How much do you/your partners drink at home?

[Mamaa1981]

My husband drinks pretty much everyday - week days in the evenings after work 2-4 cans (had a stressful day/its sunny/footballs on [insert excuse here]..) and then at the weekend probably starts drinking around 4pm ish and could drink around 6 cans/plus wine on a Saturday/Sunday with dinner. Its beginning to grate on me if im honest. Sick of seeing him with an alcoholic drink in hand. Pissed off when theres jobs to do and once hes settled with a drink thats him done for the day (no help putting kids to bed at night). Worried that this is being normalised to the kids..

Concious that i dont drink and perhaps a bit judgy on this- i try not to be. Is this normal??

I agree he drinks too much but I disagree with it not been norma. It is fine to have alcohol in the house and I was reading somewhere that making alcohol acceptable as part of our culture is fine. Anyway you can google lots of info on that.

No harm in him having s couple of glasses of wine or a few beers a week after all duties have been taken care of and at a reasonable hour. (If he can)

A blanket ban I would consider controlling. If he can limit it then what is the problem, it's the kids seeing him drinking all the time and getting snappy and checking out is the issue. Maybe it will work not having it in the house and maybe it is the way forward. Alcohol withdrawal can be very dangerous and him going from the amount of drink to zero might come with physical repercussions. I'm not sure how much you have to drink before this is an issue

You are unhappy. Is he unhappy too?

It's good you've had that chat though and the ball is in his park. I would leave him to it and see what happens and then in a couple of weeks revisit it if things haven't changed. It's not going to change over night and if it creeps in again you have to gently mention it again but you may have to pull the trigger on this relationship eventually, he seeks help or live with it

I am teetotal. My husband drinks probably 2-3 cans of beer a week.

Lasted three days. Snappy with the oldest last night - over nothing really- i had to step in and keep the peace (just normal teenage behaviours, rubbed him up the wrong way). Then when kids in bed, i go down stairs and a get a lecture on - “don't ask me to help out with bedtimes again etc you bring all this on yourself. Their playing you- its only going to get worse blah blah” nothings actually happened but my oldest wanted me to give him a hug in bed!!!!

This morning, Broached the fact that he lasted three days and he genuinely cant see a problem. I said he was bad tempered last night and hes told me im over reacting “i only had two beers”.

Its been nice and calm the last three days and hes gone and buggered it up again which itll be like this now with his drinking until possibly Monday. What i said obviously hasnt sank in. I think i knew this tho...

Mamaa

So he managed three days.

Like practically all alcoholics he is in denial of the problem and accuses you of spoiling his fun.

Alcoholism is not known as the "family disease" for nothing; all of you in this house are affected by the alcoholic in your midst. You in turn are firefighting problems and your household as a whole is lurching from one crisis to another. This is no life for you or your children to be witness to. Do you really want this to further become their normal?.

You've already stated that you do not want your children seeing this as their norm but they are are absorbing this as their normal; this is what they are seeing daily from you and their dad. They certainly do not warrant seeing all this, your reactions both spoken and unspoken to his drinking and seeing the aftermath of their drunkard dad (I'm also talking about your reactions to him and the empties in the recycling bin). They will become more aware of all this as they get older too. Your eldest is all too aware already.

I've already mentioned that talking to an alcohol dependent person about their drinking is about as effective as peeing in the ocean i.e. not at all effective.

He will not change. His primary relationship is with alcohol and you can only change how you react to him.

You cannot help him but you can and should help your own self here.
Please consider attending Al-anon meetings; at the very least you need to read their literature. You are also playing roles in this overall dysfunction too (those of enabler, provoker and codependent partner) and those need to be acknowledged. It is the case that your own recovery from his alcoholism will only start when you remove yourself totally from his day to day life.

Hard as this is to read also, you do need to read this as well:-

www.soberrecovery.com/forums/friends-family-alcoholics/68440-alcoholism-tragic-three-act-play-there-least-4-characters-1-a.html

He’s an alcoholic I would say. It really sounds like you’re getting nothing out of this relationship. Maybe time to take a good hard look at things and think about leaving.

So now you need to start working on yourself. Accept that you have tried everything and that he is not going to change. Prepare to walk away - you will be doing yourself and your DCs a huge favour. He won't get better. A functioning alcoholic is only a functioning alcoholic until they stop functioning.

I have no words for how much better life is for me and my DDs without my late H in it.