Alcoholic husband, will someone walk this road with me?

[PeggyGuggenheim]

It's been an issue all through our ten years together. A bottle of wine to himself, every night, is the least he would have. More like 3 litres of cider a night, or getting bladdered at the pub three times a week.

Anyway, he finally admitted to his best friend that he was an alcoholic and I thought we were getting there...he managed about six weeks without a drink and it was like we were newlyweds. Just such a relief, so much relief and love, and he was a changed person. Then bit by bit, drink creeps back in, and being the idiot I am, I think he's going to be able to be a sensible drinker! Why????

Now we are back to square one and all I'm asking for help with is - on Monday nights an Al-Anon group meets in my town, I have been threatening/promising to go, for about two years! I need to bite the bullet and just GO on Monday night. Is anyone else needing their "hand held" to take this step?

I am in this situation.

My dh is an alcoholic. I am very controlling. I manage to keep the lid on it as much as I can. I am ashamed to say I have wrestled bottles of him, physically blocked his route to the off licence.

He has a very well paid job. We have two children. He is a nice drunk, not violent, he is a little paranoid sometimes. We go for a few weeks without a problem then it seeps back in.

However, we lose countless weekends every year because he is ill following a binge. Being sick, head and stomach pains, irritable.

He always takes his opportunity when I am drinking to drink and drink more as I am more inhibited. I drink more than I used to and occasionally drink when stressed. I went through a horrendous experience a few years ago and for a few weeks I was wanting to drink every night. Rather than try to limit my behaviour he actively facilitated it by going out to buy wine and bringing it home.

He has red eyes, is sick often, sweats and snores badly.

We both, as children, had parents who divorced and divorced very badly. i cannot face doing it to my kids. I am scared of being alone. We would struggle hugely financially and I think he would be a very agressive divorcee because he would feel rejected and would not be able to separate the children from us.

We both have very very limited family support. My family is destructive. I think that I am probably a codependant.

I am not sure I love him anymore. I cannot do the detached love thing. At the moment we do not have the space, we are renting and about to buy a house.

I am sick of controlling him and feeling depressed after the latest bout. I have told him to go to AA today. He probably will not go and it will not make any difference. The constant nagging from me does make a difference it is just not how I want to live my life.

There is not an answer to any of this, sorry it is so long. Good luck to you Peggy.

PoorlyBear,

You are in a very sad situation here but you are now both teaching these children damaging lessons. Ask yourself this blunt question - what are you getting out of this relationship now?.

You write that you are scared of being alone but you are already alone, well you may as well be for all the "help" he gives you all. He is no husband to you nor father to his children. You have a life of lost weekends and days where he is ill following a binge. You cannot protect these children from the harsh realities of their dad's alcoholism; they are all too aware of it particularly if they are older children. You are also actively stopping yourself from meeting someone new in the longer term.

Alcoholism can also be learnt; you really don't want them to think that this is at all acceptable within a relationship.

There's no probably about it re codependency either - you are his codependent and you are enabling him. Frankly speaking the two of you would be far better off apart. You would be a lot happier. I would suggest you read "Codependent no more" written by Melodie Davies.

Alcoholism is a family disease; you all need support, not just the alcoholic who won't seek it anyway. Have you talked to Al-anon as yet?. You in particular need outside support.

He won't go to AA and you can't make him go. He has to want to help his own self and he will not. Your actions are certainly not helping him or you. Enabling him is hurting you both.

Why tie yourself further to him by buying a house?.

One of the 3cs re alcoholism is about control - you cannot control it. Doing this is damaging you even further, it just gives you a false sense of security.

Polar Bear, you now run the very real risk of your children as adults not wanting anything to do with you in the event you decided to stay with him for the long haul. You are living a lie. They will form their own opinions of the two of you; they could well go onto hate him and despise you when they are themselves adults. They could well accuse you of putting him before them if you were to stay, how would that make you feel?.

