How to help my husband - and me!

[Honey2]

Sorry for the long post…

My husband is struggling with dependence on alcohol. He doesn’t drink really excessive amounts (around 20 units per week) it’s more he feels he doesn’t have control over drinking and he drinks in secret (ie will slip into the utility room where we keep the gin etc and drink several big shots straight from the bottle )
I know when he has done this as he will begin to have slurred speech or (most common) he will fall asleep literally over his dinner at 6/7pm

He is having biweekly 1:1 meetings with a support worker but honestly it’s been 3 months and he will say himself he doesn’t see how it’s helping.

I am finding it really hard to A) know how to help him b) not get really frustrated as to my eyes he knows he has a problems and tells me he wants to make a change, but I can’t see him putting the effort in to actually make the change. Yes he goes to the meeting but what’s the point if it’s not having ANY impact?

there is obviously a big back story (childhood abuse, resulting in Anxiety and periods of depression through his life etc..) alongside a stressful public sector job he commutes an hour each way to. All adding to his desire to drink to feel better. I know this is the underlying cause and the 1:1 meets are not really designed to address that I guess??

im worried about the kids - they think it’s funny at the moment when he falls asleep in his dinner. It won’t be long before they start asking why.

Im really struggling to know how to help, and how to cope in this relationship. He isn’t the man I fell in love with 20 years ago.

The toilet cistern/ behind fencing/ on top of kitchen units,

in other bottles that don’t appear to be alcohol

until you have lived this, the constant being told you are mad and he’s not drunk, you cannot grasps the level of lying to conceal.

no criticism OP, I know it’s hard to believe

Residential rehab. Honestly the only thing which has genuinely helped the alcoholics I know.

A close relation of mine and several other people I know have got sober by going to AA meetings. These cost nothing and are in most towns and online.

Our friend used to pour his spirits into cleaning bottles which he kept in the garage.

As I said in my post, rehab was the only thing to help the people I know who were alcoholics.

My ex tried AA, said it was going well, had a sponsor, then that sponsor ended up being his new drinking buddy....

It’s horrible, and I like a drink!
wfh at 10 in the morning knowing very well there is half a pint of Bacardi in the pint of ‘Ribera’ he is virtuously swigging

appearing in a room full of your sons friends having a sleepover stark naked, but not having any idea what he’s doing.

it sets the whole household on constant alert

He is definitely secret drinking a whole lot more than he admits to OP and is definitely not at the stage of actually wanting to give up alcohol. I can understand that you aren't at the point of wanting to leave him or even threaten it. It is a lot to take in. The sad reality is you can't make him stop unless he wants to stop. nothing you've posted makes me think he wants to stop. He wants to become a normal drinker - but that ship has sailed.

My advice to you is

Join Al Anon.

Post on this thread - you will get a lot of support and a lot of what people post will resonate with you and help you see your husband's situation clearly https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/alcohol_support/5473399-support-group-for-those-affected-by-someone-elses-drinking-thread-4

You can't stop him drinking but you can set some boundaries around it. So tell him that no more falling asleep at the dinner table - it is not fair on your children or you. If he is that drunk he goes to bed. Don't start arguing with him about how much he has drunk - it doesn't matter how he got to that state of drunkenness it just matters that he is there and your children shouldn't be experiencing it.

Presume he is unfit to drive - you simply can't trust him because he is definitely drinking without you knowing - and slugging it back too. No more driving the children anywhere.

Ask him to go to his GP for a full check up.

You can remove known alcohol from the house but it won’t make any difference unless your dh is ready to face this.
My loved one spent a month in private rehab so that he could safely withdraw and then start the work to deal with causes and the future.
I agree about boundaries and not driving and what the kids see. . It’s a difficult time but if he is ready I agree you can support him.
You also need to look after yourself. You can’t solve this.

Thank you so much for your reply. Everything you say makes sense - and actually what you say about sending him to bed when he fell asleep at the table last night is what I did.
I’ll look into AI Anon

“appearing in a room full of your sons friends having a sleepover stark naked, but not having any idea what he’s doing.”

We’ve had nothing like this yet, thank god but agree I don’t want it to come to this.

I don't think he's only drinking 20 units a week if he's swigging from the gin bottle and falling asleep in his dinner at 7 pm. If he is really trying to cut down the first thing I would do is put the gin bottle in full view somewhere so he can't just drink it in private he has to pour it into a glass preferably using a measure so he (and you) knows how much he has had. I think he is deluding himself that he is not drinking that much, calculate the units properly using volumes drunk and the strength of the alcohol.

As I said in my post, rehab was the only thing to help the people I know who were alcoholics.
My ex tried AA, said it was going well, had a sponsor, then that sponsor ended up being his new drinking buddy....

