He has just cracked open bottle number 4

[Lablo]

DP is amazing, honestly in everyway. Apart from his drinking. Every single night. A couple of beers and then at least 2 bottles of red wine. I am working nights tonight and he is still up and has just opened bottle number 4, that’s insane. He is on A/L this week so doesn’t have work.

He is never aggressive or anything when drinking but obviously can barely talk and stumbles around. Yet when he is working he is up at 6:30 bright and breezy, popping his multi vitamins with a big glass of water in his shirt whistling off to work.

I have mentioned this before but he just says everyone likes a drink and he likes a bit more.

bottle number 4?! WTAF???

You can't fault him?

You're as in denial as he is

I imagine you'll feel differently if he kills someone on the road

In the nicest possible way, you are coming across as minimising his drinking as much as he is. Being able to function the next day after 4 bottles of wine is not a good thing. His body will have built up a tolerance but it will still be destroying him from the inside out and it’s likely that the alcohol never fully leaves his system as he is tipping it up every single night. I’d also caveat that he doesn’t drink before 6pm with that you know of alcoholics are sneaky as fuck! It’s also not a good thing that he nurses a few glasses when he’s in company but drinks so much at home as it shows that he knows it’s an issue and he doesn’t want people to know about it. Is it possible that because he’s drinking red wine, you feel that he’s more “civilised”, would you be more concerned if he was drinking the equivalent units of white lightning?

I am not exaggerating when I say our relationship and life is wonderful in every way aside from this!

Your relationship and life is wonderful apart from the very large elephant in the room that you're making strenuous efforts to ignore and minimise.

If he drinks two bottles of wine and drives the next morning he's highly unlikely to be under the limit.

Does he earn well? Roughly he must be spending just over £600 a month on booze. You’d have a nice lot of savings in a year if he put it away instead of drinking that money.

Enough about him.
How are you? How do you feel about him?
How do you feel about the huge amount of money being pissed away.... do tou resent that... does it make the family miss out... how is the pension situation..
Talking of which has he made provision for your regarding his pension, the house...
What happens to his kids when he finally keels over? Are you going to be left responsible for them.... how are they going to feel when they discover you knew about this level of drinking... he wont be around to apologise...
He might be functioning okay at the moment.. never being completely sober... but one day you will wake up and he will have pissed himself in bed... one day you will find out it isnt 2 beers and 2 bottles of wine a night... he is hiding bottles... he is lying to you.. there might even be debt you had no idea about..
You will start to doubt every word he says... you will lose respect for him... and then you will lose respect for yourself for enabling this drunk.. because that is what he will become... not the man you imagine he is... not the man you love.... just a drunk.

That’s 1100% of the weekly recommended intake of alcohol

Sorry to split hairs here but it's NOT a weekly recommended intake. The only safe amount of alcohol is none. It's like saying 5 fags a day is unlikely to give you lung cancer so crack on.

OP I went to rehab for under half your DPs weekly unit intake (best thing I ever did).

I'm sorry to be blunt but he will literally die soon if he keeps it up.

God, this is sad. And scary.

In the kindest way, you need to wake up. Nobody gets away with drinking on that level — some sort of significant reckoning will come. If it’s not a result of you taking steps, it’ll be a result of him killing someone on the road or his health catastrophically failing.

That’s 1100% of the weekly recommended intake of alcohol

It's 1100% of the absolute maximum weekly intake to reduce the risk of harm to your health, but having zero alcohol is optimum obviously.

My brother is an alcoholic, and a former drug addict. He was a functioning alcoholic with a high earning career and a gorgeous car before he decided to start taking crack with his booze. In the space of three years he has lost his car, driving licence, job, money, bank account, girlfriend and most of his family.

He is a lying, cheating, stealing, disgusting tool. I hate him. My parents have almost lost their home in giving him money as he is beating them. They refuse to kick him out and clean his poo, wee and vomit from their soft furnishings, beds (for he sleeps in them all), carpets and him. He is only capable of watching only fools and horses on repeat and drinking and he stinks too. He traumatises my DC so I have effectively lost my parents from our lives because they refuse to kick him out or even visit my home without him.

I know people are saying to get breath tests, your H will refuse to take them. I know the above is awful and right now you can't think that it will happen to you but it WILL. Ultimatum time. He stops or you leave.

If he manages his drink around other people by only nursing a couple of glass of wine when in company then he knows he has a problem.

This is not uncommon.

He will definitely be feeling the impact but he will be covering it up. I know you say you are both very happy this indicates otherwise- that doesn't mean his unhappiness lay with you but it does mean something is not right, he has trauma or he is numbing out from something.

You are currently enabling him. He is being very reckless (eg driving over the limit) but is so used to feeling this way that it has become the norm. No doubt he is full of shame and puts a big smile on his face to cover up. Drinking even 1 bottle a night I dictates a problem especially if there are no alcohol free nights.

