over your spouse’s alcohol use. You did not cause their drinking, you cannot control it, and you cannot cure it.

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

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.

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.

Two cases of total blackout danger-zone drunkenness in "many years" and keeping it control in between ain't breakup material. Of course, that's also my local culture speaking.

There's no doubt that there is a strong genetic and hereditary component to alcohol tolerance and addiction. That said, if she's a reasonable, mature and grown up person, she should be able to control herself - and by your account she does. Only two such slips in what sounds like several years is not a lot, and as she gets older it should happen less, not more.

I don't believe that her behavior while drunk is revealing the 'real' her. Nor would I worry about how your unborn children will turn out. Who knows? From your description, she's had a difficult life, and though she might have issues, she must also possess some desirable qualities.

I realised later that from my description her friend group sounds indeed very trashy and irresponsible but that’s because I was omitting some details which weren’t relevant in my mind at the time.

They did help her get home and in fact it was all supposed to be arranged with me that they would drop her at a certain train (this is happening at ), we would make sure she doesn’t fall asleep and another friend of mine would pick her up at the next stop. Things went south because of some miscommunication and confusion that made us think she didn’t get out at the correct station, even though she did. So we ended up looking for her in the next stations in the trajectory for hours meanwhile she was there all along and could have just walked home in 10 minutes. The whole time she was on the phone but too drunk to just send her gps location and kept confusing everyone with contradictory drunken information. Looks like she fell face first at some point and got the injuries that way. Luckily the police found her before things got any worse. All around a shit show but I don’t blame anyone.

About the friend group, they aren’t really friends but colleagues at her new work place’s DEI support group or something like that (yes these things are totally becoming normal in Europe too). So we don’t think anything non-HR approved happened there.

I would want to know about her family. Do either of her parents or any close relatives have drinking problems? Or if they had them in the past, did they grow out of them? Any history of mental illness too?

If this kind of binge drinking is as rare as your post suggests it is, then perhaps she will grow out of it. People become less reckless and more mellow as they age, so it's possible that she never drinks like this again. On the other hand, this could represent nascent alcoholism which would be a real problem.

Her entire extended family are strict Mormons from so there aren’t many datapoints with regards to how they interact with alcohol or any history of getting a diagnosis for mental health issues.

With some more consideration we decided that it probably had to do with a combination of her inherent vulnerability to alcohol due to her general genetic makeup (indigenous Americans aren’t exactly known for their healthy relationship with alcohol) and possibly drunken state of mind interacting badly with certain underlying mental problems she might have.

At the moment I came to trust that this isn’t indicative of anything that will repeat in the future and she will keep to our agreements about alcohol