Choosing Alcohol Over Your Relationship: Quotes to Inspire Sobriety

Words on Alcohol and Relationships to Motivate Sobriety

Do you live with an alcoholic husband or wife who is choosing alcohol over a healthy relationship? Is your significant other consistently seeking the solace of drinking rather than the rewards of a healthy relationship?

You know that your partner is sick. Still, they cause you fear and anxiety. The darkness of your problems drifts across your mind every day. Will the person make it home safe? Is staying the right choice? Will you live for a lifetime this way? Our hand-selected set of 20 ‘choosing alcohol over your relationship quotes’ will help you see that you’re not alone.

Many others live with a loved one who makes these poor choices. But that’s of little comfort when you have a partner struggling with alcoholism. May these words give you the strength to understand better how you can help your partner seek help.

But we also want to become a source of hope. Hope that your girlfriend, boyfriend, husband, or wife will choose love instead of addiction someday. At Icarus Behavioral Health, we care about everyone hurt by alcoholism. We have deep compassion for the person choosing darkness over light and for the man or woman behind the scenes, those whose lives are also in ruin because of drinking.

Read on. We will remind you about a healthy relationship and explain why your partner may rely on alcohol. We’ll leave you with those words of wisdom to give you strength and effective options for support at Icarus as well!

A Healthy Relationship Chooses Light Over Darkness

The metaphor about choosing light (happiness and joy) over the dark (alcoholism) perfectly captures the problems that arise when one person fights for a strong relationship while the other is too intoxicated to care.

When loved ones struggle with alcoholism, relationships are strained. They often sit on a razor-thin edge between frustration and despair. One misstep can mean plummeting the non-drinking partner into an abyss.

Even the strongest relationships don’t work when only one person puts in the time and effort. An alcoholic chooses temporary relief. They depend on their favorite drink to shield them from their problems. They might destroy their marriage or not – while drinking, they forget about all of their worries about these things. Drinking is the only thing that matters.

Putting Aside Selfish Pursuits and Achieving a Sustainable Partnership

Consistently choosing alcohol over a relationship creates an unsustainable life.

Relationships take work from each partner to succeed. If happier days are now memories, it’s time that your partner faces the consequences. They must choose. It is time for them to choose between giving up the booze for good or a future without you.

If you are reading this choosing alcohol over your relationship quotes and you are the one drinking, please reflect as you read. Consider the impact booze has on your relationship. You can get help to ease your pain and put down the bottle for good.

You deserve more than the pain.

Alcohol Can Only Provide Temporary Relief

Many who choose alcohol start drinking to replace pain with joy. They may have a mental health diagnosis; perhaps they don’t even know it. Others start to drink to forget about a pressing problem, at least for a little while. The relief is short, but the relationship is damaged.

Here’s some insight into the cycle that makes someone choose to be intoxicated instead of sober.

People develop Alcohol Use Disorder (AUD) because alcohol ups the release of dopamine in the brain. It creates a short-term boost in pleasurable sensations. With repeated use, it becomes the reward your brain seeks and craves.

The Illusion of Happiness at the Bottom of a Bottle

But that relief is fleeting. The body metabolizes alcohol relatively quickly, usually within a few hours. Developing tolerance to alcohol means you will eventually crave drinking more often and in larger volumes.

While alcohol can provide temporary relief, it’s never long-lasting. After drinking many who choose alcohol feel joy while drunk. But after it wears off and leaves a hangover, that feeling changes to guilt and regret.

How alcohol rewires the body and the brain’s reward system explains why someone starts choosing alcohol over your relationship. That may not make the pain hurt any less when your loved ones choose drink over you, but it sheds light on why they start to rely on booze for an escape.

Our Top 20 ‘Choosing Alcohol over Your Relationship Quotes’

You miss the warmth and true connection you once shared with your love. Instead of tender moments, you now exist in excuses and arguments. These quotes give insight into how you might feel.

