supporting partner through alcohol recovery

[poorlybear]

That's it really, my dh long term drinker is now into his fourth week of sobriety

Does anyone want to join me for mutual support?

So both of you have tasted now how good it can be...don't give up hope A, even with this relapse. For me, each time I relapsed, I could look back and see why I did and know what I needed to do to avoid that again. We didn't become alcoholics over a few days, so we can't expect to find recovery in a very short time period either. The thing you will hear from each and every person in recovery, and their families, is that it is well worth the effort. Sadly it's a big up-front payment!

Anjelika how were things when you got home? Have you pursued the occupation order? Although it takes time you may need to show that you mean business, he may be relying on the fact that you can't just walk out because of the DC.

poorlybear great news on your DH's success so far. I am, like Venus, a recovering alcoholic and I would like to reassure you that it is possible to give up and one doesn't have to hit rock bottom, but the alcoholic is the only person who can decide when enough is enough. As venus said distraction is a great technique for dealing with cravings, encourage him to take excercise, indulge in a hobby or even sleep his way through a craving, not so much fun for you, but so worth it in the end. Good Luck!

Things were dreadful when I got home again - he was pretty much out of it and by 5.30 had passed out on the hall floor (nice for our 4 year old to witness!). He has now got big blisters on his arms where they were pressed against the radiator (which was on). I can't start to imagine how out of it he was, not to feel the pain at the time.

This morning he is of course sorry and adamant that he has stopped again. I don't think today will be any different tbh (when he stopped almost 4 weeks ago it did feel like he'd seen the light but it didn't feel like that today) but I have told him that, even if he stops today, unless he gets help at the same time I am going to proceed with a divorce as I can't go through this scenario every few weeks. I'm sure there will still be lapses even if he's having help but I'm hoping they will be less frequent and a lot shorter. I think he has shown that trying to do it by willpower alone is not enough.

I have got details of a solicitor who specialises in family stuff from my boss today so will make an appointment to see her asap. I'll see what she says about an occupation order but, the way I feel now, I just want him out of my life for good. Well obviously what I really want is for him to get sober and stay that way but it's not looking very likely at the moment.

One question for BBwannaB & LearningSlowly - what is the best approach to take do you think with my DH? Fairly strict or understanding? I told him that everyone just wanted him to get better this morning and he said (on the verge of tears) that he is sick of feeling that all eyes in the street are on him. I replied that he should have thought about that before regularly parading around our local area in a drunken state in the middle of the afternoon which he didn't like one bit and said that a bit more compassion from me would help. Would it? When he stops drinking (like he did 4 weeks ago) I gave him a lot of support and compassion but, until I can see that he has stopped, I tend to act very defensively around him

Hi anjelika from my own experience I'd say that tough is the way to go. You can be compassionate at the same time - understanding that for the moment it is out of his control, recognising that he can't just use willpower to 'pull himself together', and acknowledging your continuing love for him (if that's true), but for your sake, and for his, then being kind is not the answer.

I'd suggest some very short term 'tough love' approaches - a threat of divorce in the long term is not powerful enough in the face of his craving for a drink. So pack an overnight bag for him, make an arrangement with a family member or hotel, and be absoloutely explicit that if you come home tonight and he has had a drink (even one) then you will call a taxi to take him and his bag to (wherever) for the night. Be uncompromising about what you will allow. You need to do this for YOU.

Oh, and (not very reassuringly) when I was drinking, I swear EVERY morning that it was my last time. I felt awful and I really believed it at the time, but come the afternoon, my perspective had changed .

If your dh is on his own in the afternoon and that is when he starts to drink - he needs to get some help then. Are there AA meetings that he can go to in the afternoon that will take him away from the temptation?

Hi venusandmars - thanks for posting. Your idea of packing a bag for him is a good one but he has been in such a state the past 2 days that no taxi or hotel would take him and I could not burden any friends with him like that. None of his family live less than 2 hours away. I have considered calling an ambulance to see if I can get him carted into hospital for the night or, if I could get him outside the house, calling the police to him and refusing to let him back in so that they bang him up for the night - harsh but these are desperate times. Someone suggested that if got locked up, they'd get him seen by a doctor and they might even insist he starts some kind of treatment. Does anyone know if this is true? He was hospitalised last summer when he fell down the stairs and cracked his head open. I spoke to someone there the next day and although she'd given him a good talking to and spoken to his doctor, nothing more came of it.

He will NOT go to AA or get any other form of help and this is the major problem as far as I see it.

He will be on his own today from 3.30 and I plan to get home by 4. I haven't told him I'll be back early though.

anjelika have you tried contacting al-anon? Their number is 020 7403 0888 You can call it from 10am to 10pm. Someone there will have been exactly where you are.

