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.

Thinking of you. You've done what you thought was best, but what you now know is best has changed, and you're willing to do it. Best of luck x

Sadly addicts will relapse. It's about how they deal with it. Drunk driving is obviously a deal breaker. That's the thing that you can hopefully control. But not if he's lying about it.
The addiction is really strong. Could you tell him to go to a residential detox/ rehab, else you'll strongly consider asking him to leave the house? I'm presuming he doesn't believe it's that bad. He might if you phrase it that way.
Some people attend AA but think they can restrict rather than be abstinent. With that programme it's not possible really.

@Autumnleavesfalling23 huge hugs and a handhold. This will be some of the toughest times but as someone who has been through the otherside (child of an alcoholic parent) and seen many loved ones go through it, I promise you there are better days ahead. Keep going and you will get there.

So sorry @Autumnleavesfalling23

the future is brighter after this, I promise

@Autumnleavesfalling23 you're doing the right thing. You're living with an addict in denial who has endangered your children - that's the end, it has to be. His recovery is for him to own, not for you to fret about.

I'd be cautious about contact with the kids given his driving with them. Contact should be for the benefit of the children, not him. I'd it really in their best interests? I say this as such a child of an alcoholic.

FWIW, I've seen both in my family. In one case the man (both alcoholics are men) went to AA and various other help organisations, but I don't think, deep down, he wanted to stop. He's a very sensitive, rather emotionally fragile man, and he is in a bad way now, rock bottom, homeless, still drinking. His marriage broke up when his wife realised he wasn't going to stop. She ran out of energy to support him, which isn't surprising.

Second case, after several relapses, the man went back to AA, stuck it out and has been sober for over 20 years. His marriage was obviously rocky when he was drinking, but is now very strong.

So a marriage can survive, but the alcoholic partner really needs to stop. It's up to the other partner to decide if they can cope with relapses.

Oh and I'd add that I have serious issues with my Dad for staying with my step mother.

I wish he'd divorced her long before he did and in the end it was me phoning the police on her that was the beginning of the end.

I still almost 30 years later cannot believe that my Dad did not stick up for us as a family by asking his second wife to leave. (We stayed with him all the time as our Mum had died).

Your children might have trauma around your decisions right now. They might even be highly critical of your choices.

I think you could all do with some counselling.

Dh is an alcoholic. Not that he accepted that fact, but he drank every night, two bottles of wine until he was incoherent.

He was unbearable if he didn’t drink for some reason. Miserable about it. But he was a miserable drunk too, so there was no difference.

Two years ago, I said I was leaving if he didn’t stop. He was away for the night with work. They went to the pub and he got shitfaced as usual. He called me slurring, as usual, talking shit. He didn’t end the call and I heard three of his colleagues, Two women and his male boss talking about what a fucking disgrace he was. One women was saying she was just going to pay for a separate taxi to get him back to the hotel as she didn’t want to be fucking mortified at his behaviour again and they all agreed they didn’t want to travel with him.

I told him the next day, he went mental saying that I was stirring trouble, they would never do that, they were his friends, I was jealous of the successful women. (He didn’t remember being slung in a taxi on his own, clearly).

I told him that was enough.

He hasn’t had a drink since that night, found “health” and is actually very evangelical about not drinking now.

But that’s had a knock on effect to me. I didn’t have a drinking problem. I could take it or leave it. If I wasn’t invited out, I’d go years between drinks (I’m a Billy no mates).

But I met some school mums a few years ago and I’d love to occasionally go for a night out and have a few drinks. I can’t though as I know the second I have one drink, he will say it’s not fair and start drinking again and I cannot go back to that decade of hell.

Personally , I’d expect him to show me he is trying to stop, seeking advice, going to support groups etc before I’d even allow him unsupervised nights with the children. He needs to realise that there are consequences to his actions.

life is going to be tough for both of you but you’ll get there and hopefully he does too.

Thanks all, nice day with friends and then told kids. Hard but glad we did it. They’re not daft and had an idea

Well done. You can do hard things, onwards and upwards xx