DP has admitted he's an alcoholic - any advice?

[BemusedMum]

I have name changed because DP knows my usual name, and I'd rather he doesn't know about this thread yet...

I've been concerned by DP's drinking since Christmas. I was reading another thread on MN about another poster's alcoholic DH, my DP read it over my shoulder and it seemed to strike a chord with him. During a long discussion he said he did think he was dependant on alcohol, that he was scared and embarrassed. He realised he had to get 'on top' of his drinking, hoping to keep away from drink for a couple of weeks then only drinking a little every now and then. He didn't last three days. We are both quite shocked (I thought he had better self control, and neither of us realised drink had such a hold over him!) This was last night. We don't live together. I left his home a few hours ago and I am really hoping that he is sticking to his resolve not to drink.

I would like to support his recovery, but after last night I am not so certain I can. Iwas so cross and disappointed with him I almost called it a day then. I am worried I could waste the next few months/years of my life, only to end up in misery. He isn't a nasty drunk, but his hangovers can be uncomfortable to be around. I find the most frustrating thing to be that he is unable to do anything in the evening, or the morning! I do worry that there is a possibility of him becoming a nasty drunk.

There are so many thoughts and worrys running around my head, I just don't know where to start! I feel terribly sad.

Unless you are an experienced professional who is used to helping alcoholics, it's NOT YOUR JOB to cure him. You won't be able to do it and it will drive you nuts trying. He needs to seek professional help, and if he isn't going to, you need to distance yourself. Do you have DC with him?

I have no DC with him. I have two, and he has two.

Originally he wanted to do it without professional help, but after yesterday he has agreed to speak to his GP. What help is available?

does anybody have any experience of going through this? I could really do with some support. I can't speak to anybody in RL about this yet.

Bump

There is a variety of help available for your DP and going to his doctors is an excellent start.

The likelihood is that the GP will direct him to a local community-funded drug and alcohol service; Turning Point run many such services around the country. For those with more serious problems (which doesn't sound appropriate in this situation) then the local NHS trust will have a dedicated drug and alcohol team.

Then there is always [http://www.alcoholics-anonymous.org.uk/ Alcoholics Anonymous]. There are AA meetings in every town and city around the country.

The important thing to remember from your point of view is that this is his problem to solve and he has to do it for himself. He needs to take responsibility for finding a support system that suits him best and he needs to take responsibility for ensuring he takes advantage of that support. As much as possible, and for your own health, you need to take a big step back from his drinking. Sure, look on from the sidelines and encourage him, but this isn't something you can fix.

As well as your DP agreeing to go to AA, there is AlAnon for families/partners of alcoholics. I don't know much about it but I think it has similar principles as AA - i.e. you go and say as much as you need to, listen to others and benefit from the understanding and support of others in the same position as you.

When I was younger I never "got" the idea of group support, didn't think it was for me - and then I had some while training for something and I realised how therapeutic it is when someone just understands what you're going through! So, even if the idea doesn't appeal at first, it might be worth a visit or two to your local AlAnon. Even if your DP doesn't end up going to AA at this stage, it doesn't matter - you can still go to AlAnon.

Thank you!

DP didn't like the idea of AA, but I don't want to become a person that is always checking up on him or the only person he can turn to with this - I want to be able to walk away if need be, which I won't be able to do if he is emotionally dependant on me. We don't have turning point in this county and I believe (perhaps naively) that it hasn't quite got a total hold on him (he doesn't drink all day) so I don't think he will have access to the drug and alcohol team...

I'll look into AlAnon, perhaps if I go he will feel less afraid of going himself. I have been googling and have found that there is some things that will help for now (fruit juice to help with the sugar cash etc).

I am going to bed now. Thank you so much.

sorry, that should read 'there are some things

Oh dear, I feel so sad for both of you. It is brilliant, by the way, that you both noticed at the same time and that he recognised the problem instantly. I can't overstate how fortunate this is!

Al-Anon will be helpful for you to sort out your feelings - primarily, coming to terms with the fact that he loves alcohol more than he loves you, his mum or himself. I know,

Get him to try some AA meetings - they vary in style & character, you shouldn't judge them all from one example. Incidentally, you might like to know that the principle of AA recovery depends on becoming 'addicted' to the recovery process, so it's not like he's suddenly going to become Mr Non-Addicted To Anything as a consequence. Don't knock it, though. The twelve-step programme is a superb philosophy for life, for anybody. You can go with him to early meetings, if that suits you both.

A possible alternative, should you need one, is to find a private therapist who specialises in addiction recover - they're quite easy to find, it's amazing how many therapists are recovering addicts! (Or maybe not all that amazing, heh.)

Wishing you both luck - and begging you to remember: put your own well-being first at all times. You matter.

alcoholism comes in different forms - not all alcoholics drink all day. It's the dependence and/or the inability to stop once you start that are the key issues, I believe.

A friend of mine was told by her GP that she was well on the way to being an alcoholic as she binge drank rather badly; but didn't drink every day, she just wasn't able to stop once she started.

