Alcohol dependent dh has been prescribed metronidazole for a long term health condition.

[CocoDeMoll]

And hasn’t taken any yet . I know it’s an antibiotic but he has a health condition that could vastly benefit from him taking a course (not for there antibiotic properties). He neglected to tell his specialist dr that he drinks daily and would struggle not to. He’s set a date of Thursday/Friday to start on them and be alcohol free but I’m not sure it it’ll happen and I just think what a ducking waste of everyone’s time and his health.

Where do I step in if at all? Co dependence doesn’t come naturally to me believe or not and I feel like just letting him do whatever he chooses and fuck the consequences. Is that callous or just realistic?

What are the chances or ‘friday’ ever coming?.....

How serious is the condition?

It's very unlikely he'll stop drinking whilst someone else is forcing him to - he has to want to do it himself.

If the condition is serious, he really needs to speak to his GP and explain that he can't take the medication and ask for an alternative solution.

Do you think he won't take the metronidazole, or will he take them and be unable to abstain from drinking?
Because it's pretty bad to drink when taking them and I'd really try to avoid that.

It’s a life long autoimmune disease that’s generally non life threatening.

He’s only ever completely stopped drinking once (last year) when I left him and I it lasted about a couple of months.

His condition is serious because it causes fatigue, pain and nasty side affects.

He knows how bad it would be to take them so my worry is that he just won’t but won’t go back to the doc looking for an alternative.

I had to take them as an antibiotic and my GP was really blunt about what would happen if I had a drink whilst being on them, and I only have one or two drinks a month. She painted a picture of serious side effects just from one drink.

Yeah, I’ve heard it’s awful. Don’t they use it as a deterrent in rehab?

Yes, that's what i was told. It has the same active ingredient.

My dad drinks like a fish on them and always has. He has always been fine. Everyone else I've ever met has been sick as a dog doing it, me included. Even the alcohol in mouthwash can cause an issue.

I made a dinner that I slow cooked for 12 hours and then cooled and then reheated. My friend was on metronidazole and we guessed that the alcohol surely should have boiled off. 3hrs cooking should remove 70% of the alcohol (30% remaining) even if the dish is covered (so 1.5hrs ish half life, 95% gone in 2.5 hrs if I covered) so we assumed then that it would be 15% at 4.5, 7.5% at 6 and so on togive 0.5% at 12, plus then the reheat. This only had a single glass of wine in a 4 person dish. So probably only 10ml pure alcohol in the first place. So down to 0.05ml theoretically in the dish and he ate 1/4. He was really really violently ill all night. I felt terrible for having cooked it but we just had NOT realised the level of Do Not Consume.

That’s crazy! So little could make him so sick!

He sounds pretty set on starting them tomorrow

He’s doing really well. He stuck with starting Friday and hasn’t touched a drop.