In-law's attitude to alcohol ...

[californiapoppy]

I've name changed as DH knows my usual name. I may just need to vent.

Trying keep it brief:
DH has struggled with a problem with alcohol since his late teens. Most severe problems were during a time when he was living back home with his parents house in his mid 20s, after having moved out previously. That was just before we met.

Both of us realise that alcoholism is not a thing that can be 'cured'. It has taken him 8 years of slow improvement with some tough times along the way, but it really seems that he now has control. I am so proud of him. He knows it's going to be a lifelong issue for him. It's early days.

We can talk openly about his problem between the two of us, but he has never talked about it with his siblings (all a little older than him and more outwardly 'successful' in life) even though they're quite close. It's years since his parents have have had any dealings with it.

And now we come to the problem.
His parents - particularly his mother - seem to view social events and family get togethers as an opportunity to drink. It's like a good time hasn't been had unless you've had a few too many. Conversations about outings or social occasions always conclude with her telling us she was plastered by the end of the evening, and what naughty fun it all was. It's always the very first thing she asks him on his birthday, or at xmas, or about an evening out: ''Did you have a few beers?'', and if he says no (as has always been the case these last 6 months, and quite often the case for some months before that) she seems disappointed for him. She will press him to drink when we visit. Recently, when she rang me to sort arrangements for a family meal at her house, she excitedly and pointedly told me how FIL had bought plenty of beer so DH could ''have some drinks with his brother''. I was heavily pregnant at the time and it's a 2 hour drive to theirs - so no way DH was going to drink. I told her he planned not to drink and there was quite an awkward silence (his brother has a 2 year old DD and tends not to drink at family occasions either now).

It gives me the rage and i don't understand it. She had him living with her at his worse fgs! A bottle of vodka a day + 8/10 cans of beer - and the many and varied horrible consequences for him and them. They literally dragged him to the GP more than once and pushed to have him registered as an alcoholic when he was 21. Has she just forgotten?!

It's pissing me off more and more as time goes on. DH loves his mum and i know would not hear a word against her. Therefore i've not tackled this with him. I don't know how to handle it. Should i even try? I need some wise words please.

Its your DH's problem to manage -and I mean the alcohol problem not his mother no onelse's -It really is as simple as that

What are relationships like generally between your DP and his parents?

I'm wondering whether they might view his current (actual or near) sobriety as some sort of implied criticism of their own lifestyle? It's entirely possible, I suspect, that they could drag him off to the doctor when younger because he had 'gone a bit too far' but still view their own heavy drinking culture as quite acceptable and think they had it completely under control.

Being so unsupportive of his current efforts does rather imply that there's quite a bit wrong with the basic relationship though I think.

Based just on what you've written here (so I may well have the wrong end of the stick) it sounds like your MIL has a long-term alcohol problem. If this is the case, however, it is unlikely that MIL will take any real or inferred criticism of her drinking as anything other than a personal attack.

If your DH is determined to only see the good side of his mother then there's not much you can realistically do. But it might just be worth a "Isn't it strange how your mother's conversations and activities revolve around alcohol so much...?" kind of chat and see where it leads.

My TH gave up booze almost 10 years ago. Every Christmas and birthday he gets a bottle of whiskey from his father.

As others have suggested it is indicative of a much deeper problem in his relationship with his father. (Although I'll miss the free booze!)

It's hard to expect them to change their habits in respect of your DH's non-drinking / lower-drinking if no-one has actually told them outright that he is not drinking, and if he hasn't been straight and direct with them.

If he is feeling good about himself, having achieved a very important first few steps in his journey away from alcohol, could you support hum to be upfront and factual and tell his parents?

I can see why it makes you so anxious and frustrated.

I wonder if AlAnon - the support for families of people with drink problems - would have any advice?

Well, it sounds like your MIL has a drink problem.

And I think you and DH just need to keep a bubble between your issues and hers - she can nag him, so what? He's changed his life and doesn't need to drink because she's nagging him to.

She'll get bored and give up eventually.

