Can a relationship/family realistically survive alcoholism intact?

[Autumnleavesfalling23]

DH is an alcoholic, which he is coming to teens with accepting. We have 2 teens. He is accessing support, wants to stop etc but also doesn’t want to never be able to drink.
Things will be ok for a while, until another obvious lapse where he will have drunk but lie about it, drive when drunk etc.
AIBU to think that things won’t get worse? Or is it somewhat inevitable that he will relapse and things will escalate again?
Unsure if I need to plan to separate.

I know it's difficult op.

But he isn't a good father. He drunk drove your children. It's illegal.

Did you report him?

OP you keep asking the hypothetical “if he does x,y, z, can I trust him in the future?” Right now, in the present, he can’t be arsed to take the problem seriously. So you can’t trust him NOW. That is all that matters. The present moment. Alchoholism is all in the family and the alcoholic controls everyone and everything with his choices, his drinking, his occasional resolutions to stop. You are sad and angry when he drunk drives, you are tremulously happy when he bows his head and admits he has a problem, you are proud and excited when he doesn’t ruin an important family occasion when he’s drunk, you are furious and crushed when you have made plans to pay the mortgage /go to a wedding/pay the kids tuition/See the grandkids and he is on a bender or loses his job. You can’t relax and you can’t trust because he can’t be trusted during all the little nows of your life.

Retrospectively, if he really commits to sobriety and manages it for years, he may prove himself trustworthy—but until those years have passed without incident you will not be able to trust him.

Your kids might never recover. That's me and it will live with me forever.

I think you need support in this.

Google codependency.

Also, there is nothing to suggest your partner is at least remotely ready to go to AA, therapy and quit drinking forever.

He will always be an alcoholic, even if he remains sober forever after.

I think you need to be willing to leave. And as long as he tries to carry on drinking normally, rather than accepting he can't, the problem will remain.

But it is possible to come out the other side. One of my parents was an alcoholic (they would say they still are because addiction is lifelong, despite having been sober now for over 20 years). My parents stayed together. It was tough and for years their relationship was hugely affected but now they're stronger than ever. It took many, apparent 'rock bottoms' though before that breakthrough. And sadly through AA I know of many people who never got there. But there is hope.

I know you are desperate for people on this thread to tell you it will be wonderful when he stops drinking and you can trust him and he will never drink again etc This is wishful thinking sorry you really needto face the truth.If in a few years he is teetotal you could be together but now you need to live apart.Think of your children please.

I should also add that, as the child, I'm so glad my parents stayed together. We came through it as a family. Yes, I have been affected by it, and the effect will be lifelong. But we healed together in the end and we all talk very openly about it.

I realise that isn't everyone's experience and at a certain point, sometimes separation is necessary. I guess I'm just trying to add an alternative voice from someone who is deeply grateful that the other parent stuck it out. But you have to do what feels right for your family, not just for your kids but for you as well.

If he can accept that he can never drink again, if he starts therapy to address the roots of his dependency, if he does everything possible to maintain a sober life - then it's possible. My Dsis' partner is 13 years sober and continues to put in the work.

But the ones who manage sustained recovery are the exception, not the rule. Alcohol killed my husband. Right to the end he believed he could moderate. He lost everything before he died, his marriage, his kids (they refused to see him), his house (he was removed by the police), his job.

I don't think AA will fix the issue, i think it could help him to work towards being a recovering alcoholic.

You and your children may benefit from support now to help you all process the situation and prevent more intensive support in the future.

My dad is an alcoholic and my maternal grandmother.

My grandmother hasn't had a drink in almost 40 years. She's been sober since before I was born. My mum had an awful childhood due to her drinking and disappearing on her 4 children for days at a time. They barely have a relationship and we're NC for many many years but credit where it is due, she managed to boot the bottle.

My dad hasn't been anywhere near as successful. He, like your husband, can't accept that he cannot have a drink at all, ever. At one time he was well respected in his career, had a wife, two children and a lovely home. He is now in his early 60s, unemployable and lives in a council bedsit alone. I haven't spoken to him in months. His drinking has landed him in court on some pretty serious allegations. The problem is that while sober he is the loveliest man but with a drink he is evil. He can't not drink and it has destroyed his life.

It can go both ways. Some people succeed in beating it. Others don't. There are casualties in both situations as usually the damage is done by the time they stop drinking.

A year ago I would of said yes.

real life has shown me no ….

every time he went out I was anxious “will this be the day he relapses”

I was encouraging supporting held the family together but he relapsed , again and again.

of course there are people who never relapse or have the Odd one because that’s addiction.

would I waste another 7 years on an addict and put my kids threw it all again while pretending to myself the kids don’t know.

absolutely not.

Im sorry for you, I hope if you stay he’s s success story x

I suppose I’m asking: can you ever really relax and trust them again? Do people often stay off the alcohol?

Yes, of course they do - for 40, 50 plus years.

But they have to really want to stop, and not imagine - as your husband does - that they can drink again.

Yes, of course you can. But he needs to truly accept he is an alcoholic. Just going to AA but having the idea it is a temporary thing, and that he can just drink again means he hasn't even begun to grasp his situation.

You might find Al-Anon helpful in the meantime.

The main thing that tells me this won't end well is he doesn't want to ever not drink completely. If he really acknowledges he's an alcoholic then he'll know that part of recovery is to commit to living a dry life.

My own df was a chronic alcoholic, my advice would be to get out while you can. Your children will thank you for this.

