living with an 'addict'

[napoleona]

Hi, i have posted previously about my DH who (i feel) drinks too much. Day to day life is not awful, he works, i work, we get on ok generally.
I just wondered what experience other people have of addiction and whether it is ever possible to get rid of addictive feelings?
My DH used to have a long term addiction to drugs (weed/skunk also used coke) he quit these post dc but now drinks every day.
When he socialises with certain people (not very often) i think he does the weed/coke again. Generally i think he has an addictive personality. Is this something that can be 'got rid of'. I dont think it is. He seems to always need 'something'. And it feels like the addiction (to anything) is a third party in our relationship. I hope this makes sense and is not just goobledygook!

Hi Napoleona, not goobledygook at all, of course it makes sense. Yes, I do believe there is such thing as an addictive personality. What you mention about your DH having previously used drugs and now using alcohol to excess is an addition transferrence - I think our DHs are so unhappy and unable to accept themselves "as they come", they opt for a chemically altered stage, whether through drugs or alcohol. I don't think they realise they do it, it's not a concious decision as such.

Your DH has his own journey to make to deal with his addition(s) - I'd encourage you to attend your local Al-Anon group, they will be fab at helping you frame the reality of your life and give you the strength to live with an addict.

Hi Napolean, are you sure you are not me. How much is he drinking btw.

Hi thanks, the thing is i keep thinking, there will always be 'something' else he has to do. I feel bad but Im starting to think I dont want to do this anymore.
He is not even 'that bad' on a day to day basis: he drinks a bottle to a litre of wine a night maximum.
If he goes out he gets hammered though. I dont go out with him. Drinking in the evening, he occasionally gets slurry, loud and annoying, or infrequently he gets where he wants to start an argument or pick holes in me. Only once or twice he has been an absolute shit to me and really been verbally abusive.
He took a day off work this week and i dont now why but i 'feel' that he stayed home to do some weed. I dont have any proof and i dont know why its bugging me so much. We are total polar opposites as far as drug use is concerned, i am totally anti whereas he thinks im very narrow minded.
BUT he is a 'nice' bloke he works hard and is lovely in every way without chemicals. Oh and we have no sex life cos a) he cant get it to stay up and b) im right off it with him.
I just dont know what to do. I cant get to al-anon easily due to work, kids, i dont drive etc but i may be able to find one for a weekend. If i go to one, how do I tell him?

If he is drinking every night, when do you see the nice guy? He sounds like a high functioning alchoholic, which my dad was for years. Eventually though it doesnt stay that way and if he is taking days off to do drugs he is moving to that stage. You tell him the truth. That you love him, believe in him and want your lives to be together but feel his drinking is a real problem and concern and are looking at ways to deal with it. You cant make him agree but dont lie to him or pussy foot around him - he needs to start to hear the truth.

I have extensive experiene of addiction alcohol and drugs and I would say leave or ask him to until he feels his life is not what he wants anymore and maybe reconsider things then. You can never convince an addict to change they are the masters of deceit even duping themselves. You have to let him go really to survive it.

I tried for years before I really understood my DH's alcoholism for what it was and accepted that there was nothing I could do about it. I read everything I could from academic research to self-help literature in the hope that I would find a solution for him.

We're now getting divorced. It's extremely sad for both of us but there was genuinely nothing else left I could do to help either of us.

Even now, I don't think DH really believes he has a problem. AA, therapy, Relate etc.. were all things he just engaged with to keep me happy. Addiction is his normality.

If he has an addictive personality there is nothing you can yourself do to change that particular mindset.

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

"Nice bloke" indeed. At least you did not write the good dad comment. What sort of life do you really have with him?. Look around you and properly. It does not sound like much of an existance, you don't have any meaningful relationship at all with this man. The effects of all this on the children as well may only become apparant in years to come; you cannot fully protect them from the realities of his alcoholism. They won't also thank you for staying with such a man, they may well go onto wonder why you put him before them.

Changing, I also have tried to 'engage' him in things that may help ie Relate, which i ended up going to on my own, counselling he wouldnt even entertain the idea. I am scared that as prettyfly says this is just going to get worse. Two of his brothers are alcoholic and one other is a heroin addict . They come from a very very damaged family, just awful. ChangingWoman, addiction is my DH normality too. But i dont want it to be our kid's normality.
A really bad thing is that im too scared to broach it with him now as it causes such bad feeling, which i realise sounds stupid. I aslo feel resentful that he never told me before we lived together that he had a drug habit. I onyl found out when i was pregnant and he only gave up smoking weed when our DC was a baby. Its weird because if i was reading this i might think he sounds like a bit of a scumbag, but in real life he wears a suit, is highly regarded in a professional job and liked by everyone who meets him. Does anyone think im being too critical??

sorry x posted there. Yes i do agree - i feel our life is restricted by him ie we cant just go out randomly and take the kids out, he always says no. he wants to sleep most of the weekend (probably due in part to hangovers) we cant go to stay with rels easily, because he needs his evening drinks.

'i am scared to broach it' -
are you considering leaving him - you may be doing yourself and your DC are favour long term

yes i am considering leaving him, mollymole. im not scared of being on my own. i just dont know if maybe this can be fixed?

My dp gave up drinking about 20 years ago. He was drummer in rock band and it was part of the scene but deep down he was miserable and full of self loathing I stayed with him while he went through this because we weren't living together and I knew he meant business. He is still an annoying drummer but a more happy chilled person you could never meet and people who know him now can't believe he ever drank. We have a full social life and he has no problem with parties pubs etc although sometimes I cut things like this short as I know he sometimes gets bored but apart from that life is great. PM me if you want to ask anything.x

thanks noddy, you also helped me on another thread i think , i must have a lot of problems at the mo!
I suppose the main thing is 'it can be fixed, maybe, but only if DH fixes it for himself' . I think if i did say i was going to leave he might try to do something about it. possibly, or he might just get cross!

