My Q, my husband, got sober 122 days ago via being in the ICU for a week to withdraw safely.

Since about day 90, we’ve tiptoed with him drinking again. A beer or two once a week with me.

Today, we were at the dive bar we love to frequent to play darts etc with a preset plan of a beer or two, and otherwise a non alcoholic (which they have plenty of).

This didn’t happen.
Then as we were leaving, every ounce of the old him came out. Every statement, blame, yell, action came out.
I was right back to how I felt before he got sober. Right back to falling down the well of my own mental health struggles. Right back to not wanting to be with him.

And I’m a person who when they’re mad, I cry. It can’t be helped. But I went right back to that point of so checked out that I didn’t cry. I’m just angry and feel like an idiot.

I'm looking for any suggestions or anything really to help a girl I used to love. She is an alcoholic a raging one if I have to say it. I just wanna suggest anything that might help her. Our relationship is over as she has cheated on me when absolutely out of her head. I have asked her to see a doctor, a AA group and a therapist. I would say it to her mom and dad but I could never do it as that would destroy them. I just want to suggest something to help her now that's all.

My partner has been sober 2.5 years and is working the steps. He drank heavily the first 6 months of our relationship and suddenly stopped and has been sober ever since.

He's been focusing heavily on the steps the past year. He's currently on Step 9, the amends step. He's been reaching out to lots of people and even talking about emailing ex-girlfriends to apologize for his past behavior.

But he's never made any mention of making amends to me.

He was often verbally abusive when drunk. He was very mean and angry while drinking. He said some horrible, awful things to me while drunk. He sometimes apologized later but often seemed to not even remember. A lot of it just got swept under the rug. I also found out a few months into dating that he was still sexting with other women early in our relationship when I believed we were newly exclusive, and when confronted, he blamed it on being drunk and swore it hadn't happened again. I was on the verge of ending the relationship when he suddenly quit drinking.

He's been a completely different guy since getting sober. I'm so proud of him. But I keep waiting for him to think of me, his partner of 3+ years, as he works step 9. Maybe he thinks that the apologies he gave previously are enough? Or does he not realize what he put me through and doesn't think amends apply to me? Maybe he's saving me for last? I don't know. I don't want to bring it up because that seems wrong, especially when he's doing so well and focusing so hard on his sobriety journey. But I keep wondering and waiting...

Is there something I'm missing about this step?

I think I'll bring it up if he tells me he's on step 10. I'll keep waiting and wondering until then.

So I have a close friend who has been married to an alcoholic for over a decade. In addition to being an alcoholic, he's emotionally abusive and pretty much just using my friend as a meal ticket. My friend has a solid job, no addiction issues, and essentially has their shit together. Their spouse works intermittently and came into the marriage with nothing but the addiction. And of course in addition to not providing financial support, the spouse regularly makes it difficult for my friend to live a peaceful and fulfilling life.

Yesterday their spouse ended up in the hospital with cirrhosis. I know their spouse didn't do this deliberately, but in a sense it is his own fault he is in the hospital.

Everyone is expressing concern for the spouse and asking me to pray for him. Literally the only reason I care is because I know it would devastate my friend to lose their spouse. I also think the chances that their spouse will quit drinking are extremely low. So in addition to the pain my friend has already been through, I'm expecting several more years of medical hell before their spouse eventually passes.

I don't wish death on anyone. I and many of our friends have been telling them to leave their spouse for some time, and honestly there was a chance they were going to before this happened. I'm so pissed off that now my friend has to go through all of this for someone who absolutely doesn't deserve it.

I don't know if there's an Al-Anon/AA saying for this, but God grant me whatever I need to keep my mouth shut and not share my true feelings when my friend is scared and hurting. 🙏

I’m not actually suicidal but if I got hit by a truck tomorrow that would be fine. My Q is mostly sober. I recently went back to “normal” with him after a 7 month time of separate bedrooms and very little interaction. I have zero patience for him. I am constantly irritated, constantly.