A, I feel so sorry for you, but many have walked this way before and made it to a better life for them and their partner and DCs. I fully agree with what is posted below....he can mean all he likes in the morning, but the power is too strong for him. He needs help and you cannot do this for him, much as I'm sure you would like to. You have to protect yourself and distance yourself with compassion to show that you mean business. I would suggest that you don't argue with him or listen to anything he says. He took a first drink sometime during the day and after that, all bets were off. At a minimum cold shoulder him, do the bag thing and think of all possible ways of getting him out....what about asking his family to take him for a while? Get him to at least call AA (08457697555)....perhaps in the morning while he is still sane. A call would be a step in the right direction and won't hurt. He can talk to a recovering alcoholic who can hopefully connect with him...he really doesn't either like or understand what's going on either and he needs your sternness to push him towards getting help. You need to be strong and show your love in this way...take care and I hope things are better this pm

....I dont know anything about the family/friend setup, but is there anyone who could arrive home with you and see for themselves what you are dealing with, and perhaps take him off then if he is drunk? Or bring some of his friends back to expose him and hopefully encourage him to seek help? Suggest you do not in any way play this down with friends, neighbours, relatives etc - it's not your fault that your DH is ill! All sounds very underhand, but if it works..... I am now grateful for such things done to me that I absolutely hated at the time.

Most of our neighbours have seen him in a dreadful state at an inappropriate time of day but it doesn't seem to make any difference to him. One of my neighbours (who has seen him at his worst) sees him every day on the school run and, like me and his brother, is trying to persuade him to get help but to no avail. He gets into such a dreadful state that I really don't think it's fair to ask anyone else to take him in - most if not all of my friends and neighbours have young children of their own and DH's only relatives live about 2 hours away.

Tonight I surprised him by coming home from work an hour early - he wasn't in as bad a state as he would've been if I'd been later but still was asleep drunk on the sofa by 7. This was after me talking to him at lunchtime and him saying he was "good" and sounding quite positive about life. We have friends coming this weekend who we haven't seen since this started so I have just phoned them to warn them about what they might be walking into.

I find it so difficult NOT to get incredibly angry with him and confront him as I have had a 3 week taster of what life could be like if only he would get some help.

A, sounds better than yesterday which is good news. I understand your frustrations and anger and you may not believe me and he may not admit it, but your DH will be feeling just as frustrated and bewildered about all this. How can the bottle that has been a friend for so long be turning against him now? The irony is that the only way to deal with this for each of you (in a different way) is to stop fighting. He needs to realise that he cannot win against booze and needs help. Until a true alcoholic stops trying to fight and concedes that they are beaten, there is rarely hope. For you too, there is the realisation that you cannot fix him, so all you can do is to keep pushing him in that direction and looking after yourself and the DCs. As has been said before, there are many people out there like you and like him - at Al-Anon and AA. There are no reliable figures, but you often hear 10% quoted as the no of people who have a definite problem with alcohol. Think about that on your road! It is such a relief to meet people who have come through to the other side - this is one reason why AA works, becuase each of us has been through hell of one sort or another and come out with immense gratitude and freedom. You dont get doctors and experts there telling you what to do (unless they are there as recovering alcoholics of course!. Dont give up hope...the next drink could be his last.

Hi. Just thought I'd post with an update. I wasn't at work on Friday. I took the DCs out in the morning and came back around midday to find DH completely out of it. When he finally came round later in the day he announced he was stopping drinking (again) AND said he would get help. This was in response to me giving him a choice - saying I would see a solicitor this week and start divorce proceedings unless he stopped AND got help. He's not had a drink since but of course now he's going back on his promise to get help. We had a big argument this morning about it - he says he's sick of everyone on his back and that he will only get help as and when he sees fit, not when everyone else wants him to. Does anyone have any suggestions of what I can do to persuade him to get help? I have tried so many things. He accuses me of not being supportive as I am constantly "getting at him" about it. What can I do? Do you think he's doing it as deep down he doesn't want to get better? I am scared of pushing him too far in case he starts drinking again - he accused me this morning of wating him to fail.

Hi Anjelika. Good news that he is listening and reacting to your threats. When I was in a similar position, I definitely wanted to "get better", but I didnt want to stop drinking! I could not accept that alcohol had such a hold on me that once I took a first drink I coudn't stop. I was very strong and successful in other ways, so how come this was happening to me? What about you get him to agree now to seek help if he slips again (maybe write it down and both of you sign it?) Just a thought ....

"Do you think he's doing it as deep down he doesn't want to get better?"

Your definition of what "better" means is different to his. You want him to stop drinking in the expectation that life will improve. He wants to continue drinking but without the bad side-effects. In essence, he wants to be better at drinking.

In general it's pointless to pay much attention to what alcoholics say they're going to do about their drinking, particularly when they're hungover and feeling sorry for themselves. Pay attention to what they do.

