DH functioning alcoholic

[TheBlueBear]

Have been with DH 4 years but only living together the past year and got married in Feb. I've always known he's enjoyed a drink but it's only really since living together that I've realised the extent of it. On average he would drink 2-3 litres of vodka a week. He normally has three days off per week and out of those three he would drink on two of them. On average he would have nearly a litre of vodka per session. Although he drinks huge quantities he never appears to be 'properly' drunk ie he doesn't be staggering around or have blackouts etc (although he is a big guy in both height and weight). He's a shift worker and often after a nightshift he would stay up drinking (from about 6am-9am). I know that drinking in the morning would be a huge red flag for a lot of people but I'm a shift worker too and I know a few colleagues who would treat the morning after a night shift as their 'evening' and have a couple of glasses of wine. The issue with the morning drinking is more that DH tries to hide it. For example yesterday morning I went downstairs at 7am to make breakfast. DH heard me come downstairs and ran out into the kitchen to me. He told me he'd bring me up breakfast in bed and I should 'try and get some more sleep' (newborn DD had been up during the night). At 9am DH comes to bed smelling of alcohol. I go down and see that the bottle of vodka that had about a third left in it was now gone and the empty bottle was hidden (badly) in the kitchen bin. This is a fairly frequent occurrence. When DH drinks he's fairly amenable which is probably why I tolerate his drinking to the extent I do. What concerns me is the way he hides it as this shows to me that he must think himself he has a problem. I know I'm enabling the secret drinking by not challenging him about it but when I've spoken to him about his drinking before he's gotten extremely defensive (which i know is the typical reaction of someone who's a problem drinker). I suppose what I really want from this post is advice from any one else whose been in a similar situation. From my reading on the subject it seems that alcoholism always tends to escalate but I'm wondering is that true or does it depend on the person?

Its hard when there doesn't seem to be any negative personality changes.We have friends in their late 50s who drink a 70cl bottle of vodka together every night,always have done.They both work full time and it doesn't seem to affect them but I do worry about their health.

he is a fantastic husband and dad in every respect except the drinking

No he isn’t.

My friend was married to a high functioning alcoholic.

He would drink wine and a lot of it. It was all going well until he was in a work trip, drank 3 bottles of wine in one night. The morning after he fell down the steps of his hotel, ended up in hospital and was managed out of his job immediately (he worked for a very high profile fashion company)

This was the last straw as although she had been in complete denial over his drinking, it opened her eyes.

When she asked him to leave she found empty bottles hidden everywhere in the house.

You are in denial. Your DH is drink driving on a regular basis. It is a matter of time before he loses his job.

Although your children are young it won't be long until they are old enough to notice and it will impact them.

The volume of vodka he is drinking is huge. His liver will be affected by this.

Can you talk to his parents or family for help on how to handle it

Although he doesn't sound it, he is a fantastic husband and dad in every respect except the drinking

Here’s, the thing. You know he’s an alcoholic. That he drinks and hides it. So you cannot leave your newborn with him. You won’t ever, in good conscience, be able to leave your child in his care until he realises he has a problem and sorts it out.

There’s no way to square that with him being a “fantastic” dad. Addiction is a state in which you put your desire for a substance above all the other things that should have priority, like the wellbeing of your children. He cannot be a fantastic dad while he’s in the grip of addiction because he cannot be trusted to put his child’s welfare first..

I don’t think when you are inside a problem that your can see it as clearly as others and you create all sorts of rationalisation for the bad bits.
However the sentence “he is a nice drunk”
Just stood out here read it over and over.
Kids parties family events “oh he’s a nice drunk” your older kids having friends over “don’t mind Dad he’s a nice drunk”
It will never go unnoticed and will cause a lot of harm if he is a nice drunk or it progresses to a mean drunk or a bitter drunk.

In my experience you can begin to affect their behaviour if you make them realise they're tricking nobody-i.e everybody knows they're a drunk and they start to realise people avoid them because of it and that they have nothing else going on in their life except drinking. This is what finally shifted my friends arse into doing something about it. I made them realise everybody else had moved on and they were still living like an 18 year old wanting to get 'fucked up' as their only pleasure from life.

And people dont always drink loads to hide some deep pain or whatever cliche. Often they just really enjoy it and have nothing else.

@TheBlueBear so sorry to hear your dad was an alcoholic too. I totally understand about the feeling of betrayal.

I hope you don't mind if I say - I wonder if you're making allowances for your DH because he's, in your words, a 'nice' drunk (i.e. not a 'real' drunk like your dad). My dad was nice, unless - like your DH - someone challenged his drinking (or a few other sore spots....) Defensiveness was the source of all the abusive rage from him that we suffered growing up.

For my mum, as long as we didn't mention my dad's drinking - or do anything else to trigger his rage - there was no problem: she behaved as if the problem was the rage, not the drinking; she tried to manage the symptom - not the disease. Obviously the effect was that we all came to believe his rage was our fault. It's taken me years to come out of the gaslit fog.

Please don't think of yourself as lucky not to have married a man as abusive as your father. It's a huge problem if your DH is a 'nice' drunk, who only gets ratty (and then aggressive, and then violent) if someone points out he's still a drunk.

You can't leave your kids with him or let him drive them anywhere. He won't be able to go to parents evenings. He must smell awful, other people will notice. My neighbour is a "nice drunk" and I can't stand being around him to say hello on the street. Drunk people are unpredictable and have accidents, slur their words, you can't trust anything they say. I think because you're living this you can't see how awful it is from the outside

Well, as you've clearly decided it's fine for your dcs to be brought up as the children of an alcoholic, like you were, there's not a lot you can do.