I come from a family of barely functioning alcoholics. I am the youngest of 5 children. We all saw first hand the damage alcohol did to our parents (and of course to our own childhoods), we all vowed we wouldn't be like them when we grew up.

Fast forward 25 yrs or so, and I am the only one whose life is not affected by alcohol. All 4 of my siblings have massive problems with alcohol, but like my parents, they kind of function most of the time. And also like my parents, they don't see (or accept) the damage it does to them. Or maybe they do see it, but chose to pass it off as " well my marriage broke up because my wife was a bitch", instead of being honest that wife became a bitch when the bottle became a problem. They have lost jobs, lost marriages, lost relationships with their own children and grandchildren, had affairs, had massive financial problems, not to mention mental health problems either caused by or exacerbated by alcohol. I know all this is pretty standard for alcoholics.

However, what I really wanted to say was.... what shocks me most of all is not so much that they all continued the vicious circle set by our parents example, but that they all get on my case continually for NOT drinking ! They see me as some kind of freak because I mostly don't drink at all (a heavy drinking period for me would be 2 bottles of wine over a whole year).

I guess your MIL fears that you're controlling your DH and not allowing him a simple drink. That is the way my siblings talk about me behind me back. I know they say my DH must wear the trousers and not allow me to get sloshed. The truth is, I hadn't drank more than a couple of glasses of wine per year BEFORE I ever met my husband. I saw the damage drink did to my parents and sibs, and decided all on my own to avoid it. I just don't think they can accept that. I think my not drinking annoys them, in that it accentuates their excessive drinking, and maybe my not drinking makes them question their own drinking?

I reckon that could be the issue with your MIL and her attitude towards you and her son. She will not want to admit that her son had actual issues with alcohol. By now she will have written that period off as a "one off" and in her own played it down to a total non-issue. And with him not joining in on the regular family piss ups, well, he is going against "the way it always has been", and it will be making them squirm slightly as.... well obviously they (in their own heads) don't drink too much. They have no issues with alcohol. There is no problem, so why would your husband not get sloshed alongside them. Therefor, YOU must be the problem.

I admire your husband for facing up to his demons, and dealing with his alcohol issues, I will remind you though, people like his family will ALWAYS be an issue, and will ALWAYS try and justify their own alcohol excesses by trying to get him to join in. I have had 25 yrs of this crap from my own family, and I swear to this very day if they were on this forum, they would say I was the one with the issues and not them.

The only constructive advice I can give is have the courage of your/his convictions and avoid being sucked in by them.

And do not hold your breath waiting for them to accept that your husband had/has a drink problem, and god forbid you might want them to accept the same of themselves. That won't happen easily at all. Every alcoholic in my family is a self-declared "social drinker". Not one of them has actually admitted to a drink problem, ever!

Those are good points, Blu. Has he actually told them that he's giving/given up alcohol and why, OP? Would it be difficult for him to broach that subject with them?

I can only speak from my own experience with my family, I have broached the subject till I was blue in the face, said in so many ways, and on so many different occasions "look, we all know the issues our parents have with drink, I want to ensure that doesn't happen to me" but whichever sibling I said that to, well... if they themselves are an alcoholic, it's water off a ducks back, they just don't hear it they way a person with no drink issues would hear it. All my friends understand why I don't drink and are completely supportive of my choices. None of my siblings or parents do though. They just assume my husband is some kind of control freak who forbids me from drinking. In their world, no one could possibly just chose to abstain from something as wonderful as drink.

However, I differ from the OPs husband in as far as
a) I have never been a drinker, and
b) My family definitely all have varying degrees of alcohol dependency.

I can only speak from my own experience with my family, I have broached the subject till I was blue in the face, said in so many ways, and on so many different occasions "look, we all know the issues our parents have with drink, I want to ensure that doesn't happen to me" but whichever sibling I said that to, well... if they themselves are an alcoholic, it's water off a ducks back, they just don't hear it they way a person with no drink issues would hear it. All my friends understand why I don't drink and are completely supportive of my choices. None of my siblings or parents do though. They just assume my husband is some kind of control freak who forbids me from drinking. In their world, no one could possibly just chose to abstain from something as wonderful as drink.

