Gave an ultimatum after 5 years together. Do ultimatums even work? is there hope?
Sorry if this is long but I don't know where else to turn to.
Alcohol has put a massive strain on the relationship between my boyfriend and I. It's like Jekyll and Hyde. When he's sober, he's kind and caring and funny. When he drinks, which is a six pack of IPAs every night and sometimes a tall boy on top of that, he becomes increasingly paranoid, confused, quick to anger, and impulsive with words and actions.
Drinking on the job caused him to lose his job 3 years ago. He doesn't drink at work anymore, but no matter what it is we're going to go do, if it's after 3pm he needs to bring a beer and conceal it if it's in a public place. We're talking opaque waterbottles filled with beer being smuggled into the roller skating rink, in a public mall, parties, outdoors, basically anywhere.
He has 2 DUIs under his belt, 1 from 2016 and 1 from 3 years ago, and only recently was I able to get him to stop drinking while in the passenger's seat when I'm driving!! I fear that he is still drinking and driving when I am not in the car, and has hidden his drinking from me before so I have no real way of knowing.
He was abused as a child and that trauma gets resurrected whenever conflict happens while drunk. When sober, we have normal-ass disagreements that never get nasty; no name-calling or mocking or sarcasm, nothing like that. However, when he is drunk he gets verbally and emotionally abusive, employing classic DARVO tactics, and it's driving me crazy. Over the years I have tried to tell him he needed to change or i'm out, helped him find therapists only for him to stop attending, tried to support him while still being with him. All the while being subjected to his drunk outbursts while waiting for him to make a change. But everyone has a breaking point and I finally reached mine.
During the most recent fight, he was so upset that I cancelled our plans due to schedule conflicts, that he lied to me about BEING ARRESTED to make me feel guilty!!! I was visiting my parents' house for the weekend, and after a heated phone call where he hung up on me, he texted me telling me that I was making him so upset that he was making a scene in the neighborhood and the cops were coming to get him, later saying he was in the back of a cop car being brought in and that it was my fault for riling him up enough to get arrested. He admitted the lie over text the morning after the fight, right before I was about to start calling around to different precincts in the area to see where he was being held and if he was okay. He did this knowing full well how traumatized I was by his DUI arrest 3 years ago.
I told him over text that it was the last straw, I will not be with him anymore and that he needed to enroll in a program, stay sober for at least 30 days and THEN I would consider coming back. After all, he has never tried to pull shit like this when sober; the alcohol is ruining everything. The beer has robbed me of the person I love and it's breaking my heart. So, he has to choose: me or the alcohol.
He's trying to guilt trip me saying that cutting out an addict doesn't help them quit, it makes them worse, but what choice do I have left??? I can't handle the drunk version of him and I refuse to be collateral damage during his quest to sobriety. But the question I have is, do ultimatums work??? For a case as severe as his?? Is there any hope whatsoever?