Why an Alcoholic Cannot Love

Alcohol Abuse and its Effects on Marriages and Relationships

As a former alcoholic, I know what an unhealthy relationship looks like. When I got sober, it took me years to understand what a healthy relationship looked like. Alcohol use disorder is a common situation in many families, and it creates all kinds of problems and future issues for children.

Because of my alcohol addiction, I caused harm to my family and I am still trying to repair the bond years into my sobriety. 

It’s not that difficult for me to explain why an alcoholic cannot love. All addicts have unique situations, but there are common threads among all of us. The most common one is how we push away everything and everyone we love for our addiction.

My drug of choice was alcohol, so all I cared about was alcohol when push came to shove. It doesn’t get more simple than that.

Where The Addiction Begins

I was the perfect example of an at-risk youth. I had parents who didn’t hold me accountable or teach me what healthy relationships looked like. My emotional well-being was put aside so that my parents could have fun. Witnessing active alcoholism in my household became my norm. I grew up assuming that all kids had drunk parents.

My parents were not physically abusive towards me, but they sure were with each other. I witnessed this abusive behavior throughout my entire childhood. The verbal abuse was never-ending. By the time I reached high school, my views on relationships and love were warped.

Not only did I assume everyone had drunk parents, but I assumed everyone had drunk parents who came to blows on a regular basis.

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As I reached my teenage years and began going through all the angst and hormonal changes that we all go through, it was amplified. I began to resent my parents for not giving me the basic love and attention that they should have provided. I started to act out. The negative emotions I dealt with were overwhelming. I got into fights and I threw chairs at teachers. I was a terror.

Getting suspended over and over meant nothing to my parents. There were no consequences. This led me to believe that I could get away with being an angry, resentful person. I started drinking and abusing drugs. Although I tried many different illicit drugs, it was alcohol that took hold of me.

The Cycle of Alcohol Addiction

My alcohol consumption slowly began to take over as I got married and had kids. I was able to keep it somewhat under control in my early twenties, but the stress of family life made me lose control. I never engaged in physically abusive behavior, though I was somewhat mentally abusive to my wife. She hung in there as long as she could, but my active addiction was the only thing I wanted to put work into.

When my wife finally left and took the kids, I wasn’t equipped to deal with it. I had only ever learned to be angry and resentful when things didn’t go my way. What I learned growing up continued into my adulthood. I was fully entrenched in a cycle of anger and bitterness with no idea how to get out of it.

Can Alcoholics Engage in Healthy Relationships?

The simple answer to this question is no. Did I love my wife and my kids? Of course. But in my active alcohol addiction, I loved the buzz more. Even when I knew I was making the wrong choices, it didn’t matter to me. I needed my fix to get by. I wouldn’t have known what a healthy relationship looked like if it was directly in front of me.

I assumed that everyone who seemed to have happy, healthy relationships was faking it. In my alcohol-riddled brain, I figured that every couple or family was fighting behind closed doors. The idea of healthy relationships made no sense to me.

This is because I never felt real happiness. Any kind of substance abuse disorder warps your view of the world. You get to a point where you believe you deserve to be miserable. You don’t think you are deserving of love. In a way, you aren’t wrong. Who wants to be with someone who doesn’t love themself?

Can Family Members Help You Stop Drinking?

Other people can only do so much when it comes to your own life. My own family didn’t care about me. My wife’s family members were the only ones who ever took me in and showed me what real love looks like. Even though I had these wonderful, supportive people around me, it still wasn’t enough for me to change my ways.

When my wife left, I still kept in touch with a few of her family members, specifically her brother. We had developed a good bond, and he did everything he could to try and steer me in the right direction. Despite this, my alcohol abuse took priority. No one could do anything to help me.

It’s Up to You. Not Your Family

For the family members of addicts, it can be immensely frustrating to deal with someone whose alcohol addiction takes full control over everything. There are many occasions where the family of alcoholics need therapy themselves. Not being able to help someone you love is a very lonely and awful feeling.

When you realize that you can’t help someone, it’s a crushing blow. But what else can you do for someone who refuses help? You can only help yourself. So rightfully so, my family went about their business and took care of themselves. How could I blame them?

Giving Addiction Treatment A Chance

I had so many opportunities to change throughout the course of my alcohol addiction. I went to rehab a couple of times, but always went right back to my alcohol abuse. The reason it never worked is because I never went into treatment for myself. It was usually because I was forced into it by family. I didn’t actually want it. It took multiple tragedies for me to finally want it for myself.