Divorce is one thing and your own experience coloutr your view now but alcoholism and the affects on the family can also last a lifetime. It will follow your children as adults and it will hurt them. This is no legacy for either of you leave your children.

The 3cs re alcoholism:-
You did not cause it
You cannot control it
You cannot cure it

He is a very good father when sober. He is a good man pretty much.

But the alcohol drives me nuts, I go beserk over it. I cannot stand the vomitting, the lack of stoicism over hangovers etc.

He is sober most of the time, but it is a constant job for me. I frisk his bag when he gets in from work and if I have had a hard day or I forget or I have other stresses to deal with or company it slips in. It is ridiculous I know but I think i do reduce how much he drinks but it has all but destroyed our relationship.

The effects on the children are

• very occasionally he has gone back to bed when the children were small and left them to their own devices
• left front door open
• the occasional dreadful rows

• they adore their dad, they really do
• when sober he is the superior parent, generally a very nice person but very quiet

thanks for your kind words
Yesterday was a bad night, I came down late this morning to find him dithering in the sitting room telling me he was late for work, red eyed and he thought he was still drunk. He works in the city. I said do not go in, call in sick, but he went in anyway. it was obvious he had been sick in the loo and when going out with the dc's I found a bottle of wine hidden in the porch.

Hi PB,

Many women often write along the lines of "he's a good man/father" comment when they themselves have nothing positive to say about their man.

I think the three effects stated re the children are very much the tip of a bloody great iceberg. They see and hear far more than you can protect them from. You saw the sick and the wine bottle in the porch. You cannot protect them fully from the effects of his alcoholism. The effects on you regarding enabling him are incalculable and will take you a long time, years infact, to recover from.

He is not your job to police nor your responsibility. You must realise that. Doing what you're doing will only further damage you and won't help him at all. Infact I do not mean this at all unkindly but you're the last person who can help him. He has to want to help his own self and he clearly does not want to. He may never want to either. There are no guarantees here; he may well lose everything and still choose to drink.

Your H's primary relationship is with drink with everything and everyone else coming a dim and distant second. The consequences are immense to you all, your family unit is broken and you cannot fix it. He could well end up losing his job and his liberty over his alcoholism.

How many people in your social circle know about his alcoholism?. Very few I daresay as well perhaps because of perceived embarrassment and shame.

Do they adore their Dad or are you assuming and/or hoping they do?. How do you think they feel about you and your part in all this?. They may still be youngsters but they will go onto form their own opinions of the two of you when they are adults and wonder why on earth you never left him years earlier.

I asked you what you got out of this relationship now. I presume from there being no reply to that question is that you're getting nothing from it so why do you hang on in there?.

You are trying and failing to control this. One of the 3cs re alcoholism is that you cannot control this.

Would urge you to seek support from Al-anon who will just listen and not judge you if you choose to remain within the marriage.

You all cannot go on like this and this whole situation is untenable. Something or someone (probably you) is going to snap and sooner rather than later.

Is this the life you really want for yourself and your children?.

ATTM thanks again, you are right.
But I do get something from marriage, love, companionship, security, an ally/friend in a world where I am pretty isolated.

I also worry that if we separate he will die of alcohlism within five years and I know anecdotally how awful that is (from the web).

If I stay we will manage somehow if he does not change, the children will have a good dad most of the time and we will continue our sad 'waifs in the storm' marriage.

But I am going to seriously think about leaving him and going to tell him tonight that the rules are no alcohol in the house, no drinking while you are living in the house. If you want to drink you must stay away whether that is for a night or for ever.

forever

I will look up al anon

If you stay together he could still die from alcoholism in five years. Or two years. Or less. Or he may just continue being a drunk until a ripe old age. Or he may one day decide to stop. None of that is within your control.

You may think you are helping him to control his drinking but, honestly, you're not. If he wants to drink he'll find some way of drinking. All you're doing is stressing yourself out.

