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s0406110 · 4 years

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Documenting Daniel Cho’s Substance Addiction, Anger Problems, and Sexist Tendencies

An account of the problems our relationship has endured. Any photos will appear at the end of the post.

Since I began dating Daniel Cho in October 2015, I have been a first-hand witness to his sexism, anger problems, and substance use disorder with both marijuana and alcohol. Of course, occasional recreational use of some types of drugs is not a problem in my opinion. I have categorized it as such according to the following definition:

“Substance use disorder occurs when a person's use of alcohol or another substance (drug) leads to health issues or problems at work, school, or home. Children who grow up seeing their parents using drugs may have a high risk of developing substance use problem later in life for both environmental and genetic reasons.“ (Citation: https://medlineplus.gov/ency/article/001522.htm)

By his suggestion, we started drinking as a way to bond when we first dated. There was no problem at the time, as we had both legally were able to drink not too long ago, and binge drinking was “to be expected” as typical college students. It was fun, it was new, and nothing stood out as excessive. A downside to us dating and having fun was that we had poor judgement and often had sex without protection. He did not like condoms and I wanted to make him happy, so I would regularly take Plan B.

The first sign of alcohol abuse was when he had drank himself into a depressed mood, and called me. At the time, we were not together yet, I had my doubts about his personality, and we were long distance dating. He pleaded and cried into the phone, asking why I wouldn’t be his girlfriend. I was exasperated, not knowing how to deal with this situation, not knowing why he decided to binge drink hard alcohol by himself, in his room, in his parents’ house. I had never met anyone before who would purchase hard alcohol to get drunk by himself.

The first sign of marijuana abuse was when we went on a date to a nearby park. We had been hanging out in the parking lot in his car, when he began having breathing problems. For exactly 1 hour, he struggled to take deep breaths while I sat there watching him. Smoking was and had clearly been irritating his lungs. Despite this, he continued to smoke excessively.

We eventually became boyfriend and girlfriend, and continued our constant drinking habits. By this point, it was whenever we were able to meet up with each other, as I was in Davis and he was in Buena Park, ranging from once a month or every few months. When I moved down to Socal after I graduated, I lived in my grandparents’ house temporarily. We met up much more often now that the long distance was over, and thus drank much more. We also took recreational drugs such as marijuana and MDMA once in a while usually by his prompt (but sometimes by mine); we were on top of the world. Our relationship at this point had no problems regarding power or gender; he seemed like a regular modern-day feminist, but with chivalrous tendencies. At the back of my mind, I did have a thought that he was someone who was easily addicted to substances, but it did not seem a problem at the time.

I moved out to an apartment in Anaheim in August 2017, and stayed in a 2-bedroom with Mindy. At the time, Daniel was not allowed to move out, as his father threatened to not pay his tuition. Therefore, he came over almost daily, and we continued our drinking habits. The drinking, the sedentary lifestyle, and the emotional burden of being with him had now caused my body to balloon to a weight I had never been. Now that I lived with someone else, I became a bit wary and embarrassed of drinking so often. Mindy even pointed out that we were drinking so much. The increased drinking may have had something to do with how I was concerned how often we were taking MDMA and quit cold turkey, but may also have nothing to do with it. At this point, Daniel and I were very comfortable with each other, had a lot less of the highs and more lows, and as we were both constantly drunk and were both fiery people, we fought a lot and loudly. I often felt apologetic to Mindy for having to endure living with us. I also did not know I could turn into a mean person when I drank, and apologized every time I got that way. Alcohol also could bring out the mean side in him, and it became a guessing game to see if getting drunk that night would result in happiness, me being mean to him, or him being mean to me. I began attempting to reconcile differences between Daniel and I during fights by setting up rules to abide by, such as not using hand gestures, not raising our voices, etc. I tried navigating the conversation, taking particular care to make it a point when the topic began to stray. It was a new thing for both of us, and of course was not perfect at the beginning, but it was definitely beginning to help. Of course, I had a problem with interrupting him talking, but it was a growing process for both of us. We were both failing, but becoming better at working at it, and it was not getting as quite out of hand when we got drunk.

