Gutted I reacted so badly.

[C0rdelia]

My daughter had a weekend off and came home last night for the first time since Christmas. She rang from the train at 8.30. I asked if she had eaten and she said 'No'. I started cooking her some dinner (pasta, tuna, salad) and my OH started shouting at me for making food! I react badly to being shouted at and started sculling wine so by the time she got in I was very noticeably affected. I used to have a real problem with drink and make a point of not drinking at all when my children visit. First time home in months and she's seen me at my worst and took herself to bed. :-(

I think you know that you shouldn't have drunk alcohol even before the shouting.

It's not good to self medicate.

It causes so many more problems than it fixes, like damaging your relationship with your DD.

This sporadic counselling isn't working. I suggest that you need more counselling to heal old issues and deal with what life is for you now... AND more help with the alcoholism.

I was shocked to be shouted at for making food for her arrival and drank too much, too quickly on top of the large glass I'd had. I'm gutted I did that in my reaction to being shouted at. There are friends and colleagues who have NO clue I have a problem with alcohol. I reach for it in distress and must stop.

OK, another child of an alcoholic here. I hate what it does to my father. I also hate what it does to everyone around him.

Without knowing your husband's version of events OP we can't know why he shouted. Of course all threads are one-sided but alcoholics are particularly unreliable witnesses so it will be particularly difficult to work out what's going on here. My mum shouts at my dad. She's not abusive - she's at the end of her tether and then some. Is you husband abusive? Maybe, if he shouted about pasta. Or he could be right at the limit of his patience and started shouting because by your own admission you'd already started drinking.

Oh, and people around you know. They might not all know but enough of them will have seen alcoholics close up to know you have a problem. To be blunt, alcoholics bodies' smell different. It's distinctive and obvious.

But this thread is about how the OP can stop drinking. She has a duty to do that, a duty towards herself and her husband and her dd. And as the evidence seems to suggest that having access to drink makes it impossible

You missed the point why I linked to support to those living with alcoholics.

There is no evidence in this thread for that.
How the OP can drop drinking is by taking full responsibility for her drinking, even when alcohol is around, because it's unavoidable in our society.
She must be responsible for not ordering alcohol in a restaurant, for example.

So, saying that her OH shouldn't buy alcohol is enabling behaviour, because it's shifting responsibility from the OP to her OH.
You're allowing her to say that she can't help it and to blame her husband.

Because that goes without saying. It's a no brainer.

Why?
Because it's my responsibility to police someone else's choices?
Because it's a no brainer that they can only get alcohol at home and have no idea where to get it from?

It sounds more to me that it's the kind of advice given when you're not really using your brain.

So you would actually buy it for your home if you were married to an alcoholic?

I lived with one.
He bought it himself.

Lweji, I specifically stated that the OP would have to have different strategies for different situations and that she would be responsible for sticking to these.

Of course she would be responsible for not ordering it in restaurants where she knows it is available. And of course it is her responsibility to say to friends and relatives: I have given up alcohol because I have an addiction problem: please don't offer it to me.

But that doesn't mean she can't make her home that little bit safer by not keeping it there at all. And if that is one strategy she comes up with, then everybody in the house should respect that.

I couldn't protect my dd if she decided to jump off the bridge or go to the pharmacy to buy paracetamol. But that did not mean we had to have sleeping tablets lying about the house. I wasn't policing her choices: I was helping her with one small matter that meant little to me, but potentially a lot to her.

The fact that one strategy does not cover all points doesn't mean it's not worth employing, as part of an overall strategy.

Your dh bought alcohol: that was entirely his fault and his responsibility. But that does not mean that the OP's relatives have to buy alcohol and keep in the house.

OP, if I expressed myself badly, then I am sorry for that. I absolutely did not mean to imply that your husband is responsible for your drinking that wine. He is not.

But you are responsible for coming up with a sensible strategy for not drinking at all. You need to think out a plan for what you are going to do in all the different settings where alcohol might be a temptation. How are you going to deal with this in the house, how are you going to deal with it at a party, how are you going to deal with it in a restaurant?

There is plenty in your posts that suggests that the safe alternative for you is staying away from alcohol altogether.

And you need to do whatever it takes to make sure you are firmly committed to that strategy. Tell people, make sure they understand that you are not to be budged, that you intend to stick to it. Get support.

But that doesn't mean she can't make her home that little bit safer by not keeping it there at all.

Yes. SHE can. Her decision and her responsibility. At no point (that I saw) did she say that she had asked her OH not to buy alcohol.

Still, even if he decided to buy it anyway, it wouldn't be his responsibility if she drinks.

But that does not mean that the OP's relatives have to buy alcohol and keep in the house.

What does that even mean?
Nobody "has" to buy alcohol.
But if they decided to, for whatever reason, it wouldn't make them responsible for any drinking by the alcoholic.
What shouldn't be done is to encourage him/her to drink, like my MIL, even though I reminded him (them) that he shouldn't be drinking with the medication he was on.

I'd also agree op, I think you've tried to blame your husband for your drinking in your op, saying you started at 8.30 and were drunk by 9 when she got there, but the reality is no one gets pissed in 30 mins, even if they had a large glass of wine before that. It's also very rare for someone who has an alcohol problem, and as such will have a tolerance to booze to get drunk on two glasses as you state you do.

You may as well be honest with yourself. Blaming others and minimising doesn't really help.

I think I might drink if I had an OH who was so unreasonable as to shout at me for making food for my DD. Have you discussed his behaviour with your counsellor?

