Can a relationship/family realistically survive alcoholism intact?

@Autumnleavesfalling23 with the best will in the world, your perception of what is normal drinking is completely distorted. One bottle of wine a day is loads, never mind three. Yes, the timing of it is disturbing - but the quantities he drinks are also very concerning. It's enough for him to die young.

You don’t think three bottles of wine a day is loads?

Personally, I would be giving him an ultimatum. It’s the alcohol or his family. He’s trying to keep both with these half-hearted measures.

My father was an alcoholic. I have no tolerance for this sort of thing in my life. Not to be confused with empathy. I think it must be awful to be an addict. But that doesn’t mean you should allow the addict to ruin yours and your children’s lives too.

Can i just ask (as im in a similar position to you op). How much does he drink that you know of?

@Autumnleavesfalling23 no, it isn't. I am so sorry you're coming face to face with the deceit and manipulation of the addict. This is how they operate. Their addiction is in charge. After my late husband was made to leave by the police, my DC and I found bottles everywhere. Including in coat and trouser pockets, his t shirt and sock drawers and in shoes he didn't wear. Secret drinking is the biggest of red flags. It's time to act. His rock bottom doesn't matter - let this be yours, put yourself and your children first.

My husband is an alcoholic. We had years of the cycle of him drinking so much something bad would happen, he'd feel awful about it and give up drinking, then it was "moderation" ("I'll only drink two pints while out / just one with dinner / I won't order my first drink til 10pm so I can't see drink too much") then it would creep up and up until he was staying up til 4am drinking whatever he could find in the house.
It wasn't until the most recent awful incident that he finally realised he can never drink again. Ever. He has committed to this now and is 3 years sober. It's not easy and I don't know if he will ever drink again, but he knows there is no wiggle room in this for him, it has to be zero alcohol forever or he knows it will escalate again.

We are lucky he didn't die last time he got drunk. The "what if"s still make me shudder.

Unless your husband can accept he is an alcoholic and recovery = no alcohol again ever, you will be likely stuck in the same cycle.

I hope you all find a way forward

I’m so sorry OP. It looks like it’s not going to change at the moment.

A PP mentioned al-anon. Have a look and reach out to people who have similar experiences as you. I'm sorry but no one can say what the future holds, but I understand the want to have hope that everything will be OK. Relapses are often part of recovery and I wouldn't write him off for this, but, and it's a big but, he needs to have the desire to want to stop. There's no single right or wrong way to address addiction but the successful ones are the ones who accept that they can't use safely. Ever. I still attend meetings every week because that's what works for me. There's also smart recovery as an AA alternative, CBT and so on. The best thing you can do is start your own recovery journey. It's a family disease and a family recovery but everyone needs to be on the same page x

Unless he is prepared to accept that he is powerless to alcohol and willing to give it up for life then things will only get worse.

Don't put yourself or your kids through a life of navigating someone else's addiction.
It becomes all consuming and truly wastes your own time.

You have to battle your own co dependant behaviour living with an addict and you will become a shell of yourself.

Take it from someone who should have taken their own advice sooner

I'm so sorry you're having to go through this.

No, he needs to leave now and don't let him take the car. This isn't going to get better without external help and you can't help him, no matter how hard to try.

He's obviously still in denial about his drinking if he still thinks he can control it by cutting down and have the occasional drink. Until he accepts that he can never drink any alcohol ever again, he's not going to begin the process of recovery.

If he has intensive treatment in a specialist Rehab unit, in a couple of years he could maybe come back home but you're better off legally separating for now.

A lot of alcoholics take several attempts before they can start to recover. You don't need the stress of trying to stop him relapsing, because if he's not there yet, he will find a way to drink regardless and you and the family will suffer too, every time he relapses.

This isn't a situation he can solve in a few weeks. It's a very long process. He needs to be able to not reach for that crutch when life is tough.

My DH is 30+ yrs sober and is ok with having booze in the house and not touching it. I met him when he was 10yrs in recovery and luckily I'm not interested in drinking as alcohol such as wine tends to make me physically sick.

He sounds a long way away from real recovery if he still is aiming to enjoy drinking moderately.
I don’t know what he’s getting from AA meetings because that is not the message at all.

It can be possible for marriages to survive but it requires total commitment to recovery/abstinence and therapy from the alcoholic as a start.

Also don’t underestimate your own resentment or damage from this. Sometimes it’s when the alcoholic is “better” and you stop having to be the strong, reliable one all the time, that the feelings of trauma and anger come out. All the anxiety you pack away to get about functioning comes flooding back and it can be hard to forgive.

It can be done but I think it requires a ton of commitment and therapeutic help and he’s not really at the start line yet.

The other thing to consider OP is the drinking that you don't know about.

The secret drinking. Bottles hidden all over the place, in the car, office, shed etc etc
I would bet that bottle of wine wasn't all he'd drunk. Wine conceals vodka consumption

Alcoholics lie as easily as they draw breath - they are lying to themselves as much, if not more, than to others.

