Can a relationship/family realistically survive alcoholism intact?

You can't keep your family safe when you're an addict. The addiction will always come first.

Yes, of course.

although I think it depends… side of the road pissed drunk and flopped, no! Abusive and drunk, no! Functional, devoted father drunk, yes.

many of my friends growing up had alcoholic dads…the ones still together we the ones who kept their families fed and safe but also while on the sauce (functional).

I can only speak on my situation.

My ex MiL is a recovering alcoholic. It's a complex situation, with lots of generational trauma and I'm not sure which issue came first. Of her children, including my ex, i wouldn't say that any of them have come away unscathed without needing therapy.

In the past she did try to cut down on her drinking but would always relapse.

Its a sad situation for everyone and i hope you can all get the support you need.

No I trust him 100%. These days he will happily go to the supermarket and buy wine and beer etc if we're having guests.

He's been in AA a long time though and still goes weekly.

He wouldn't have been able to stop without that.

I think you're being far too lax to be honest. He has endangered your children's lives. He is not willing to completely stop drinking.

I'm the child of a drug abuser and I am NC with him and his selfish ways and the things I have seen affect me into adulthood so I have zero sympathy.

And there's no consequences for this action and he's taken no responsibility. He's CHOOSING ALCOHOL OVER HIS FAMILY.
He'd rather continue to drink and have you do the driving, or if you're not there, drink and pick the kids up in a taxi as he's pissed?

I divorced an alcoholic who later died.

You are underreacting here. You need to leave him, protect your children and phone the police when it happens again.

Unless/until he can accept that he cannot drink safely and must stop completely, things won’t get better and will almost certainly get worse.

Often alcoholics need the dire consequences to wake them up to this fact. The ‘rock bottom’. What that looks like for each person is different. Whether you want to be around while he plays this dangerous, destructive game is your call.

He's still in denial if he thinks he can drink drive.

I'm a child of an alcoholic. It's a family disease. Google adult children of alcoholics to find out what long term effects this environment will have on your DC.

I'd also google codependency.

You won't ever be able to trust him. Alcoholics manipulate and lie.

You need to do the right thing here. My mother didn't and I have a very poor relationship with her now. She should have left when we were children.

I would say, my DB who drank a lot (wine mostly) has cut down a lot, only a beer or two a week. But he wasn’t an alcoholic. A close friend of ours who was an alcoholic has given up but he had a heart operation and almost died. He will go into a pub to meet someone but always has orange juice. I don’t disbelieve him.

So he makes himself the victim? Was he upset at his horrific behaviour that could have killed his children or that he was being challenged for it?

That there is unacceptable. He put your DCs lives at risk as well as his own by drink driving.

I'm going through this at the moment too. They can't carry on drinking. They think they can control it but they can't.

I'm going to join al anon after posters advice and I'd like to give you that same advice. X

www.mumsnet.com/talk/_chat/4919942-my-partner-drank-a-35cl-bottle-of-vodka-then-drove-and-hes-mad-at-me?reply=129939883

wants to stop etc but also doesn’t want to never be able to drink

Until he accepts that he can never, EVER drink again. He is a lost cause.

What would you say if someone (like my DF) went to AA but had non alcoholic wine at a dinner, when you went to see him and his family?

In the alcoholics I’ve known, they only get worse. They lie are manipulative and cannot be trusted.

all 3 families have been ripped apart, 2 families have resulted in an early death for the alcoholic and the other one has been disowned by their own children. Resulting in ongoing trauma for everyone involved.

No. Alcoholism destroys people, families and relationships. It ruins lives.

Please don't keep your kids in this environment. It's not fair.

My DF was an alcoholic and my DM divorced him when I was 4/5. DF was married 3 times, 6 kids hotel and in his third marriage said he’d stopped drinking for 15 years.

When him and his third wife divorced he went back to drinking and died young at 50, probably from alcohol issues.

It is extremely hard for an alcoholic to completely stop drinking or not relapse so sorry to say I think it’s best for your marriage and DC if you separate and divorce.

I do know people who stay off for years, because I'm in AA. But they really do have to fully accept that they'll never be able to drink like normal people.

And people do relapse after years.

If you can't cope with being unsure, that's OK.

Has he admitted to drink driving with dc in the car? Would he?

Until he accepts that he can NEVER drink again, or substitute drink for another addiction, he will keep relapsing.

I will say no a relationship can not survive this because if or when he chooses sobriety he could be an entirely different person. There will be a lot of collateral damage along the way.