April 2019, our arguments had been increasing and consistently escalating the more our differences presented themselves. The stress of the arguments had taken a huge toll on our relationship, and he found himself constantly angry while I was constantly sad. The depression I went through in high school due to an unrelated incident had begun coming back. He had started growing tired of me trying to control the arguments (mindset of “I don’t want to do what she says because she’s not consistently following it either”). One day during an argument, he suddenly stated, “I want you off the birth control.” His explanation was that he had heard from a friend, Angela, that her birth control caused her hormonal imbalance which caused her to feel crazy. I was shocked and confirmed with him that he knew what he was saying. He stood by his stance, and the argument ended. I confronted Angela secretly, and she was taken aback by his words as well. She assured me her experience was purely her own, that she was just asking him to think of the possibility it was a factor in our arguments, but she did not suggest or remotely backs his decision to tell me to quit birth control. I was angered and speechless at his behavior. While I did not believe birth control had anything to do with it, I had been wanting to switch BC methods (I was using Nexplanon and had been told it shouldn’t be a long-term method, and I had been looking into the IUD). I then began making plans to switch without letting him know. I booked an appointment with an OBGYN that month and went in for a check up and an analysis. During this check up, I found out how much I weighed (146 lbs, up from weighing consistently 115 lbs throughout high school and early college years) and that my blood pressure had been fairly high. We discussed available IUD options, decided on the Mirena, and removed my Nexplanon. I went home, and decided to then tell Daniel only about removing my birth control, per his wish. He instantly became angry, and asked me why I did not consult him about removing it first. I was stunned again into speechlessness. I had grown up learning that a woman’s body is her own, that women are empowered to do what they want, and that men accept and endorse this. The conversation ended, and I told him within a day or two that I was switching to another method and having no birth control was a temporary thing and I would resume mid-May. He was relieved, but still vocalized his unhappiness that I did not consult him first. I was devastated. Not only was this way of thinking an outrage, I did not appreciate that he was speaking openly of our problems to other people; I deeply preferred professional help, was wary that friends or family would lead us astray, and have told him this sentiment before. To “get back” at him, I decided to divulge this problem to my friend You You, who was even more shocked at his behavior. While I felt justified in how I felt, I still did not speak on it at this point, but later brought it up at least weeks later. I told him there are certain things that are not available for discussion, including birth control, and I was deeply offended at the things he had said to me. He then apologized for it, and became bitter if I brought it up in the future, but at this point, I had a nagging inkling that sexism was deep-rooted in his upbringing and would continue to show itself. I must note that after discontinuing use of BC and also using another method of BC did not affect how I react/speak in arguments, not that it matters.

In May 2019, I moved out of the Anaheim apartment and into a Brea 1-bedroom unit. Within a month, Daniel had moved in with me. Now that we were together 24/7, his substance abuse became evident to me. He smoked marijuana multiple times a day, whether it was multiple bowls of leaf or multiple hits of wax. His lungs were bad since he was a child from a persistent asthma, and did not seem much better now unless he stopped smoking for an extended period of time. My friend Linda had slept over one night and had commented on how much he smoked weed (considering she was the friend I considered to be the biggest partier in college). I remember telling him to stop smoking as much throughout our relationship, with little success occurring. One conversation we had, I recall him saying he knew I wanted him to stop smoking, but if I had treated him better, he would have been able to quit.

We were also still drinking excessive amounts of alcohol. I knew how it was affecting my health and my job performance, but I let myself continue. (Some days I would show up to work extremely hungover, but would be too nauseous to be able to work and had to take a sick day. Some days, I persisted through the hangover, and would vomit in the bathroom. My stool was also regularly painful and watery.) By now, I was chasing a high that was usually fleeting, or would not even present itself. As a larger male, Daniel was able to handle his alcohol much better than me, and gained little weight and experienced little hangover. Apparently he had gone in for a check up, and his body was functioning perfectly fine. I do not know if he is unaware or simply in denial of the consequences alcohol has on a body with extended repeated use, such as with cigarettes, but he claims nothing will happen to him.