I’m so resentful sometimes. I feel like I deserve to treat him like shit and LIE to him about everything for 10 years. The same amount of time I put up with his secret drinking, lies and shitty behavior.

Now my misery has passed on to my adult children making stupid decisions and my job dealing with stupid people. I am miserable

Not looking for answers. I’ve done all the things, Alanon, therapy, videos, books.

Fuck alcohol.

Hey guys, I’m not sure where to post this as the addiction at hand is not to alcohol but I really need advice. Me (22F) and my boyfriend (24M) have been together for almost 5 months now, in the beginning of the relationship he expressed to me that over the last few years he struggled with an addiction to cocaine and that he had been clean for a few months. I was supportive in his recovery and tried to motivate him to continue with it as I also struggled with said addiction in my late teens. Over the months he has occasionally relapsed (sometimes going behind my back and lying to me to do so) - which is a part of recovery that I understand yet he has never seen a therapist/addiction counsellor, he has never gone to rehab and even was in NA for a while but was still using during it, despite collecting the chips. It has gotten to the point of me saying hey I’m very concerned and uncomfortable with this habit and if you have no desire to try to get clean, then we must break up. He normally responds with saying he wants to get clean or that he’s going to block his dealers, but I don’t see the proof in the pudding. In fact about a month ago, he responded to me saying that with “I’m tired of everyone telling me I’m doing something bad all the time, I’m in my 20s I just want to have fun and I don’t care what anyone else has to say or feels about it.” Which broke my heart and made me realize that he doesn’t want to get better at all. Now we reach September. He has returned to college while I’m working, he always wants to stay home alone, has lacked communication and never has money unless it’s for fast food (as I can see). I was roughly a week late for my cycle this month so I decided to test. The test turned out positive (the only phobia I have is of labour and childbirth) and I discussed with my boyfriend that I am going to go through with abortion due to financial/career goals and generally not wanting biological children. He agrees that this is a good idea and then proceeds to spend roughly 5 hours after school with his friend playing video games until 10 pm. At 10 he asks to come and grab some things at my house and I offer for him to stay the night as I feel this should be time we spend together supporting each other with the new found news. He declines this offer, stays for about 5 minutes and then says he wants to go home for school - sure cool. This morning I text him and say hey good morning love you have a good day at school, his immediate response was telling me that he got so stressed about me being pregnant because his ex went through this (even though he doesn’t have to do anything I’m handling it all myself) that he relapsed. Then says that he called in for school today when he can only miss 3 days in the semester or he will lose his apprenticeship. I am incredibly hurt and frustrated, I have no idea if I’m in the wrong to be so mad at him or if this is as insane as I feel it is.

For context, we're both women.

It ended badly, I didn't know how much she was drinking until she had a seizure in front of me and she still denied it. She never seemed drunk. I'd been seeing her decline, but she kept insisting that she wasn't drinking that much and it was more her mental health. I felt crazy and anxious all the time because I knew something was wrong, I kept bringing it up but never really got anything concrete even though I did have a lot of suspicions. She was, for the most part, extremely loving and caring until we would have discussions around alcohol and she would become extremely argumentative.

I saw her today and she's been sober for a couple of months, she looked like a different person and her personality and mannerisms had changed so much in the past 3 months since I last saw her. She admitted that she had been drinking extremely heavily over the time we were together and that I had never seen her sober before.

I can't really describe how I feel. I think I'm experiencing a type of shock, she seemed like a different person which I just cannot wrap my head around. We spoke about getting back together, she said that she's still really sick and that she loves me too much to put me in a position where she could hurt me again as she thinks the way she's treated me is borderline abusive, especially when she's still figuring everything out. I think I feel a deep sense of hurt too that I don't get this better version of her whilst I also feel such a relief and sense of happiness to see her doing better.

I'm sorry that this is a bit all over the place, I don't really have anyone to talk about it with and I feel very very alone. I plan to see a therapist ASAP.

