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?

Oh OP, what a shit situation to be in.

I can only add to what others have posted as I've had several close family members die from drinking. My grampy died in his 50s. My favourite uncle was 42 when he died. We loved him at family parties - he always danced, told lairy jokes and was the life and soul. My cousins tell a very different story - their mum always shouting at him to stop drinking, him falling asleep all the time, never being able to take friends home, not having money for food or clothes as he'd spent it on drink. He wasn't a jolly happy drunk to them.

Protect your kids. This is his battle to fight. Not yours. Remember the 3 C's - you didn't cause it, can't control it or cure it.

@TheBlueBear
Don't worry about the details in the study unless you're genuinely curious. I posted it because a lot of people think that an alcoholic can just decide to stop drinking or that someone isn't an alcoholic unless they decide they are.

There's a saying in AA, "You alone must do it but you cannot do it alone." He needs help to get out of the trap that he's in. For some, that help can be AA. For people who are deeper into the disease progression, it means medical and peer support. There are medications that can make stopping easier, which is why I suggested seeing his GP.

Hi OP,

Al Anon is an organisation there to support the families of drinkers. It doesn't matter if he doesn't engage with the AA.

From their website:
"The primary purpose of an Al-Anon group is to help families and friends of alcoholics. A.A. members are welcome to join Al-Anon if they feel their lives have been affected by someone else's drinking. At Al-Anon meetings, members should not discuss their membership in A.A. or any other anonymous fellowship."

I'd also like to point out many of the health effects won't be felt until your baby is at least a teenager if not an adult. You'll then see your DH being struck down with chronic conditions, one of which is alcohol-related brain injury and/or leading to young onset dementia.

alcoholchange.org.uk/alcohol-facts/fact-sheets/alcohol-related-brain-damage-arbd-signs-and-symptoms

Start with getting help for yourself.

I’m really sorry, I was where you were . It was miserable, and scary and I’m afraid it got worse before it got better. There was nothing I could do... he had to decide himself but he went wayyyyyyyyy down before that happened. The one thing I will say though is don’t hide it ... I was embarrassed and didn’t tell my friends and hid it, and by doing so I enabled him. It was only when I started to confide in friends that the whole situation began to blow open. But in terms of recovery he had to decide himself. In our case he went into residential treatment and it was the most wonderful thing for everyone. There is hope but you have to put you first and if you feel in any way scared, please put supports in place. All my best x

You need to raise it with him. Perhaps say that you are concerned that, due to lockdown, his drinking has increased and that he is becoming more dependent on it. You aren't judging him, but you would like him to talk to the GP about it and to be completely honest about the amount he is drinking so it is all out in the open.

@TheBlueBear I'm so sorry you're in this position. As others have said, it will escalate and not end well. I left my alcoholic ex when my little girl was about three. It was the worse time of my life, but the best thing I could have ever done to protect my daughter from a life of misery. You have your son and little baby to think about - you say you're on maternity leave, so you have a job you can go back to. I can tell you've had your eyes really opened by peoples experiences on here. Don't take any notice of the one poster on here who is trying to minimise it. It blights and ruins lives. Please don't let that be you and your beloved children's future. Yes, it's a disease - but unless the person themselves seeks help, there's literally nothing you can do.

@TeachesOfPeaches no it would be over a whole evening/night. He might start at 5pm and finish at 4am or so (when he's not working)
@Willfiasco thank you for saying so Trying to reply to everyone as appreciate the input particularly when people are sharing very personal stories
@LEELULUMPKIN your poor sister. That must have been a terrible shock for her when he took his own life. I hope she got counselling for experiencing such trauma.
@NerrSnerr sorry to hear about your sister. Must be very difficult watching your mum drink also. From reading the experiences of other posters there definitely seems to be family links to alcoholism. I wonder how much of it is genetic as opposed to learned behaviour. A letter is a good idea, especially as I do have a tendency to get over emotional during serious conversations. Plus it would ensure that I hadn't left out any important points.
@Ginfordinner that sounds absolutely horrific for both your BIL and SIL. Hopefully in time she will make new social connections and build up her confidence

@TheBlueBear bless you but my point was you are very thoughtful of other people, but now you need to be less sympathetic and understanding of others and more selfish.