I agree with the others. There really is no accomodation with alcoholism. It's a progressive disease and it relies on denial (and self-denial). The only way there is any hope of you remaining intact as a family is if he is prepared to stop, completely. At present he isn't prepared to make that sacrifice.

I think you have no choice but to leave. At the moment he (or more accurately his alcoholism) is in the driving seat. You're in a constant state of walking on eggshells worrying he will drink/will drink drive/break your trust. The power is with him and there's nothing you can do except worry and beg and plead with him not to do it. The only way to get that control back is to remove this from the equation of your life. It may be that this gives him the impetus to stop for good, but you can't count on this happening.

Families can "survive" alcoholism technically in the sense that they can get through it. Millions do: my dad was a high functioning alcoholic. He drank every day but never to the point where he lost a job or anything like that. But we all knew when he was drinking - it made him arrogant and irascible and he would start pointless arguments with everyone. My mum lived in a constant state of fear of what he would do at social events because he was constantly falling out with people and making a twat of himself.

I got to a point where the only way I could survive it was just to never spend evenings with him because I knew he would be drinking, so I was just never at home in the evenings after the age of about 14. I "survived": I didn't go off the rails, I went through school and university have a normal life and a good job and I never fell out with him. But I didn't thrive because I had to "fence off" a big part of my relationship with my father and basically make sure I was never around him when he was drinking.

And that's a relatively benign example of alcoholism in a family. Even when alcoholism is not pushing someone to stay out all night or drink from a hip flask during working hours or commit DV, it's still eroding happiness and trust in the family and making it impossible for people to be happy and be themselves.

Do not allow alcoholism to be the ultimate decision maker in your family's life.

This is when you should have thrown him out.

He knows you'll put with anything after this,

Protect your kids.

You need to agree as a couple to:
a) Sell his car, if he has his own car
b) Take him off your car insurance
c) Voluntarily surrender his licence.

Or d) short cut all of the above by reporting him to the police on a night when you have good reason to believe that he is drink driving.

The risks are just too high otherwise - please think seriously about the risks to innocent people.

If your DH commits to sobriety then you may have a fighting chance.

An alcoholic who still wants to drink means he's going to drag you all down with him.

A few weeks off the drink will only lead to bigger and more serious relapses. Alcoholics either stop drinking or they drink more. They very rarely manage to moderate or have a healthy relationship with alcohol.

Your kids probably know how bad things are and they'll definitely know how bad things will get.

Can you even attend AA if you have made a conscious decision to still drink? I thought AA was for abstinence (whilst supporting relapses?)

He has to stop drinking, it's the only way.

There are too many ifs here…
even if he recovers and goes to meetings and never drinks again he might find that you are the toxic element he needs to cut out because of your codependency.

also yoj will never be able to trust him.

I grew up in an alcoholic home and later married someone who became addicted to substances and the lies and all the self doubt through all those years killed whatever love there initially was.

You have zero chance of having a happy life with an alcoholic who thinks they can still drink. Zero. It's impossible.

The drink is of greater importance to him than his family. I wish it wasn't the case but it's the truth.

Getting him put of the road for drink driving is the best think you can actually do for him, your family and everyone else on the roads.

The hope will also destroy you. Living off the very few positive moments and hoping thinks will improve.

The only alcoholics I have ever seen manage to stay sober are those who really wanted it themselves and had come to the realisation by themselves and we prepared to put in the work and maintain the effort every single day of their life.

I'm not saying he'll never get to the point but until he does, there isn't a chance in hell.

I think alcoholism is incredibly difficult. I do know someone who has been sober for decades but he still attends AA a number of times every week. He still recognises he is an alcoholic.

Others I know do the more typical thing of relapsing, stopping, relapsing and it is anyone’s guess whether it stays as that or progresses.

I think at the moment it sounds as if you dh hasn’t fully accepted he is an alcoholic and that will make relapse far more likely. But even if he does come to that realisation there is still no guarantee that he will not drink again. Only you know whether you can live with that uncertainty and the impact that will have on you.

I’m sorry, alcoholism really is a bastard and destroys the lives of so many - I’m including families in that as well as the alcoholic.

And I agree - you cannot do anything. You can only accept that it has to come from him. You can decide to live alongside that or not but there is nothing you can do to persuade him. Sadly.

The other thing to consider OP is the drinking that you don't know about.

The secret drinking. Bottles hidden all over the place, in the car, office, shed etc etc
I would bet that bottle of wine wasn't all he'd drunk. Wine conceals vodka consumption

Alcoholics lie as easily as they draw breath - they are lying to themselves as much, if not more, than to others.

He says he doesn't want to stop drinking. He's in denial about his alcoholism and not ready to start stopping.

He has already broken trust by drink driving with the children in the car.
That's the line crossed and you should not accept it.

He sounds a long way away from real recovery if he still is aiming to enjoy drinking moderately.
I don’t know what he’s getting from AA meetings because that is not the message at all.

It can be possible for marriages to survive but it requires total commitment to recovery/abstinence and therapy from the alcoholic as a start.

Also don’t underestimate your own resentment or damage from this. Sometimes it’s when the alcoholic is “better” and you stop having to be the strong, reliable one all the time, that the feelings of trauma and anger come out. All the anxiety you pack away to get about functioning comes flooding back and it can be hard to forgive.

It can be done but I think it requires a ton of commitment and therapeutic help and he’s not really at the start line yet.