On 1/2/2020, the first police incident occurred. His cousin Yerin had come from South Korea for a visit. I decided to invite her over to the apartment after a day out in LA. As she was not visiting for much longer, I wanted her to have a typical American college party experience. The attendees were Daniel, his sister Sarah, Yerin, my friend Sean, and myself. We played Rage Cage, Beer Pong, and a drinking card game. Throughout the night, Daniel drank the most, but he was able to control his attitude and seemed fine to all of us. As the night was winding down, he seemed to have fallen asleep on a chair. We all helped him to the bedroom into bed, and returned to hang out in the living room. Upon hearing noises from the bedroom, I went to check on him and found him on the floor moaning. I asked Sean for help to put him back on the bed, but Daniel began acting strangely. He grabbed a nearby stool and began shaking it violently. He resisted Sean’s help and flew into a rage. He ran outside to the patio and seemed to collapse on the patio couch. As it was a chilly night, and he seemed incomprehensible, we decided to let him be for a little bit. However, he began yelling at the top of his lungs, and as we did not want him to disturb the neighbors, we decided to pull him back inside. He began yelling threats at us, that he would kill us, and I suddenly became afraid for our lives. All 4 of us tried pinning him down and quieting him, but he would not. The only way I was able to get him to stop yelling for a second was by choking him until he began to gag. Once he began gagging, I immediately let go and he would gasp for air. Once his airway was no longer blocked, he would begin screaming again. I repeated this several times, but we were all becoming exhausted and panicked. I ran to the bedroom and closed it, and searched the rooms for his guns. I found what I could and put them in the bathtub. Then I called 911 and asked for help, letting the operator know our address, his situation, and that there were weapons on premise. Once I was done calling for help, the cops had arrived. I went back in the living room and saw that Daniel had begun vomiting all over the floor and over a blanket his sister had shoved in his mouth to keep him from yelling. 3 to 4 cops had pinned him on the floor, and he seemed to have passed out. We provided all the information we could, and the cops searched the apartment for the guns. Finally the ambulance arrived, and as they began moving him onto a stretcher, he regained his drunken consciousness and began resisting and cussing out police and medical staff alike. They transported him to the ER at the nearest hospital in Yorba Linda, and we quickly followed suit with Sean driving. Once he was done being checked on by hospital staff, we were allowed to see him. He was sleeping soundly in the bed, and we did not receive any information about his blood alcohol percentage, or anything else for that matter besides “he shouldn’t have been binge drinking.” The rest of our party decided to go rest back at my apartment for the night while I stayed with him in the ER. After a few hours of allowing him to sleep, a doctor came over and tried to rouse him. Daniel woke up looking disoriented, saw the handrails of the hospital bed, and began violently shaking it. As he was clearly not back to a regular mental state, they allowed him to go back to sleep. Yet another few hours later, he woke up by himself. Now, he was back to normal and asked me why he was there. I explained the situation briefly, and he suddenly appeared to be angry (possibly a byproduct of being ashamed of himself?). He realized he was sitting in clothes he had wet himself in, and it took quite a long time for the doctor to arrive to release him. I was taken aback at how short his temper was, especially when he was in a position that should have humbled him to his senses. The doctor tells him to stop binge drinking and hands him an info packet about moderating drinking. Once he was allowed to leave and Sean picked us up, we all took turns berating him on his behavior the last night. He sat there stunned as he listened to our accounts, and was bewildered by how he was not sent to jail. I had not considered that probability, but as I’m writing this today, I wish the kind police had not shown such mercy. After that night, I thought I was going to break up with him the next day. However, the care and love Sean, Sarah and Yerin showed him after he returned the next day made me question myself... shouldn’t I be showing him an unconditional love as well? I shrugged off the thought. Everyone leaves and he tosses aside the info packet without taking a further look. Again, I’m stunned at this behavior... it’s going to be filled with stupid information of course... but where was his remorse?

Because this traumatic incident was so fresh on our minds, I told Daniel to stop drinking for at least 6 months. At first, he made excuses and tried to convince me otherwise, then unwillingly obliged... but not for long. Within a month, he was back to drinking excessively, and tried to hide it from me. We had a fairly full bottle of vodka from that night that I put away in our bedroom. I arrived home one day and noticed his behavior was very strange. He was easily irritated by me, and seemed to not remember what he had just said or done. It dawned on me that he was drunk and I asked him thus. He said he did not and continued to act haphazardly with me. I went into the bedroom and the bottle of vodka confirmed my suspicion - it was nearly depleted with perhaps 1/4 of the bottle remaining. I brought the bottle out and waved it in his face and asked him again if he had drank. He continued to blatantly lie... to my dismay.

I’m unsure of when, but we received our second police visit shortly after, this time unwarranted. We had both drank alcohol that night and had gotten into an argument. He was back to his own ways of using dominating body movements, raising his voice, being generally hard to deal with, and I had gotten sick of it. I stopped using my calm voice and stopped trying to navigate the conversation, as I usually do. I screamed back at him. Our neighbors had heard my screaming for the first time (obviously they had heard him yelling all the past times and thought nothing of it) and mistook it as me being the victim of domestic violence. The police arrived and talked to us separately to assess the situation. They told us to give each other space for that night, so we did. After that day, I vowed to quit drinking as a pastime with him.

After repeated pleas to stop drinking hard alcohol, to try to adjust him to not needing to get drunk by drinking beers with him, I have found nothing works. He has gone back to his way of thinking that he wants to get drunk, that his drinking has nothing to do with me, and that I was “acting like a parent” and had no right to tell him what to do. He expresses that he would never let that incident happen again, that he can manage his drinking, and that as long as he is not blackout drunk, he is a person whose behavior is not causing any problems. However, the moment he begins drinking hard alcohol, he gets extremely loud, cusses much more, and his mood becomes bipolar. I was tired of the alcoholic arguments, the repeated constant cycles of highs and lows, my own irregular mood while drunk, and decided to try to wean myself off of alcohol. As of June 2020, I have stopped using alcohol as a distraction, and no longer partake with him (I do drink a tiny bit if someone comes to visit us), while he continues his regular daily use.

