so... how shall i put this? there were red flags throughout the entire summer.

starting with the person in question BEING flagged TWICE at an open bar... the person in question called me the next day to apologize to me and told me he'd stopped drinking that night.

stopped drinking - but without being part of a recovery program like AA.

stopped drinking, but, still drank Becks Non-Alcoholic Beer (or similar).

stopped drinking - but still smoked The Pot.

stopped drinking and would tell me how his friends mocked him about not drinking - yet, i was there on the phone saying "don't listen to them, you're doing great" or in person drinking Pellegrino right there with him and having a nice sober evening.

Hi... My name is Erin and I cared for a Dry Drunk.

This term is defined as a person who is still very angry, immature, overreactive, over-sensitive; someone who doesn't take responsibility even after being sober, who still indulges in other addictions with the rationalization that even though they're not drinking, it's okay to do these other things. (Source).

This is MY blog and this is part of MY personal life... it has affected ME and that is why i am writing about it.

When I first got involved with the person in question (who had some initials throughout the summer, but, we'll just call him Dry Drunk™ or DD™ now) I had a few people who've known him throughout the past 28 years say to me "oh, man, just be careful because he's got issues"

wwwwonderful.

Of course, I poo-poo'ed this and said "oh, but, he said he stopped drinking after the shindig and we've been talking on the phone for 2 to 5 hours every night, he's actually really sweet"

and they replied "well. okay. but. just be careful"

instead, i wasn't careful. i'd unwrapped the ace bandages from my heart, chipped off the Bondo spot putty and Krazy Glue that was holding the left ventricle together and stripped off the 12 Band-Aids that were keeping it attached to the aorta. my heart was sitting there in all of it's glory, exposed, nekkid and about to get it's ass handed to it.

when laying in bed and my stomach growled and he said "it's like the sound of angels... oh my god what am i saying? what am i, in love?"

sure. that took a band-aid off the right ventricle.

when he quickly drove over to get me when my tire blew out... another gauze pad came off.

From an article about Dry Drunks...

First comes the denial -- it's really not that big a deal, I've always said I could quit anytime -- and then the anger and depression when they realize just how much that had come to depend on their old friend alcohol.

Many make it through the process to the final stage -- accepting the loss, learning and growing through the experience, and moving on.

Some never make it. It's sad to see them, sometimes many years later, still stuck in their anger, bitterness, and resentment at having to make the change in their lives. They haven't had a drink in years, but they have also never had a "sober" day.

You even see them in the 12-step rooms... been in the program for years and years and their lives seem to be a constant unmanageable struggle. All those years and they have no more of a spiritual awakening than they did the first time they walked into the room.

"Dry Drunk" has been described as "A condition of returning to one's old alcoholic thinking and behavior without actually having taken a drink."

Now, I only saw the DD™ schnockkered the night of the shindig when he was flagged twice. So, I don't really know what his "old alcoholic thinking" was prior to us hanging out... but.. i am pretty sure it wasn't pleasant.

Everything had been going wwwwwonderfully during the month of July - then all of a sudden he pulled back and became really distant. sure, he would call and complain about work and life - never really asking me how i was doing or listening to me about my life/work/etc. --- and for some reason i was fine with that. (in hindsight, not really, but i liked hearing from him and trying to make him laugh...) but something was extremely different and strained. and that was the frustrating part of things. I mean, I could understand if there was a huge blow-up fight or if we didn't have chemistry... but, for something to fail all of a sudden without any moment to pinpoint it on... it just made my head spin.

According to this recovery site, the dry drunk syndrome conditions can lead to the following:

a) Mood swings, which are unrelated to the circumstances to which one tries to link them. Alcoholics zero in on what they want others to think is the cause of the mood swing, when it isn't that at all. More often than not it is something much deeper than the reason given. Inversely it can also be something totally insignificant with no substance at all (e.g. the sugar is too sweet or the donut is too round). Any excuse will do.

b) Unable to demonstrate emotions freely, naturally and without constraint. No emotional spontaneity, no genuine spark.

c) Introspection. A very healthy thing to do is difficult if not impossible for the "dry drunk". It means to look inward to one's examining each thought and desire, which is linked directly to one's attitude.

d) Detachment. Become aloof, display indifference, don't care one way or the other, no special likes or dislikes, they withdraw.

e) Self-absorption- with a tendency to call attention to whatever they have attained. Narcissism which is quite simply self-love. They become pompous asses.

