Loving Self After Loving an Alcoholic
- victoriaholloway07
- 5 days ago
- 6 min read
I’ve mentioned this before at times, one of the biggest lessons I learned in therapy is that two things can be true at once. You can grieve and feel joy at the same time, you can know that you made the right choices and still feel bad about how the situation turned out. It’s truly one of those though provoking concepts that makes us humans so uniquely complex. It is also what rings incredible true about the topic of this months blog.
There is something that I haven’t discussed in much detail publicly, that is equally something I feel I should discus more frequently. Many women (and men, for that matter) experience domestic violence in the many ways it takes form, and there unfortunately is a large number of not just my audience but the population of humanity that has been subjected to the abuse of a narcissist. I, like so many others, experience a short-lived but incredibly toxic first relationship. Not just with a narcissist but an alcoholic as well. Our relationship, if you can call it that, lasted a whole three months but still took me YEARS to unpack and work through in therapy and I need to be honest here, its something I am still working through in therapy.
Seven months after my dad passed away, I started dating this boy. I had known of him for a long time and we had casually dated several months before for a few weeks. He was incredibly present in my life the weeks leading up to and right after my fathers passing and I had developed a trauma bond with this person because all my memories surrounding my fathers death involved this person. When we first reconnected in December of 2022, nine months after losing my sister, I found him to be handsome and funny. He had a good job and he was a nice distraction from the heavy presence of death, depression, fear, and sorrow that plagued my mind, my soul, and my home.
After some time apart in the summer, we began dating again in October. In those few months apart, he had lost everything. His home, his car, his job, everything… and he fabricated believable stories as to why, all of which made him out to be the victim in every scenario. At the time, I had no reason not to believe him and I was determined to be there for him in his time of need the way he was there for me in mine. Never mind the many warnings from friends, family members, and even his own mother… our trauma bond was gripping me tighter and tighter and refusing to let go. It was not long after we reconnected that I realized he had an alcohol (and sometimes other substance) abuse problem. A problem that showed itself in many ways and seemed to affect not just him but every person he interacted with. Looking back, I can recognize that this was something way out my league and absolutely not something a person in my state of mind should’ve dealt with. I was too vulnerable and hurt to be engaged in the life of someone struggling with substance abuse, but that is also the reason I was the perfect target for this type of abuse.
I put up with a lot in the short time we dated, and thankfully, after not making it to Christmas, I was able to move into my new apartment and start the year 2024 with a clean slate. Which brings us up to date with the topic of this months blog, self love. It shocks me at times how knowing someone so abusive for such a short amount of time had such a massive and long lasting impact on me. Many of you reading this, may know of or experience your own form of abuse from someone you loved who is addicted to alcohol or another substance that makes them into a completely different person. When my partner was sober, he was funny and kind and went out of his way to help others. His skin looked good, he had more energy, and there was life behind his eyes. When my partner was high or drunk, he was all the negative attributes you can think of. This conundrum would make me feel crazy, how could someone so kind also be so incredibly cruel and being the type of person he was, he played on and manipulated the scenario to make believe his lies and accept that I was in fact going crazy.
That relationship was a tipping point of years of suffering, death, and loss. Like the mention from before of two things being true at one time - that abusive relationship brought me to an all time low that I didn’t know was imaginable AND it led me directly to the feet of Jesus. For two years, I hadn’t been able to pray. The loss of my sister made talking to God difficult for me, I was angry and hurt and He was the last person I wanted to speak to. After sending my boyfriend of four-weeks to rehab, my family and friends either exhausted of hearing my complaints or unaware due to my immense embarrassment left me with no one else to talk to but God. I was able to pray again because I wasn’t praying for me, I was praying for the alcoholic in my life. Even though, my qualifier (an al-anon term I learned while attending sessions) would leave rehab early and relapse within a week of returning to Georgia, the habit of talking to God was beginning to be present in my life again.
In January of 2024, when I started the new year single, I had the thought to take the same prayers I had prayed over my partner and pray them over myself instead. That I would be safe and resist temptations, that I would trust in God and grow closer to Him. That He would work out my pain and help me resolve the issues I was dealing with. The worship songs I would sing over my partner as he went to his required AA meetings, I started singing over myself. Specifically Katy Nichole’s song…
“I speak the name of Jesus over you
In your hurting, in your sorrow
I will ask my God to move
I speak the name cause it's all that I can do
In desperation, I’ll seek Heaven”
It was not an overnight success, my grief will never go away, no matter how much I pray or worship but gradually I felt my head raise, my shoulders sat back a little more, my confidence increased. Through therapy I continued working though the lies my abuser told me about myself and created affirmations to combat those negative thoughts. I created a “solo dates” list in my notes app and each month I would take time to dedicate completely to myself, showing myself the love that I so desperately needed. Later, I would do my first EMDR session that connected my mind and body together and led to a solo trip to a place I’d only ever dreamed of going, New York City. I wrote about that experience in a previous blog, you can check out after this one.
My point is… God will use some of the craziest circumstance to get our attention and shows us how to give ourselves the transformative love that we all so desperately need. It’s time for you to start your new year with a clean slate. As you step into the year 2026, I want to challenge you to create a list of twelve solo dates you can do just for yourself, that’s a few hours a month that you set aside to love on the most important person you know, YOU. It’s time to begin praying over yourself the things you pray for others and singing over yourself what you sing to others. This is a year of transformative love for you and it all starts now.
I Dare You To Love YOURSELF this year.
If you or someone you know is struggling to adapt to the circumstances of loving someone with an addiction please seek peer support through Al Anon, the few weeks of sessions helped me realize that I deserved better than how I was being treated in my relationship and gave me the strength to break free. Your circumstance might look different from mine, but Al Anon is a great resource for those of us unfortunate enough to know the pain of loving an alcoholic.
I’ve also linked Katy Nichole’s song, reference above, here for you to enjoy. This album was a stable for me as I worked myself out of a the ditch I was in.
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