Anonymous wrote:Bumping this. After a holiday of people talking about drinking too much, this thread is such a useful discussion.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes. YATA.

I mean, but you know that right? OP has to be a troll. He's been sober for over 15 years and now you want to distance yourself from him? You should get over yourself first. And if you're like this in general, he probably won't miss your "distance".

I don't know. I do think there is some real trauma here and her reaction isn't trolling so much as dysfunctional.

I will say that even in this thread, addiction really is viewed differently. Some people said they would never, ever have an addict in their lives because of their own experience with addicts previously. So, OP isn't way, way off.

I do think 15 years is different. But what about five? Or even that previous alcoholic PP with much less time sober?

Here's the thing though - you can't move the goalposts and the situation is what it is and not some hypothetical. Presumably she's had a relationship of some sort with this BIL for as long as her sister has been married to him so there's that. If his past of over a decade ago then makes her clutch her pearls and lock up the silver then I think it's HER character in question - not his.

Outside of just being plain judgmental, and notwithstanding her "trauma" of being raised by an alcoholic - she must have learned through her adult and lived experiences that people are more than the sum of their parts and that many people have overcome their own traumas and how they coped - to include addiction to become better people. Instead of applauding how well someone has done and has proven for at least 15 YEARS that he's sober, she now wants to bash him and her perception has changed to negative.

That's just wrong. And she knows it. Her sister never should have told her tbh because she'll use this as a reason to consider him not so great, or her judging her sister of making bad decisions and neither being true with what's presented.

How one deals with adversity, trauma, addiction, flaws, etc. is way more important than what the issue was - and in this case, he identified he had a problem and actually took the steps to resolve it within himself. That's actually a reason to admire someone more - not less. I suspect she wanted a reason not to like him all along unless there's more that OP is not sharing.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes. YATA.

I mean, but you know that right? OP has to be a troll. He's been sober for over 15 years and now you want to distance yourself from him? You should get over yourself first. And if you're like this in general, he probably won't miss your "distance".

I don't know. I do think there is some real trauma here and her reaction isn't trolling so much as dysfunctional.

I will say that even in this thread, addiction really is viewed differently. Some people said they would never, ever have an addict in their lives because of their own experience with addicts previously. So, OP isn't way, way off.

I do think 15 years is different. But what about five? Or even that previous alcoholic PP with much less time sober?

Anonymous wrote:Yes. YATA.

I mean, but you know that right? OP has to be a troll. He's been sober for over 15 years and now you want to distance yourself from him? You should get over yourself first. And if you're like this in general, he probably won't miss your "distance".

Anonymous wrote:I am sober now (I got sober during the Spring 2021). I really struggled with how I ended up with an alcohol issue. I think the pandemic pushed things along but I was slowly steadily moving into a place where drinking was making my life worse in every way (health, relationships, mental health, financially, professionally, etc). You know what kept me from getting help while my drinking got worse and worse? The stigma of being an addict.

Getting sober has been transformative. Everything has improved. It hasn't been easy. Very, very difficult pills I needed to swallow. Awful truths I needed to admit and truly seek to repair and apologize. And I continue to work to repair.

I still struggle with the stigma of being an addict. I understand the judgment. A big part of my own recovery is holding myself accountable for everything I've done period full stop. This includes what I've done while drinking. Part of it is accepting that some people will inevitable judge me for having an addiction or even my husband may never forgive me or trust me again (thankfully, this doesn't appear to be the case). But being sober means I have to get of caring what people think about me or my relationship with alcohol -- I need to focus on what I am doing and make sure I am keeping my old side of the street clean.

Back to OP, I strongly recommend she focus on herself.

Anonymous wrote:You're one of the biggest A holes ever. And that's saying a lot. Do you also kick puppies? This man has been sober for 15 years. We all make mistakes and clearly he's recovered and changed his life. There but for the grace of God go I

Anonymous wrote:How would you feel if you were told the reason why someone didn't drink was because they were an addict or alcoholic?

My BIL never drank for as long as I knew him but my sister in passing mentioned that he's been in AA for 15 years -- years before she even met him!? She willingly met and had kids with an addict.

The issue is that we were raised by an alcoholic. Our own mom drank until she died (an early death due to medical issues). It was never ending "I'll quit and go to AA" and then relapses. It was awful and I can't believe she got together with someone who is just this ticking time bomb.

I don't know why she hid this from me for nearly 10 years. I can't look at BIL the same and feel incredibly uncomfortable around him. I'm actually considering putting some distance between us and avoiding seeing them from now on but feel guilty. AITA?

Anonymous wrote:While it makes sense to treat the BIL as an individual and for the OP to continue therapy to work through her earlier trauma, it makes equally perfect sense that she would feel the way she does about what she's learned--that is, to anyone who knows anything about dysfunctional life cycles and how they are perpetuated. People subconsciously gravitate towards what their brain patterns perceive as familiar and "comfortable," even if what's familiar and "comfortable" is objectively destructive. So for the OP, her sister's choice to marry and procreate with someone who has struggled with the same addiction their mother did epitomizes the old adage "out of the frying pan into the fire." Maybe it's true that the BIL has successfully remained sober for 15 years. But maybe it's not, and it is a fact that from a genetic standpoint, the sister and her husband deliberately chose to bring children into the world who are very much at risk of becoming addicts themselves. As someone who for different reasons spent much of her childhood having to accommodate dysfunction, I would never knowingly choose it for myself, nor would I put myself in a situation where I'd always be wondering when the other shoe would drop, so to speak.