Police have just dropped home drunk DH

[MrsJaneyLloydFoxe]

… covered in vomit.

DH went out to work even straight from work, it was meant to finish at 8pm. Woken by DH at 1245 saying ‘come downstairs the police want to talk to you’ . We have three children including a 12 week old baby that was now awake and crying. Police officers said they had found DH vomiting on the pavement in town and had to bring him home. I was so horrified I couldn’t speak.

DH is covered in sick and incoherent. Has vomited again and I’ve left him on the sofa with a bucket.

What do I do? I am so angry. I want him to never do this again. He has a problematic relationship with alcohol - all or nothing - and he has done this in the past and has always said he will stop. This is the first time in about 18 months.

I am heartbroken. I hate him for this and I’m upstairs crying not knowing what to say to him. He showed no sign of remorse. I am sobbing. Please help me know what to say to him and how to handle this.

sadly this

Absolutely, I haven't had a drink in 10 years, I'm not an alcoholic, I feel no different for not drinking and don't miss it at all.

Are you absolutely sure the vomiting etc is drunkenness? Could he be concussed? Is there any sign of a head injury? Could he have been "mugged" for his wallet and phone after a few drinks? I suppose if he has form for drinking it is much more likely to be that but concussion can be mistaken for drunkenness. The symptoms are similar.

Recovering alcoholic here. It does sound like life will be better off for him if he doesn’t drink anymore. I would caution that AA may not be the right place for him. If this is the first time in about 18 months that something so disastrous has happened, then depending on the group, he may not find it’s a good fit or the structure might not be right for what he needs. You absolutely can stop drinking without AA, but I would offer it up to him as one possible option.

He may benefit from speaking to his GP. Local alcohol services are hit and miss (and often more for detox), but they may be able to offer mental health support. There are other groups like SMART recovery and it may be worth asking around for resources specifically for men (a lot of sober groups are very women heavy and tend to lean into women’s issues like perimenopause, which might be off putting).

He can also just quit, possibly with support from a sober coach (which is mostly what I did as AA wasn’t for me). Solution focused hypnotherapy is also very effective. There are so many options. He does need to take control himself and sort it, but my Dh expressing how worried he was for me (in a non-judgmental, non-shaming way) was really crucial for me. And don’t lose hope if it doesn’t all magically get better. It took probably 6 months from my Dh talking to me, some disastrous mishaps and obviously worsening health for it to all click into place. I stopped drinking and never looked back. 2 years sober next month and life is completely different now. There really is hope, but I’m sorry you’re going through this.

Unless it's to a joint account, no, not your problem to deal with

It’s mn so of course the replies are going to be ridiculously hyperbolic. Sending a man who’s had one drink after a year and a half and got carried away to AA is a pisstake. He’ll have to go through the ten steps like everyone else and he’s technically done the entire program as the support and goals generally go up to 11 months. He can just not go out for another year and a half and he’d half completed the program twice more. It must have been annoying to go through, but a totally massive overreaction for your partner getting pissed and carried away every couple of years

My DH was healily drinking with work ehen our kids were small. He actually ended up changing his career and job, less money but a healthier lifestyle. It took us a few years for him to get to this point and realise his issues.

The thing I said to him that actually made him sit up and take notice was

'Do you want to end up one of these divorced older men that drink in the pub every night and talk about the family and life they used to have, going back to your one bed flat and seeing your kids a few times a year becuase they have given up on you too. Or do you want this family life with us?'

Your husband is NOT an alcoholic! You said the last time he did this was 18 months ago?
An alcoholic has to drink every day, they will hide drink in what appears to be normal bottles, they may steal to feed their addiction, does this sound like your DH?
we all need a blow out every now and then, I do it and so does my husband. We just don’t set any expectations that way no one’s angry. I usually tell my DH to sleep on the sofa as I don’t wanna be woken up. It’s really that’s simple.

Addicts are selfish. They don’t necessarily mean to be, but they will always put their needs first.

You need to put your own oxygen mask on first. He is a grown up and able to get help. Your children should not be in this situation.

He needs to move out and get help. He’ll either do it or won’t. Either way, you need to sort you and your children out .

do you or your partner come home brought by the police covered in vomit having lost your phone and wallet? And do you have a history of doing it even infrequently?

Some people are confusing an ultimatum and a threat.

