To wish my husband could drink less?

And you need to know that every action of yours to clear up his mess is inadvertently enabling him to continue drinking. This involves providing cash etc.

At AA they teach you not to be an enabler - so if they throw up on the street, piss the bed, shit themselves, fall over - you do not cleanthem up or pick them up. They need to feel the consequences of their choices. So if they wake up in a pool of shit, piss, vomit in their front garden the next morning it will have more impact that waking up in a lovely clean warm bed which due to being shitfaced and loss of memory - they assumed they just strolled in to without incident.

No alcoholism is not static.

If you stay your stress will increase as his health declines and your relationship deteriorates. This could be in an instant - stroke, cancer, fall, loses job etc. This will not help your recovery and remission. You will end up being his carer.

If you leave your stress will reduce after the initial hurdle as you re-focus on building your own emotional and physically wellbeing each day which is currently impossible whilst you are hyper alert to his chaos and trying to prevent or minimise his mess.

IME the enabler leaving can often be the rock bottom the alcoholic needs to seek their own intrinisically driven recovery - but you would need a minimum of 12 months apart where he is sober as the first 6 months are working through phyiscal dependency and the following 6 physcological (which goes for life).

I would ask you DCs not to drink with their DF - they need to know that they are inadvertly complicit in his downfall.

He’s now really enjoying that our kids are early 20s and love a drink and they are all encouraging each other

This is genuinely awful.

getting extremely drunk at family events, falling over in the road in front of the kids, recently being sick when we were out for a nice day out and he’d overdone it the night before.

This is not normal. He has a drink problem.

There’s a lot of myths about problem drinking sometimes on MN. It’s far more complicated than how much/when someone drinks. Ignore phrases like “true alcoholic” etc. It’s all just labels.

Whats important is the drinking is a problem because it’s having a negative effect on the family. You are seeing that in the impact on his health, your well being , the family finances etc. These are the signs that his drinking is getting to a level for concern.

And to the poster who said alcoholics cant regulate. Some most certainly can. Again, thats not the bit that matters though…its the fallout from it thats the problem.

OP I am very sorry for your circumstances and this is the last thing you need in your life right now. But you wont see any change until your husband faces up to the problem, does something about it and sticks to it. That’s a long road and only you can decide if you want to stand by him through it.

OP my ex would get blackout drunk often. Not constantly but it was hideous to live with. Totally dead behind the eyes and would want to stay out all night etc. Wouldn't care less about me getting home safely from a party in back arse of wherever at 5am kind of behaviour. I divorced his sorry ass and never looked back. He was a problem drinker and that made a happy relationship impossible.

You don’t have to live with an alcoholic.

But if someone has undiagnosed ADHD, and depression and they are able to say, yes I see I'm selfmedicating for x y z problems surely it will help motivate to seek long term help with those pre existing problems and stop the self medication.
Tbh alcohol exacerbates depression and anxiety rather than relieving it -

but denying someone might have genuine worries and traumas isn't going to encourage them to seek better solutions.

There is a difference between "no excuses" and "there is an underlying issue of your depression and anxiety that you need to address or I cannot live with you"

Like yourself I've had cancer and rarely drink alcohol now so can relate somewhat.

However if my DH behaved like yours then I'd be issuing an ultimatum. I'd be showing the bill from night outs, what your current pension provision is looking like and the final nail of alcohol related illnesses (plus the increased cancer risk). I'd be asking him to seek help or speak with AA. If he couldn't do that after all the evidence given then I'd be calling it quits. My take on it is if you want to damage your body and make me your carer because you can't not drink alcohol to silly levels then I'm not being part of it with you.

'Heavy drinking is an issue in both our families but not in a ‘true alcoholic’ way which in some ways makes it harder to deal with as the problem is not so obvious to other people'

Both of your families normalised heavy alcohol use OP, but posters here are in agreement it is clearly problematic.

Seek support for yourself, codependency is likely to run in both families too.

His retirement is not your problem to fund.

Work out his drink spends pw, multiply by 52, then his time to retirement....

Nurse with a purse.

He’s an alcoholic who will only stop drinking when he wants to. And he has to stop completely. I suggest you talk to Al Anon @Valleymum2, they provide great support for the families of alcoholics, they’ve all been there.

There's nothing you can do, it sounds like he's enjoying his drink more than the marriage OP and is looking for excuses to keep it that way. Btw, it's irrelevat if there is an undiagnosed ADHD or not - the treatment for problem alcohol use is the same.