He will drink, or not, entirely of his own accord. If he chooses to resume drinking then he might say that it's because you've been getting at him or that you've been wanting him to fail but it's just him self-justifying his own poor choices.

In your post on the 17th you said you'd told him that even if he stops today, unless he gets help at the same time I am going to proceed with a divorce as I can't go through this scenario every few weeks He's made his decision clear by his actions - he continued to drink and he has no intention of getting help. So what are you going to do?

hi!, time to get tough i think!, chuck him out when he is drunk - he is a grown man and the choice to drink is his alone!, no one is making him do it! - as to where he will go, try not to worry, maybe waking up on the park bench or a police cell will do the trick! - sounds harsh i know, im an alcoholic and i KNOW that he could stop if he wanted to - its a bloody hard road you are on but you HAVE to toughen up for your own sake - since my dh took control of our situation the change in him is incredible, i honestly had no idea how badly i was affecting him (yes, i will guilty for the rest of my life for what i have put my family through)

i do really feel for you but i do think the time has come for you to put yourself and children first!, someone has to, because believe me, you are all very low down on your dhs list of prioities right now!

Snorbs - he admits himself that he was in no fit state to make any promises on Friday, which is when he said he'd get help. It just feels such a hopeless situation. I have certainly been led to believe that without treatment he is almost 100% certain to fail so I now feel I'm just waiting for that moment to happen so that I can get on with divorcing him. I know I must seem very weak and pathetic putting up with this, but having him sober is a massive improvement on the last week and it doesn't feel entirely fair to start divorcing him when he is essentially trying to stay sober. What happens if he does get help and still falls off the wagon anyway?

I think I will back off for a few days as he is at a pretty low ebb right now (hasn't slept for 3 nights) and see if he's got anything to say after that. After this last bout of drinking I am confident that if he slips again I won't wait around for him to stop - I will do what it takes to get him out and get on with my life on my own.

The benefits and efficacy of addiction treatment is debatable. Alcoholic Anonymous's own research concluded that only about 1 in 20 of people who attended were still sober a year later, and that doesn't include the large numbers who go a few times and drop out. Most rehabs follow AA principles. There is a fair amount of evidence to suggest that spontaneous recovery from alcoholism (ie, people who decide to just stop drinking by themselves) runs at a rate of about 1 in 20 per year. Make of that what you will.

I don't think your weak or pathetic. You remind me of myself a few years back. I spent a lot of time doing "wait and see" about my (then) DP's drinking. I put a lot of energy into walking on eggshells to try not to trigger her into resuming drinking or from going from "normal" drinking to heavy drinking.

I think what changed for me were a few fundamental realisations about the situation. First, my ex's drinking habits go like this:

1. Sober, to
2. Occasional drinking, to
3. Drinking every day, to
4. Heavy drinking, to
5. Total carnage, to
6. Being in shock at how bad things have got, go back to (1)

The important bit was when she decided to go from sober to picking up the first drink. After that, the rest was inevitable. It might take a few days, it might take a few months, but sooner or later she'd be blind drunk for weeks on end. And I had no real influence over this. If I spent all my time as the booze police by emptying bottles down the sink then I might, might, slow it down a bit.

Next, the stress was making me physically ill. She'd get horrendously drunk, subject me to hours of drunken abuse, then in the morning make regretful promises that it will never happen again, she'll stop drinking yadda yadda yadda. And over the next few days, maybe weeks, I'd start getting used to the sober her again until I got the feeling that she'd resumed drinking and she was basically daring me to say anything about it. If I did, she'd lie to my face and carry on drinking. If I didn't, she'd carry on drinking. And I knew it was only a matter of time until she was aggressively drunk again. I ended up so stressed out it was having a bad effect on my health. I couldn't keep going round that rollercoaster.

The final realisation was that my ex knew that she treated me like shit when she was drunk yet she continued to drink. That meant that my happiness was less important to her than alcohol. Quite frankly, fuck that for a game of soldiers. I'm worth more than that.

For what it's worth, in the four or five years since we split up my ex went on to lose our children (they live with me now), destroyed a number of relationships, lost friends, lost her driving license due to drink-driving, had numerous admissions to hospital, done detoxes and rehab... In all that time the longest she's spent sober is about four months. It's very sad.

i dont think you're weak, i think you love someone who is ill, but who dosent want to get better! - to be the toughest you can be with someone you love is the hardest bloody thing in the world - i think if you dont get tough, all that love will eventually die!

Snorbs - thanks for your post, I found it really interesting, especially the stats. I don't think AA is for my DH - I'm trying to get him to just go for some counselling as he has other issues that have never been resolved that contribute to his drink problem.