An ultimatum is a final warning, it's the last word on the matter after which you will no longer continue to keep up your side of the deal in the relationship. There can't be more than one ultimatum, if they've not worked in the past they were threats that you didn't follow through with.

You don't need to work out what you're going to do about him, you need to decide what you're going to do based on the information that you have. You really can't change others, people are doing what they want to do, but you can decide what you're up for and what you're not.

I'd leave talking to him at all about this until you've had time enough to process it and decide what you want to happen, ie, you engage with a programme of your choosing and stick to it and any deviation from this will result in me doing XYZ. Be really clear with yourself on what boundaries you need to put in place and uphold them.

Being the partner of an addict of any kind, (and no, alcoholics aren't all keeping vodka in water bottles in the bedside cabinet) is a torment, but there are things you can do to detatch and not play a part in the cycle. Codependance is a term that came out of looking at the partners of addicts in the 70s and 80s and this is a really interesting book about it which might help you get a bit of clarity.

He needs to recognise that he has a problem with alcohol before he will even entertain the idea of receiving help for it. If he feels his drinking isn't a problem he will not believe he needs help for it. Unfortunately I spent a fair few years with an alcoholic myself and had a child with him. He was utterly selfish and couldn't recognise he needed any help because he didn't see his drinking habits as problematic. He would steal money from me and the children to fund his habit(he even exchanged our daughter's milk tokens for alcohol in the local corner shop). We split up because I couldn't deal with his selfish ways any longer. He went to detox at a hospital and arrived at my door when discharged to visit our daughter with a 24 pack of lager I told him to go away as he clearly wasn't serious about getting help he eventually admitted he liked drinking and wouldn't stop. now our daughter is 18 and has unfortunately been fatherless for the last 13years as my ex passed away at age 33 due to his excessive alcohol habits

I'm going to respectfully disagree here. An alcoholic is someone who has a problem with alcohol - meaning they struggle to control their drinking, and it negatively impacts their life. I'm sorry, but having a blow-out is a problem. We don't all 'need' a blow out. And getting to the point of being dropped off by the police covered in vomit is someone with a problem.

Surely it’s responsible not to put temptation right in the face of someone with an alcohol problem?

Mumsnet is always so over the top! A man goes out once in 18 months, gets drunk and is suddenly an alcoholic? Really?

Oh sorry I forgot no one on Mumsnet has ever even so much as looked at a pub let alone had an alcoholic beverage!

So sorry you are in this situation.
I wanted to say that in my situation an ultimatum did work.
it was a non negotiable one strike and you’re out ultimatum.
so far so good over 2 years later.
AA is not right for everyone, but there are other resources, and lots of documentaries about it.
my advice , if you decide to go down this route, would be to tell everyone, so that everyone us on board and supportive.

Where do you live that the cops ferry drunks home?! The 1950s?

i have certainly NEVER been brought home by police covered in vomit and neither has anyone I know. NOT EVEN ONCE let alone more than once regardless of the time gap between episodes.

Thankfully I have never felt the need for ‘a blow out’ in my life and neither have anyone else in my family except my alcoholic BIL who’s behaviour has effectively deterred the rest of the family from ever going down that path.

Who cares whether it meets the definition of alcoholism or not? It’s repulsive, dangerous behaviour and OP would be quite justified to not want to live with a man who behaves like this when he has a 12 week old baby at home. God, what a pig he is.

Absolutely - the idea that an alcoholic drinks every day is why I stayed with my ex for so long. Once I realised that his 'disordered drinking' i.e. huge "blowouts" involving vomiting around the house, getting his jaw broken, big hangovers leaving me to deal with our DD on my own etc. etc. was a form of alcoholism, it helped me to leave. He always framed it as "I need to blow off steam sometimes! It's my outlet!".

The way I blow off steam is to go for a dog walk or a run for an hour, so not sure why he needed to get completely bladdered to the point of being sick.

He has to recognise he has a problem and want to resolve it. I wouldn't want that around my children and I would give an ultimatum

It was this kind of drinking that led me to being alcohol dependent over the course of a few years.

It depends on how much you are willing to put yourself and your children through.
Unless he decides for himself to stop drinking then it doesn’t matter how much information you give him, how sad you are, how much he isn’t there for his children, then this will keep on happening.
They decide for themselves when they hit rock bottom.

Getting drunk to the point of being incapable is always a bad thing, whether it happens once in 18 months or every night. It's the kind of behaviour you might excuse in a 19 year old, not in a father of three.