Please advise - one of my boyfriend's alters drinks.

Hi. I would love to get your thoughts or advice with this.

My boyfriend and I are both about forty. We've been together a year and a half. Last year we tried to start a family, but our babies had severe genetic problems. We lost both of them. In the terrible grief that followed, my boyfriend's alters came out to me. He has no co-consciousness and thinks that he was asleep the whole time, so he doesn't perceive any missing time. But I have spent hours with his head on my lap talking to (I think) four children.

Twelve is angry and rude, but also begs me not to leave and wants to be held.
Nine is sweet and tells on Twelve.
Six doesn't want to go to daycare and hints of molestation. He likes soccer.
The baby feels so alone he wants to die.

When they first came out, I was so confused. Fortunately, I had just done a ton of inner child work with my shrink, so I figured that it is always ok to tell them they are loved and safe and I just repeated that over and over.

Now I have three major worries.

1. My boyfriend doesn't really buy in to all this. He believes me (and I got some of it on voice recorder), and is going to my (pretty good, EMDR) therapist. But he doesn't notice missed time, and his littles only come out in sleep or when we are deep in grief. So he isn't consistent about trying to comfort them or heal them. The littles do not trust him one bit and won't talk to him. They do like me, I believe.

2. Twelve drinks. He would drink a lot if he could. He tells me so. We find empty bottles that my boyfriend swears he never drank (which I believe). My boyfriend comes from a family of alcoholics. He is sometimes willing to stay sober for weeks, but Twelve drinks and we're back in it. The littles mostly come out when my boyfriend's body is drunk. I've told them that they can talk to me any time and I'll hold them anytime, that they don't have to be drunk. But that hasn't done anything.

3. We are going to try to conceive again. But it is so hard on us now. I think his littles want a baby so much, but we've already lost two and I'm scared to disappoint them. They keep talking about the dead babies. Now we dread ultrasounds, where we got the terrible diagnoses and I am scared that the dread and pressure and fear will make his whole system worse. But we are too old to wait for a couple years of therapy to help my boyfriend.

If you have advice, I would love help. The primary problem right now is Twelve's drinking. (Sometime's Twelve brags about how much he can drink and how stupid I am that I can't tell. Sometimes Twelve lies to my face about the drink. But come on. No one else here chugged the Triple Sec.)

Thank you.

Situation normal. Utterly typical, in fact. Many of the DID memoirs by men feature alcoholism.

Alcohol is standard naive self-medication for DID and many other problems. That is how they imagine they keep the system under control most of the time. But when they drink too much, that is when the insiders are able get out. Your boyfriend's insiders normally only come out at night when he is drunk and sleeping.

Even if your boyfriend's host personality is not an alcoholic, clearly at least one alter in his system is. That means for now at least you may want to treat him (collectively) as an alcoholic. Get rid of all the alcohol in the house, or put a lock on the liquor cabinet and hide the key from your BF's entire system. Is Twelve capable of switching out in order to buy alcohol? If so, you may have to take other steps. The big problem with alcoholism and DID is that the alter who drinks to excess generally does not experience the consequences of that behavior. Also, like any inexperienced teenager, a juvenile alter who does not get out much has no real grasp of the risks involved and may drink to the point of lethal acute intoxication, and actually kill himself.

Please take this very seriously.

My condolences on your pregnancy losses. I have BTDT. I don't know what the public health statistics are, but based on first hand accounts of my own mommy circle, of all babies conceived about half are lost in the first trimester. To maximize the likelihood of a healthy baby, it may help for your BF to stop drinking altogether. Would his alters be willing to contribute to doing that?

I've gotten rid of the alcohol in the house. I wouldn't know if Twelve can buy, because he sneaks his drinks. It took me a year to figure out what was happening in our own house. I can't say what is happening outside the house. I doubt it, but am not coming to any conclusions anymore.

But if Twelve is self-medicating, how do I help with the pain that is driving him to self-medicate? I figure that's the real problem. I don't see the insiders often (when my boyfriend is drunk or asleep) and my boyfriend doesn't wholeheartedly want to work through the pain, to clear it for them. So it is slow.

Situation normal. Utterly typical, in fact. Many of the DID memoirs by men feature alcoholism.

Alcohol is standard naive self-medication for DID and many other problems. That is how they imagine they keep the system under control most of the time. But when they drink too much, that is when the insiders are able get out. Your boyfriend's insiders normally only come out at night when he is drunk and sleeping.

hm, that is an interesting thought. We have a DID friend who drinks too, and I always thought that it was just one of his alters who does - but if this is true then that means that a system with, say, a host in denial would actually have a collective interest in getting drunk, because then the insiders can express themselves.

Do you have any idea how to handle such a situation? Just staying off the alcohol at the present stage doesn't seem to help them, because then it is just the host who is barely able to hold a conversation when he's cut off - so to some extent, it is almost necessary for them to drink.

Ruby

From all that I have read, the recommended best practice is for the person to get into treatment for alcoholism and any other drug addictions, then once they are clean and sober begin to work on the trauma and dissociation.

They may not know this, but the alters can learn how to come out without the alcohol. They do not require it.

They may not know this, but the alters can learn how to come out without the alcohol. They do not require it.

We'll let them know

Ruby