For dp's wine to not come out of household finances.

[Iamthinking]

I am in the process of rearranging our household finances. It is long overdue. I am setting up a joint account, and we will both keep an individual account each. All bills, savings and family things will come out of the joint account, we will give each of us a monthly allowance of what is left. I am thinking maybe £500 each.

The problem is that he drinks A LOT of wine. For years now he has drunk at least a bottle of wine a night without a break. He doesn't get the cheapest wines, he really enjoys reading, learning and talking about wine and knows a lot on the subject (intellectualising his functional alcoholism, some might say). I am nearly tee total at home, I maybe have a glass per week.

I think he spends between £10-£15 per bottle, so an awful lot per month. And I want to suggest that if he insists on spending so much on it, that it should come out of his spends.
But if we are allotting £500 each for our spending money, that would eat away at most of his, and he is the only earner as I am currently a SAHM. That seems very harsh. But on the other hand, I don't see why I should finance his boozing....

I am being unusual for suggesting this? As it will be a bit of an icky conversation when it happens. I want to have thought it through properly.

Plus at least 25% of children with alcoholism in the family will grow up to become substance addicted themselves. I do not care who I offend, only that this is a serious issue and just because this is a 'posh high earning family ', the effects are the same.

My posts and others have actually offered our own personal experience and resources where professional help can be sought

I didn't say I offered any advice did I? I said that your posts told the OP that her husband's alcoholism was somehow her responsibility - something she needed to deal with or she was being an enabler and complicit in the whole thing. I fail to see how that is helpful (or in any way accurate). Especially since the OP didn't ask for help with his drinking and specifically said she was aware it was a problem but didn't and wouldn't have asked for help on AIBU for it.

@Pallisers I get what you are saying, but think that there is an uncomfortable point for someone living with someone who has a drink problem where surely the concept of enabling consciously or impliedly so has to be faced. That fork in the road. Clearly for many reasons - complex and complicated - they are of course not to blame as such but they have unwittingly and unwillingly acquired a supporting or cast role in the drama.

I have bitter experience of this and so have several close friends. It's hard not to feel partly to blame for the escalating problems, finding the empty bottles, shocking supermarket receipts, watching them puking or passing out weekend in weekend out, ruining holidays, parties, special nights out, lying, finding any excuse to drink including your baby's first birthday, terrifying and breaking your heart in equal measures. Sticking around equals signing up, I suppose some might say. Not right but it happens and that's what we are seeing here.

My ex blamed me for him drinking too much, because I bought him wine at the supermarket or odd bottle of spirits. I stopped but he just went out and bought them himself. He is what I would describe as someone now has transitioned from binge drinking to functional alcoholism at best. I'm sorry to say he started on a couple of glasses a night and it went from there.

Accepting the problem and allowing yourself to realise you have a choice as to how you move forward is something you have to do for yourself. As I know - and countless others do - it is sadly normally at a disconnect from. The future actions of the person we love doing this to themselves.

Pallisers

It doesn't matter if the OP asked for advice on the drinking or not?? She told us what was happening and MANY other posters offered their opinion on the situation, which was to primarily address the drinking. I suspect this is a big issue for the OP, as she has intimated several times. Sometimes people ask for advice on one issue because they have difficulty in addressing the actual issue, this is very common. Ignoring the actual issue is potentially very damaging, I don't get why that is so difficult for you? I've re read the beginning of the thread and almost every post addresses the issue of the drinking.....this is not rocket science.

Don't anybody fret about the 12-step nonsense posted. You can't trust anything that comes from AA literature - the programme with the lowest success rate in addiction treatment, based on superstition and junk science.

OP has some valid concerns about financial inequality and her DP's health. But at present his wine consumption is not harming the DC or the OP in any major way, so a little less LTB boohoohooing from the sort of bucketheads who think drinking any more than a sip of sherry at Xmas means imminent death in the gutter is probably advisable.

Wow this is so horrible and completely crazy. Obviously the wine consumption has hit a huge nerve with some posters and they have went way way over the top in their screaming, pearl clutching reaction .

Sure it's unhealthy, sure it's concerning , but he's a danger to the kids? She's an enabler? What an awful thing to write and patently untrue based on the facts provided.

Honestly . Stop now, leave the op alone and deal with your own very obvious issues surrounding alcohol.

@Bluntness100 how could at least a bottle of wine a night when you have a young family not hit a nerve? Are you trying to suggest that it's not problematical, because you're on a hiding to nothing with that one. The OP was naive to think that people would stick to colouring in between the lines and restrict themselves to a discussion on financial inequity when the elephant in the room is that she is living with someone who has a growing drink problem. With a young child and herself involved. It's a slippery slope and nobody deserves to be slammed by you for pointing out the obvious.

You are being more than a tad hypocritical, in condemning people for having a view that just happens to be different to yours when you deem them to be "pearl clutching"

Oh and incidentally I am NOT blaming or judging the OP I am concerned for her, their child and also for her partner. I've been there, and when the bottle of wine a night has turned into two and half a bottle of whisky it's not really about the money anymore. And not when you're holding them as they puke everywhere, have passed out in the garden one night during the week and you wake up to them hosing their vomit off the patio at 2am, when they sit shaking in the shower the next morning but somehow are still managing to go to work and act like like nothing has happened nine hours later when they start on a new bottle. And you stand with your back to them with a knot in your stomach.

It's not the money you're worrying about then.

ReanimatedSGB

The AA and the 12 step program has helped millions of people kick their addictions, what you are saying is utter nonsense. Does it work for everyone, no, of course not. There have been many studies centred on addiction and enabling actions are a very big part of the issue. But you don't care about the effects of addictions on others do you???

Pearl clutchers ............ffs! Clearly some alcoholics in denial on here.

You're not financing his drinking though.

He’s an alcoholic. I’d start with sorting that out

I wonder what ended up happening here?

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This thread was reincarnated due to a post offering nanny services...

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