You do sound such a nice person the blue bear, but maybe think about yourself a bit more.
Consider this, if your child or best friend came to you and told the same tale, how would you advise them ? Try to apply that advice to your own situation.
It must be awful for you 💐

I have just read your original post again and to be honest it makes me really sad the way you are sort of excusing his behaviour.Maybe you need to have a bust up for him to feel uncomfortable and to realise that you are just as important as he is.Why try to keep him sweet all the time when it's obviously really worrying you.and impacting on family life

BlueBear, I agree with Clarich here... that you are just as important as he is. In fact, I'd say far more so. Al Anon will put the focus on you, not him. We forget ourselves when caught up in the chaos of a loved one's addiction . That's the best way for me to describe living with my then fiance and his drinking..chaos . Every single aspect of my life was thrown into chaos /madness.
Thank you for your words.... However, I'm sad to say, but it's the truth...his death was a relief. Tragic as a waste of a life, but a relief for many. The world is a better place without him. I don't know if you can access any of my old posts (from around 7-8 yrs ago and I will warn they make very depressive reading so I'm not actually saying, do so!) . I accept my ex was not the 'usual' alcoholic and far worse than most. The sweet kind sober man was not the drinking monster who raped me most days, was violent and worse than both of those caused me severe psychological damage with his control, threats, blackmail, obsessive behaviours , manipulation and cost me everything I held dear then (home/job/ friends/ family/ you name it) I had to leave with the clothes off my back and never got over the shock of that but it was that or I probably wouldn't be here now (but I've often wished I wasn't..) Eight years on I'm still re building my life and suffer severe PTSD, I have to work evening shifts as can't sleep at night (I sleep in mornings as don't feel safe at night), it's affected my entire life, subsequent relationships, ability to earn beyond minimum wage, everything . I realise my story is the extreme but I will also say, don't just trust and hope & pray it will get better. Yes alcoholics have to reach rock bottom before they 'may' ask for help but that's just a 'may'... many don't and the relapse rate (as with my ex ) is also v depressing.
Tough love is needed here and detaching (easier said than done when you live with someone..and I didn't have children...) I tried everything and I mean everything with my ex. The fact is he didn't WANT to change. He bullied me re my going to Al Anon and said he'd rather be dead than go to AA (I started going after I left him but we were still in touch). And that's exactly what happened to him. I did leave him a couple of years before his death . The sad thing is he left behind a teenage son but in some ways better his son didn't have more years of his dad's behaviour considering he'd already lost his childhood to it...

Old Balls, what a shocking thing to play, downplaying it like that.
I don't know anyone who has lived with alcohol and it hasn't massively affected their life, often forever.
When I went to Al Anon a huge per cent were those who had had a traumatic childhood due to a drinking parent. And a big chunk of these traumatised 'kids' were in their 70s and 80s! Point being, they NEVER ever got over the feelings of shame, the poverty,, the violence, the fear.. maybe there wasn't violence but all lived with fear of losing the drunk parent (most did die young) And it made no difference to those in very affluent families..they still had to live with all the 'isms' (an al anon term) of the alcoholic parent..and often try and parent themselves, that parent and the sober mother or father trying to hold the family together...Or perhaps it ws the sibling that was the drunk...eg an older brother who ruled the entire family with violence and threats..)

Also you don't want DD to grow up thinking this is 'normal life' ... and it's a fact that alcoholism is a family disease and that can also mean hereditary... it certainly was in my ex's family...

As your children get older, they will push his buttons OP and he might perhaps not be such a nice drunk then? I stopped drinking 6 months ago because I knew I was drinking too much and I knew it was having an effect on my parenting and my kids. I wish I'd stopped sooner but getting sober is the best thing I have ever done. I hope your DH can see that soon, but if not I honestly think you should leave as soon as you can.

If you dont think that watching their father kill himself with drink will harm your children then you are deluded. And make no mistake, he is killing himself.

Poor kids

‘ My DH has drank the same amount for the past 10 years or so...’

As far as you know.

To drink the same amount over the same 10 years suggests to me a deliberate show to minimise & hide how much he is really consuming.
Look beyond what he is showing you...

‘ Incidentally my father was an alcoholic too.’

Incidentally???
I don’t know whether to laugh or cry at this comment.

OP, your father was a nice enough drunk until he was no longer so, otherwise it’s unlikely that he’d have had a family. Your OH is a nice enough drunk until he is not.

Yes, many of us do choose life partners like our mothers & fathers, & equally we are chosen by those people because we allow them to be they we are.

I strongly encourage you to make contact with Al-Anon to examine your own experience & the impact of an alcoholic parent on your own life. Start the change you need with how you live your own life.