However, I differ from the OPs husband in as far as
a) I have never been a drinker, and
b) My family definitely all have varying degrees of alcohol dependency.

Some families see an excess of alchohol as normal, mine included, when my DM visits, I have to alternate the alcohol with soft drinks sureptiously, as she would kick off if she thought I wasn't drinking. I have spoken about it but Im seen as disloyal if I don't drink, so I do understand how your DH feels with his family if drinking is keeping the party line.

oops, posted too soon. I would like to think IF the situation ever arose and I went to my family with "look, I need your support to cut back on/stop drinking as it is a problem for me" that they would support me. I am pretty sure they wouldn't though.

There have been moments in the past where one of my sisters was going through the stage of moving from a social drinker with a nice life - good husband, nice home, lovely children to.... drinking in excess, starting an affair, letting alcohol be a higher priority than her children etc.... and I went to my parents and one brother and sister, and appealed for their help to help our sister. None of them would even entertain the possibility that any of her (then) current problems could be down to drink. No way!

Her husband must be a bastard and we just didn't know about it, her children were just turning into ungrateful demanding brats, her new bit on the side (who was also heavily into alcohol) would just be what she needed. Fast forward 15 yrs and she is now divorced form her children's father, divorced from the then bit on the side that she married, only to cheat on him with her now new bit on the side. She has zero contact with one child, very minimal contact with the other child. Zero contact with her grandchildren. Has massive mental health issues, all of which she deals with by using even more alcohol. And not one of my family will even entertain the idea that drink played any role in any of this. If they admitted that, well they might just have to admit that their own life crisis moments may also have been down to to drink.

I take the points you make, Melted, but I still think it would be a good thing for the OP's husband to broach the topic with his parents - if only for himself rather than them.

Cozie, I agree, nothing ventured - nothing gained. The possibility is always there that they will actually be supportive if the OPs husband is open and honest.

My family wouldn't be. Their solution to a confession like that would be something along the lines "OMG how stupid are you, of course you don't have a drink problem, now lets polish of this bottle of vodka just to prove it".

But again, that just my family and I sincerely hope the OPs in-laws are more supportive.

People who drink a lot don't like it when other people don't drink.
They see it as judging them but it's probably holding up a mirror for them that they don't want to look into.
My FIL is generally a lovely man but used to drink too much ( luckily he wasn't an arsehole when drunk) but he used to get very offended by people didn't want to drink and he used to ask why isn't DH and son in law having a beer and imply it was because me and SIL wouldn't allow it.
Some people genuinely can't have fun while sober - pity them!!

Thank you. As usual so helpful to hear everyone's thoughts. Thank you particularly lolly for sharing so much.

What springs to mind (not for the first time) is that once alcohol has been a problem in your life, or the life of someone close, then you can never again have a 'normal' relationship with it. Despite knowing this 'on paper', as it were, i believe that for my DH this has only recently properly sunk in. I wonder if this is partly the reason he has kept his problem so 'private'.

I'm 99.9% sure he hasn't sat down with his parents and talked about his relationship with drink since leaving home (for the 2nd time). Or told them anything concrete re: when/how much he now drinks. So in this respect it's not like his mother is 'ignoring' his achievements as such. It's not all her fault. I'm just perplexed by the fact she saw her son going through hell with his addiction and yet actively pushes alcohol on him just a few years later. In other ways she is a sensitive and intutive woman.

Things have been made more tricky for him by the fact that his work mates and friends are heavily into 'a good piss up' pretty regularly. It kind of goes with the culture at work. I've actually wondered if he somehow gravitates towards that type of person too. He's turned his back on the drink but is trying to keep the friends. The current situation is that he will have one pint of beer with them once or twice a month, in the pub after work, and then leave them to it. He wont drink at home any more at all. A neighbor recently gave him a small bottle of rekorderlig cider, his favorite, and it sat on our work top for 3 weeks before i suggested sharing it, one small glass each, over our take-away one Sat. night. He enjoyed it - then had a cup of tea. These are huge leaps forward. Sorry i'm rambling.