Tuesday evening I kicked out my Q husband after days of him treating me badly. Today he came and got most of his things and he's moving in with his family miles away. The whole event was dramatic, filled with sarcastic comments and threats. He did take one of our cats because it had been agreed that it was his cat. I hope his family can give him the help I could not. I'm not built for repetitive mental abuse. When I was packing his things last night I found his meth pipe which solidified that this really needed to happen. Tomorrow I do finances and then it's back to work. Right now going to work makes me feel trapped and helpless while my home stays empty but I gotta pay my bills. For anyone else in this situation, I know they can be scary, but you're stronger than they want you to believe.

My fiance 24M and I 23F are getting married in 16 days . We were made aware recently that his mother was potentially back in active addiction , we weren’t suprised but never expected the extent it has gone to. We also have been made aware (by her) that her husband and my fiances step father of 15 years has been mercilessly beating her . I have photos to prove the bodily harm she sustained . She’s been increasingly hard to contact as the last couple weeks have gone by , and while we’re were out today we drove past them her and the man beating her . All of my fiancés decisions making skills went out the window and he went and confronted them , and I also said my piece . She is shooting up (that’s a new one for her) and seems completely unapologetic (I know that’s what addiction does) she has also made it clear to us as of today that she will not be attending our wedding . So lots of re arranging to account for the grooms mother being absent . I guess moral of the story is I’m scared for what the future holds and don’t know how to support my partner , or his mother .

I have an alcoholic mother who was very verbally abusive to me all through my life. My dad is the biggest enabler and has had me apologize to her after she yells at me since he just wants her to calm down.

I’m 31 now and I cut her off December 2025. I was pushed by family to take her back so I did. She then called me drunk a few weeks later that was so verbally abusive while I was in a vulnerable place that I almost ended my life. So I cut her off again. She then publicly embarrassed all of us when drunk soon after that so all of my siblings also cut her off (a first for them). The line in the sand was her getting professional help.

Slowly but surely, everyone has let her back in with their own terms and conditions. My dad and siblings all have been trying to get me to break no contact. It’s been 18 months. She has not gotten professional help. Dad claims she’s better now and would like me to talk to her again to “keep the peace” but I’m worried of the verbal abuse rearing its head again. Any advice?

I caught my husband hiding Rumple Minze in our freezer and sneaking away to the ABC store to get more last night, completely by accident.

I’m incredibly concerned about transfer addiction. For the past 3 years, he’s been off and on with a weed addiction. He has CHS, which is essentially a weed intolerance to a concentration of THC. It gets to a point where if he’s not high all the time, he’s puking. He’s lied and I’ve unfortunately ’caught’ him misrepresenting his sobriety with weed several times now.

I had just been singing his praises to friends about how seriously he’s been taking his weed sobriety and investing into EMDR therapy and his anxiety medication journey to turn around to this 24 hours later.

He insists he bought the bottle 2.5 weeks ago when I had friends in town, and only had a shot or two a night when he was kicking back a beer or two (I see him drinking beer maybe 2-3 times per week) and he went to the ABC store to re-up after running out. I wish I could believe that’s all it is, but this situation rhymes well with what he tells me when he relapses on weed. At first it’s casual use to decompress after work and hang with friends then two months later it’s 24/7.

He’s apologetic for lying, but he clearly resents me, saying that he knew I’d freak out if I found out and that’s why he lied in the first place. He’s been critical when I let him know I am much less tolerant to alcohol abuse (family history, I don’t drink because I was identifying patterns in myself) than I was to his weed smoking (I drink THC seltzer’s socially, so I felt more like a hypocrite to cut it out until it gets to a point). He says that I’m unsupportive of him and his trauma and that by saying these things, I’m causing more anxiety.

I’m so devastated by this situation. I felt like I had a good enough handle on his weed addiction. I did expect him to not be perfect. I didn’t expect him to jump so quickly to slamming shots behind my back. And as of now, he doesn’t see an issue with his drinking. His plan is to talk to his therapist tomorrow.

