To put an alcohol limit on my dp?

[lucylampshade]

There is a reason for this and I've needed some time to think about it but...

My dp likes a drink (not in an alcohol dependant sort of way) at the end of the day. Usually a couple of beers or cider and he usually only has 2. At weekends he may have a couple more or maybe a spirit and mixer, still nothing I would consider particularly excessive.

I'm not a big drinker at all. I may have a couple if I go out however since having dd I'm very aware that I may be needed in an emergency and would rather not be under the influence and tend not to drink at home.

If dp has more than 2 he does change. Not in a nasty way but he will fall asleep on the sofa and be dead to the world and there are changes in the way he behaves. Once he's breached his 2 drinks he becomes useless for anything.

At the weekend I went out for a relatives birthday. I was driving home so had a small glass of wine with my meal but nothing more extravagant then that. DP stayed at home with dd.

When I got home I noticed smoke in the kitchen. DP said he's been cooking a pizza and fallen asleep. He'd woken up to the fire alarms going off and a kitchen full of smoke with dd screaming the house down as the noise had woken her up.

I'm seriously not happy for 2 reasons 1) he'd obviously had more than a couple of drinks and was solely in charge of our baby dd at the time.
And probably the more worrying
2) nearly burnt the bloody house down with our dd inside.

I've known him to actually sleep through a fire alarm going off before now (steam from the bathroom sets the one on the landing off of you leave the door open after a shower).

So am I being unreasonable to say to him no drinking when he's in charge of our dd?

You can’t dictate to an adult.
If he’s drinking every night and his drinking does adversely affect those around him then he has a problem. It won’t change unless he decides to change.
You need to think about whether you are prepared to live like that and raise a child in that environment.

If he's falling into that deep a sleep, he's having a lot more than a couple of drinks.

He's not capable of looking after himself in that state, let alone a child.

You can't police his drinking. All you can do is protect your DC and yourself. And that's by getting out before it gets worse. And it will.

Drinking around children is fine. My dh and I have never not had a drink if we wanted to just because of our dc, and we drink alone with them and to the point we wouldn’t drive.

But there’s a difference between having a few drinks and drinking to the extent you are burning the house down passed out somewhere. If he can’t handle having a few drinks and functioning then no he shouldn’t be doing it. I don’t think you can tell him not to, but a serious conversation is definitely in order. Drinking to the point of passing out/falling asleep (which definitely sounds like more than 2 drinks, especially for someone who drinks every day) isn’t okay.

He's having more than 2 drinks to not hear that!

Blackened pizza in the oven is pretty safe really, but let’s hope he doesn’t make chips.

Agree it’s a bad sign of worse to come.

So am I being unreasonable to say to him no drinking when he's in charge of our dd

Definitely YANBU when looking after child as he doesn't seem to be able to handle the drink!

Not unreasonable at all, but some of us may be wondering whether your ban will have the desired effect.

Yep Tom's next wife is right, this is the beginning of something much worse. You can't dictate to him about his drinking. He has to see it for himself. I was married to a functioning alcoholic for 5 years and he started out with "just a few" every night. Over time it became 2 bottles of wine a night and reached a point where he was never sober at home. He failed to see or acknowledge the problem and it got so bad I had to leave. If he cannot see he has a problem my advice would be to get out. Your dd needs to be in a safe environment.

No way is that happening after two drinks. Unless those two drinks are pints of spirits.

If two drinks have him like that he really shouldn’t even have one, his tolerance is clearly far too low.

Is he sneaking more drink than you're aware of? No way should he be passing out after 2 beers.

They're not belgian 9% triples or anything are they?

If my DP attempted to control my alcohol consumption, he would get a short, two-word response. The second of which would be ‘off’.

He has a problem, I'm afraid. And you are falling into the classic mistake of attempting to control it. You didn't cause it, you can't control it and you can't cure it. So, you can make a choice now to never leave him alone with DD and continue to live with him, or split up and refuse overnights etc. Long hard road in front of you. Many people find it's easier to stay until DC are old enough to be able to say they don't want to spend time with an addict, or the problem is so severe that no residential contact would be reasonably allowed, or the DC are capable of looking after themselves to a certain minimum safety standard anyway when they are with the addict.

You might find Al-Anon useful. You might be in denial yourself that there is a problem.

If the alcohol is negatively impacting his behavior, it is perfectly reasonable for you to state you are not comfortable with his level of drinking. If he is a reasonable person and not an alcoholic, he will comply. If he isn’t, then you will have some tough decisions to make.

Having grown up with alcoholics, if my partner expressed any discomfort with my drinking, I would stop immediately. That is not a path anyone should travel down.

IMO if he's drinking every night then it's a problem. I'd be devastated if my DP had put our child in a position where they're screaming the house down in fear and he's passed out asleep - it would be a game changer for me, personally.

If that happened to my DH, I wouldn't have to ask him to reduce his drinking. He would stop himself. Instantly.

Is your DP making the drink a higher priority than his child and home safety?

No way he gets like that after 2 beers. He's hiding the drinking.

He is alcohol dependent. You may think as he doesn’t drink much that he isn’t. He is though. From experience it starts slowly and only gets worse. You can not prevent someone from drinking. It has to come from them. I suspect you really know this, but things haven’t yet become bad enough for you to make hard decisions. I also suspect that you were hoping that MN would offer you a magic solution. It doesn’t exist. I feel for you OP, you may need to make some difficult decisions fairly sharpish, if he is drinking while in charge of your DC, he’s not likely to be fully functioning in terms of decision making if nothing else.