Recent arguments have begun sounding similar with one main theme: I was not doing something that pleased him. Examples include using a word “incorrectly,” causing him to misunderstand me. Once he figured out how I was using a word, he would fly into a fury, telling me to stop using the word wrong, and becoming further enraged when I told him that’s just how I use the word. Another example is disagreeing with a way of thinking, and telling me how I think is wrong and that I need to change it. To put these things into perspective, we were discussing a recent episode of Terrace House. I casually mentioned the difference between the basketball player and the comedian was that the basketball player had succeeded in his career goals (he was playing professionally and had been playing since he was a child) and the comedian was a failure (the comedian had just begun his journey, but was severely tone deaf in what funny was). He immediately began to focus on my use of the word “failure,” and asked for my reasoning. Having been with him for long enough, I could tell this conversation was not going to lead to anything productive, and I asked him to drop it. This only further infuriates him, so I end up explaining my point - that someone who is not funny cannot magically become funny through practice. The comedian’s skits were obviously replicated from something that had made himself laugh, but he himself had never said anything funny. Upon hearing my explanation, Daniel sees this as an in to create an argument, and tells me why I’m wrong. He says the comedian had only just begun the journey to be a comedian, that the comedian had benefited from comedy when he was in a dark place and wanted to inspire others, and in no way was a failure. I tried to explain that this was merely what I thought, that I didn’t want to even talk about this in the first place, and that I still think the comedian was a failure. What Daniel got from this was: I was using the word failure incorrectly, my opinion of the comedian was incorrect, I need to change how I thought and talked to match what he thought and said, and that I was just too stubborn to believe him.

More and more of the way he treats me and the way he deals with his problems have begun reflecting his parents’ dynamic. According to his sister Sarah, his father had always been a heavy drinker, and I have heard from Daniel that he used to be a heavy cigarette smoker. When we were dating early on, Daniel said his father would go out with friends and drink, and arrive home when everyone was sleeping and vomit in the guest bathroom to avoid waking his wife. Sarah stated that while he drank a lot in the past, he has gotten better recently (past few years only) and does not drink quite as much anymore. Also, Daniel’s mother is someone who both Daniel and Sarah agrees has “given up” and listens to the father in whatever he wants.

Normal small arguments I think I would have been able to deal with more efficiently and more succinctly, but I had never encountered this domineering attitude in my life. I understand wanting to convince someone, especially your partner, that your point is right, but to go as far as to use your position and power to demand you to change was too much. I began trying this tactic: first explaining that we both have our own viewpoints, that we don’t need to agree with each other and that we can live with each other and still respect our disagreeing opinions. When that didn’t work (and often triggered him further), I was now weak-willed and would begin apologizing and agreeing with him because I was weary of fighting, not being heard, and just wanted to be on his good side again. After a few times of utilizing this method, he began saying something new: that I need to just stop and listen to him, because after being stubborn and defending my point, I would realize he was right and come to terms with how wrong I was. I was shocked, but I understood where he came from... if I was choosing to apologize, of course it seemed like I admitted defeat. I stopped using this half-assed method to end arguments and stopped agreeing with him just to soothe him. As of today, our arguments go unresolved. He has not agreed to my multiple requests to see a couples therapist. They begin by him getting mad at me for some reason, my unwillingness to agree with him, and we end up giving each other the silent treatment when an argument occurs. My depression has gotten at an all time low, and my search results are filled with looking up how to resolve issues, how to deal with a person with anger issues, how to deal with someone with addiction, how to deal with my own depression.

None of this excuses my poor behavior, my actions, my threats towards him. I am a human who gets angry easily, who has OCD and can’t control my nagging, and I make mistakes. I did used to threaten him that I would break up if he did not do x. I did tell him to leave when I was unhappy. I did use my “power” as the person whose name is on the bills. I am not saying I’m perfect, and that it is easy to live with me. However, nothing I have done is to the extent that he has, and I am not addicted to anything that has threatened our relationship, or the people around me. Out of helplessness, I have begun documenting his drinking habits, and may do so with the marijuana if it begins posing a problem to anyone besides him. As of now, only a few people know about what occurred in January, and only his sister Sarah knows about me pleading with him to stop buying hard alcohol. I do not want to break up with him. I see a wonderful person in him who I get along with exceedingly well. I still find him attractive, I still get butterflies, I still love him, but I do keep wondering if God is showing me all the signs, and I’ve been ignoring Him.

Post first written: June 2, 2020 Last updated: June 6, 2020

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