To think DH is deactivating the Ring doorbell so I can’t see what he’s doing?

[Clueless2000]

Posting for traffic.

Long story short - I think he has a drink problem. And I think he buys booze in secret.

I can sometimes see on our family tracker that he’s left the house when I’m out but when I later check the Ring on my phone, there is often no alert to show he’s gone out at that time - no videos in the history.

I think he’s somehow turning off alerts so I don’t get them and can’t see videos of him returning to the house with a carrier bag of drink.

I’m not very tech savvy - could he be doing that??

Ok so OP, for your sanity and closure, I would get a nanny cam in the hallway just to get a definitive answer. Your gut is telling you he is drinking and it’s clearly affecting you a lot. If you find something out then confront him and tell him he has to get help or else it’s over. You need to get out of this unhealthy situation.

You can buy booze on Amazon fwiw

a nannycam is not necessary
the op knows

Kids will know dad is a drunk.
Kids friends will know.

He'll function right until he implodes or dies from alcohol related diseases.

If recommend going to Al anon. I found it so helpful. This in particular

Living with an alcoholic can drive you to do things that are objectively insane. I've rooted through bins to count the empties. I've tiptoed down the stairs to try to catch the secret night drinking. I've searched the secret hiding places. If Ring cameras and location tracking had been a thing back then I'd have been watching those, too.

But all that achieved precisely nothing. I could tell when she'd been drinking just by the look in her eyes and the way she spoke. Sure, she'd lie about it but that's just what alcoholics do - they drink and they lie about their dining.

But if I knew she'd been drinking, and she undoubtedly knew when she'd been drinking, why was I driving myself nuts trying to find evidence of her drinking that she'd just flat-out deny anyway? Even when I'd present the evidence and, after what felt like hours of denial she finally admitted the truth and said she'd stop, she never did for long. And then we'd start on the same ridiculous roller coaster all over again.

The sad reality is that my ex didn't want to stop drinking. It didn't matter that I wanted her to stop or that I knew everyone's lives would be better if she stopped. She didn't want to. And I realised I had neither the legal nor moral right to insist she lives her life the way I thought she should. Her drinking was not in my control. What was in my control was to decide if I wanted to continue being with an untrustworthy, lying alcoholic or not. I chose not to. I should have done it sooner.

If motion triggers an event to be recorded, that event can be viewed by the main user and deleted easily with no trace.

This is done by hitting the three dots above “more” where one of the options is delete.

@daisychain01 i have never known a post on mumsnet where an alcohol dependency has been minimised.
I have actually been abused and stalked on mumsnet for 'ruining my children's lives'.
I post under the above name only to talk about alcohol related issues, for everything else I use my regular name.
The question is can alcoholics recover? Yes they can but they have to want to and I'm going to suggest they need to understand the process. 'Cold turkey' is the only way and it ain't easy. Support groups can be so helpful. AA seems to work better with men.
OP @Clueless2000 if you want anymore help from me please ask.

I haven't read the full thread @Clueless2000 and you probably know by now that all he has to do is go into the Ring app on his phone and turn off the WiFi.

It's as simple as that. When he returns to the house, he can simply turn the WiFi back on in the app.

Like the experienced people on this thread that have been in your shoes, you have my full sympathy.

It's an exhausting living nightmare.

There are different levels of private health care so it's worth just checking the actual policy. Mine for example definately includes getting some help for drug addiction but also, because we all know that drink or drugs can occur due to either MH issues. In my policy that my empoyer pays for they pay for 20 lots of counselling sessions and you don't even need to speak to the GP, you can self refer, which I did. As long as the counsellor is linked into bupa it is very easy to deal with and the employer cannot find out what help someone is receiving.
If your ring doorbell shows him leaving the house and you can prove it, it doesn't mean he won't protest his innocence or disgust at you. He is the addict and in that moment will want to deny it because that's what he's already doing. You can purchase one time brethlyzers which indicate if someone had been drinking. You know your husband and how he is likely to react but he is already lying so ring footage isn't going to be proof positive. If you try to force him to tke a brethlyzer would he try to deny the results? Would he become angry? At the moment I fear you'd need to be 2 steps ahead of the addiction and I would most highly recommend getting advice from professionals first, because the last thing you want to do, is for him to retreat into the addiction, his safe space, rather than feeling safe enough to admit to himself and to you that he is an alcohol lic, let alone being able to take an action to address it.
On a completely different note, where people have said about their ring doorbell not always or being slow to notify you, I found that it can need for the doorbell and chime boxes to have a 'reserved dhcp' on the wifi router. Usually this type of setting is available and a quick Google with the provider of your broadband router will direct you how to sort it out. Did this 2 years ago after a year of thinking poor wifi or app problems, and it's been perfect ever since.