And if he doesn't admit to any emotional issues, there will definitely be damage happening " under the bonnet" cognitively....hormonally...heart...clots...stroke.... carrying on like this WILL cause cirrhosis if it hasn't already.

Good luck x

He is on a very slippery slope.
His need for alcohol will always go up steadily.
He will get caught drink driving and rightly so, there goes his job, what will you do then?
it's only a question of time, people will smell it on him at work.
How much is spending a week, month on alcohol?
This will severely affect his health, he is a ticking time bomb.
My advice would be to leave him, because he will bring you down with him, things won't stay like this if he doesn't stop drinking, the sad reality is very grim and bleak.

Also if he intends to stop, with the levels he's consuming, he needs to wean. It could be dangerous to just stop.

I couldn't tolerate this level of self abuse. At the very least insist he pay for a total liver work over. I'd be very results if the results are fine.

My Dad was a massive drinker, and alcohol didn’t kill him.

The withdrawal did.

OP if he’s drinking at these levels then he literally CANNOT stop. The withdrawal can be life threatening. My dad was admitted to hospital with an unrelated condition but it meant he had no access to booze and suddenly had gigantic seizures - fits, hallucinations, violence and screaming the place down. The hallucinations were all absolutely tormenting, and the seizures injured his brain. He lingered on for a few weeks, incoherent mostly and died about 6 weeks after admission.

if my mother had told the hospital he was in alcohol withdrawal then they could have treated him appropriately. But she hid it and by the time I worked out what was happening and told his consultant, the damage was done.

OP your husband needs proper inpatient care.

I would chat to him again and explain how worried you are, perhaps from a health perspective and if anything we’re to happen to him you couldn’t cope because you love him so much etc etc and just ask that he has a maximum of one bottle of wine a night during the week.

If he struggles with this then he needs to go to the gp.

If he can cope with having just 1 bottle a night during the week then after a few weeks try and get him to reduce it more.

As PPs have said this will only get worse and his ability to reduce it or even him agreeing to reduce it, will determine just how big of a problem he has with alcohol.

Is he overweight?
How often do you have sex?

This is horrendous Holidayhouse. I feel for you and all your family. Addicts and aocoholics become monsters when the substance fully takes them over.

I do agree with @Toastnotboast but I can’t actually see him going to the gp as he won’t believe he has a problem.

I would definitely encourage him to go to the gp first but if not then just ask him to reduce his alcohol consumption, especially on week days.

I don’t know how slowly you have to withdraw your alcohol consumption and perhaps this is something you can research together but I would have thought that a bottle of wine a night is still plenty.

Not only can going cold turkey be dangerous as the PP said but it also probably wont work.
I know if I cut out chocolate from my diet then all I crave is chocolate and this would be a million times worse for someone dependent on alcohol.

I would be aware that his good mood may change once he starts drinking less and this is going to perhaps be a lifestyle change for the entire family.

@Lablo please read and digest every post on here.
It strikes me that you are both in denial about his drinking. he has built up his tolerance so of course he doesn't feel the effects of his drinking.

My late brother in law was an alcoholic. He is "late" because it killed him. He stopped drinking, but the effects of his drinking caused irreversible damage. He destroyed 80% of his liver which could no longer process the toxins in his body.

As a result, it caused permanent brain damage and he developed dementia. His body didn’t work properly, he soiled himself all the time and he could barely talk or walk. He ended up in a care home as SIL couldn’t cope with him any longer. He died from his alcoholism. That is what it says on his death certificate.

She had years of misery living with him, his children hated him due to what he did to their mother. Unless your husband can acknowledge that he has a drink problem this is what you can look forward to.

She now lives a very small and lonely life as she had to abandon work and friendships to care for her husband. She rarely has anyone to go out and socialise with and relies heavily on her family because she has no friends. We don’t live near enough to see her very often.

@Holidayhouse1010 That is awful!!

Did anything happen to trigger him into drinking so much?

Or was it just a case of it just happened over time?

Has he been to rehab or anything?

2 BOTTLES of wine?? Christ!!
He shouldn't be driving so early after that and god knows what it's doing to his insides.
A bit of tough love is needed. I would threaten to report him for drink driving if he continues, anything to get him to stop this madness.

Your husband is what's known as a functioning alcoholic, but he's an alcoholic, definitely. The trouble is that he doesn't think he's got a problem. I really hope he doesn't drive to work - he'd still be over the limit, if he's drinking at 3 in the morning.

This is sad to read- he must have some kind of trauma that he is repressing surely?

I agree with @CiderJolly it's likely a coping mechanism for something. The alcoholism is potentially a symptom of some unaddressed trauma. I hope you can address it together.