Hopefully your dcs will be able to break the cycle when they have a chance.

If I thought for a second that he would hurt the DCs

He might not hurt them on purpose, but he could easily by accident while under the influence (or driving them while still over the limit next day). Also, they will be hurt anyway by having an alcoholic father. They will notice.

Your dh is beyond heavy drinking. He is already in hiding the alcohol, drunk driving, arguing and apologising. This isn’t functional. The driving and denial would be enough to tell you that this isn’t a relationship. He is not a partner or father he has his primary relationship with booze. Your relationship is over until that changes. Work on you - he is not a wonderful dad if he behaves like this.

Incidentally your dad is an alcoholic as well.

It's not incidental though is it? Children of alcoholics are far far more likely to grow up to be alcoholics or choose a partner who is an alcoholic, because it's their 'normal' and its familiar even if they hate aspects of it.

This is what will happen to your children if you stay and he doesn't change

@Odile13 no I haven't seen the Adrian chile's documentary but will certainly look into it. Thank you.
@pointythings sorry to hear about your husband. It must have been very difficult for you.
@uggmum I have spoken to my mum about it as she's been there. She basically told me (in a nice way) that I went in with my eyes wide open and knew what I was getting myself into. It's slightly different to her situation as her husband was a mean drunk. He would have been extremely verbally abusive and occasionally physical too. He would have been very abusive to us when we were children also (we were terrified of him). Actually just reading all of that makes me think my mum is probably not the best person to be taking advice from. If DH ever were to be abusive though I think she would strongly advise me to leave.

I have an alcoholic ex husband. I left because of his drinking, although to all intents and purposes, he functioned. Never missed work. I just couldn't take it though and he would never accept he had a problem.

After I left he stopped coping and was in a disgusting state for a few years. His new wife sorted him out but they also nearly split up over the drinking. Fortunately, second time around he realised that he didn't want history to repeat itself and now he allows her to control his drinking (I would never have taken that on, but each to their own) and now he can drink a bit but no more than she allows.

I would not, in a million years be in a relationship with someone else with a drink problem. It was hell and I'm not going there again.

@ilovebagpuss your post has actually really hit home in the sense that even him being a 'nice drunk could still cause much embarrassment for the DCs when they are older. Im ashamed to say that I had never really thought about how being a nice drunk could affect them. I'm realising just how naive I'm probably being about it all. I think @Cathy31 has hit the nail on the head about me making allowances for him because he is 'nice.'

The 'nice' will wear off soon enough, but you'll be conditioned to the situation and still won't leave. I saw it with my Mum. She normalised his abuse of me. For the love of God, don't do the same to your children.

This bit about how you and your children would have to leave if you split, because he owns the house... You're married, it's the marital home and so you have rights. He would have no right to turf you and his own daughter out onto the streets! Whatever you do, make sure you know what your rights are. Then you can make informed decisions.

It is hell isnt it, Joswis, I dont think a lot of people realise how bad it is living with a drinker. I've lived with heroin addicts, crack addicts and spice addicts but by far the worst was drinkers. The nastyness, sarcasm, stupidity, boring behaviour and just empty pointlessness of it.

One litre of 37.5% vodka is 37.5 units. So if he drinks 3 of those in a week (that you know of) that's 112.5 units.
There's not much of the week that he can be legal to drive - you lose around one unit per hour. If he's drinking that much he's going to end up either having an accident at work or losing his job.
To put it in context 5 pints of standard strength lager every day for a week is 79.5 units. It will be damaging his health.

I'm not anti drinking, but he's going too far

Sorry that you are going through this. Alcoholism will always get worse over time. He is only a nice drunk because you enable his drinking. He has already showed signs of being an abusive drunk when issues around his drinking have been raised. I strongly suspect that if you gave him an ultimatum about his drinking that his "nice" side would disappear.

If you're married, I don't think he owns the house.

@OoohTheStatsDontLie they do say people end up marrying their mothers/fathers don't they. I hadn't thought of it until you said but it's very interesting (and depressing)
@melisande99 I don't think he would actually put us out. He was extremely remorseful the next day and said if we ever did break up I could stay here and he would move in with his parents. But it just left me feeling vulnerable all the same. Plus I don't pay any of the mortgage as I only moved in a year ago and we were saving for the wedding then I got pregnant and took sick leave due to hyperemesis. So I wouldn't really feel comfortable staying as I don't contribute to the mortgage.

[quote TheBlueBear]@OoohTheStatsDontLie they do say people end up marrying their mothers/fathers don't they. I hadn't thought of it until you said but it's very interesting (and depressing)
@melisande99 I don't think he would actually put us out. He was extremely remorseful the next day and said if we ever did break up I could stay here and he would move in with his parents. But it just left me feeling vulnerable all the same. Plus I don't pay any of the mortgage as I only moved in a year ago and we were saving for the wedding then I got pregnant and took sick leave due to hyperemesis. So I wouldn't really feel comfortable staying as I don't contribute to the mortgage.[/quote]
Of course you don't contribute to the mortgage - you are looking after his newborn child!!! And sick with hyperemesis from carrying his child. That is exactly what the protections of marriage are designed for!

My dad was a 'nice' drunk. I married an abusive drunk. He's now an exh.

This might sound harsh but you need to think about what choices your child may make as an adult.

I'm sorry that you're going through this.