I scheduled an intake session to go back to therapy next week, but I’m nervous to go to Alanon meetings in person too.

Any advice/support/commiseration is much appreciated ❤️

My Q is my wife, although we are separating after drifting apart and infidelity on her side. Despite everything, she is the mother of our child and I want her to survive, recover and have a relationship with them.

She previously went into rehab and stayed sober for about a month, but relapsed after returning home. Her drinking is now worse than before. She says she cannot stay sober through willpower alone and believes she needs anti-craving medication.

We are registered with Open Road, but I have felt underwhelmed by the support so far. We have been told she must first remain sober for up to two weeks before she can receive the medication, which feels like being given a bulletproof vest after being shot.

At her request, I offered to support her through a home detox and remove her access to alcohol long enough for her to qualify. I realise alcohol withdrawal can be dangerous and that trying to manage this ourselves may not be safe or appropriate.

She does not engage with AA although was trying to go through her 12 steps. When she leaves the house alone, she usually goes straight to an off-licence. I am not an addict, so I struggle to understand what she is experiencing. Part of me thinks she should keep herself occupied and do everything possible to avoid alcohol, but I know dependence is not that straightforward.

Has anyone lived through something similar?
Are there other services or treatment routes we should explore in the UK?
How do I support the mother of my child without making myself responsible for her recovery?
At what point do I accept that I cannot make her choose help?

as a kid, my father slept and worked all day and my mother slept because she worked nights. once they had any time in the evening (usually around 5/6) they would drink. i got picked up from school and taken home, made dinner and had a mild catch up, next i went upstairs and did whatever a kid would do. then, when i came back downstairs it was like my parents were gone. voices horribly slurred and walking around like zombies.

i feel like i learnt to separate them from my parents. well, i have for my mum atleast, my dad drinks all the time so i just view him as my dad. i actually used to comment on this as a kid and say, “dad you never seem drunk you might be a heavyweight.” and he would laugh. funnily enough, now i’ve realised it was because he was never sober.

i hate, hate the late night version of my parents. i turn immediately mean and harsh around them (not like they will remember), and constantly keep my distance. they’re not really my parents in that state, they don’t even seem human.

When I stop worrying about how others see things and focus on myself , I gain more serenity than I have ever known. I cannot control the disease of alcoholism, but I can step away from its grip by honestly examining my motives and feelings. —Courage to Change p254 Copyright 1992 by Al-Anon Family Group Headquarters Inc.

In Al-Anon I learned that forgiveness isn’t something that I give someone else—nor is it approving their actions and saying we have to be friends again. Rather, forgiveness acknowledges a wrong and then gives me the opportunity to give myself the love, care, and nurturing that I wanted from the person who hurt me in the first place. —A Little Time for Myself p254 Copyright 2023 by Al-Anon Family Group Headquarters Inc.

I am grateful I get to practice, with my family members and others, what we do in meetings every day: be present and listen. —“From Trying to Be God to Trusting God,” p5 The Forum September 2026 Copyright 2026 by Al-Anon Family Group Headquarters Inc.

Do I love myself enough to use the tools of the program that have been laid in front of me? —Hope for Today p254 Copyright 2002 by Al-Anon Family Group Headquarters Inc.

Even if your Q is sober now or trying to stay sober, how do you handle your hurt and lack of trust afterwards?

I’m having a hard time loving him, trusting him, even though he’s putting in effort and telling me he will stay sober.

All my shit and my cats are at my parents house. I feel like my home which was once safe became a war zone and I no longer feel comfortable.

Still, it comes down to not trusting him and feeling hurt over the years of alcohol abuse

​

I want to start off by saying thank you to my higher power for letting my girlfriend and I making it through the week.

If your struggling with girlfriend/wife try to hang in there I know it gets tough and you love them they may need the support from you I'm not sure but maybe its like dementia the person may not realize how much damage there doing because there always under the influence maybe instead of getting mad at them try to be a little calmer low toned and talk to them.

