Dear Libra,

This sounds like a clear case of WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) to me. This man has a full life. His life is full of people, a job, an addiction and mental illness and it seems to me he is living it.

You on the other hand are trying to make decisions about your life based on this other person’s comings and goings and progress and/or lack of progress and it is not hard to see this is going to lead you to nothing and nowhere.

Rather than focusing on what he is doing, it would be far more productive to focus on what you are doing – which as a double Libra may be a challenge so I will try to help.

You are doing what comes natural to Libra: you are trying to partner, though you are going about it all wrong. You are trying to decide (Libra) if you might be able to take this other person and see if you can’t fashion them (read control them) into something that will be suitable as a partner, which is never going to work.

This is particularly true of a psychotic, depressed, ADHD, disappearing, alcoholic Scorpio who has a bunch of women hanging around so yeah. If you want a partner which I think you do, I would look elsewhere.

Good luck.

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My natal Mars Mercury in the blunt 9th house sprung to life to defend (Saturn) against my fake alcoholism (Neptune).

First a boast:

“Drinking problem, huh? Well how about you ask anyone in the world if I am drunk, other than the person who made this claim and see what you find out? That ought to be amusing,” I said.

And then another boast:

“Well I’ll tell you something. For someone who drinks all the time I sure do show up sober all the time, have you noticed? I have been to all these meetings with you people and I’ve yet to slur a word. Why do you think that is? What might explain my sobriety? Can we think of anything? Jeez, man. I think you’ve been bamboozled, what do you think?” I challenged.

Problem is there are a good number of people (more civilized than me) who would imagine  a person would only talk to authority figures who hold your fate in their hands in such a manner after they’d had a couple drinks.

::smiles::

I stopped short of asking them if they would like to smell my breath although it did cross my mind.

pictured – The Absinth Drinker, 1901, Pablo Picasso

More on the saga – NC-17 content

I was faced with this question over the weekend. I have an alcoholic friend who recently hit bottom and found her way to AA. This is the first time she has ever shown up at their door. She has been in denial about the severity of her problem but when she hit bottom, she did so with such a thud, she was in a meeting the next day and she has been going regularly ever since.

I am very proud of her and understand enough about addiction to know her sobriety is precarious and I feel very protective of her. Actually, I feel very protective of anyone who is trying to right their life so when I found out someone in this gal’s inner circle was blabbing on her… well, what to do?

The gossip was revealing highly personal details about this gal’s last night drinking and the person who told me about it was snickering. He was mocking her which told me a lot about how this information was shared. It was catty. So do I call her and let her know?

I thought about this long and hard. You don’t want to jeopardize a person’s sobriety and I wondered if this was a case of, “What you don’t know won’t hurt you.” But on the other hand she’s got a fox in the henhouse, you know?

In the end I called her and she was terribly hurt. She told me she had been warned about this girl before but had overrode her better judgment… we all know how that goes.

It’s a few days later and today we spoke again. She said she dipped down pretty low, having the information but had steeled herself and said she now felt stronger and more resolved to be sober. I was greatly relieved.

I really don’t know that I did the right thing. But I realize with Mars conjunct Mercury in the righteous, up front and blurting 9th house, I really don’t have the capacity to look at a friend and withhold information that is pertinent to them. What about you?

If you know someone is talking (nasty) behind someone’s back, do you tell them? Why or why not?

Dear Woman,

I hate to throw dirt on your watery mess because it’s going to ruin it completely. But I guess you’re writing for a reality check, so here it comes.

You have an infant on your hands. You have a 31 year old man dependent on his biological mother, his other mother (you), and apparently looking for a third mom in the form of another woman.

When he gets busted and pisses off Mommy, he cries a few tears and you go right back to sacrificing your life, sitting in your apartment waiting for this baby to grow up when it is never going to happen. I am sorry but I don’t think you have a viable relationship here in any way shape or form. I appreciate how devastating it will be to read this because you are obviously deeply invested. However, someone has to say something because it is your life and it is going by.

