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Alcohol support

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Support group for those affected by someone else's drinking - thread 3

997 replies

pointythings · 28/09/2025 14:04

Link to previous thread here: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/alcoholsupport/5177307-continuing-support-group-for-those-affected-by-someone-elses-drinking?page=40&reply=147449407

Continuing our series of threads for people who have an alcoholic in their lives. This is a safe space to vent, look for advice and support and maybe find some strength.

And we are now stuck with 1000 posts of a thread with a spelling error in the title - I'll chase up HQ to see if they can help.

OP posts:
Thread gallery
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CharlotteByrde · 11/12/2025 16:36

@Penguinsandspaniels the chances are high that everyone who matters knows he is talking crap and those that don't know, don't matter. Even his own kids are on your side. Try not to let his lies get under your skin.

Hereagain334 · 11/12/2025 16:37

CharlotteByrde · 11/12/2025 16:32

@Hereagain334 that sounds dangerous for him and deeply unpleasant for you. Will he not consider rehab?

No he won't. I've offered to help him organise this but it's a hard No. More of his denial/delusion. Yes it's unpleasant - he's never had seizures or problems more than discomfort so I'm not too worried and am keeping an eye on him. He's drinking plenty of fluids and eating sweets in bed while sweating/puking it out . If he doesn't crumble and drink he'll be more with it tomorrow. Then I'll get some food in him.

CharlotteByrde · 11/12/2025 16:41

@zeroclucksgiven that's such a great post. Keep coming here to vent during the next months, as I am sure they will be challenging. But you have a peaceful future to look forward to now, which is wonderful.

wouldratgerbeunknown · 11/12/2025 19:00

Well he had a bottle hidden and obviously drank even more . Now he's still in bed asleep so he's been asleep almost all day . No idea if he contacted his work.
This is the lowest point so far in the whole sorry saga.
Now dreading him waking up and accusing me again of betrayal!!
Think an early night in the spare bedroom is the best thing for me!
Happy birthday to me!!

Penguinsandspaniels · 11/12/2025 19:32

Happy birthday 💐💐💐

next year will be better - it has to be

wouldratgerbeunknown · 11/12/2025 19:40

Penguinsandspaniels · 11/12/2025 19:32

Happy birthday 💐💐💐

next year will be better - it has to be

Thankyou!! Couldn't have predicted this

Hereagain334 · 11/12/2025 20:05

It's my wedding anniversary in a few days. How I bitterly regret getting married but still desperately want him to win the fight for sobriety. I just have no faith he will do so as I have never known him sober. I know he has been - but before I came along. I'm in a bit of a black pit today and think why am I not worth it? Why don't I get the best of him? This fabled, wonderful life I know he had before he met me - why do I have the broken remnants? And why can't I help him fix himself? The utter loneliness and lunacy living with an alcoholic you care about . Thank god for this thread and the strong and compassionate people on it - all going or have gone through it

wouldratgerbeunknown · 11/12/2025 20:09

Hereagain334 · 11/12/2025 20:05

It's my wedding anniversary in a few days. How I bitterly regret getting married but still desperately want him to win the fight for sobriety. I just have no faith he will do so as I have never known him sober. I know he has been - but before I came along. I'm in a bit of a black pit today and think why am I not worth it? Why don't I get the best of him? This fabled, wonderful life I know he had before he met me - why do I have the broken remnants? And why can't I help him fix himself? The utter loneliness and lunacy living with an alcoholic you care about . Thank god for this thread and the strong and compassionate people on it - all going or have gone through it

I know it's like so many lives are destroyed.
We had a big anniversary in October and I did feel sorry for myself
But I had zero birthday expectations but this is a new low. Had friends and my sister wanting to pop round with cards etc but I lied and said I was going out all day
My poor daughter is devastated as well

Hereagain334 · 11/12/2025 20:13

Need to give my head a wobble and stop moping. I just can't believe there are so many of us going through this. It still feels like a shameful secret - how someone loses themselves so totally to alcohol yet the outside world is oblivious...

Nogoodusername · 11/12/2025 20:26

Hereagain334 · 11/12/2025 20:05

It's my wedding anniversary in a few days. How I bitterly regret getting married but still desperately want him to win the fight for sobriety. I just have no faith he will do so as I have never known him sober. I know he has been - but before I came along. I'm in a bit of a black pit today and think why am I not worth it? Why don't I get the best of him? This fabled, wonderful life I know he had before he met me - why do I have the broken remnants? And why can't I help him fix himself? The utter loneliness and lunacy living with an alcoholic you care about . Thank god for this thread and the strong and compassionate people on it - all going or have gone through it

Aww lovely, I know those black pit moods well. I saw this excellent article on ‘why an addict can’t love you’ and a part that stuck out in my mind was along the lines of - for those who felt that their loved ones’ addiction happened on your watch, it didn’t, it was there, maybe it just hadn’t showed up in full force yet. But addiction is a progressive/ degenerative illness and it was always going to show up in full force at some stage, it was just a matter of time.