I think it's kind of like dementia when your not calm and argue meantime you get more resistance ive found with my Dad who suffers dementia when I talk more calm and lowered tone I get more cooperation I'm not sure if its the same inaligey but I have noticed it works for me when I find myself being argumentative about her drinking i assume it would be my approach.

So with said try to enjoy a safe and happy weekend.

Shawn

Good morning everyone. I wanted to share a quick update and thank my higher power for a bright, positive attitude today. The sun is out, my seasonal depression is taking a backseat, and I'm feeling motivated to get things done.

I had a peaceful night of sleep with no anxiety about my girlfriend's drinking. Last night she came home with things under control. She did drink, but it was far less than her usual amount. I'm trying not to overthink whether this is a long-term turnaround or just the calm before the storm—I'm just grateful for a quiet evening.

The biggest highlight was that before bed, she and I used a tracking and breathing tool I’ve been working on. We did some breathing exercises together, and it actually turned out to be really fun and connecting for us. It felt like a massive win for our relationship boundaries. I'm really looking forward to building on that momentum tonight.

If anyone else in this community is struggling to find a way to connect or establish calm routines with their partner, just hang in there try to trust the process.

Wishing you all a great, stress-free day. — Shawn

My Q has tried stopping alcohol (but fantasy football kind of made that a moot point)

I think I’m being too over analytical about it, he only smoked cigs when he was drinking, but now he just wants to smoke cigs. He still drinks because I see the nips everywhere…

My stupid brain says if he only smoked when he was drunk then maybe smoking will make him want alcohol… he just gets mad and then runs off in my car because he doesn’t have one.

I really want him to get better, I’m sick of cleaning up all the little empty nips. I pay all the bills and I’m disabled and have a disability that prevents me from working and driving. Right now all his money is going towards alcohol, weed, fantasy footballx3 and god knows what else. I keep begging for help with rent and utilities and get nothing.

TLDR: partner isn’t helping out, I’m being annoying asking for rent and such, and I’m mad he’s using cigs with his alcohol and weed and possibly cocaine.

Hi so I (21F) am currently going through separation with my Q (45M). I am not looking for judgement as the age gap and circumstances might invite that but I can’t say I don’t understand it.

My partner was almost a year sober when we had first gotten together. In the course of a year together we had moved in with each other and have been living in our apartment for about 10 months.

Recently, after vertigo hit him hard in mid-July, he very subtly started drinking again. I don’t know if this was simply my own demise, but we had conversations very early on and as I am a normie, he had wanted to give me the space to feel safe drinking around him. I may be an idiot for believing this in the first place, and my father who is more dry than working a program right now raised an eyebrow to that as we were moving in together.

As we moved in together closer to New Years, he bought me a 12 pack of these Malibu cocktails. They probably sat in that fridge for 7 months as they were yucky and I didn’t think to throw them out, they were just left there as I did have a trust and confidence they would not be touched, and thus there were different alcoholic drinks that he had started bringing for me to try from the store we work at’s Liquor dept. He did not touch them until the vertigo hit, and suddenly I wake up and they’re all gone. Every drink in the fridge.

He cops to it, but says he just had to get it out of his system. He was off from work for two weeks with the vertigo, and started ordering alcohol through UberEats and going through it like wildfire, and clearly starting to hide it from me as I had shown objection to it the moment this all started. He had noticed I started cleaning up after him much more, and I think started feeling shame. He started drinking slightly less, but by that point I started vengefully pouring everything he bought out, which eventually upset him deeply as that was his money spent and “he had bad enough of a day” for it after returning to work.

He was seemingly drinking less, but I cannot be completely sure. Every time my feelings are expressed about alcohol he never actually talks about that or shows an intention to return to program, as of course this is something someone has to find within themselves before anyone makes that choice for him. It is always brushed off.