He says he doesn't want to stop drinking. He's in denial about his alcoholism and not ready to start stopping.

He has already broken trust by drink driving with the children in the car.
That's the line crossed and you should not accept it.

And I agree - you cannot do anything. You can only accept that it has to come from him. You can decide to live alongside that or not but there is nothing you can do to persuade him. Sadly.

I think alcoholism is incredibly difficult. I do know someone who has been sober for decades but he still attends AA a number of times every week. He still recognises he is an alcoholic.

Others I know do the more typical thing of relapsing, stopping, relapsing and it is anyone’s guess whether it stays as that or progresses.

I think at the moment it sounds as if you dh hasn’t fully accepted he is an alcoholic and that will make relapse far more likely. But even if he does come to that realisation there is still no guarantee that he will not drink again. Only you know whether you can live with that uncertainty and the impact that will have on you.

I’m sorry, alcoholism really is a bastard and destroys the lives of so many - I’m including families in that as well as the alcoholic.

You have zero chance of having a happy life with an alcoholic who thinks they can still drink. Zero. It's impossible.

The drink is of greater importance to him than his family. I wish it wasn't the case but it's the truth.

Getting him put of the road for drink driving is the best think you can actually do for him, your family and everyone else on the roads.

The hope will also destroy you. Living off the very few positive moments and hoping thinks will improve.

The only alcoholics I have ever seen manage to stay sober are those who really wanted it themselves and had come to the realisation by themselves and we prepared to put in the work and maintain the effort every single day of their life.

I'm not saying he'll never get to the point but until he does, there isn't a chance in hell.

There are too many ifs here…
even if he recovers and goes to meetings and never drinks again he might find that you are the toxic element he needs to cut out because of your codependency.

also yoj will never be able to trust him.

I grew up in an alcoholic home and later married someone who became addicted to substances and the lies and all the self doubt through all those years killed whatever love there initially was.

Can you even attend AA if you have made a conscious decision to still drink? I thought AA was for abstinence (whilst supporting relapses?)

He has to stop drinking, it's the only way.

If your DH commits to sobriety then you may have a fighting chance.

An alcoholic who still wants to drink means he's going to drag you all down with him.

A few weeks off the drink will only lead to bigger and more serious relapses. Alcoholics either stop drinking or they drink more. They very rarely manage to moderate or have a healthy relationship with alcohol.

Your kids probably know how bad things are and they'll definitely know how bad things will get.

You need to agree as a couple to:
a) Sell his car, if he has his own car
b) Take him off your car insurance
c) Voluntarily surrender his licence.

Or d) short cut all of the above by reporting him to the police on a night when you have good reason to believe that he is drink driving.

The risks are just too high otherwise - please think seriously about the risks to innocent people.

This is when you should have thrown him out.

He knows you'll put with anything after this,

Protect your kids.

I agree with the others. There really is no accomodation with alcoholism. It's a progressive disease and it relies on denial (and self-denial). The only way there is any hope of you remaining intact as a family is if he is prepared to stop, completely. At present he isn't prepared to make that sacrifice.

I think you have no choice but to leave. At the moment he (or more accurately his alcoholism) is in the driving seat. You're in a constant state of walking on eggshells worrying he will drink/will drink drive/break your trust. The power is with him and there's nothing you can do except worry and beg and plead with him not to do it. The only way to get that control back is to remove this from the equation of your life. It may be that this gives him the impetus to stop for good, but you can't count on this happening.

Families can "survive" alcoholism technically in the sense that they can get through it. Millions do: my dad was a high functioning alcoholic. He drank every day but never to the point where he lost a job or anything like that. But we all knew when he was drinking - it made him arrogant and irascible and he would start pointless arguments with everyone. My mum lived in a constant state of fear of what he would do at social events because he was constantly falling out with people and making a twat of himself.

I got to a point where the only way I could survive it was just to never spend evenings with him because I knew he would be drinking, so I was just never at home in the evenings after the age of about 14. I "survived": I didn't go off the rails, I went through school and university have a normal life and a good job and I never fell out with him. But I didn't thrive because I had to "fence off" a big part of my relationship with my father and basically make sure I was never around him when he was drinking.

And that's a relatively benign example of alcoholism in a family. Even when alcoholism is not pushing someone to stay out all night or drink from a hip flask during working hours or commit DV, it's still eroding happiness and trust in the family and making it impossible for people to be happy and be themselves.

Do not allow alcoholism to be the ultimate decision maker in your family's life.

The main thing that tells me this won't end well is he doesn't want to ever not drink completely. If he really acknowledges he's an alcoholic then he'll know that part of recovery is to commit to living a dry life.

My own df was a chronic alcoholic, my advice would be to get out while you can. Your children will thank you for this.

Yes, of course you can. But he needs to truly accept he is an alcoholic. Just going to AA but having the idea it is a temporary thing, and that he can just drink again means he hasn't even begun to grasp his situation.

You might find Al-Anon helpful in the meantime.