I was with my ex maybe a year before ‘the spiral’ from functioning to utterly disfunctional really began. His ex wife got a decade or two of his best years, but the addict was always there, showing up less often and less consistently, but it was there. I - and we - just got unlucky to be around for a brief period of masking and then the spiral. Shit for us, but we didn’t cause it and we couldn’t change it. Once it grips, the brain and pleasure receptors are damage, and only a solid year plus of sobriety starts to mend that damage. You can’t love an addict out of addiction. They can only sober themselves out of it by hard painstaking work daily to fight through the cravings and resisting the crutch. It’s hard, it’s painful, and most sadly will never have the strength for it no matter how low the rock bottom gets.

it’s really hard to accept that they won’t win the fight against addiction. Can someone remind me of the serenity prayer because I really like it - but the point being about finally achieveing peace over what you have no control over. That’s how you begin to recover from loving an addict and having them ruin your life along with theirs. You learn to accept that you have no control, you never would be able to have control, and it’s time to free yourself.

Nogoodusername · 11/12/2025 20:27

Sorry for all the typos - such a bad head cold today and well written sentences are beyond me!!

Hereagain334 · 11/12/2025 20:38

Nogoodusername · 11/12/2025 20:27

Sorry for all the typos - such a bad head cold today and well written sentences are beyond me!!

Thank you so much for your post...

Penguinsandspaniels · 11/12/2025 20:43

wouldratgerbeunknown · 11/12/2025 19:40

Thankyou!! Couldn't have predicted this

Same. Or I wouldn’t have married him and life eh much easier and I would be richer and not paying for a divorce

pointythings · 11/12/2025 20:44

@nogoodusername it's this:

Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change
The courage to change the things I can
And the wisdom to know the difference

You can add God or not. It's powerful.

I hope we all also find the inner kindness that will allow us to accept our less saintly thoughts and feelings as valid.

OP posts:
pointythings · 11/12/2025 20:46

Penguinsandspaniels · 11/12/2025 20:43

Same. Or I wouldn’t have married him and life eh much easier and I would be richer and not paying for a divorce

Same here. When I can, I think of him as two people.

This season is always tough. Ruined Christmas, families split and for me, the anniversary of the night he threatened to kill me.

OP posts:
zeroclucksgiven · 11/12/2025 22:05

pointythings · 11/12/2025 20:46

Same here. When I can, I think of him as two people.

This season is always tough. Ruined Christmas, families split and for me, the anniversary of the night he threatened to kill me.

Me too… for about two years now he and I have both referred to ‘him’ - the drunk alter ego who despises me and can only be cruel and absolutely vile to me.
Of course, he’s a huge part of my H, he was born from a childhood of emotional withdrawal by both parents and H has needed him for so long that he just cannot let him go- he is his safety net, he is full of hatred and fury for everyone who is a threat to H and that includes me because H caring for me (which I do believe he does in his own way) makes him ‘weak’.
I 100% know H, I understand why he began drinking (anaesthesia against his childhood trauma)…. I just didn’t get why he needed to keep doing it when he was with me!
I’m an educated 50 something woman, I consider myself far from daft but I was still naive enough to think my love could make him happy and conquer his addiction- tbh, some of it was my ego too- I would be the one to save him.
Now I think I’ve finally got it- it was never going to work, whatever I did or didn’t do/say… he chose to drink every drink and gamble with our future and he ‘won’ - in his head I’ve now proved I never loved him (because I’m leaving him) so he was ‘right’ to be wary and suspicious of me and I deserved his drunken wrath.
btw, I am so grateful for this thread and to all of you who have the courage to post on it. As other pp have said, there is a shame in admitting you love/ loved an alcoholic but here we all have a safe space where we are validated and valued, only we truly understand this situation and we are an army of supportive , respectful and kind individuals who are here for each other in a world that doesn’t ‘get’ why we do what we do.
Thank you amazing powerful lionesses xx

CharlotteByrde · 11/12/2025 22:25

Much love to all of you still in the thick of it. For all of you who feel your lives are destroyed, please believe me when I say they are not. I understand completely how you feel because I too believed that I would never escape the nightmare situation I was in, until it finally dawned that there was nothing i could do to help the alcoholic in my life and I needed to move my focus to making my own and my kids' lives happier. I know it's hellish and that life will not be as you planned or wanted it to be, but happiness is possible, no matter what happens to the alcoholic in your life.