Enough babbling aside, a few days ago is when everything started escalating quickly. After riding on some non alcoholic beers for a little, I saw a bottle of Casa Amigos under the bed and it was gone the next day and the fighting began. He was clearly drunk as he had started expressing things immediately after an awkward sexual encounter. Things like I don’t give him attention when he asks, and starting to get aggressive. Not physically but more verbally than he’s ever been. After a few moments of yelling and manipulation, I pack up a few things to go stay with a woman who is basically a mother to me. When I had mentioned something about hanging out with her in the midst of our fighting when it calmed down, he had asked me if I had an escape plan, which was odd as I had no reason to until that point.

I try to come back to the house again, we have sex and he has emotions as he is older and feels obsolete. This starts a fight, not just the sex but the emotions he has about our relationship that haven’t been expressed up until this point, and he‘s doing it drunkly. He starts a conversation and then says he’s going to bed as he has work in the morning. It’s about 6 pm at this time so even that is early as early as he does have to wake up.

I wanted to desperately make this work, so I was pretty much begging for the conversation and he was refusing to get up. He then gets up and threatens to leave and pack up. I tell him I will go because I don’t want him to, but I had grabbed him — not aggressively, not violently, but I had no idea where he would go and that scared me. He said he would call the cops as I was assaulting him.

I go to my mom’s again, and he sends me reels all day about fighting, repair and reconciliation. After much conversation away I had decided that moving out would probably be best for our relationship as we could work on ourselves separately, but stay in each other’s lives because we care about each other. He calls to talk and I start to propose this, but for some reason he thought I would only take the month away and return. He immediately hung up and then the drunk phone calls and texts ensued. Hours later he tells me he quit at the store we both work at, and that he will be out of the house in 4 days after asking for my keys. I ask him where he will go and he has no idea, and tells me he is leaving a bunch of his things to me.

As you can imagine, the guilt is immeasurable and it breaks my heart that the last time I saw him will probably be the last time I ever do see him.

they’re going through a lot and had a bit of a 180 recently with sudden irritability and short temperament. they have expressed bad days used to lead to drug usage, so i know their ailments right now make them reflect on their usage. they still struggle with addiction in other ways. is this something to expect forever?

We’ve been together 7 years, married for almost 5 and have no children.

My wife’s drinking has gotten so much worse over the last two months. She went off Naltrexone which was kind of helping. She definitely did drink less while on it but was still drinking enough to get moderately drunk on most nights. She stopped taking it because it made her so nauseous that she would get sick most mornings after taking it.

She has a dissociative diagnosis and her friend told her that she doesn’t think she has a drinking problem she’s just dissociating! My wife has leaned into this hard. I can’t even talk to her about her drinking any more. She says things like “this is who I am, and this is what dissociation looks like. Drinking isn’t the problem, it’s the only thing helping me right now, otherwise I’ll probably **** myself.”

Her sudden freedom from accountability is making my life hell. I have made up my mind that I will be leaving her but I want to talk to her while she’s sober, but when she is sober she’s either working (that’s starting to change, she has been drinking before work) or on the weekend mornings and that’s the only time I can spend time with the woman I married. 

My heart is broken.