When i read my OP back it dawned on me for the first time that mothers attitude to alcohol may have triggered his problems.

Bloody hell california - I don't have any specific advice on the in-law situation but have to say it sounds like your DH is doing a really incredible job. You must be so proud of him.

Thank you so much I am :)

Whatever the equivalent of co-dependency is wrt to drink I would say your MIL and family are in a deep-set co-dependent drinking culture - and all in denial and enabling each other.

It might help if your DH observes this with an objective eye. What Meltedlolly says about MIL needing others to drink in order to justify her own habit sounds spot on.

Tell him to sit back an observe as if he was watching a documentary,or was a wildlife observer, like David Attenborough, watching his family's group operate.

Given all his ciorcumstances he is doing absolutely fantastcially and you are a brilliant support.

I'm just perplexed by the fact she saw her son going through hell with his addiction and yet actively pushes alcohol on him just a few years later. In other ways she is a sensitive and intutive woman

Hi Poppy,

Again, just going by my own family’s totally fucked up dynamics.

Drinking is what they do. They drink with celebrations. Drinking is what they do for fun. Drinking is what they do to unwind and chill out. Drinking is what they to “be social”. Drinking is what they do if they feel tired and run down. Drinking is what they do if they are tired, stressed, ill, happy, sad, depressed, delirious, worried, jovial. I feel like getting t-shirts printed for them with a “I drink, therefore I am” text print on it.

I can’t even pretend to understand why someone would push alcohol on someone they know had previous problems with it. But, like you, I know that once alcohol has been a problem in your life you can never have a healthy relationship with it again. That’s not at all how my family see it though. The initial problem with them is even getting them to admit that any crises they have had in life has ever been down to drink. They simply won’t admit that drink causes any problems. So if you put that into say the context of a marriage of one of my sibling breaking down, because said sibling was getting very drunk very regularly, and screwing around while drunk, neglecting kids/spouse/job/home while drunk or being hungover. Well the other siblings and parents will spin that to “She only drank because her marriage/life/spouse was so bad”. So the bad life caused the drinking. The drinking didn’t cause the bad life. IYSWIM seeing it through their eyes.

The second problem arises with their definition of alcoholism, and how that varies from mine (or from any established medical definition of addiction). They reckon if someone can for instance hold down a job, look clean and well dressed, have a decent home, well they can’t possibly have a drink problem. Also they reckon if someone is an alcoholic then there is no way that they could not drink from a Sunday evening till a Friday evening. Even if that someone was binging to passing out levels every single weekend. As long as they have a few dry days mid week, that’s all the proof you need to know there is no drink problem.

When the sister I mentioned above (I’ll call her Anne) was really going off the rails for the first time with alcohol, like I said, I talked with 2 other sibs and my parents about her and her obvious problems with alcohol. And they did step in, and they did “help”. But their solutions were enabling and intensifying the problems she already had. For instance, one of their solutions was for other sister to babysit once a week to allow Anne to go out and get rat arsed with her hubby while her kids were safely tucked up at their auntie’s house. In that way, she would hopefully dump the man she was seeing on the side and save her marriage. Anne also felt that her financial situation was getting her down and causing her to drink more. So mum and dad started giving her a bit of extra money every week to “help out”. This money never went to the kids or her housekeeping, hell no, it was spent on more nights out on the slosh. When things got really bad for Anne (she lost her job, her husband found out about the adultery, kids disowned her etc) , my family did insist she stop drinking to get through the divorce, separation from the kids, moving closer to my parents after her spilt. But a few months down the line when Anne was just starting to get back on her feet, they started pushing drink on her again. Well, they didn’t have to push at all. Anne only stopped drinking because they enforced that on her temporarily. As soon as she was semi functioning again, then it stood to reason (in their minds) that she could resume drinking again.