I gave my husband an ultimatum. Me or drinking more than a couple of drinks occasionally. I despise him when he drinks. I hate the sloppiness, the overly emotional behaviour and the fact he is more sensitive which leads to arguments.

It makes me unhappy and so one day I told him I would leave if he didn't cut it out. Friends said it was controlling, but it's literally a liquid. If he isn't going to choose his wife over a liquid he will pee out in 60 mins, there's something wrong.

Now if he wants to have a proper drink like with a friend or special occasion then we will plan in advance and he sleeps in the spare room and we don't talk.

If you are unhappy you deserve to tell him and he should listen. I have listened when my husband hasn't liked certain things.

"until death" is a bloody long time if living with someone who regularly does things you hate.

I also think that an alcoholic cannot moderate their drinking; they can only abstain. Drinkaware explains what the signs of dependency are and how it is dangerous to try quitting overnight if he is in fact very dependent...and of course explains why it isn't as simple as you asking him to 'cut down".

He's a binge drinker - just one of the methods of alcoholism - or call it problematic drinking if you/he is allergic to the A word.

AA define alcoholism not by what, when, how much or how often a person drinks - but how their subsequent behaviour impacts on the people around them - if it becomes problematic or not.

You have listed out many ways how his drinking is problematic to you directly and impacts negatively on your relationship and your family life.

I am really sorry that you are dealing with cancer and my heart breaks for you to see that this isnt enough for him to moderate.

Alcoholism isnt a static state - its a progressive disease - even if someone drinks the same number of units - their health - mentally and physically is deteriorating. I am assuming he is past middle age (40s) and an aging alcoholic is at high risk to many illnesses. The wheels ultimately fall off. He may lose his job, have an accident etc.

Your only option is to give him and ultimatum with a deadline and a consequence and be certain you will follow it through. He is unlikely to agree or sustain any level of sobriety without support.

However Al Anon will teach you to 'detach with love' and not have your own life sucked down the drain as well - this is his journey and you should not be enmeshed in his recovery as that will backfire.

I would be open with your young adults and explain how this disease from both sides of their family makes them especially vulnerable genetically and socially to dependency and encourage them to consider a better life path at this point.

A friend of mine has just been to rehab for three months and is now six months sober. His teenage children have been deeply deeply affected by the events of the last five years and his wife issued an ultimatum in the end. The first step was tackling what was his severe underlying anxiety via. GP

One of the patterns in marriage to an alcoholic is apparently the cycle of the alcoholic being told off for his behaviour, feeling angry, stressed as a result, rebellious, blaming others for not letting them relax have a good time. To say he is "immature" is totally missing the point. He is addicted and he will blame you for spoiling the "good times" and nagging him because that's a way of avoiding the realisation that he is an addict. So what can you do? Take action
Don't go out with him to restaurants; that might be a start. That's enabling him
you can't have your cake and eat it - you can't placate him. Tell him you are very worried about his drinking and you want him to go to a GP to seek help
See what he says. That is your answer. That is his true self.

I genuinely believe btw that the mental health problems ADHD etc are real; it's just that alcohol is a very poor way of solving these problems. Alcohol is a perfect storm for people with pre existing problems (look up dopamine and lack thereof in ADHD sufferers) as it will tend to exacerbate those problems further and in the end cause the anxiety/stress/family breakdown that it was meant to be ameliorating.

Look up the list of questions to ask to ascertain if someone has a problem with drinking. I think you’ll find your husband is indeed a true alcoholic whatever that definition is.
This is your life too - do you want to live it like this? Life is short and time is precious, as you probably know better than most having been ill. Don’t waste it by saddling yourself with someone who has a problem with alcohol and money.

Everyone I have known with a drinking problem was self medicating for anxiety/undiagnosed ADHD/mental health.

The point is that telling them to stop drinking won't make them stop.

He needs to go, for himself, not even for you or the kids, to the GP and ask for help. Maybe he needs to taper down or anti depressants. But he can't just cut down by himself - if he hasn't so far why would it work now to tell him...I'm sure he knows he has a problem. But it's an addiction. You can't just switch it off. It's a disease and HE needs to seek help.

But you can't prevent it, OP. I grew up in a house of secrets and learned from a really young age not to "tell". Yet married someone who became a nasty heavy drinker, whom no one outside the house would ever believe had a problem. He knows you're not happy with his drinking and his behaviour, yet carries on. This is who he is.

Maybe a max budget? What does he say about the cost? Sounds like potentially 100s /month that could impact your retirement, which is not on.