@Starlight1979 sure, AA doesn’t work for everyone, no one can make an alcoholic stop drinking.
The rehabs which have helped people you know - do they do the 12 step programme?

OP is he still driving your children anywhere at any time? Please stop him doing so, you can’t trust him to be sober as you now know he is an alcoholic and has already started lying about his drinking. You must put their safety first.

I am sorry you are in this position.
Is there any proof he is actually going to this person, my ex joined aa but wasn't actually going and was drinking instead.
Whatever he says he is drinking, double or triple it. Addicts lie to themselves and to others. My ex had so many bottles of water and cans of coke that actually had alcohol in it.
Getting rid of the alcohol is you trying to sort the problem. If he wanted to stop he would suggest this as an option. It will just make him more sneaky. All you can control is you and the kids. I would be worried about him driving the next morning, don't let him drive you or the kids.
Go to Al anon for you, or ring them.
Everyone has a fixed idea of what an alcoholic looks like and it's never their husband who works hard and is generally kind.
Be kind to yourself it's tough realising the person you love is imperfect and lying.

He’s not drinking 20 units a week OP… you don’t fall asleep after a few large shots…the first thing you and he need to do is be honest about what he is drinking.

My grandfather and 2 uncles were all alcoholics. So we've got plenty of family experience, and I also supported my best friend through a similar situation to yours with her DP.

There is no magic wand here, no magical treatment that will make him see what he's doing to himself. Truthfully, alcoholics are the best liars you will ever meet. They lie to everyone including themselves, and it doesn't even register to them as lying. So please stop believing what he's telling you - because it won't be the truth. When someone becomes dependent on alcohol, it takes more and more to have an effect on them. So if he's falling asleep at dinner, he's had a shed load. A PP was quite right in saying he has to go to bed - you can't normalise this behaviour to your DC. And please set some boundaries that are made from steel - so that the moment his behaviour crosses them, you're out of there.

I’d make a small change to this. We absolutely know that we are lying and many feel bad about it…. But the central drive to drink is more powerful than the shame. Until it’s not. That is why people often need to hit rock bottom to recover. The shame has to beat the desire to drink (which is usually fuelled by trying to dull shame/fear/self loathing). It has to become untenable to continue in my experience.

Thanks for your answers and support all xx ❤️

He’s now my ex husband but he did give up, he’s done it 3 times now and has nearly died before each incident
he does seem to have not fallen off again this time but it has made my middle son very anxious, he lives with him (he’s 22) so he can literally watch him
my boys love him, they always will, life is not linear

I used to try and reason with my late DH that I knew he was necking vodka in hidden places and he knew that I knew, so stop hiding it!

He couldn't because as he explained it that would be confronting and acknowledging how much he was drinking. One of my sisters does the same with chocolate bars so she "got it" when I told her what he was doing.

Go and search the house OP. Check all coat pockets, wellies, behind books, every possible nook and cranny. I'll bet you find lots of empties because they are usually crap at disposal as well - that would be confronted with the evidence and they avoid that.

Once you know the true extent of his alcoholism you can take action for your children's sake.

Searching for the empties is a pointless waste of time. You drive yourself nuts trying to think of hiding places, wasting hours of your time you could be using to do something productive and healthy, and instead you just turn yourself into the booze police.

But let's say you do go searching and you find a bunch of empty bottles. What then? Confront them with the evidence? "Those are old", "I don't know where you got those", "why are you always trying to start an argument?" "You think you're so perfect" etc etc. If you don't confront them, what are you going to do with the empties? Throw them away? Put them back where you found them?

If you look and you don't find any, will that mean they're not drinking or will it just mean that they're better at hiding it than you are at finding it?

There's no good outcome. There's no cathartic sense of justice, there's just another sick feeling in your stomach. There won't be a tearful, heartfelt "Oh my god, you're right, I have a problem and I'll stop drinking right away" moment. All it will do is tell you something that you already know - they're drinking too much and lying to you about it.

I'm really not saying this to stick the boot in. I'm saying it because that's exactly what I did and those were the results I got. More importantly, when I later started going to Al-Anon it was a story I heard again and again and never with a positive result. It was just a bunch of people realising that driving themselves insane trying to find evidence of something that's already evident is a pointless waste of time.

He had drink before he came home. I don’t know why people say don’t have alcohol in the house - you can buy it in every corner shop and Amazon deliver it.

I’d be careful about getting rid of the alcohol because alcoholics and alcohol dependent people are very good at hiding it, often in the most extraordinary places and often outside the house. I’d do the opposite. Bring it out into the open, without criticism it you can - not easy- so you both know and acknowledge what’s going on.