Hi Alexis,

I agree with Staples and Raventrue (love that quote by the way) about keeping your distance. If you enter a relationship hoping to change that person, it means that you are not able to accept them for who they are even if the change is for their own good. If someone is not ready to change, which appears to be the case here, you are going to be frustrated in all the things he does (e.g. drink driving, ignoring your or just being drunk most of the time) while he gets frustrated for you trying to change him. Usually the relationship ends up as some form of co-dependency with lots criticism and attempts to fix problems.

Though it is true that some partners can help through an addiction period, the person being helped needs to have a lot of trust in the helper to overcome feelings of inadequacy, weakness and judgement. This is especially difficult for men as we are not raised to be emotionally vulnerable. If you want to persue a long term relationship with this person, let him be so that he can work his own way out of his addiction. Who knows, he may become the person you wish him to be all on his own and you two may reconnect sometime in the future. Otherwise, don’t spend years fixing someone else’s problem because no matter how much you invest, they are not going to get there unless they want to.