There are no guarantees here; he could go onto lose everything and still choose to drink.

Would not wait for an epiphany on his part that may not ever happen.

I'm really pissed off, he has just mentioned that he is going to a party tomorrow, which he reckons he forgot all about, so now I have made other plans. He blatantly doesn't want me to go, he then changed his story to: oh I didn't think you would like it there ie the drink/ drugs. I'm not stopping him going BTW, but what kind of relationship is this, he never does anything with me.

That is a lot of wine he is consuming! Up to a liter? I wonder what he would be like on his own? No holds barred then!

Do the three brothers have families? What DID those parents do???

Napoleana, you seem to be asking a few different questions. I guess you want the answer to be "Yes, you can fix it all & live happily ever after" ... I'll try and answer the ones where I might be able to give you some insights and, hopefully, trigger your view to a way forward.

Firstly: Is an addict always an addict (to something)? Yes, we are. I'm an alcoholic but I manage my drinking. However, yesterday I ran out of tobacco and had no money. I was not only suicidal & completely incapable of doing anything constructive, I even considered begging for a fag (that would not have been a pretty sight.) I've been like that, at other times, when I had no access to chocolate, coffee, or cake! It's a perfectly crap part of my personality - I know how I got this way, I've done 10 years of therapy - and I can't shift it. The ~Anonymous fellowships work by replacing the problem addiction with an addiction to recovery; it's still the most effective method of treatment.

Secondly: Are the addictive behaviours more important to him than me, or our children? It's probably a huge internal issue for him, but the answer is yes, if important means urgent. Sorry :(

Thirdly: Do we mean more to him than his addictive behaviours? I imagine he could - perhaps does - agonise about this in depth and detail. The truth is, and addict also does relationships addictively. If you were to remove yourself and your children from him, he'd feel desparate withdrawal. He would lose this pain in other addictive behaviours. That's probably all you need to be told.

Last and hardest: Can I get him to recognise his priorities? This depends on him and how far he's able to go. What's certain is that you can't achieve this by giving him space. You might be able to do it by pushing him to make choices - and that means pushing hard. Call time. Let him know there's no "everything" any more. Tell him you'll support him MINIMALLY while he figures himself out, you'll attend his family counselling sessions if/when he gets that far, but the third parties (substances, behaviours, self-indulgences) have to go. And that he can't have his family while he has them and they have him.

Alternatively, you could decide to live with it all on certain terms. You sound fairly happy in general and I don't know whether that's just your presentation (the picture you paint for yourself) or pretty much the way things are. If your problem is mainly about coming 2nd or 3rd in his life than 1st, then can you find some rules and sanctions that work for you & DCs? If you go ahead and plan your lives without his expected presence, will that work for you? It will for him.

Absolutely don't agree with the addiction to recovery. Dp did AA initially but once he was settled and happy with how his recovery was going he decided not to go as he knew a lot of the people and ethos weren't him. There absolutely is a balance in life and my dp reached it after a few years. He is addicted to his music though . He never really did drugs and has no interest in other addictions eg gambling spending etc.so I think every case is different. Do not give up on him ever cleaning up his act and making you a priority but don't put your life on hold while he does it.We are very social people and have a lot of parties and the like and a full house of people having a good time is one thing a load of drunks is another. We avoid the latter or leave early!

Thank you Garlic, you really have hit home there, and put into words a lot of my feelings bout this. Not able to respond at the mo but will come back.

garlic how can an alcoholic manage their drinking?

There is someone in my family who sounds just like your DH. He can't get through the evening without at least a bottle of wine and usually gin and/or whiskey too. He works PT in a very responsible job and somehow has managed to function like this for years. He has very few friends though, can be rude and obnoxious when drunk, and he and his wife have a very restricted social life as a result. In fact, they live largely separate lives and this is the only way they manage to stay together. They've both been divorced before and don't want to go through it again. He's intelligent enough to know he has a problem, but he chooses not to do anything about it because he likes to drink. She has accepted that she can't change him, mostly because he has no desire to change. It upsets her, but she gets on with her own life and she has good friends for support.

Noddy - I was lucky to be sent to rehab at an early stage (long story). I took a decision to engage fully with the message, stayed sober for a year and am mindful of my vulnerability. I work my steps all the time; they're not a bad principle to live by. I can't hold drink like I used to but, as I said, I'm prey to addictive behaviours of various kinds and that may never change.

So do you still drink? How can you practice the steps while still drinking? Genuine question btw coming from a place of interest not criticism. Tell me to get lost by all means

Not sure there's much point in going into much depth, as becoming a non-drinker is defintiely the more straightforward way (and much easier than you think it will be, with some proper support). Wine is a big part of my life and I didn't want to lose it, so worked hard at altering my attitude towards it. I've only had about half a bottle's worth of spirits since then - 8 years ago - but have downed quite a lot of wine and some beer. I tell everyone I don't touch spirits and can't drink during the day, also I no longer have wine every evening. It's harder work than stopping completely, I suppose.

For me, accepting this aspect of my character - and continuously working to incorporate it with minimal harm to myself & others - is part of "accepting what I can't control" (addictive tendencies) and "changing the things I can" (how I express them.) Hope this made some sense!

Thanks. I am not sure it is harder though because you are still able to have the addictive substance? I thought you had to admit being powerless over alcohol. I suppose you are accepting that in a way. giving up completely is very hard actually if you actually embrace life afterwards. Alcohol is such a depressant that knowing what it does and as you find abstinence easier surely it would be kinder to yourself not to drink. I think it does a great disservice to those in recovery to say it is actually harder to drink wine and beer than nothing you must see that?