Well my drinking finally made my girlfriend leave me… we were having a get together me her and a couple of friends, and me and her got into an argument, the more drunk we got the more things we said. She started digging deeper, so I did too, eventually she broke up with me, and told me I wasn’t the same person anymore. She left and i locked my door, she asked me to let her in, so I did, and I told her to sleep on the couch, she did for awhile, then came back up, and this point I was wasted, she started just ranting and ranting, so I told her to leave, she refused, so I picked her up and moved her into the hall, she started crying, and I just sat on my bed and felt like a monster. I eventually let her sleep on my bed, and we even started cuddling, the day after my friends had left, and it was me and her laying in bed crying and hugging etc. she told me I have to stop drinking and I agreed (the difference between us is I have an alcohol problem and she doesn’t) the problem is tho. I’ve said I would get sober a number of times, with no result other than a few weeks booze free. We’re still in contact and she’s on the fence about taking me back, and the way it seems so far is it’s over. All I’m wondering is how can I stop drinking for good? Can I fix the damage of done with my ex, and what do I do in the meantime? All I want to do is crack a beer right now
You can’t… or more specifically, forget about “for good”. The only day that matters is today. You don’t drink, today.
Don’t open any beer. Dump out all your alcohol. Get to a meeting, in person or online; that’s a safe space.
This is about you. It’s not about your girlfriend; it’s not about your relationship with anyone else. This is about your relationship with yourself. It starts there. It has to start there.
If your number one priority in life isn’t getting sober, it will be the second thing you’ll loose. The first thing being your sobriety.
In other words, if you prioritize a relationship with your girlfriend over getting sober–you’ll loose your relationship with your girlfriend after you loose your sobriety.
Your number one priority in life needs to be getting/staying sober. And to truly make this happen you need to be doing it because you genuinely don’t want to live the way you currently are living anymore and are making the decision to get sober for yourself-- to provide yourself the life you deserve. You’ll then stay sober and likely repair your relationship. If you get sober for her–to make her happy and to satisfy her demands then the best case scenario is you get a temporary relief from your consistent downward plunge into alcoholism.
Easy choice. Difficult road to take on your own. Strength in numbers. Go to meetings. You’ll find some hilarious kindred spirits in those rooms I guarantee it.
Thank you so much for getting back to me. I’m gonna try meetings soon, and I’ll take those words of advice. I have no alcohol around me, so this is the beginning of the rest of my life
You are right there. My sobriety is quite important to me, and that’s why I think when I drink I get the way I do. Because of my shame. I’m gonna try and make it to a meeting asap, and the only reason I mention my relationship is because it reminded me of how bad I am when I drink, and how I need to get sober, for me, my family, and any potential relationships I may have. Thank you so much for getting back to me, it really means a lot knowing I’m not alone
There’s so many of us. I moved across the country to a small town when I was a few years sober. I went to an AA meeting and began branching an entire brand new sober social network here. I have more friends here then I did living in the city while drinking and going to bars regularly.
The hopelessness you may feel from time to time is a total and complete illusion. Don’t let it kill you. Press on and you’ll find a life that will truly surprise you.
‘Alcohol lied to me’ by Craig Beck helped me
No, it’s not. This is today, only today. There is no “rest of my life”, there’s only today and the choices I make today 
Your power is here, today. It isn’t on the future and it isn’t in the past. It’s right here, right now.
That was really deep. I’ll remember those words for the rest of my life. Thank you so much. You’re a pure spirit friend 
Thank you so much. I’m looking for my chance to make my change too, I want to travel the country and find what makes me happy again. This community is something I need to hold closer to me. Because whenever I use this app I feel better, then I relapse and stop, and completely forget about it. I’m just glad I have people on here that make me feel better aboit myself, and give me hope
If you can go to a meeting and find a friend your chances of success will increase by many orders of magnitude. You got this, just not alone.
It’s more of a question of why can’t you stop drinking? You can stop drinking by not drinking. It’s really that simple. What is not simple is why do you feel compelled to drink? Why do you feel the first response to anger, to sadness, to joy, to frustration is to crack open a beer?
There are reasons why we drink and until those underlying issues are addressed, that compulsion will never go away.
AA and the 12 steps is a good method that examines and addresses those underlying reasons for drinking. It’s free and it’s practically everywhere.
SMART recovery is another option as well.
Alternatively, you can work your own program, like I did, and lean on the knowledge and guidance of the other forum members here.
You can only control what you do, so only your ex.can answer this. Your best bet it to reconcile through action, not words. If you are like I was, words carried no weight. My word had no value, but my actions did, eventually.
In the meantime, be sober. Start your recovery. Focus on yourself. This will take time, it wont happen overnight.
I resonate with this, only my wife is the alcoholic and I’m … well I’m not sure. I can stay away from booze as long as I’m not around it. But since she drinks a lot, I drink with her on the weekends and I’ve never drank so much in my life since I’ve been with her. We both have gotten really out of hand and when drunk, verbally emotionally psychologically abusive. Stupid traumatic arguments. She’s sought help once before and went sober for a month but now she’s “trialing social drinking” again and I’m finding it harder for me to stay sober as well when she has friends over drinking… thus we seem to be falling back into old toxic patterns. If I ask her to go somewhere else to drink if she needs to drink or tell her I’ll go somewhere else. But she has a problem with this because it then makes her feel like she’s doing something wrong so I’m forced to shut myself in my room for 2 days while she and folks party downstairs. Obviously, at times it’s easier to give in and just participate with them. But this leads to disastrous drama and not being able to function optimally for days after. I’m always and only ever responsible for my own actions and choices, but I do empathize with the dynamics in your relationship.
Based on what you described, it appears you both have some issues with alcohol. That said, you can be better. Sober is better. Be sober.
I’m glad I’m not the only one here. My drinking is often stemmed from my friends, and my ex would always want to join in, and sometimes even be the one to ask if we could drink, but everytime we would drink together it would be a twister of drama, arguing, and words that we didn’t mean. But this time I really blew it, because instead of trying to hold back, I’d just agree with her when shed say things about me, tell her off, and even mock her. It was terrible, and now I’m just trying to get over this all, and I’ve been trying to see if she wants me back, because when I tried to move forward she told me she needs time to think. I just don’t know how I’ll handle it, because I usually drink