Should I be worried?

[Heartmum2Jamie]

I have just been in the garage looking for a long stick or something that would help me get the rough toy cars out from under all the furniture!

Anyway, the garage is used as dh's office/music studio. He had a ruckack hanging up with his squash racket, seemed like a good enough stick to me. I reached the bag down....and a 1 lt empty bottle of carolans dropped out. I thought this was odd, especially as I only cleared away another 1 lt empty bottle of carolans when the shopping arrived this morning. I was already that he had opened the xmas booze 3 weeks before xmas. He has a computer bag hanging up as well, so i checked that and low & behold, an empty 75cl bottle of irish cream.

The bottle of irish cream and the extra bottle of carolans I had no idea about. I do our grocery shopping on the net and get it delivered and I KNOW that I didn't order them. Dh even tried to talk me into ordering a bottle of irish cream for this weeks shopping. I am glad I said no now.

Should I be worried. Perhaps I wouldn't be so worried if I just found the bottles, but the fact that he is hiding them is worrying to me. Perhaps it is my fault for storing all the booze on the shelving in the garage, as we never have room for it in the kitchen.

Also, should I confront him about it? We have 2 young boys and I would hate to see dh turn into an alcoholic.

[LemonTart]

You know him best. Without knowing his history and character, I would be suspicious. Is he under a lot of strain at the moment? Has he been known to drink heavily in the past. Certainly, secret boozing is not a good sign. However, are you sure these haven?t been hanging around for months and months and left over from recycling?
I would ask him about it casually without accusing him of anything specific and see what he says. Careful not to get him on the defensive and give him opportunity to open up without recrimination. I can imagine how embarrassing and difficult it could be if confronted by someone about this type of thing. Tread carefully but don?t ignore it - there might just be a genuine answer such as leftover recycling!

[3Ddonut]

It is a classic symptom - hiding bottles but why is he hiding empty bottles, if he didn't want to be found out, surely he'd have disposed of them by now? Maybe he just feels bad for drinking them before Christmas? Have you noticed him being drunk? Could it be he's drank them over a longer period of time? Good luck!

[Heartmum2Jamie]

Thanks for your replies. As far as I know, he shouldn't be under as much stress as we have been in the past. He has a new job that he enjoys and that actually pays the bills, ds2's health is fairly stable right now. I do include a bottle of wine a week in the shop for him, which he gets through in about 2 days. Sometimes he buys additional booze, sometimes not (that I know of)

It definatley isn't left over recycling as we keep the recycling in the kitchen. I think I know when he would have got them though. He took ds1 to tesco just over a week ago to get some odda and sods for xmas and he told me that he had to get extra stuff to get the deal on a christmas gift. I never questioned what extra things he bought, as it looked like just the usual milk, nappies etc.

I have now removed all the alcohol from the garage, I will make room for it in the kitchen if I have to. Now I need to think of something to say to him when he gets home.