Userccjlnhibibljn8 · 11/12/2025 23:23

Another one on the other side saying that it is there. I count myself lucky that my husband is dead as it has given me the freedom to move on, and a new family of his loved ones (family and friends) who all were damaged by him. I have no idea what triggered it all for him, there is definitely a family history of depression and what I now recognise as deep anxiety, but others live with those challenges without thinking that a bottle of vodka is the solution.

I absolutely agree with the ‘2 people’ that many talk about, and I miss one of them every day. But he was never going to come back to me.

I had my last planned session with my therapist this week, which feels like a milestone. Again I will say posting here was a huge benefit for me, I could never have imagined that internet strangers would have been so important to me. There are so many of you on this thread and another I started that I would pass unknowingly on a street but who kept me honest to myself and strong when the easiest thing to do would have been to call or text him, yet also the worst .

So my heart goes out to those in the midst of it all, know you are doing the right thing for you and there is another side. 🌺

Penguinsandspaniels · 11/12/2025 23:44

pointythings · 11/12/2025 20:46

Same here. When I can, I think of him as two people.

This season is always tough. Ruined Christmas, families split and for me, the anniversary of the night he threatened to kill me.

Leans in phone and ((hugs))

dh has never been that bad / tho sure he would love me dead - works both ways !

Penguinsandspaniels · 11/12/2025 23:50

I think we all loved them to begin with - I truely loved dh but as time goes by we lessen the love

when I look back at texts I sent my good friends last year saying I had kicked him out but I loved him and hope we could sort it

now I think Christ Penguin. Thank god you got out and threw rh rose tinted glasses as now not with him - I see the drunkness so much more

no more walking on eggshell and tbh I didn’t reliese how much I did - till I didn’t

so yes he lies about me - mainly as I caught him out and proved he was drinking - so I’m the bad person - but yes I hope those who know me don’t beleive his shit

TheWater · 12/12/2025 12:29

For me it’s my dad. How he’s still alive, I don’t know.

My poor mum does everything for him and he treats her like dirt because she calls him out when he drinks. They are both late seventies and should be enjoying retirement, but instead it’s a slog. A slog through poor health for him. A slog through his constant lying for her.

Some days he is so breathless he can’t manage to make a cup of tea—yet if my mum goes out, he can somehow manage to walk (or even drive, whilst banned) to the shop to buy alcohol.

My actual dad is gone. He was a good, kind, loving, principled man. Now all that matters to him is the drink. It’s like he’s already dead and something evil has possessed his corpse.

I often pray for it to be over, for my mum more than anything. She is in constant emotional pain. She won’t leave. They had a lovely life until it very rapidly became not lovely anymore. Deep down I think she still hopes they can get back to how things were, if he would just stop drinking— but they’ve been cycling through this same merry-go-round of lies, regret(at least the show of it), hope, then more lies, then despair—for so many years.

I gave up on him years ago. After the five hundredth time of trying to get him to see how much he is hurting his wife. I don’t think he cares.

Hereagain334 · 12/12/2025 15:19

I've never posted on here when DH is doing one of his 'detoxes' and don't know why I am now tbh. He's almost 2 days in, out of bed at least but still sick and shaky. As a previous alcohol abuser myself I know exactly what he is going through - have done it many times myself. Currently sat quietly watching tv and drinking tea together - surreal. Have plenty small things planned for the next couple of days which I hope will distract/occupy him. We'll see how long it lasts....but feel bizarrely more tense than when he is drinking. He's never nasty when drinking but is very quiet now!

wouldratgerbeunknown · 12/12/2025 16:38

Back again sorry!
I confiscated a whole litre of gin last night he was so drunk that he didn't realise I'd taken it .
So a sober morning spoke to the Bupa people no resolution there.
Lots of reassurance that he's going to change.
Went out after planning a nice evening together.
Visited my elderly mum with her shopping.
Got back and he'd been drinking accusations about me going on dates abusing him etc.
I've packed a case so I can go and stay with someone maybe. But should I leave the house??

Penguinsandspaniels · 12/12/2025 17:19

Ideally no to leaving house but obv get it’s hard to stay and don’t want to put self in danger if he’s been aggressive when drunk

only you ca decide how may chances you give dh but if you both said about going out and you go out for a hour or two and he’s back to drinking , then things aren’t going to change Sadly

Zebracat · 12/12/2025 17:26

@wouldratgerbeunknown so sorry, I’ve never been in this position , but I have seen people say that it’s better to make them leave. He is being verbally abusive again , and you can ask the Police to remove him. Even if you have him back at some point, it may make him see that his behaviour is wrong. Don’t minimise it, or the effect on you, we can become numb to being someone’s punchbag, but that doesn’t mean it’s not doing real damage. Might be worth recording him. And please, never apologise for coming here, we’ve all needed help and we are happy to be here for you .💐💐💐