This. Ring doorbells and the connected phone and tablet apps apps allow you to see who is coming and going, and even answer the door remotely if you’re not at home. Otherwise what’s the point of having a ring doorbell ? They’re commonplace, so l think it’s ridiculous of posters to jump to the conclusion that you somehow have control issues when you have good reason for your actions.

Yes, he can turn the system on and off, and delete video of himself coming and going, and speaking as someone with experience of a family member with a drink problem, l think you’re right to suspect that this is what he’s doing.

Also speaking from experience in agreeing with a poster upthread. If he’s drinking a hefty amount, as you suspect, you’re not going to be able to control the situation, and accepting the status quo is not an option. The problem will get worse, it will ultimately affect his job as his function diminishes, and it’s clearly already affecting your finances. The next stage is you standing helplessly by as it affects his health and the consequences leech into every area of your lives. You have to get over the feeling that you should be helping him. You can’t, he has to accept that he has a problem and act to help himself. Sorry you’re going through this. It’s shit and l really feel for you.

They can see OP. Sometimes MN posters just come online to find “ an angle.”

My god.what people have come to thru technology.

What on earth are you talking about ?

It leaves you suspicious when your spouse or partner is a drinker. They are so sneaky it's unbelievable. They can swear blind to your face that they haven't and their eyes are glazed. Op your gut is telling you what you need to know. You develop a 6th sense with these things.

I got a funny feeling as soon as something changed. It used to leave me with so much anxiety. I feel for you.

BTW I was never wrong. I always found something. It's a sad state of affairs to live like that.

It doesn’t always record. If someone goes out of my door, or passes and activates it doesn’t record again for 10 mins. I think this is standard. But not sure if that means he’s deleting them, he could well be

OP if he wants to drink he’ll find other ways to hide it from you if you confront him.
I grew up with an alcoholic mother. She would walk to the shop close to our house and find various ways of hiding it. She’d walk down the lane behind the house which was fairly overgrown and put it over the low fence at the bottom of the garden to retrieve it later. Or she’d hide it behind the bins in the driveway and suspiciously walk in with just a newspaper in a massive carrier bag. Then she’d find various hiding places in the house.
We’d find empty bottles all over the house.

If he’s starting to hide it then he has a problem. And I’d say he probably is doing something with the ring doorbell.

My mother made our childhood a misery. She would try and gaslight, she became manipulative anything to try and hide her problem.

If you have children please protect them from this. I had a miserable childhood because of my mother. It was like living with Jekyll and Hyde. When she was sober, she was great. When she was drunk, she’d be wasted and completely useless for 3-4 days a week 2/3 days smashed and then a day in bed to recover from her binge. She’d assault us for daring to pour her alcohol away or hiding it from her. She’d turn up to parents evenings intoxicated, She ruined every birthday, every Christmas. The gaslighting was off the scale. When my grandparents called social services, she convinced them there was no problem yet my grandparents knew she’d been drinking that morning.
I was one of 4 children, and had to grow up very fast to try and protect them. My dad was a weak man in a professional job and was able to hide away in work from it all. I resent him for not doing more to protect us.

If he does have a problem op, be prepared for it to get a lot worse before it’ll get better xx

There will almost certainly be alcohol in the house if it's proof you need. It will be very well hidden - decanted into innocuous bottles and it won't all be in one place.

Op, yes he just switches off motion detection on the app.

however the issue is not can you secretly track him and is he evading it, which is why you’re getting the responses you are, but if you think he’s an alcoholic address this with him.

I relate to this. Alcoholics are exhausting. You can drive yourself crazy trying to stop them drinking. Realize that it is not on you OP, check your bank accounts, but irrespective of the doorbell there will be a stash at the house somewhere.

I would try Al Anon. You cannot fix alcoholism they have to do it themselves.

That's for the tip 😂

I have Blink rather than Ring, but we both have the app on our phone and can both control it. If I switched it off, he’d be able to switch it back on. Or could just “drop in” on it and see it live. Can you do similar - so if you see that he’s gone out you can see if it’s switched off and then turn it back on or watch it live when he’s due to return?

Mine quite often doesn’t pick me up leaving the house. An approach monitors quite differently on the movement sensitivity than a departure in my experience.

It could well be nothing.

Op, in the nicest possible way.

If you say you are planning on leaving they will beg you to stay and promise not to drink. You will have no choice but to accept this flimsy promise while you continue to plan to leave. You would be better just doing the leaving.

Daughter of a heavy drinking parent here.

You're his wife. Not his mum.