When my father died five years ago, I went through an extreme mix of emotions. This man that I had a love/hate relationship with was now gone. I never got the opportunity to build a real relationship with him. Because my emotional well-being was in the gutter, I didn’t cope with it the right way.

A few weeks after he died, I was in a bar and got into a violent fight. I was looking for trouble, and I found it. I was jumped and beaten by a gang of people. I woke up in the hospital the next day with not much memory of what happened. Laying in that hospital bed, something finally clicked.

Alcohol Abuse and Its Effect on Your Mental Health

Because of my alcohol abuse, my mental health was never in a good place. As I mentioned before, anger and resentment were always my go-to emotions. I never learned to process my feelings the right way. Negative emotions ruled my brain.

When I checked in to Changes Healing Center, every mental health professional let me know real quick that it wasn’t just my addiction I would be working on.

A big part of recovery, whether during time at alcohol rehab, or afterward for that matter, is fixing your attitude. How are you going to get sober and maintain it without the right attitude? If I continued to let my negative emotions rule my life, I would never attain sobriety. At Changes, I was part of a dual-diagnosis program that helped me work on both my addiction and my mental health at the same time. This is what helped me get to where I am today.

Accepting Responsibility and Making Amends.

When you deal with addiction, you make a lot of excuses. There is a lot of finger-pointing. You look outwardly to justify the way that you act. You put the blame on others. All these years, I blamed my parents for how I turned out. While there is some truth to this, I finally realized that my anger towards them was not serving me.

In the world of recovery, we talk a lot about justified anger. A lot of addicts deal with anger problems, and the anger is usually centered on the people and situations we think caused our addictions.

Ultimately, you learn that this anger does not do anything but keep you down. My rage and discontent were only holding me back, and in order to move forward, I had to let it go. This was a big turning point in my quest for sobriety.

Learning What a Healthy Relationship Looks Like

As I worked more and more on my mental health and alcohol addiction, I began to learn what healthy and loving relationships look like. The most important thing for me to realize was that I needed to give my family time.

I was the one that burned the bridge. I was the one that messed up. It was going to take a lot of work to regain their trust, but I was willing to do it.

Trust issues are a big part of alcohol use disorders. Not only did I need others to trust me, I needed to begin to trust myself. I was able to develop healthy coping mechanisms during my time at Changes, and attending support groups helped me learn about my behavior and what not to do.

Patience Is a Virtue

Ultimately what it came down to was learning patience. I had to give myself and others time to heal. I wasn’t going to fix all of my relationships overnight. When I left Changes, I decided to continue to seek professional help. I went through a lot of individual and family therapy. Slowly but surely, my loved ones began to see the progress that I was making.

There were plenty of times during my early recovery period when I wanted to abuse alcohol. Just because it was out of my body, doesn’t mean it was out of my brain. I had to restrain myself constantly in order to avoid a relapse.

As time went on, the cravings became less and less. I had given in to my destructive behavior so many times in the past, but this time was different.

Can A Relationship With An Alcoholic Be Saved?

When you are in a relationship with an alcoholic, whether or not the relationship can be salvaged depends on a lot of factors. How much are you willing to put up with? How much do you love the person?

You can only do so much, and at a certain point, you have your own life and your own set of issues to deal with. You can’t save everyone.

Addiction will usually strain relationships to the point of no return. There are enough relationship issues to navigate with your partner, and when you throw addiction into the mix, everything gets so much messier.

Although my wife and I did not get back together, there is mutual respect now. I love her because she is the mother of my kids, but I know that there’s no going back. I am at peace with that.

Surviving Alcohol Use Disorder… And Getting Your Life Back

I’ve come a long way in my recovery journey, and I try to recognize that as much as possible. The fact that I am able to maintain healthy relationships these days is a major accomplishment. I won’t gloat too much about it or rub it in anyone’s face.

I acknowledge my progress because it will help me make more progress in the future.

I now have a healthy relationship with my kids, which is all anyone can ask for following active alcoholism and then getting treatment for their alcohol use disorder. I did this so that I could thrive. You can stop drinking for other people, but when you stop drinking to help yourself, that’s when things can begin to change.

Reach Out to Changes to Get Your Loved One Support Today

I owe everything to my time at Changes Healing Center. Without taking that first step, there’s no telling where I’d be today. So what have I learned through all of this? I’ve learned that an alcoholic cannot love, but a recovering alcoholic can learn to.

This is where I am at today, and I will dedicate the rest of my life to bettering myself and my family. I look forward to the opportunity to help others as well, and I hope my blog and journal has been a small part of this goal!