How to help depressed, alcoholic DH

[oyuoyu]

My DH has been depressed for some time, and is also an alcoholic. He battled alcoholism very well for around 4 years, but after coming off ADs (and a combination of other factors, tbh) he has recently relapsed and has begun drinking again.

He has not found it very easy this time around and is having the odd drink every week or so, which is troubling us all. He is back on 20mg of citralopram and is re-starting the AA 12 step programme.

We've talked through quite a few things but what is evident to me is the way he thinking gets muddled. He immediately blames himself for things that have gone wrong, and is finding it difficult to cope with decision-making. Getting the children up and out in the morning is tricky because he seems unable to deal with them without either being completely laid-back or really cross.

He is meeting his AA sponsor tomorrow; he is a new sponsor as we all suspect that the last one wasn't right for him. My DH is a lovely, kind, sensitive man who tries to please everyone and has now found a sponsor who challenges him. DH tells to tell people what he thinks they want to hear, which has made his 12 step progress difficult as he hasn't really worked through them and made the resulting change in behaviour.

We've all (his parents, he and I) have agreed that he needs counselling and his parents will help fund it if he can't access it sooner rather than later. I suspect that the depression is the root of his problem rather than the alcoholism; although I've no real basis for this thought apart from knowing him rather well!

He is interested in meditation and he has been offered the opportunity to go along to a Buddhist Centre to give it a go. I would be interested to know if this can help depressives.

I am trying very hard to be supportive and I am not interested in hearing responses like "leave the fucker immediately." As I said, he is a lovely, kind, sensitive man and a great father to our children. What I need, really, is to understand what I can do to help his depression. Having been around the AA for some time I know what I need to do for his alcohol problems, and I am working on that with the help of Al-anon. He is very prone to not wanting to trouble people so often will not ring for counselling, acupuncture etc if he hasn't heard from them, so I have to balance my usual pushiness against the Al-anon approach of not enabling him. Tis hard, I can tell you!

This is rambling! Any thoughts?

If his parents will pay for conselling, do you think they would be able / willing to pay for a stint in a treatment centre- not just a rehab (where they just dry you out and feed you up), but one that use a 12 step programme?

It would give his recovery a massive boost in being able to concentrate on his step work and getting well . Balancing recovery and real life might be more than his is capable of initially. (The week before i went into treatment i can remember crying in wh smiths as i just couldn't get it together enough to decide what type of envelopes to buy)

It would also give you and the children a break.

It isn't a cure but it is a good start that can be built on.
As for the depression- Alcohol is a depressant, so if that is put out of the way it will at least leave the way clear to see what actually needs to be addressed underneath. In my personal experience one to one counselling isn't that useful for alcoholics- it tends to reinforce the i'm special and different to normal people' mindset that is part of the illness. Group stuff and AA did a lot more for me. Goodd luck.

That is an incredibly insightful post and very interesting, particularly your views on 1 to 1 counselling. I think I would tend to agree that alcoholics think themselves a bit special - in fact I think I said something similar last night.

Happily, the lapses I mentioned are one-off drinks every week or so. There was a return to his alcohol addiction around a month ago where he returned to daily drinking. He went through a brief withdrawal. This week, for example, he had one drink yesterday when he had a really bad day. We had a long chat last night about why he didn't call his sponsor and he said that he didn't want to bother him. We talked that through and he does recognise that this is an example of how he is thinking differently at the moment.

Unfortunately, we run a business so a stint in a treatment centre is probably not an option. He is very much looking forward to the Buddhist thing tonight and I am very hopeful that he will find it helpful.

His new sponsor is very good and I will really put him through his paces step-wise. Previously he has chosen people quite similar to himself; nice people but very unthreatening and unchallenging. His new sponsor will be a shock, I think, and DH has already told me that he is quite scared about what he will discover about himself.

Thank you so much for your insights.

Agh! running a business together as well must be an absolute nightmare. I hope you do get an outlet where you can be off by yourself sometimes, it sounds very, very difficult for you to cope with this and your family too.

If he finds the buddhism thing useful it will really help with the step work as it will require him to find some sort of higher power. If buddhism isn't for him, maybe another approach might work. It doesn't necessarily matter at this stage who his higher power is as long as he recognises it can't be him! (to get started off, one of my friends believed in The Force from Starwars- always caused great hillarity in meeting but got him through those first few months until he could start working out a more (ahem) purposeful spirituality.

About the rate of drinking, and i mean this gently even if it sounds harsh-it is possible he is drinking more than he is letting on. I only say this as that was the way i operated eg if i'd had four drinks and could get away with it i would say i'd had none. If i'd had eight and it was obvious i'd say i'd had one. I could be wrong about that, but it wouldn't be uncommon behaviour in a room of alcholics, so perhaps just bear it in mind.

To be honest i am really concerned about the effect this must be having on you- eg your long chat last night about why he hadn't called his sponsor before drinking yesterday- i know this is really hard to hear but i think the best thing you can do to help him is not to be the one to talk through these things with him.

I know you love him and want to help him but you aren't perhaps the best placed person to do so, and you have to stay sane for your family. Could you perhaps say 'i'm really sorry you have struggled today, you need to talk to one of you AA contacts about that as i dont know what to say' for example- at the moment is sounds like both of you are on the rollercoaster rather than just him. A lot easier for me to advise, rather than you to do, i know.

In regard to treatment it may be he can get off the ground on meetings and step work whilst being at home and working in the business, but if this becomes impossible for him OR for you OR the children, get him in regardless of the business. God forbid, but if he had a physical illness that necessitated an operation, he would have to go in for it and the business would just have to sink or swim. You have to survive mentally for you and your children, whatever that entails.

It might be there's an alanon net mum who can offer you much better advice on this issue as i'm only coming at it from the addicts point of view, not the helpers...i do remember though that in treatment we used to be told that 'alcoholics make a complete mess of everything in their lives but somehow manage to find the nicest people in the world to put up with them' :-)

Finally just to offer a bit of hope, long term recovery is possible. I'm well over a decade sober now and my hubby over fifteen.

Don't give up but put yourself and your children first.

OP I have every sympathy for what you are going through and you sound like an absolutely lovely person.

My DH endured a depressive episode which lasted about a year and was difficult in the extreme to live with. I applaud your commitment, it's really not easy. I completely recognise the "muddled thinking" as I used to spend hours and hours trying to straighten out DH's obviously crooked thought patterns and conclusions.

I don't have much specific advice as DH is not an alcoholic but wanted to give you a big pat on the back anyway.

What I can say is that (despite not having an alcohol addition) my DH used alcohol to self-medicate his way through his anxiety/depression and I have absolutely no doubt that this prolonged his depression; actually, I think that towards the end of the depressive episode alcohol was the principal cause in bringing him down.

Almost within days of being teetotal, his thinking patterns changed and, whilst it took him longer to get back to normality, the catastrophisation and whacky thinking cleared up almost straight away. So I really wouldn't underestimate the possibility that your DH's depression is triggered/aggravated by his drinking.

DH is back on an even keel now, and does have the odd drink. But he is always careful because he knows that - particularly if he's a bit stressed - even a couple of drinks can give him a depressive "hangover" the next day. It is almost like an allergic reaction.

Good luck OP, I hope your DH is better soon and that your lives are both happier and easier very soon.