Could you be with someone with alcohol problems?

[DaytonVlogger]

Could you be with someone who has alcohol issues to the extent they pour alcohol into a coffee mug to drink in the evenings to disguise it.

Also same person has alcohol fuelled Andy outbursts when they can’t cope with something.

Could you be with a partner/spouse who is like this?

Would you say “no way!” and ends the relationship? or would you say

“well to be fair their life is stressful I’ll cut them some slack and try and support them”

No, my uncle is a bit like the man you described. Not so much with hiding drink. I see the stress it is causing my aunt when he goes out or is at a family function. He rarely get aggressive but is a messy drunk.

I'd end it it seems they like alcohol more than you don't settle and find someone who loves you not booze

The difference being depression and mental illness are just that illness. They didn't give themselves depression whereas alcoholics choose to drink

Fuck that. That's the exact bullshit that keeps people stuck with addicts. It's not a disease, that whole theory has no scientific basis whatsoever and was promoted heavily by an alcoholic conman as a way of getting rich and keeping his wife trapped with him.

Alcohol abuse caused a negative feedback loop in the neural pathways that is very difficult to overcome but it's akin to a self caused injury, which an addict can choose to work through. Just like someone with a non permanent spinal injury can either do the damned hard and painful work of getting on back on their feet, or stay immobile. It's not easy but it is a choice. And anyone in a relationship with an addict who won't do the work to overcome it, will have their life destroyed. It's not a disease, they owe them nothing. They will lose all chance of a reasonably happy life if they stay.

No Way ! And I’ve been there, married to an alcoholic. I left him in the end but we were both young, no children. Sadly he is now dead, killed him at 50. Shame because he was such a kind man , not a bad bone in his body . He could have been such a good husband and Dad if he ever had children. What a waste! I hate alcohol and I don’t drink it anymore.

No, even without the angry outbursts.

This ! It is not a disease, it is an addiction which destroys lives. !

It's nowhere near as simple as that. Don't call it a disease if you don't want to, but addiction is often better understood as a trauma response. Yes, it carves neural pathways which are often almost impossible to undo, but phrasing it as a choice isn't always helpful.

For instance, before schizophrenia symptoms show in people in their twenties, they often turn to drugs to mask the pain of what is happening to their brain. They are using because the damage and pain that their substance of choice produces is smaller and more easily managed than the damage and pain inside their own heads.

I could give you plenty of other examples of the intertwining of mental illness and substance abuse. Until governments get really serious about funding proper mental health care and recognising that it's not a separate issue from addiction, nothing will change.

That doesn't mean people should stay with addicts. Usually the best thing is not to do so and to avoid enabling and codependency. But it's equally unhelpful to frame it as some random choice. As with all areas of our lives, whether we choose to accept it or not, choices are not made in a vacuum.

A big fat no..

@WaryHiker I have been addicted to nicotine. That wasn't a trauma response, that was something that I first tried because I thought "why not?" and continued with because it became a habit.

While I'm sure that for some people substance abuse is a trauma response, for others it's a just a response to the addictive qualities of those substances.

I grew up in a house with an abusive alcoholic. I won’t subject myself to that. I absolutely won’t allow my child to live with that.

A person who needs to get sober and face their demons can do it separately and then come back to the relationship if they are successful. The alcoholic doesn’t get to ruin everyone else’s life in the meantime.

Two years ago, a relative was hospitalised because of alcohol. He had ascites, fluid all over his body. He couldn’t wear his jeans because of the swelling. They removed two lots of fluid from him, 7 litres and 12 litres. He was diagnosed with cirrhosis, and there was talk of going onto the transplant list. He stopped drinking straight away, and now his liver seems to be a lot better. I would argue that it was willpower that made him stop drinking, not easy after 40 years, but he managed it.

It depends on whether they acknowledge they have a problem and want to do something about it.

Alcoholics scan go for decades without admitting it’s an issue. I absolutely would not stay with one that was in denial and just sitting drinking themself into a stupor.