So you married him and had a child with him knowing he was an alcoholic?

Warning-I'm going to be blunt:So what are your plans when (not if) your son's father finds out you are living with a drunk? Do you have savings for the child custody fight that's sure to happen? When your daughter grows up around her alcoholic father are you prepared for her to find a partner with similar addiction issues? Do you want your kids to be raised in a toxic atmosphere? You've got to decide where your loyalty lies with your partner or your children.

OP I’m so sorry you’re in this position. You sound like a lovely person who loves her husband and looks for the best in him.
This is never going to end well.
He is drinking huge amounts and the damage he is going to himself is extreme. He may look good now and he may be one of the fortunate ones( like my father) who drinks heavily and remains relatively well.
But, I have looked after palliative patients dying from liver failure from alcohol and it is awful. The pain, the regret, the helplessness and more confronting the colour of the patients is horrendous. Do you want your kids seeing that?
My dad is an alcoholic and has been my whole life I’m 47. They recently stayed with us on holiday and the sheer amount of alcohol consumed astounds me.
When they left it took me days to calm down as it makes me so tense. And you know what? My dad is a lovely person, generous, kind, funny but it breaks my heart that he will always choose alcohol over anything and everyone else.
It messes kids up.
I’m really sorry to be so grim but it’s not going to get better unless he seeks treatment.
My dad hadn’t and never will and gets extremely defensive if you talk about it, it makes family moments very hard.

i’m an alcoholic born to an alcoholic mother and raised by alcoholics.

i first got pass-out drunk aged 8. i finally quit at 41. i was a rock-bottom, lost-everything alcoholic and i very nearly died.

i got sober 6.5 years ago. about 6 months in, i met a lovely man, fell in love and moved in with him. can you guess the punchline? yep. raging alcoholic. i thought i could save him, despite knowing from my own experience in AA that only an alcoholic can save the,selves.

finally the lies, the rows, the hiding booze, the outright denials and actually the downright unpleasantness as a recovering alcoholic of being around someone who smelled of booze the entire time became enough for me to leave.

he now spends his life sitting in the bedroom of the beautiful house we chose together, drinking himself to death. he has 9 fewer teeth than when i met him. he is 45, looks 10 years older. the alcohol is ravaging him and may ultimately kill him. i can’t do anything about that.

OP, the freedom that comes from not being around him is immeasurable. i moved from a big, beautiful house in the country to a studio flat on the outskirts of town. i live alone apart from my cat. i’ve been shielding on and off since March. i could never have done it trapped in that house with him.

he will not change until he wants to. in AA the general view is that alcoholics who cannot recover are headed one of three places - jails, institutions or death. you don’t have to stick around and watch the race to the bottom.

get out, as soon as you can. if he quits, that’s brilliant and after a year of sobriety you can see if anything is salvageable. but your only option right now is to leave.

i’m so sorry. alcoholism is such a horrible, insidious disease. i hope you can find a solution, and soon.

So basically his primary relationship is with alcohol, not with you or the baby or your son. That is really hard to live with, without a lot of mental gymnastics on your part. And you're the adult child of an alcoholic...

I think there are a few things in here you need to address, with Al-Anon's help and with some support for yourself via a counsellor, if possible. It's an awful series of realisations to deal with, and a difficult reality.

It would also be very sad for your children to grow up and mirror this for a third generation.

he colour of the patients is horrendous.

Oh yes, the colour. BIL was a horrible yellow colour. He also suffered a lot with fluid retention and his legs swelled up. His water tablets had to be readjusted all the time, and when they upped his dose it just sent him doolally.

His drinking does sound excessive and the way he tried to hide it gets my alarm bells ringing. I couldn’t tolerate it and my dad was an alcoholic as well. I haven’t lived at home for 20 odd years but the smell of stale alcohol still knocks me sick. Would he realistically admit he has a problem and get help?

Op, one thing to bear in mind, I would be astonished if he had nights off the drink. At his level of consumption, he would experience very uncomfortable physical effects after 24 hours without alcohol.

He will also be drink driving so you need to consider never allowing him to have the kids in the car. Everyone else's kids will have to take their chances when he's on the road I guess, selfish arsehole that he is.

Another thing you should think about is that he isn't really 'with' you and his kids. He is with a bottle of vodka, at work or asleep. There is no point to him whatsoever as long as he continues to drink.