He's a grown-up. He could spend the rest of his life pissed out of his tiny mind and he'd be breaking no laws (unless he drove a car while drunk etc). You have neither the ability nor the moral right to dictate to someone else how they should live their life.

What you do have the ability and the right to do is to decide whether the life you are currently living is acceptable to you or not. If it is then, great, carry on doing what you're doing and you'll continue to experience what you're experiencing.

If it's not then it is your responsibility to consider what you can do to change things so it becomes an acceptable life. That doesn't mean trying new tactics to force him to change.

It means finding things you can do so this maddening cycle of hunting through his stuff and acting like the booze police ends. Detachment doesn't mean you have to split, all it means is that you have to work hard to leave his drinking to him to deal with. If he throws up, he cleans it up. He decides whether he's drunk or sober enough to go to work. Your job is to find fun things to fill your, and your DC's time with while he's drunk.

You may find the classic text A Merry-Go-Round Named Denial rings some bells for you. I'd also very, very strongly recommend you get Melody Beattie's book "Codependent No More". You'll get a lot out of it.

I don't have the right agreed, but I cannot bear to live with a drunk and I will limit the ammount he drinks for as long as I share a small home with him. If we get a granny flat then he can go and drink in there. It is ok this detached thing provided you have more than one toilet...

Hi PB,

re your comments:-
"but I cannot bear to live with a drunk and I will limit the ammount he drinks for as long as I share a small home with him".

You are already living with a drunk and have done for some time. You are still trying to control this and short answer to that is you cannot succeed in that aim. As Snorbs rightly points out you will just stress yourself out by doing so and you are stressing yourself out.

"I also worry that if we separate he will die of alcohlism within five years and I know anecdotally how awful that is (from the web)".

That however does not change the fact you are still not responsible for him. You are still very much his codependent enabler and by acting like you are doing you are certainly not helping either you or him.

Re this comment as well:-
"If I stay we will manage somehow if he does not change, the children will have a good dad most of the time and we will continue our sad 'waifs in the storm' marriage".

You are not managing now - you're acting like the alcohol police and constantly fire fighting situations.

The children too won't have a good Dad but an alcoholic Dad for a father which in turn will bring upon them its own set of emotional problems (they could for instance end up in relationships with alcoholics or even become alcoholic. Have you considered that?). You don't have to continue the "sad waifs in a storm" marriage - is this what you really want for you and your children. Some life that is - NOT. Your parents had an acrimonious divorce yes but you cannot let that fact that colour your view now. Look at what is happening to you all, look around you properly.

If for instance you cleaned up after him and put the wine bottle found in the porch into the recycling both actions are enabling ones. Where are the consequences for his actions?.

You have a choice at the end of the day re your H, your children have no say.

I hope you do look up Al-anon and go onto attend a meeting. At the very least you need to read their literature.

Here's a very sad and (forgive the choice of words) sobering report regarding the effects of alcoholism on a family as a whole.

And this concentrates on the effects on children.

Poorlybear- staying with your husband can in the end turn any feelings you have for him to hate.
You can carry on a facade of normality for your children but down the line the cracks appear.

I speak from a long unhappy experience, only now do i realise how many years i have wasted and been miserable staying with someone, who to be honest only cares for drink.

The knock on effects that it has on the children comes out when they are older, by then it will be too late to try to repair the damage caused.
I love my children but am so ashamed and guilty that to some extent i caused some of the behavioural issues that they have.
My parents had a difficult marriage and divorced badly, i wanted so much better for my children.

the reasons people give for staying with alcoholics are not all that different from the reasons alcoholics give for staying with alcohol.

in both cases it is an addiction to something which when it is good it feels so beneficial to the addict they are willing to ignore all the negatives, make endless excuses, denials of the harm caused etc etc.

but i ask this.

how can you expect an alcoholic to give up their addiction to booze when you can't give up your addiction to them?

once you understand how difficult it is for you to walk away you will understand how difficult it is for them to stop drinking.

it's at the heart of codependence.

