OH heavy drinker.

[Dexter2012]

My bf is a heavy drinker it would be nothing to polish off 2 bottles of wine a night. It's pushed our relationship to breaking point he agreed to see gp and is waiting to see support group for alcohol. My problem is that his sincerity about getting help is short lived and after few weeks we have the same stand off. I Said he is in denial and I can't do this on my own need to get help support for myself. Because he can function works f/t ect he feels his drinking isn't such of a problem and becomes defensive. His drinking impacts upon us financially as well as emotionally. Again he just doesn't seem that bothered by it wondering if there is anything I can do to deal with this differently. It's as if I am waiting for him to just 'get it one day' just not happening. Thanks for easing this far

SIL is married to an alcoholic. She waited for many, many, many years for him to give up drinking. After having a fit in the local supermarket and being carted off in an ambulance the doctor told him that if he carried on drinking he would die. He stopped drinking, but by then it was too late.

He has advanced cirrhosis of the liver with only 20% of it functioning. He has suffered brain damage and behaves like someone with dementia. He is a complete shambles and is a physical and mental mess. SIL can't leave him on his own for more than an hour or two because he can't be trusted - his behavior is unreasonable and unpredictable. SIL is trapped in an unhappy marriage (she won't leave because she has old fashioned ideas about the sanctity of marriage, and she lives the life of a martyr).

Do you really want to end up like her?

You have no future with this man.

Thanks bun- how long / how much alcohol was he drinking- just trying to relate to the situation. Thanks for the advice On this-

The problem with trying to support an active alcoholic is that nothing will work until they realise they've got a problem. If that happens they may enter recovery, a life long process. If not then they continue to drink, and things get progressively worse. And worse. I found Alanon quite helpful in helping me to stop focusing on getting help for my husband. Once I thought instead about what was good for me and my children, decisions became easier to make.

I don't know how much he was drinking, except that it was a lot. Two bottles of wine a day is a lot - about 18 units a day, which is 126 units a week. Given that current guidelines advise 21 units a week for men your husband is drinking over 100 units of alcohol more per week than is considered healthy.

As for how long? BIL is in his 60s now and ever since I have known him - over 30 years, he has always been a heavy drinker. I would hazard a guess that his drinking has been a problem for over 20 years.

SIL has a miserable life, despite advice to leave her husband she felt it was her duty to stay with him. I think she helped enable his drinking by not being tough enough with him. For example if he fell over and soiled himself, she helped pick him up and clean himself. The best thing you can do is leave someone like that to allow them to come to the full realisation of their predicament.

Thank you bun- it's a hard read and I really feel for your SIL. Nothing to say other than I need to wake up and smell the coffee- that could be us in years to come.

I feel for you. Your bf needs a wake up call, which may well be you leaving him.

BIL has frontal lobe dementia caused by his alcoholism. It causes him to behave inappropriately and makes him aggressive. I think it is only a matter of time before he gets sectioned.

The main thing to remember is:

You didn't cause the addiction
You can't control it
You can't cure it

My advice to you is to walk away

Don't expect threatening to leave or actually leaving him to necessarily make a difference. It may just give him a 'reason' to carry on drinking and blame it on you. But bun is right about the three c's. There's basically nothing you can do to help him. Sorry if that seems harsh

If you're involved with someone with a drink problem then your relationship with them rises and falls on a tide of their alcohol intake. It dominates everything. And the bugger of it is that there's nothing you can do to stop them.

There is nothing in what you've written to suggest that he has the slightest intention or desire to stop drinking. Probably all he really wants is for you to stop going on at him about it so he's throwing you the occasional "Yeah yeah, I'll do something about it" bone to get you to shut up.

At best he might be considering cutting down a bit but if he's drinking two bottles of wine a day then, frankly, it's very likely he's deep into alcohol addiction and so won't be able to reliably cut down. And most people with alcohol addiction problems find their drinking problems get worse as they get older and their bodies get less able to cope with it.

