My boyfriend is a craft beer enthusiast (very common here in Portland, OR) and really enjoys drinking. The problem is that he drinks way too much.
I am typically very relaxed about it - he usually buys a 12 pack of beer and a 22 oz every single week and often goes through a fifth of whiskey every month. He also drinks when we go out to dinner or lunch which is usually once or twice a week. I don't really bat an eye at this.
However... This past three-day weekend he had a grand total of sixteen beers, three shots of whiskey, and a gin and tonic. I think this is entirely too much alcohol but he doesn't see it this way.
I want to mention that I do not keep a running tally in my head of how much he drinks, we just had an argument tonight about this and I went to the refrigerator to figure out how much he really did drink.
Once in a while over the course of our relationship he has admitted to me that he knows he needs to cut back on his alcohol intake. He has even asked me to help him with it. The problem is, he never follows through after he has these moments of self-reflection.
If I try to hint to him not to drink another or not to have too much, he gets angry with me - even when I remind him that he told me to help. And if he doesn't get mad then he uses excuses for his heavy drinking like "it's Friday night" "it's the weekend" "it's a holiday". And basically brushes my concerns off as me overreacting or being stupid. (I would like to point out that I never speak to him in an annoying or belittling way and always try to approach him nicely.) He also frequently likes to give the excuse that the three/four beers he drank was throughout the course of a day or over several hours time so that makes it okay...
When I've tried to get to the bottom of things and figure out why he drinks so much, his only response is he likes getting a buzz and relaxing. He has a very high metabolism and is a heavy weight with a high tolerance when it comes to alcohol so he claims that he needs to drink a lot to feel anything. From the second he comes home from work he is uncapping a beer and basically drinking one after another until midnight. Which at that point he has a nightcap of whiskey. This is his every day routine. He is adamant that he is not an alcoholic or even close to it.
This weekend has really upset me more than it ever has because of the sheer amount he consumed. I am not anti-alcohol by any means, I am totally fine with it. We've taken road trips exclusively to visit his favorite breweries, I've accompanied him to local beer festivals, I've sat with him at countless happy hours. I'm happy to do so - even though I don't drink myself - because I like seeing him happy and partaking in something he enjoys. What I don't like is how excessive everything has become!
The main thing here is that I love my boyfriend and I care for him and I don't want to see him hurting himself in the long-term by drinking too much. He doesn't see his alcohol intake as a health issue but I know it can't be good for him. I want to grow old with this man, not witness him get liver disease or other serious ailments.
We are in a serious enough relationship where we plan on getting married in the near future (we've even picked out and bought our rings). But after this weekend of his excessive drinking it makes me think twice about spending the rest of my life with someone who has continuously shown issues with alcohol. And he is clearly unwilling to change or at least try to improve on this.
I also want to add that his mom has mentioned a few times at family gatherings that she worries about her kids having too much to drink as alcoholism runs in their family. His grandmother drinks a lot of wine every night in secrecy, and his whole family drinks a pretty average amount. He drinks the most out of all of them by far.
Reddit, I welcome your opinions and advice. Am I out of line here? Is his drinking a big enough issue to end our relationship? What can I do to help him? I don't want to be the nagging girlfriend who is counting his drinks and reminding him to stop. He should be doing it for himself, but he has shown time and time again that he can't and won't. I'm at a loss here.
Thanks for reading my long winded novel and thanks in advance for any thoughts you throw my way!
TL;DR: My boyfriend drinks way too much. We are potentially going to get married in the near future. Is this a relationship deal breaker? What can I do to help him cut back since nothing has worked?
Submitted May 26, 2015 at 12:14PM by sixteentoomany http://ift.tt/1LBlPfc relationships
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