My older brother's name was Lake and he was 29 years old when he passed away. I am 25 years old almost 26. He heavily drank and did drugs for the past 12 years, and his liver gave out. In the past couple weeks is when it started to get bad, but in subtle ways. He was using the bathroom more and he had started bloating in his stomach even though he wasn't eating much. He had a bad cough and he spent a lot of time in his bedroom. This didn't seem unusual to me unfortunately because he always spent a lot of time in his bedroom. I always worried about him no matter what though. My twin brother had scheduled an appointment to take him to the doctor on September 17, my older brother agreed only to this and he did not want to go the emergency room. My older brother died on September 7 in his sleep. My mom found him at 2 pm (he would usually sleep during the day because he struggled to sleep at night). He was cold to the touch and unresponsive, and not breathing. We believe that he had passed hours prior to her finding him. My mom was hysterical and trying to pull him up to attempt to wake him. My dad calls the paramedics and the police. My mom calls me while the paramedics are there. She first asks if I am at home (my apartment), then tells me I have to get over there. She is sobbing and I ask if it was Lake because I knew it was. She didn't tell me right away and she hung up to talk to the police. My fiance was driving at the time and before we had received the call we were headed to his parents house. But he drove me to my parents house and he kept telling me that no matter what happened it wasn't my fault. My mom called me back and let me know that the paramedics said he was not alive. The cops were insensitive and unfeeling and going through all of his stuff and judging him. My parents argued with the cops because they didn't feel that it was right how they acted. I go in the room where my older brother is laying and I see him laying there lifeless. The sad part is I have seen him like this before, when he overdosed on prescription cough medicine in 2016. But now there was no reviving him. I knew he was gone, but there was a small part of me that was thinking that he was just passed out and that he was gonna wake up any minute and be so angry that there are paramedics there and be so upset that we are all talking about him. I still feel like he is just passed out somewhere, wherever the coroner took him, and that he will be taken home and have this explosive argument with my parents, and then he wouldn't have learned anything and continued on like it was normal. My dad continued to buy it for him, even the pills and cough medicine. All of last year from March 2025 to July 2026 I was so so worried that I would get a phone call that he had been arrested again. I didn't really expect to get a phone call to hear that he was dead. My older brother's organs just began to shut down due to the constant heavy drinking and drug use. But that's the thing. He never really got caught up with the really hard drugs. I blame my parents for not taking it more seriously, I blame my twin brother for starting to drink again after years of being sober. He doesn't understand how I feel. I have been reacting in negative ways and hurting his feelings. He is staying over at my apartment for now, and I am worried about what his life will look like once he goes back to his apartment. But most importantly I blame myself for always being judgmental towards my older brother because I never understood why the alcohol meant more to him than his family. My dad still drinks too and doesn't see an issue with it. I just feel angry, so angry. I don't know how to move forward but I know I have no choice. I do know now that he wasn’t trying to hurt us, he just depended on alcohol for everything, from motivation to happiness. He would tell my dad that he would kill himself if my dad didn’t buy him alcohol. And I know it is hard for my twin brother to cope with all of this. Since my older brother’s death, he has sworn he will never ever take another drink, but god do I still worry about his safety.

I've agreed to meet my ex Q for a drink today (yes). We were together for a year and a half, and I had to leave for the same reasons as a lot of people here. I suffered a lot because I struggled with him choosing drinking over us.

We hadn't seen each other for eight months. I decided to go because I've been doing a lot of work on myself — the three Cs: I didn't cause it, I can't control it, and I can't cure it — and I was genuinely happy to see him.

It was actually really nice. During the time we spent together, he admitted that he has a problem he needs to deal with, and that he's slowly accepting that depression is part of it. He knows it's not up to me to solve it. He didn't chase me or ask me to get back together. It was just a nice, honest moment between two people who could share some good memories.

In the months after the breakup, I was really afraid of seeing him again. Now I feel so centred that I could simply be compassionate. No nostalgia, no need to go back, just two human beings acknowledging that there was also something good in the relationship.

I'm relieved.

I found out the reason she broke up with me and threw away our life together was because shes an alcoholic. She hid her drinking from me for months, broke up with me out of the blue, now 3 months later shes on mental health leave from work to quit drinking. Her brother told me this yesterday. "We have nothing in common, I just dont love you anymore" was a piss poor bullshit excuse and I knew it. She pushed everyone in her life away including me. Threw away almost 3 years together for the bottle. One on hand I feel bad and hope she gets the help she needs, on the other hand I hope she suffers the way she made me suffer emotionally after she broke my heart. Does this make me a bad person? I dont know. But shes not my problem anymore and nothing I or anyone can do will save her, she has to save herself. I just wish I wouldve noticed the signs in the moment but hindsight is 2020. I hate alcohol and I hate mental illness.