There's a lot of anecdotes around that many heavy drinkers can more or less keep it together until they're into their forties. But by then the increasing alcohol intake and the increasing toll all that booze is having on their health starts to cause serious problems. And the thing with functioning alcoholics is that they carry on functioning right up until the point they can't any more and it all comes crashing down. Much like liver damage in fact. A liver can put up with a hell of a lot of abuse for a long time but once it's had enough that's it - you're in deep trouble.

All that being said, fundamentally you have neither the legal nor moral right to demand he lives his life the way you think he should. He's doing what he wants to do. But while you don't have the right to demand he lives his life a certain way, you do have the right to choose how you live your own life. Is this good enough for you? What can you change in your own life to make it better?

Sorry I missed the part where you asked about how long other people's partners have been drinking.

My ex started drinking in her early 20s and was a frequent drinker by her mid- to late-20s. I met her in her early 30s when she was bright, smart, beautiful and gregarious. She was also very good at hiding just how much she drank.

Her drinking increased in her 30s to where she was averaging over a bottle of wine a day plus weekends when she had considerably more. By the time she hit her early 40s she was in big trouble. She was spending entire days drunk and she was a nasty drunk. Our relationship broke down completely. By her mid 40s she had lost her children, lost numerous jobs, lost friendships.

She had stints of varying lengths when she was sober with the help of AA and/or other services but they never lasted. In her late 40s her health was really starting to be affected. She developed pancreatitis, cirrhosis and stomach ulcers. She died last year. She was 50.

Howard I can't begin to imagine the experiences you went thank you for being so open and candid About the devastation alcohol causes. I am just so sorry that it ended the way it did. Your right I don't have the moral / legal right to dictate what he does. again keep thinking I just need to focus on me and the kids.

Lindsey it's not harsh somehow it rings true. this would be the type of thing he would do. Excuse to feel sorry for himself rather than do anything about. It helps having people to talk too thank you.

Thanks bun think I am the 'fixer' type- silly really feel like I should know better!!

You're right about needing support yourself. Alcoholism damages the whole family not just the drinker, sadly. Like a pp I'd recommend Al Anon.

Howard's experience is very like my own, Dexter. My husband died fairly recently too of exactly the same alcohol related diseases. If an alcoholic doesn't stop drinking, then sooner or later it will kill them. Mine was told he would die within two years if he didn't stop and yet he kept right on drinking. And Meg is right that the whole family suffers. For me, and this is only my own experience i am sharing, I had to leave, to avoid being dragged down any further into his hell.

Dexter I agree that you need to focus on yourself and get some support via AlAnon. He has to want to change himself and if he doesn't seem sincere in his protestations then you have to look after you

Thank you Lucy seems to be a common theme here really. Have you been through a similar situation?

Lindsey I fear he will go the same way too!! Do you have kids together- if so how did they cope through/ with it.

Meg has this happened to you too. Sorry if it sounds like I a prying asking lots of questions. It's just really helps.

Yes we had kids and it was horrendous for them, watching the dad they loved destroyed by drink. It took me a long time to figure out that he had a drink problem. I thought he was seriously depressed and made all kinds of allowances. But he became unreliable, aggressive and frightening and I allowed it to continue for far too long as I was desperate to repair him and hold our family together. It was only when I got in touch with alanon that I realised I was enabling him by making excuses for his behaviour and protecting him from the consequences of his actions. Now he has gone I can see all the mistakes I made but at the time I was just so anxious for our lives to return to 'normal'. It was only when he became violent that we separated. To be honest Dexter, my kids didn't cope. They really suffered. My husband was unrecognisable by the end. He looked like a man in his eighties and he had basically lost his mind. Cirrhosis is a horrible way to die.

Lindsey I can see a lot of what I am doing in your post- when I think about it he's been drinking since his early 20s I suspect along with other substances back in the partying days. Now he's 30s alcohol is the substance of choice. It's silly of me to think he can just drop it. Got money problems too (debt) again he is frivolous and me I'm desperate to keep family together. So turn a blind eye to the issues and just revert to nagging rather than saying enough!! I don't like the person I have turned into. Looking at your post Al-anon would say I too am making excuses and protecting him too.

