A
female
age
41-50,
anonymous
writes:Hi. My boyfriend recently quit drinking, about 2 weeks ago. Since then it’s been an up-down rollercoaster with him, and I just don’t know how to help him. He’s been depressed, irritable, overall moody. And since most of his friends drink, it’s been even more difficult because he doesn’t want to hang around them out of fear that he may cave in and drink.A bit of background: My boyfriend got really drunk one night and did something stupid. It almost resulted in us breaking up. He took this as a wake-up call, and has since decided to no longer drink, to save our relationship, etc.Now, 2 weeks in, he’s still depressed, hardly hungry, easily irritated, etc. One second he’s affectionate to me, cuddling in bed. The next second he’s distant. Normally he’ll smother me with kisses when I drop him off at work, but this morning all I got was a kiss on the cheek. On the flip side, last night we cuddled, watched a movie, he scratched my back, and gave me little kisses before I fell asleep. Our anniversary is coming up in November, and I’m having a hard time getting him to commit to anything, his responses are “Maybe, we’ll see what happens”. It’s a bit frustrating because before he quit drinking, he would have been right there planning along side me. We’re not spending less time together, in fact we’re probably spending even more time together. When we are together, it takes a bit of work, but I’m able to get him to smile and joke around. But when I take him to work it seems to come back, and when we’re not together he gets quiet, and seems to fall back into his depression, and the whole cycle starts over again. I asked him if he wanted to just call it quits, and he responded “Of course not, I love you, I want to make you happy.”I’m just looking for some advice on how to help him out of his funk. I know when you quit drinking there’s a withdrawal process. How can I help him through this?
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Fancy yourself as an agony aunt? Add your answer to this question! A
female
reader, RedAthena +, writes (29 July 2011):
 He was probably ALWAYS depressed, but the booze just helped him cope better with it. Drinking is a way to detach from your environment, your feelings, your sad thoughts.
Now that his glass is empty, he has to THINK on the stuff that has been covered up all this time.
He is also in physical withdrawl from the chemical he regulary used. His personality seems pretty normal for someone who just made a HUGE life change.
Yes, you should be supportive, encouraging, etc...but you could make things worse by offering to quit the relationship.
You are also NOT responsible for his personal happiness and daily functioning. HE needs to be. Just like he had to admit drinking caused harm, SO does depression. If he continues for more than 3 mos in this state, I would suggest he get some medical help/couseling to figure out what is eating away at him that he needs to medicate it with alcohol.
In a nutshell, it is NOT up to you to get him out of his funk. You can only love him thru it, but he has to carry it.
A
male
reader, jjj8885 +, writes (29 July 2011):
well im guessing drinking was his fun part, so maybe he's missing out on fun. u could try either getting him into some kind of hobby, specially travelling experiencing new things, that could freshen him up, or introduce him to new ppl he could acquaint with, have fun with them, just make sure they're not ppl who drink. point is he has nowhere to relieve his stress of work .....etc.
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