Feel like I'm hijacking this thread but just needed a rant. Still trying to work through our separation. H being a total nightmare, absolutely refusing to move out, one minute pushing on getting the house sold, the next saying he doesn't want to split.

There is never any acknowledgement of his alcoholism, he twists conversations back to everything I've done wrong, accuses me of turning DD against him etc.

I know I need to stick with the plan,just feel I need someone to assure me things will get better eventually.

What really scares me if when he's on his own he does something really silly, as I fear he'll go really downhill rather than turn his life around.

Whatever happens oyster its not ur fault like my own X its his car crash not urs.mine left came back left came back etc til he met a replacement co dependent enabler.it will be easier when he moves out and u can start to heal.

Thanks Patience. I need to keep my focus on this I think and stay strong. Just very hard sometimes.

Wow sombresobre, some hope at last! Thee's been so much sense talked on this thread.

Oystercard I fear that is what would happen here too if I pushed for separation.

This is the hardest road I have ever walked in my life oyster.I was heartbroken .when things got to the crunch stage he left and lived in his car for 3 mths.he can't give up the pub and drink.his kids see him maybe twice a month.wouldn't have believed any of it .couldn't believe he could be so selfish.now he has a new partner in crime 21yo he is 42yo.
All I know is I am the winner here,me and my kids.like I said b4 this is his car crash.

sombresober i respect your view but i have to disagree with it also. from my viewpoint there is very little difference between what you say and an alcoholic who has long dry periods and then periods of drinking and says "which is worse, not drinking at all and being moody or managing to cope with a drink when i really need one, it does very little harm compared to the harm that would happen if i was totally dry" etc etc.

i really don't see how daddy being drunk can be harmless to the children. it is not the same as epilepsy at all. i agree that they would still suffer from the alcoholism if they weren't living with their father but i believe it would be less harmful and less risky and they would be less likely to copy addictive behaviour patterns or endure them in a partner when they are older.

sorry that must sound very judgey from a stranger but i feel you are trying to minimise the situation in order to justify continuing the relationship.

how bad would it have to be for you to leave?

Just to say my addiction to my X was and still can be overpowering ,especially as he just admitted to having new gf ,(although they have been together since the summer.)But I am trying to climb out of the addiction .he wanted to continue his old life and doesn't want me near him because I'm not the enabler anymore.
Bloody hard work atm ,but all part of letting go of a really dysfunctional part of my life .

Patienceobtainsallthings - i can imagine that's a very tough battle but it sounds like you are being incredibly strong.

Smashing I can see what you are saying, but at least the alcoholic (though not thinking rationally, of course!) is comparing two things they have actually experienced when justifying their drinking, if they have been 'dry' and found it painful.
Choosing to end any marriage/partnership and separate children from their father (for whatever reason)is an enormous decision to make and it is stepping into completely unknown territory.
The practicalities of doing it (e.g. do I try to force him out - enormous amount of conflict involved in that I fear - so the dc can stay in the home they love 2 minutes from school, or do I drag them off to some poky rented flat which would be all I could afford for the forseeable future)are scary enough, then there's the struggle of being a single parent for the long term, the effects on wider family (I think it would just about kill MIL, no kidding), my son in particular would resent me enormously for many years, even if eventually as an adult he might come to see what I did was for the best (but ironically I beleive only if dh doesn't stop drinking!)...I know more or less how to cope with the current situation although it does throw up challenges and dilemmas from time to time, whereas I have no idea of the alternative as I have never experienced it.

Yes I admit a little bit of the reluctance is the remaining love for/addiction to my dh, and the shred of belief that things could change and we could be a happy family again. I do feel the dc are being damaged, but I still think there would be damage caused by leaving, and I would still have to manage their contact with him, financial and legal matters would become really stressful and complicated, etc. so that anxiety would not be gone.
Enough for now!