ask: living with an alcoholic

Cheryl,
Thank you for submitting your question and welcome to Empowher. You are certainly right when you say that you cannot help him as he has to want to help himself first. What does he think about his drinking? Does he know there is a problem etc?

There is help for him as well as you. I went through a similar situation although my ex was a drug addict. Addiction is addiction. The biggest issue I had was removing my own addiction to help him. We consume ourselves about them so much that we in turn become addicted to them. The best thing to do is break your addiction and help yourself first. Alcoholics attend AA (Alcoholic Anonymous) but there are also Al-Anon meetings which help the family members dealing with the addict. Please visit their website here http://www.al-anon.alateen.org/english.html.

You are not alone. There are many families dealing with someone in their household that suffers from an addiction. You can search on their website for meeting places and they will provide you with the greatest gift you can ask for, which is you.

I hope you will attend a meeting and talk to others that are also in your same situation. It helps and remains anonymous. You also mentioned that he hit you two days ago and you may have to make a very hard decision about your relationship. There is absolutely no good reason for a man to hit a woman. I hope that you know and understand that.

Please keep us updated and best of luck.
Missie