The drinking habits part you talk about I can really relate to although last week my DH went from 1) to 4) to 5) in 2 days flat. It frightens me that he offers me no explanation as to why he did it after 3 weeks sober. He doesn't get aggressive - he just passes out and goes to sleep thankfully but it's no way to live is it? I used to be the booze police but now I only really go back to being it when he starts drinking but denies it - just so that we can stop that stupid game of him pretending he's not actually had a drink. Obviously if I find any I do tip it down the sink but on the whole he hides it pretty well. Do you think Al-Anon would be good for me right now? There's a meeting near where I work that I could possibly go to tomorrow. It might give me some coping strategies for the next time.

I think Al-Anon would be great for you right now - there is a lot of good stuff coming through here, but not the same as hearing it f2f. "It frightens me that he offers me no explanation as to why he did it after 3 weeks sober"...guess what? It frightens him too, cos it means he is seriously ill (with alcoholism, a very deadly illness). Finally, you couldn't have got me near an AA meeting when I was like your DH...losers, weirdos, cult etc etc. But after a lot of very tough love and action (and rehab btw) I realise it is a vital thing to keep me sober, which in turn is the most important thing in my world today. Keep at it, you could be the 1/20 or whatever....

"Obviously if I find any I do tip it down the sink"

What do you hope to achieve by doing this?

I got a lot from Al-Anon. It took a little while to "get" what they were on about because I went in expecting to find out how to stop my DP drinking. Instead, what I got was empathy and advice on how to stop me driving myself mad in my attempts to stop my DP drinking. It made a hell of a difference in knowing that other people were going through this as well.

I also got a lot from Melody Beattie's book "Codependent No More". It explained a lot about not just how I behaved in that relationship but also why I reacted to all sorts of situations the way I tended to. But I think the thing that helped to finally pull it all together was the one-to-one counselling I arranged through my GP.

I would seriously recommend Al-Anon as an excellent place to start. It's about getting your attention off of the alcoholic in your life and back onto you. That's vitally important for your own health and happiness.

Unfortunately Anjelika I am not at all surprised to see that he has started to drink again. He will continue to relapse and probably more than once.

Where is your tipping point in all this?.

Tipping the alcohol down the sink achieves bugger all and is also enabling behaviour on your part. You stop him from seeing the consequences of his actions.

The three cs re alcoholism need to be imprinted in your brain!:-

You did not cause this
You cannot cure it
You cannot control it

You've tried number 3 in particular without any success.

You can only protect your own self ultimately and if that means divorcing him then so be it. Sorry that is harsh but your children are seeing all this and it does them no favours either. You are still not responsible for him and his drinking; he is actively choosing to drink and his primary relationship is now with drink. You and everything else come a dim and distant second.

There are no guarantees here with regards to alcoholism; he may lose everything and still drink.
You are still not responsible for him though.

Would urge you to go to Al-anon for your sake and read the book that Snorbs is also talking about (think I've mentioned that on occasion as well). There are often elements of co-dependency within such relationships and codependency is never healthy.

my dh goes to al-anon, he has found it a great help.

apart from anything else, it can help with the conversations that are needed when he can see me struggling, that dosent mean he is all kind and understanding and fluffy, he reminds me of what i have to lose in no uncertain terms - he has been shown a way of speaking to me which helps no end, a way to remind me that this is not all about me, that i HAVE to think about other people as well - its certainly helped to get our marriage back on track!

btw, tipping it down the sink is a pointless excersise - if he wants a drink he will find one one way or another!

Hi Anjelika, Poorlybear and all. I have found you from the other thread.
We made it two weeks without a drink after my ultimatum (that he stops drinking or moves out). He came on holiday with us and things have been reasonable (moody and irritable but better than drunk) and physically not too bad, though he's really tired and goes to bed early. He went to about 6 AA meetings but has not been for ten days (we were on holiday in France for 8 days). I have been to one Al Anon meeting (before the holiday) since he stopped drinking. He did slip up on the last night of the holiday when we went out for a meal and he drank nearly a bottle of wine, though he wasn't actually drunk, it unsettled dd and made her very anxious. He then had a secret drink on the ferry home, which upset me, but at least he admitted it when challenged. He has not had another one for 2 days now, but is not showing any enthusiasm for attending AA meetings...
One good thing is that we have a 'dry' house at the moment, so there's no temptation here, nor any reason for him to be smelling of alcohol. Although I enjoy a drink I am happy to give that up.
I want to know how to support him, but I also don't want to lose sight of all the guidance I have learnt from Al Anon about detachment and looking after myself and the children. It is such a fine line to walk. e.g. we went out for lunch at the weekend and I wanted it to be clear that if he was planning to drink, I did not want to go. He doesn't want to talk about it at all, and says he has not spoken at a meeting yet, and can't imagine ever wanting to. This worries me a bit, as I think he would benefit from opening up and sharing honestly.
Hope things get better for you A & PB.