Sorry the kids suffered hwo old were they when you left- thank you for sharing I don't feel alone and realise after all this time alcohol is at the root of our relationship problems.

SIL's children all hate their dad. They hate him for what he has turned into and for how it has affected their mum. They have no respect for him.

SIL still treats him with a consideration that he doesn't deserve. He has turned her into a doormat. She says that she dreads the day the police turn up at the house to tell her that her husband has assaulted someone.

Personally, I think it could be the best thing for her because he would then be sectioned and she could get on with her life, which she has basically put on hold.

He was given 5 years to live, but has outlived the prediction. MIL keeps saying that the family would be better off if he died. MIL has always been outspoken, but I think she is voicing what everyone really thinks now.

This makes OH's family sound horrible. They aren't, but this is what living with an alcoholic results in.

You really need to reconsider your future with this man. Don't dwell on what he used to be like or on what might have been. Look at the here and now and the future and be honest with yourself about what it holds for you.

They were 13 and 9. I didn't leave. The police removed him from the house when he became violent. (He was mixing alcohol with drugs given by his GP to help with alcohol withdrawal). They ensured that his bail conditions kept him away. He became so weak and ill that he was no threat to anyone in the end. My husband was a lovely man, kind, funny and smart, but he couldn't beat his addiction. It utterly destroyed him, almost destroyed his family and I can entirely understand what Bun is saying. It was a long tortuous way to kill himself and although it sounds dreadful to say it, it would have been kinder for everyone, himself included, if he had chosen a quicker route. But on the other hand, where there is life there is hope and at any point in the process he could have turned his life around, with support from AA. He had to make that decision and he didn't. Some of his relatives blame me for his death, saying that he lost hope when we separated and when he lost his career. Whatever happens to your partner in the future, don't forget the three C's. You didn't cause it can't control it and can't cure him. Your priority has to be your children's happiness and security. Make your decisions based on what is best for them.

I have been reading this thread with a very heavy heart. My DH has been an alcoholic for a good 5 years now and apart from 2 longish stints of abstinence (6 months in 2011 and 9 months last year) it's been a constant rollercoaster of drinking then stopping only to start again. We have 3 kids together and they are still quite young (8, 5 & 5).

Bunbaker your words "Don't dwell on what he used to be like or on what might have been. Look at the here and now and the future and be honest with yourself about what it holds for you" really sum it all up for me. It's what I tend to do - remember the man my DH used to be and the man he CAN be when sober - but the truth of the matter is that the here and now is bloody awful and the future will probably be more of the same.

Linds53 I think my DH will end up going the same way as your's. He's never violent but I don't think he will ever beat this addiction. Right now he's comatose on the sofa looking like he's been seriously beaten up. He ended up in A&E 3 times in just over 24 hours last week having fallen off his bike then just falling down unconscious twice in the street. His face is bruised, bloody and stitched up. His latest "relapse" started just a week ago but it feels like a lifetime.

I have been in contact with solicitors several times about a divorce and went as far as the decree nisi stage last year but by then my DH had been sober for a good few months and was back at work so I left it there. I know deep down that I should just press ahead and get out of this awful mess.

I really feel for you Anjelika. it is very hard to walk away when you know how good your relationship has been and could be again, if only...
And as I said in a previous post, some alcoholics stop drinking and never restart, one day at a time. But many others don't and get progressively worse. Your children will be very aware that things are badly wrong with their dad, no matter how well you believe you are protecting them. And the trouble with a partner who has periods of sobriety followed by relapses, is that it wrecks your nerves and you can't focus on the big picture as you're so busy searching the house for bottles. I wouldn't dream of telling you what to do, but Alanon helped me.

Thanks Linds. You are right about the on-off drinking wrecking my nerves.

The kids seem to just see it as normal now that their dad spends weeks at a time passed out on the sofa. They literally just step over his body. Very sad.

I have been to Al Anon just the once but didn't find it in any way helpful. I know I didn't perhaps give it a chance but it just wasn't what I felt I needed. I wanted to sit round and tell my story and have others do the same but it was all very structured with someone choosing a theme for the day then everyone just talking about that. It's interesting that so many people on here have found it a great help.