Quotes About Recovery and Healing for Those Who Choose Alcohol

Having an alcohol use disorder forces one to deal with a cycle of highs while intoxicated, followed by regret afterward. In those sober moments, they realized they would ruin their life. But the pull of the poison is too strong. So they get caught in the loop of drink and destroy.

These quotes about realizing it’s time to choose recovery show that hindsight after recovering from alcohol addiction is 20/20:

(1)“When you quit drinking you stop waiting.”
― Caroline Knapp, Drinking: A Love Story

(2)“Whether I or anyone else accepted the concept of alcoholism as a disease didn’t matter; what mattered was that when treated as a disease, those who suffered from it were most likely to recover.”
― Craig Ferguson, American on Purpose: The Improbable Adventures of an Unlikely Patriot

(3) “There’s nothing inherently interesting about being a drunk — in fact, quite the contrary.”
― Heather King, Parched: A Memoir

(4) “Someone who is trying to be sober is often trying to work out deeper emotional issues and is attempting to undo years of habitual behavior. When you reduce recovery to just abstinence, it simplifies what is really a much more complex issue.”
― Sasha Bronner

(5) “Some patterns are dysfunctional and are here to stay – until you realise it’s time to change them.”
― Dr Nada Mirnik Trtnik, Adult Children of Alcoholics: A Self-Help Handbook

(6) “Alcohol is a far greater killer than all opiates. You can buy alcohol on any street corner throughout the world. It gets your brain, your liver. It destroys your morals, destroys your vitality, kills the sexual potential, and you become sluggish.
― Errol Flynn, My Wicked, Wicked Ways

(7) “You start drinking alcohol, then alcohol starts drinking you.”
― Tamerlan Kuzgov

(8) “The mentality and behaviour of drug addicts and alcoholics is wholly irrational until you understand that they are completely powerless over their addiction and unless they have structured help, they have no hope’” – Russell Brand

Quotes About Living With a Partner Who Always Seems to Choose Alcohol

Is your husband, wife, or significant other choosing alcohol over you? This destroys your happiness and confidence. When you urge them to stop, they make you feel hated. These choosing alcohol over your relationship quotes will put your feelings about this love connection into words:

(9) “If I am this capable of loving an alcoholic so much, imagine how awesome I could be at loving myself.”
― Grace W. Wroldson, So You Love an… Alcoholic?: Lessons for a Codependent

(10) “If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always gotten.”
–  Tony Robbins

(11) “One day you will tell your story of how you overcame what you went though and it will be someone else’s survival guide.”
– Brene Brown

(12) “To enable is to kill.”
― D.C. Hyden, The Sober Addict

(13) “Families in crisis have wrongly been labeled dysfunctional families. Families are not the problem—they are the opportunity. When we understand ourselves as the opportunity, we see our world with a new vision. We dare to hope for our dreams to materialize. We imagine once again what it will be like to be happy”
― Debra Jay, Love First: A Family’s Guide to Intervention

(14) “The term was ‘functional drunk,’ and as far as he was concerned, as long as he was functioning he was going to be drunk.”
― Jennifer Valoppi, Certain Cure: Where Science Meets Religion

Quotes About Restoring Love in Relationships After Alcohol

When one partner decides to drink, their judgment grows increasingly cloudy. They know it’s wrong to drink instead of showing love to their partner. But alcohol numbs the mind, prioritizing the poison over your passion. These choosing alcohol over your relationship quotes about the importance of sobriety can show how it takes forgiveness and emotional intelligence to embrace healing:

(15) “Sometimes two people have to fall apart to realize how much they need to fall back together.”
― Anonymous

(16) “This thing about you that you think is your flaw – it’s the reason I’m falling in love with you.”
― Colleen Hoover, Slammed

(17) “So it’s not gonna be easy. It’s going to be really hard; we’re gonna have to work at this everyday, but I want to do that because I want you. I want all of you, forever, everyday. You and me… everyday.”
― Nicholas Sparks, The Notebook

