Cleaner threw away/moved/stole my secret booze stash

[Dubaichocisbetterthanexpected]

I rarely drink, I haven’t since Dv was born and since Peri kicked in and made me ill, every time I did.
Things have been stressful recently and Ive been having the odd drink on the balcony at sunset on my own. I usually don’t drink it all and usually put the remainder behind my bedroom patio shutters outside

Anyway, I came to have some tonight and they’ve all gone, cleaners came yesterday so an assuming it’s them as they clean the patio area too

Why would they do that?

The “Stop pretending you’re an expert when you’re just someone with a phone and time on your hands” nerve.

You’re kind of doing that yourself, from the other direction.

Nobody said it was about me. I’m just stating plain and simple facts - that armchair diagnoses from people with minimal information aren’t helpful.

When you protest so much there's a problem, when you hide it outside there's a problem so stop fooling yourself. Maybe the cleaner was cleaning outside and dumped them thinking they were lying there who knows but the cleaner isn't the problem 😞

Sorry, we're talking about one opened, and one unopened small bottle of cider, left out in plain sight here?

Your cleaner probably thought they were rubbish and binned them... we're hardly talking bottles of the good stuff hidden away here are we?

This is really sad :( OP, not having alcohol in the house doesn't mean stashing it outside. Please get some help x

Just to get rid of them, surely cleaners always do that.

OP, just a thought in answer to your question.
I noticed your user name and wondered if you have lived ….or are actually living in Dubai, a Muslim country with Sharia law and stricter attitudes to alcohol drinking which could have influenced your thinking on not drinking in front of your daughter? If so, it’s possible your cleaner thought it best to remove evidence of drinking alcohol.

Just buy alcohol and put it in your fridge or kitchen cupboard. It's ok to have it in the house if you aren't an alcoholic. I've got an entire drinks cabinet and only have a couple of g&ts a week.

I think maybe your Dad's alcoholism has left you with odd ideas about alcohol. It's normal for people to have a bottle of wine in their fridge. It's not normal for people to hide alcohol on patio behind shutters/doors. It's not normal to be secretive about having a glass of wine. You need to normalise your behaviour around alcohol or else your DD will grow up thinking it's normal to hide wine on the patio. Cleaner probably thought they were done with if not refrigerated. I would think secretive drinking is one of first signs of being an alcoholic so I'd watch yourself and keep wine in fridge. You still don't have to drink in front of your DD if you don't want to. because you are the adult and in control.

She is not drinking every day, she is drinking twice per week (and, seemingly, not even a full somersby's bottle each time). She's having about 2.5 units, weekly.

While she clearly has some hang-ups about drinking alcohol at home, she could increase her drinking 5-fold and remain under the reccomended 14 unit weekly cap. Implying that she's an alcoholic is daft and unhelpful.

@Velmy I agree with this. I had to look up what Somersby is - very small bottles of cider.

It's hardly a major crime for anyone to bin them. Understandable the cleaner (?) got rid of them or possibly one had fallen over and spilt etc.

And yes - I would keep them in the fridge, as cider is always better chilled. Same goes for beer (obvs)

find a different hiding place
and why more than one bottle?

Have you asked the cleaner?

So you are hiding it from your partner. I’m with everyone else, sorry.

You're leaving bottles on the patio. Of course the cleaner binned them.

Stop being dodgy with alcohol.

Drinking a couple of nights a week is normal. Sitting alone on a balcony having a drink in the nice weather is also really normal.

Hiding it from your family, not keeping it in the fridge and then starting a thread accusing your cleaner, instead of asking your partner, is not normal.

You say DH doesn't drink at home because he knows you hate it. And yet you're drinking at home?

I bet you are so pleased that you decided to share your alcohol dependency issues with Mumsnet! 😀😀

@JemimaPiddlepot From what I've read you seem to think that an unhealthy relationship with alcohol is dependent on the quantities of alcohol a person drinks (eg if they drink to excess). But that is not the measure of an unhealthy relationship with alcohol. Clearly OP isn't drinking a worrying quantity of alcohol. What determines whether someone has an unhealthy relationship with alcohol is their emotions and behaviours around alcohol. In OP's case these include shame and secrecy, which unfortunately is just another word for deception. These are not healthy emotions and behaviours to engage in or enmesh your family members in. This is why I and others are flagging an issue. It's not about units per week.

@QurikySparrowHatrack An alcoholic isn't determined by how much someone drinks but their emotional relationship with alcohol. All recovering alcoholics who are "dry" drink no units per week, yet have a hugely problematic relationship with alcohol, and will do their entire lives. This is why there is no such thing as an ex-alcoholic.

I don't necessarily mean that OP is an alcoholic, to be clear. I'm just giving this as evidence that we don't define a problematic relationship with alcohol based on alcohol consumption.

OP is the child of an alcoholic, this much we do know, and this in itself often means people develop a disordered relationship with alcohol themselves, even if it is not if it is what gets called alcoholism.

I wouldn't say you are an alcoholic like some posters suggest but you definitely have an unhealthy relationship with alcohol which many of us have pointed out (drinking in secret, hiding bottles, not wanting to have alcohol in front of your child).

There is the possibility your partner found the bottles and got rid of them. By removing them he is perhaps giving you a signal he has noticed your drinking and is waiting for you to open up and speak to him.

I do find it hypocritical that you won't allow alcohol in the house and therefore your partner isn't allowed a drink, yet you are seeming to think what you are doing (hiding the drinking) is ok and normal.
Surely he smells it on you afterwards?

There really is nothing wrong with having a drink on your balcony but the issue is the secrecy around it.

Leaving an open bottle of cider 'hidden' behind a door is pretty stupid with a child in the house - they could easily find it and drink it. And as per PP, anyone who is hiding alcohol has an issue.

FFS, the OP didn't ask for peoples opinions on whether she's got a drinking problem, she asked about her cleaners.

MN is so strange sometimes.

the bit that jumped out at me is “I’ve said, when she asked, that wine and beer etc is for adults and doesn’t taste great, but I didn’t make a big deal of it”

why say it doesn’t taste great? This can be confusing for kids - why would an adult drink it if it doesn’t taste great. You could have said it’s for adults and stopped there.

with your Dad there is clearly some trauma around alcohol (understandably). But hiding drink and telling your daughter this isn’t great. It is inadvertently making it a big deal by it being all ‘secret’