f) The inability to appreciate or enjoy themselves - nothing satisfies.

g) Evidence of disorganization, is easily distracted, complains of boredom, and nothing seems to fit.

h) A nostalgia sets in, a kind of wistful yearning for something of the past, such as freedom from care associated (falsely) with drinking, bars, drinking associates, and friends; the music, blue lights, and tinkle of the ice cubes in a glass in the neighborhood saloon.

i) There can be a kind of romanticism, which includes unrealistic valuations of lifestyles and character traits which can be and usually are objectively dangerous to one's sobriety.

j) Escapism. Fantasizing, daydreaming, and wishful thinking are very much in evidence in the dry drunk syndrome as the individual slips farther and farther from reality.

i have been made to feel like the issues were because of me... i was told that i was "a psycho"

au contraire, mon frere... if one thinks that crying while driving and having to pullover because i've been shaken up by an unexpected run-in at a bookstore is "psycho"... one has no idea what "psycho" is.

some more from a recovery site:

It's difficult for them to receive praise or care from others.

The classic maneuver of the dry drunk is over-reaction. The alcoholic may attach a seemingly disproportionate intensity of feeling to an ordinary insignificant event or mishap.

The self-destructive attitudes and behavior of the dry drunk alcoholic are different in degree but not in kind. The alcoholic, when drinking, has learned to rely on a deeply inadequate, radically immature approach to solving life's problems. And this is exactly what one sees in the dry drunk.

The term "dry drunk" therefore denotes the absences of favorable change in the attitudes and behavior of the alcoholic who is not drinking, or the reversion of these by the alcoholic who has experienced a period of successful sobriety. From these conditions, it is to be inferred that the alcoholic is experiencing discomfort in life.

When dry drunk alcoholics awaken to this irony that they, still unmanageable, still powerless, are the ones who have made this remarkable "recovery," they may feel sufficiently mortified to want to change.

The dry drunk can be a precursor to the beginnings of relapse, the AA Big Book describes this condition as being "restless, irritable, and discontented". This set of attitudes can apply to anyone who is chemically dependent, or even those were not.

there's a part of me - as someone who has been affected throughout her life by alcoholism in the family - that finds it easy to think "oh wow, this is all on me. it's my fault that this relationship took a big flaming nosedive" --- but then, i step back and think about it and know that NO effing way is this on me.

No way will I have someone say that I am "psycho" so that they can turn their own stinkin' thinkin' on me.

Just because I was expressing MY feelings and trying to talk things through... meanwhile i get the "I have nothing more to say." and the emotion wall comes slamming down in front of me.

• Alcoholics Anonymous
• Al-Anon
• Dry Drunk Syndrome
• "Not Drinking, But Not 'Of Sober Mind' Either"
• "Could I Be a Dry Drunk?"

• You Might Be a Dry Drunk If...

by the way... i have written this because i spoke to him today about when i could get my dvds & stuff and he was a tool on the phone with his "i have nothing to say to you"... now, i've been friends after break-ups with 98% of the guys i've dated(even caught the bouquet at my one ex's wedding... that wasn't very easy and i hadn't tried to catch it. but there it is... for all of eternity on video for them.) but, i was in no way deserving of his cold shoulder.

he said that he was angry at me for writing about his "personal life" --- seriously?
THIS POST FROM 2 WEEKS AGO HE'S PISSED AT? reeeeeeeeeally? the one where I made myself look like the asshole?

so, he DID say today to "go write to your little blog friends" --- fine. just doing what i'm told.

it's funny because that was MY PERSONAL LIFE that i wrote about. and he's known about my blog since day 1. in fact he's been reading it at least once a day - especially since the Barnes & Noble night. So, if he thought that THAT post was delving into his personal life... well... I think he probably knows by now that THAT was nothing.

anyway... after trying to figure out schedules as to if i should pick it up or if he should drop them off, he then says "you're all over the board" - implying that i am the nutty one... fuck that.

so i gave him my address and told him to fed ex my stuff. which, i would like to get a tracking number from him.

so, on the phone, he was the coldest that i've ever heard anyone - so after i gave the address, i told him to have a nice life and "fuck you" (usually i say goodbye, but "fuck you" felt more appropriate at that moment.)

I am 1000% thankful that it was only a few months and that I didn't waste years dealing with this junk stuff --- and that I recognize that HE is the one with the "issues" (as I was forewarned about 3 months ago.)

I hope he gets some help.

it's too bad because I really cared for him.