(18) “Anyone can love a thing because. That’s as easy as putting a penny in your pocket. But to love something despite. To know the flaws and love them too. That is rare and pure and perfect.”
― Patrick Rothfuss, from The Wise Man’s Fear

(19) “A strong relationship requires choosing to love each other, even in those moments when you struggle to like each other.”
― Anonymous

(20) “Love doesn’t make the world go ’round. Love is what makes the ride worthwhile.”
― Franklin P. Jones

10 Common Signs of Problem Drinking and/or an Alcohol Use Disorder

Here are some key signs of an alcohol problem:

• Family and friends notice or comment on the excessive drinking; they can’t stop with just a single glass of wine or cocktail.
• Someone may choose alcohol over quality time with those they love
• Trying to quit the booze but cannot
• Life revolves around the bottle; they may drink during the daytime or at night
• Denying the problem, insisting it’s under control (even when it’s not!)
• When not drinking, withdrawal symptoms set in, including shakiness, mood swings, sweating, headaches, insomnia
• Choosing to drink, even when it might hurt other physical health conditions
• Bad choices lead to legal problems or an arrest
• Drinking increasing amounts of alcohol
• Financial problems related to drinking; an inability to pay bills

Choosing alcohol over leading a healthier life can cause many things to go wrong. It degrades health. It can lead to legal problems like DUI charges and plenty of money problems as well. But worst, making booze a priority frequently causes the ruin of loving relationships.

Overcoming Alcoholism at Icarus Behavioral Health

Every client who comes to us is curious about what will happen when they arrive at our facility for alcohol recovery. Our goal for each is the same: a lifetime of recovery, free of alcoholism. However, we also know that every client struggling with addiction deserves a customized alcohol recovery program.

Here are a few ways we can help you get your life and relationships back from the edge of ruin and onto stable footing:

Medical Detox: The First Step to a New Life

Our programs for alcoholism will help you detox from the poison in your system. It starts with a medically supervised detox setting. One of the worst consequences of alcohol is its highly addictive nature. Detoxing at home, as the withdrawal as the alcohol leaves your system, can be severe.

Withdrawal symptoms from alcohol can include the following:

• Sweaty or clammy skin
• Changes in blood pressure and blood sugar levels
• Mood swings
• Alcohol withdrawal tremors (very dangerous!)

The specialized staff at Icarus will provide medications to help you through this phase, thus minimizing the impact of the alcohol metabolizing.

Evidence-based Therapy and Counseling (and Healing Relationships)

After detoxification, you will face the reason that caused you to start drinking in the first place through individual therapy. In group therapy sessions, you’ll also face the consequences and restore relationships with your loved ones. Drinking does not impact only the person with alcoholism. It can hurt a girlfriend, boyfriend, husband, wife, child, or parent. All who love you have been hurt; every relationship worth restoring can heal.

Aftercare Planning to Avoid Drinking in the Future

Finally, we help you come up with an alcohol relapse prevention plan to combat temptations. Before you leave, you’ll have a foundation for staying sober moving forward. You will learn to embrace positive activities and make new memories. You’ll learn the value of AA meetings for support. The past is history; it’s time for the future.

That’s only a quick sketch of what we offer you. If you’re ready to stop choosing the bottle over your relationship, let’s talk. It’s time to find yourself and begin fresh, free of alcohol.

Leaving Life as an Alcoholic Behind with the Help of Icarus

Right now, you or your partner may choose alcohol over your relationship. But life evolves, and things can improve. Beating alcohol addiction is possible with the proper treatment.

With our help, your friends and family will soon remember the person you used to be – and the one you can be again. The road to recovery is tough, but the Icarus staff will lead the way.

All it takes from you is to connect with us; let’s set a date for you to start treatment. Let’s talk about how you can make new memories – you are worth it.