This all stems from their refusal to accept that drink ever caused a problem in Anne’s life. She only drank because she had problems. After watching literally hundreds of family dramas like Anne’s unfold within my family over the years, I now accept that they will never accept that Anne or any one of them has a drink problem. How could my mum accept Anne has a drink problem without admitting she herself has had one for going on 50 yrs? How could one of my brothers accept that Anne has an issue with drink without accepting that they didn’t cheat repeatedly because their wives were so lousy, no they cheated because they themselves are broken individuals. That they didn’t lose jobs just because their bosses were all arseholes, no they lost jobs because they had drink issues. Their kids and grandchildren are strangers in their lives, not because they are the offspring off functioning alcoholics who realise that no contact is the healthy choice in these situations, no, they just have ungrateful children/grandchildren that they are better off without.

My mother and father and 4 siblings are abnormal. To any healthy person or heath care professional they are dysfunctional in the extreme. But because they have each other, and they all have very similar problems (drink way too much, have similar issues with repeated infidelity, similar mental health issues that they all self-medicate with alcohol, similar issues with their kids turning their backs on them) what is abnormal to me (you or any other normal person), is normal to them. If you surround yourself with functioning alcoholics, then that becomes the norm. And that is the reality for my parents and siblings. At a push they might be able to support that a family member needs to stop drinking temporarily or to cut down a bit for a while, but until one of my sibs hits rock bottom, they will never accept that alcohol is a problem for any of them. And when I say rock bottom, I would really take a Black Adder-like pencils in nose, underpants on head, running through the streets stark bollock naked kind of “rock bottom” for them to notice it. Little things like losing jobs, your kids turning their back on you, repeated spouses divorcing you, friends avoiding you, having mental health issues, repeated deep depressions, repeated financial disasters, homelessness …. None of that is even close to (their definition) of rock bottom.

Oh I had better shut up now, I must be boring you to tears! I do hope your in-laws are not like my family, I sincerely do. But the very fact your MIL saw the problems first hand with your husband, her son, and still pushes alcohol on to him now, well that just reeks to me of the denial that is perpetually present in my own family. Again though, I do sincerely hope I am wrong.

And my hat off to your husband for facing up to his issues! My very best to you both!

Your husband was given a bottle of cider and despite knowing he has issues with alcohol you urged him to open it, even though it was only to have a small glass, why?

There was only enough to have a small glass each as the bottle was tiny.

There is always alcohol in the house. There's a bottle of vodka in the larder and a bottle of Jack Daniels. DH doesn't touch it. He is not tee total, as i have explained. He is managing to relax over one pint of beer at the pub and walk away. He is trying to use alcohol in a 'normal' way.

He loves that particular cider and i thought it would be nice to share it together in a normal way. He enjoyed doing this. It's the first drink we've had together in the house for a year.

This doesn't add up. If alcohol misuse is no longer an issue and your H is now a once in a blue moon drinker, then what MIL says will impact hm no greater than being urged to have a small glass of a cider by his wife. What exactly are you angry about? Do you think MIL's behaviour could impact his continuing recovery or are you angry at MIL not acknowledging his recovery? If he chooses not to confront his mother about this then that is his choice, as is not misusing alcohol.

Coming from a similar background to a lot of you, I would be very factual with MIL and next time she brings it up, remind her exactly why dh doesn't drink. If it bothers you this much, no point tip toeing around it. She is probably trying to delude herself that all is back to normal re dh and she has no problem in her functioning kind of way, but things will (thank god for you) never be back to normal. Best to deal with it head on and stop the subtly bullying once for all.

He just has to do the "broken record" technique with his mother:

"Have a beer!"

"I'm good, I've got my drink already [soda, cup of tea]."

"But your brother got this beer for you!"

"It's fine Mum, now how about [topic of conversation]...."

"HAVE A BEER!"

"You have it Mum, I'm fine. So anyway..."

Or he can just tell her he's pregnant.

In any event this is so not your problem to manage for him.