Is my husband’s drinking salvageable with two small children involved?

[Imjustagirl222]

Feel totally exposed and vulnerable writing this as I’ve never expressed these thoughts before…. So will try my best…

i am 35 and been with my husband for 10 years. Married for 5. We have 2 small kids under 4.

husband has always like a drink / party which back when we were 25/26 didn’t bother me. I knew he drank probably too much, but so did all his friends and we were young.
there have been many a fight along the way about him being too drunk and me having to get us home or him ruining nights out eg friends weddings.

he got older and things got better. Now he’s older when he does drink (he can go long periods without) his hangovers last days. Which is not ideal with small kids. And the hangovers often lead to insomnia so he drinks more to get to sleep often getting up during the night to drink. One particularly bad hangover around a year ago I was dropping the eldest kid at nursery and left the younger one with husband. Came back and he was drunk.
this morning we were out on Saturday!!! And he’s struggling with hangover and insomnia and so drank alcohol at 5am as he thought it was 2am.

I don’t feel unsafe around him, he’s not nasty, I just cba. And I don’t want my kids around it but he’s a good dad.
I earn an ok wage myself but couldn’t afford this house by myself and I’m scared.

is this salvageable?

Now he’s older when he does drink (he can go long periods without) his hangovers last days. Which is not ideal with small kids. And the hangovers often lead to insomnia so he drinks more to get to sleep often getting up during the night to drink. One particularly bad hangover around a year ago I was dropping the eldest kid at nursery and left the younger one with husband. Came back and he was drunk.
this morning we were out on Saturday!!! And he’s struggling with hangover and insomnia and so drank alcohol at 5am as he thought it was 2am.

Yeah, that's an alcoholic.

It’s not how often this happens; it’s the lack of an off switch which is the sign of an alcoholic. And alcohol definitely causes insomnia because drinking disturbs the natural sleeping pattern so people use it to get back to sleep.

Plus even if he is not drinking, OP will be on edge in case he does pick up a drink, knowing the chaos and carnage (all bets are off as we say in AA) if he so much as has one drink.

I ended up a 24/7 drinker and have been sober many years. I couldn’t deal with the “will he/won’t he” drinking pattern and would have to say that abstinence is the only successful way forward in his case. But he has to want that.