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Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

Functioning alcoholic

30 replies

Mabel77 · 19/07/2023 22:57

we have been together for 21 years and have two kids aged 14 and 18.
hubby has always liked a drink but over the years it’s become worse. He comes home from work and spends his evening in a seperate room to everyone else. He gets through 10-12 cans of beer in a 4 hour period. As a result he has put on a lot of weight. He snores horrifically to the point where he keeps the house awake if he’s gone to sleep first, I told him that his snoring was Making me Ill. He went to GP and was referred to a sleep clinic. He was diagnosed with Sleep apnoea and given a CPAP machine. He won’t use it as he finds it uncomfortable.
He works hard and isn’t a horrible drunk. However I’m finding myself starting to hate him. The sleep thing is a major issue, he will come to bed pissed wanting to get his leg over and it makes me feel physically sick. It’s destroying our relationship. He’s a good man. When I bring it up he says it’s his way to relax. I don’t know how much longer I can cope with it. He will stop for a few days when I lose my patience over it then it starts again.
Aside from this he’s a good man. He works hard, he’s a good dad. He would do anything to help.
he‘s my best friend but I am no longer in love with him.

OP posts:
Missingthegore · 20/07/2023 12:28

Summer2424 · 19/07/2023 23:41

Hi @Mabel77 sorry you're going through this. I have alot of experience in this area, my Dad was an alcoholic and died of it unfortunately, his drink of choice was vodka.
I wish my Dad had the online AA meetings available to him back in the day. I think it would have really helped. If you can, try and get a login for an online AA meeting in your area (you can google it) to start with and literally logon for him and get your husband to listen in on the meeting. I would get him to do a meeting everyday, i personally think it will help and open his eyes to what is going on around him and his excessive drinking.
Hope your husband gets better soon xx

Terrible advice
He has to WANT to change and WANT to go to the meetings. "Logging on" is not enough he has to want to be there or he will say "I am nothing like them, I can work, I am a good dad (in his eyes)". He has to want to change. I have had the rehab conversation many many times with desperate families when their loved one has been detoxed forcibly due to a hospital admission convinced that was the hard part over. It's not, it is like a diet, the person has to want to stick to it.

OP You need to make decisions for you and your kids to make things secure for them. The life you are all leading is not secure, the attitudes to alcohol are not healthy in the house.
Get out, get away and start over.

isthismylifenow · 20/07/2023 12:33

I echo previous posters and think you should contact AA for you. Your dc are teenagers now, they say see what is going on and may well be learning that this behaviour is the norm.

You may think he is a good man and a good father, as this is all you know. For an example, if your 18 year old needed their dad in the night to chat out something from school/that is bothering them, do they approach their dad? When he is sat in another room what sounds like drinking by himself. How do your dc interact with him then?

When do you get time with him alone to chat out stuff that is just the norm. Like how was your day, did you hear about Fred up the road etc etc.

It's the shutting himself away drinking alone that is a big issue here. As it isn't social drinking.

He stops or you walk... It can only be this way OP. Can you really see yourself 10 years down the line with this man when your DC have left home.... you will be caring for him, still not sleeping and probably still defending him as a good man.

Mabel77 · 23/07/2023 08:04

Ive spoken to him and said to him for my own sanity he needs to get help or he needs to leave.
he doesn’t think it’s an issue as it’s how he relaxes, 🙄
so I’m getting my ducks in a row.

OP posts:
pointythings · 23/07/2023 08:24

That's the right decision. Alcoholics who are in denial only ever get worse. This is your rock bottom, now you can start climbing out.

Shapemyeyebrows · 23/07/2023 08:30

@Mabel77 he knows it’s an issue. It’s not how he relaxes, it’s how he functions. He’s not going to sort it because he doesn’t want to. There’s your answer. There’s also no point keep having the same conversation yet him stay in the home continuing to do what he’s always done.

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