As for what is going to happen here, it does not sound as if this guy has the least interest in getting sober, nor does he actually care about you. You tell me how he cares about you. Does he care by leaving you alone in an apartment while he sucks on his bottle at his mom’s? Does he care for you by cheating on you? And what are you up to anyway?

Why do you want to play mommy to an adult man? Never mind that he won’t let you check his phone. Why are you even willing to do something like that?

Let me ask you this: do you really think this is what you are supposed to do with your life? Were you born to baby-sit an alcoholic? I have a hard time with that. I don’t think that’s right. I think you have Venus opposite Neptune and the bottom line is, you are addicted to the addict. And I say forget about him and save yourself. Hit an Al-Anon meeting. Go in person, or go online… but go. Because this relationship is going nowhere and I can’t believe it ever will – so forget his sobriety and fight for your own.

Good luck.

~~
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Dear Woman,

Your man is doing all the classic alcoholic/abuser things and if you go back to him in any capacity, you will be doing all the classic co-dependent/abuse victim things. So is this what you want? I don’t think so. But you need support. Because what you are trying to do is very challenging. And I’ll get to that, but first let me answer your questions…

Yes, it is possible someone can recover from this level of pathology – but I would imagine it might take five years (give or take) of diligent effort consistently applied and the odds this guy is going to do that are virtually ZERO.

And you can loop around with him as long as you like. I am sure he will go ’round with you as many times as you will allow but personally, he sounds ultra-dangerous to me and I would urge you not just to stay away from him, but to take any means possible to secure your safety.

Because he’s choking you, okay? And he’s probably in blackout when he does it. Who knows! He’s in an altered state. He is out of control. And your showing up at a session with a therapist is going to do nothing but waste your time. Don’t you have enough problems? I think you do.

We’re talking about a 45 year old man, here. You don’t think he can figure it out? You think it’s your job to figure it out for him? I disagree.

Look. Get yourself hooked up with Al-Anon. Get yourself hooked up with support for battered women. Get yourself this excellent book with a very stupid and misleading title, "Getting Them Sober"because it is the best book in the entire world for a woman like you (read the reviews).

If you have trouble finding Al-Anon in Costa Rica, you can participate online here: Al Anon Family Group Message Board

Good luck.

~~
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Dear Girlfriend,

The Hail Mary play is to leave him, since you’ve tried everything else. But I’m not sure I’m the person you should be talking to. I’m not sure I can give you the motivation to leave your boyfriend, but I have an idea where you might find it.

Why don’t you talk to some of these gals who write me, who have spent twenty and thirty years with some guy who can’t or won’t meet their needs? The women who have starved themselves for decades instead of just a mere eight years like you? Ask them what they advise. Because I did something similar and it sure worked for me. Here’s the story.

I had let myself go, pretty severely. Never mind why, it’s not important. Fact is this happened, and one day I decided to try to do something about it, so I went (back) to the gym.

I used to work out, see. But I’d quit after I had children and by the time I walked back in there, I was a real mess. And I felt ashamed… sort of like you might feel if you left your man tomorrow. You know. “Look how old I am and just look at the shape I’m in…”

But I went in there and first thing I did was look around. I looked specifically at the women who were ten or fifteen years older than me and you know what I saw? I saw women who took care of themselves and some of them looked damned good. I saw other women who looked nothing less than desperate. You know. Like their doctor had just told them, “Get your ass in the gym, or you’re going to die.”

I decided right then, which group I wanted to be part of it and the rest is history. I am a gym rat now. And this is my Capricorn talking to yours: I know you’re standing at the bottom of a very tall mountain. But you were born to climb. And I saw a movie this weekend, ‘American Flyers”. It was about bicycling and extreme sports in general, but there was a slogan featured in this movie, emblazoned across a T-shirt: RES FIRMA NITESCERE NESCIT.

According the movie, roughly translated, this means “When You Get It Up – Keep It Up,” and this sounds like a pretty good philosophy to me, so I’m going to pass it to you as my advice: Get your life moving and once you do, keep it moving. If you are meant to be with this man, he’ll catch up.

Good luck.

~~
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