I hope that things improve for you over the weekend.

Hey, OP. I hope you're still checking in. I think I am in a similar position to you. I'm an alcoholic. I have given up alcohol for years at a time and then fallen off the wagon. My grown-up lives-away-from-home daughter hasn't seen me drink for years but I have done when she's not here. I lie. I minimise. It is absolutely my problem and I need to take ownership for it. I have fucked up her childhood with my drinking. You can't minimise this shit. If dd saw me with a glass of wine in my hand, it would devastate her. Even though that would be normal behaviour for 90% of mothers.

Maybe we should both get ourselves on the "Brave Babes" or "Dry" threads and sort this shit out.

I lived with one.
He bought it himself.

And if he chose not to, because he didn't want the temptation around him, would you still have bought it and kept it around for yourself? And then said it was 100% his responsibility not to drink it?

You can't seem to give a Yes or No answer to that.

In fact, don't answer that. I think it is clear.

I know there's a massive back story here.

But drinking knowing your daughter was going to walk in the door was a choice. An absolute 100% choice.

Blossom RTFT - OP was drinking before the shouting, which is what probably lead to the shouting....

I live with an alcoholic, my DH. I never buy alcohol to drink in the house. I will still drink on occasion, but never to excess because of his drink problem. I seriously considered going teetotal, but I realised I'd only be doing it to try to change him. That is not possible with an alcoholic. I have modified what I do because of his behaviour but he still drinks.

My point is nothing anyone does will enable or stop the alcoholic from drinking. They control whether they drink or not, and unfortunately it's cheaply and readily available everywhere, and almost everyone drinks, normalising it. You can try not to potentially exacerbate the problem though.

I shout at him when I get to the end of my ability to cope with his alcoholism. I know that's wrong, but I also know it isn't what causes him to drink.
Am I abusive or is he with his drinking and all that goes with it? Difficult to tell isn't it?

OP you recognise you have a problem but are still in denial (99% in control). It's all or nothing. You can't be a recovering alcoholic who occasionally drinks. And nothing your DP does can be blamed for you choosing to drink.

I think the OP was ill- advised to start a thread like this. It was like setting herself up for failure when she is clearly very vulnerable. Anyone who is at the mercy of alcohol and unable to escape its addictive clutches shouldn't put such an emotive scenario out there, when it is clear there is a huge backstory.

Hopefully the OP will take matters back into their own hands, seek RW professional help and get things back on track. I've seen how evil drink can be in the hands of someone unable to stop, it is gut wrenching stuff for all concerned

And if he chose not to, because he didn't want the temptation around him, would you still have bought it and kept it around for yourself? And then said it was 100% his responsibility not to drink it?

The situation was a little bit more complicated than that.
I hardly ever drink anyway and would have happily not have alcohol in the house, particularly if he had asked me not to.
In our case, it developed over time, he pretty much never drank in my presence, and often bought alcohol by himself. I know it in my heart that he had a drinking problem, challenged him about it, but he denied it. He denied even drinking, but it was obvious to me that he did.
He started drinking for his anxiety and simply got worse, particularly as he mixed it with his medication.

But, in any case, and as I said before, if me or any partner of an alcoholic decided to keep a bottle in the house, it would still be 100% responsibility of the alcoholic partner not to start drinking it.

In fact, don't answer that. I think it is clear.

Goading much? Why?

And when you've asked, pleaded, cried, shouted, bribed, and everything else to your mother to please, please, please stop drinking because you'll kill yourself THEN she goes and drinks knowing you'll see it THEN you know that your mother puts her own wants and needs, her own feelings, her own bloody minded selfishness before you. Time and time and time again. It makes you feel unloved, unneeded and unworthy. And it never, ever goes away. I know I'm not directly in your daughters shoes but if you go away from this with one thing - do not destroy your daughter like my mother did me.
She's gone now and I miss her, love her and hate her so much. It's just not right.

I think all these accusations of lying are unfair. The op says 'and then I started sculling wine'. To me this says she was drinking wine, her husband had a go and she started pouring it down. Yes, she was drinking wine earlier , all kinds of issues with this as someone with a drinking problem, but no she didn't lie about it.

no she didn't lie about it.

She did. She omitted to mention that she'd been drinking before, so that her OP made it sound like her big bad DH shouted at her, she can't cope with shouting, and therefore she drank. If she'd said

"I'm an alcoholic and I'd had a few glasses of wine, then DH shouted at me and I finished another bottle and was noticeably drunk when my daughter arrived."; her OP would look very different.

It doesn't matter here - it just skews the advice the OP gets so it's not actually useful for her - but alcoholics tend to have a big problem with finding a reason to drink. Like OP saying she'd had a long day. Her drinking started because she'd had a long day and then she decided to keep drinking because she doesn't like shouting... she made excuses. She needs to be honest with herself which usually means being honest with everyone else too because keeping up a facade is hard.

Grrr....2017 Zombie thread.

Your husband is part of the problem.

I've shouted at a partner when they've stumbled into the kitchen and started lurching around with sharp knives and flames.

Told them they were being a fucking cunt, too. At least it stopped them from burning the fucking house down or setting fire to themselves on my watch - even though I then had to deal with all the fucking whining about how I'd spoiled their evening and they might as well have a drink now I'd been so mean to them.

Drinking and cooking do not go together. I'd trust a 6 year old to run a gas barbeque and Japanese mandolin more than a drunk with a hob and bread knife.