A
female
age
41-50,
anonymous
writes:Hi. Can anyone advise what type of therapy would help me. Every Friday I become so anxious wondering whether my boyfriend will be drunk when I get home I can hardly to my work. He knows I don't like it when he drinks too much and it usually ends in an argument. He drinks Friday to Sunday and says he sees nothing wrong. I don't mind having him having drinks but he doesn't stop til drunk. He doesn't usually drink Monday to Thursday unless he is out for work. I find I don't have this anxiety on those days as bad as Fridays. I don't want to take medication.
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reader, anonymous, writes (25 May 2016): You don't need therapy or medication but he needs help. He's an alcoholic. My ex was an alcoholic and I know exactly what you're going through. Unfortunately, he won't get the help he needs until he acknowledges the fact that he is an alcoholic and needs treatment.
If you stay with him this will just get worse for both of you. If you marry him or have children with him you'll feel trapped.
It may be hard for you to do so, but leave him and make sure he knows why you're leaving.
A
female
reader, So_Very_Confused  +, writes (21 May 2016):
 Your boyfriend is an alcoholic. My husband is a recovering alcoholic. He's been sober since January 2015 when I had to have him arrested for trying to kill me.
He sat in Jail for two days and then when he called i told him he had to go to rehab and complete rehab and stay sober to be with me. I was willing to be without him if he continued drinking. He got sober.
You need not therapy for this but Al-Anon.
http://www.al-anonuk.org.uk/
You need to decide if you want to live like this with him or without him.
I am married. IF my husband drinks I call the divorce lawyer. YOU have it much easier... JUST leave. An alcoholic in denial is not a good thing. IF he is in recovery and not drinking he is still an alcoholic but it's workable then.
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A
female
reader, CindyCares  +, writes (21 May 2016):
 I guess that if your bf drinks every Friday through Sunday and he see nothing wrong with that, i.e. he is not going to change his drinking habits although he knows how much dislike them,... well, you do not have anything to wonder, you'll just KNOW for sure that he will show up blind drunk. At most what you can wonder is , will he be drunk and particularly aggressive / confrontational / obnoxious, or just " regular " drunk ?...
In this sense , there's no room for anxiety, you know he is a lush and he will show up loaded. You may not have a problem with a partner " having drinks ", but by now you must have noticed that this is not him, he's not the kind of guy who will have one or two drinks, or anyway strictly the number he can manage, and will stop before reaching his limit. He set no limits to himself, and since he sees nothing wrong with getting drunk every weekend... he'll get blind drunk every weekend.
IMO you do not have an anxiety problem, you have a boyfriend problem, i.e. you are not with right person for you. You don't like people who drink too much , and he is a person who drinks too much. Apparently you already have had several arguments about it, and he is still adamant that he is not changing anything , if any you have to adjust.
Do you want to adjust ? Is this the kind of partner you can see yourself being happy with ? And I mean happy now, here and now, not in some rosy future when he may decide to stop drinking ?
If the answer is no, - then you don't need therapy and you don't need meds, you need to ditch him.
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A
female
reader, Ivyblue  +, writes (21 May 2016):
 You shouldn't be thinking to medicate yourself for handling someone else's problem. If he is drunk every Friday, Sat and Sun night and thats the time you have for each other, then he is the problem not you. Maybe he and you are just not suited to each other.
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A
female
reader, aunt honesty  +, writes (20 May 2016):
 I don't think you need medication or CBT. I think you need to take control of your life and ask yourself why are you with someone who drinks so heavy that it is causing you to be anxious? The thing is you know why you are anxious on a Friday and that is because for the weekend you are going to be dealing with a drunk, what sort off relationship is that for you? Okay so he does not drink during the week as he works, but other than that it seems your boyfriend has a drink problem, so you need to decide what to do to help yourself, if he is not going to get help for drink then you should help yourself by leaving him.
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A
female
reader, YouWish +, writes (20 May 2016):
 Yeah, it's a lot simpler than medication!
If you don't want to suffer anxiety over a guy who drinks, then don't be WITH a guy who drinks! You're not chained to him, nor are you stuck there at gunpoint.
You can't change him. You can't argue him into changing. You can't force him to cut his drinking. He has to make the change for himself. All you can do is change your circumstances.
I personally wouldn't want to be with someone who got slobbering drunk all weekend, as when I'm off, I like to go live LIFE with the guy I love, and it's one thing to have a couple glasses of wine on a date (like I did last night!), but it's quite another to get home and deal with the effects of a partner's excessive drinking.
You can leave! You can move out. You can choose not to renew your lease. You can tell him that you can't live life with alcohol at the center of everything. And YES, you can say that even if you partake on occasion, because responsible drinking and habitual drunkenness are two different animals. And you won't be "abandoning" him by saying enough is enough. HE has to be willing to take on alcoholism, and it's quite possible.
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A
female
reader, Honeypie +, writes (20 May 2016):
 Do you live together? If so, maybe that is not the best idea for YOU. And maybe dating someone who drinks till he is drunk EVERY week-end is not the best match for me.
But I think some kind of CBT (cognitive-behavioral therapy) might help you address the ROOT of this fear.
What exactly is that you fear IF he is drunk when you get home? Is it JUST arguments? Is he violent? does he pee the bed, does he drive drunk? What exactly is it that you fear? That should BE your starting point.
Secondary? Move out or have HIM move out.
You say you don't mind him having a drink, but you ALSO knows that he isn't CAPABLE or WILLING to settle for just a drink or two on the week-ends.. it has to be drink till he is drunk, so my guess is you KNOW he isn't really a good fit. You are HOPING that either HE will change for you (unlikely) or that you will get skills to cope with his alcoholism (which it sounds like to me. He is a high functioning alcoholic. If he HAS to drink till he is drunk he IS NOT in control).
So while CBT might help give you some tools. You also need to address your denial. You refuse to SEE him for who he is, because you WANT to make it work. Instead of accepting that you and he have different life-style and make different choices. And that these... don't necessarily match well.
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