My DH is not an alcoholic but has chosen to stop drinking it because he could feel it getting a grip on him - he says he won't have another drink until he thinks he can have just the one without needing to finish the bottle.

Good luck with it - and as a previous poster said, you have to know within you that there is nothing you can do unless your DP does it himself - you can support him in his decision to get help but you cannot do it for him.

from what you've said so far i get the impression that he's admitted a reliance on alcohol but hasn't fully acknowledged the extent of the consequences.

it's very very hard to be the partner of an alcoholic. my husband managed to stop drinking (without the aid of AA) but it took our relationship breaking up for him to get to that point. i would class him as a 'problem drinker' as he was unable to stop once starting but could go long-ish periods without drinking. he would basically drink until he fell over. he was also quite belligerent when drinking.

my father was a long term alcoholic and i watched my parents relationship and our family suffer horrendously so once i realised he had a reliance on alcohol, i left and only came back after he made the decision to stop completely. that was nearly 10 years ago and he's not touched it since.

i would recommend that you make it clear you won't stay with him while he's drinking and stick to it. you have to protect yourself as it's too easy to become co-dependent. watch out you don't make it your mission to save him. he has to do this himself. you can support him by listening and encouraging but it's not your job to monitor his drinking.

you would be wise to cool things until he has his drinking under control.

I would protect your own self first and foremost as you could very easily find yourself enabling him (covering up, making excuses for his drinking).

There are no guarantees here; he may well go onto lose everything and he may still choose to carry on drinking.

BTW if you have previously drunk alcohol with him you cannot do that with him anymore. That is itself enabling behaviour.

You cannot make him stop drinking, he has to want to help his own self here and it sounds like he is paying lip service to the problem. Actions speak louder than words and its the actions that count.

Make use of the service that Al-anon offers and read their literature.

He could well be "scared" and "embarrassed" but he does not want to go to AA. That to me says he is not yet willing and or able to really face up to the consequences of what he is doing. Alcoholism and denial of the problem often too go hand in hand.

Also your children really don't need to have such a man in their lives for a father figure. A drunkard for a partner is no good for you either, let alone them.

You need to remember the 3c's re alcoholism:-

1. You did not cause this
2. You cannot control this
3. You cannot cure this

I was worried that there wouldn't be anybody with any advice. I can't tell you how grateful I am! Would you mind me whittering on until I find some outside support?

I don't feel he does actually understand the extent of his consequences. I tried to talk to him about it this morning, but he got cross that I was reminding him of needing a drink. What a load of old nonsense! I can only do this if he really gets it. I can;t sit on the sidelines cheering on the 'happy family'.

I have found myself withdrawing from him emotionally. I am scared I won't like who he is once he stops and because I am worried he won't be able to stop, if he can't I'll have to walk away and it is going to break my (and his) heart.

He went to see his GP today, but didn;t talk about his drinking. His ex-wife is applying for residency of the children, he is worried she will be able to use it against him. He is not at all keen on the idea of AA, but perhaps some private therapy could help. Would somewhere like Relate help?

Witter away It does you good to get this kind of thing out in the open.

It's also good that you can recognise that his attempts to pin the blame on you for "reminding" him of drink are nonsense. He will, or won't, drink entirely for his own reasons.

When I went to Relate with my alcoholic then-DP, the counsellor said that there's not much they can do if there is active alcoholism or other drug addiction. Private therapy can help but the important thing that problem number one for him to deal with is his drink problem. Any other problems he may be struggling with (depression, anxiety, whatever) cannot be successfully addressed until he stops drinking.

Resisting the idea of AA suggests that he doesn't quite believe that he is an alcoholic, maybe he thinks only "real" alcoholics need AA and he isn't one so he doesn't need to go there because he's "not that bad". This is a bad sign, if it's the case.

Are you emotionally strong enough to say to him that you can't be with someone who is drink-dependent? That you can't put yourself or your DC through that? If you can say that to him, it might gee him up a bit to do something proper about it.

I don't know if Relate or anyone can help, I would think they are likely to tell him to go to AA! But I don't know.

AA doesn't suit everyone. Some people sober up on their own, some with counselling/therapy, some with AA, some with other self-help appraoaches (eg Rational Recovery) and many never sober up for good.

I have decided to call a meeting with him. I can see that if I begin another conversation with him spontaneously he may feel under attack. I hope it will give him the opportunity to think things through, and discuss things that he would like me to hear too. But mostly, it should allow me an 'open' forum for discussion. I need to decide what it is I want to talk about though...

I have mooted the idea that I couldn't stick around, but I have not been able to say it in so many words - it feels disloyal to 'us'. Then again, his drinking is hardly loyalty is it.

...I feel so cross with him for being so weak!!!! How could he do this to us?!

Fingers crossed this will be his second night free of drink (fourth by him - he counts his one drink as a minor failing, and to be expected 'after such a tough day' !?)

His reasons for resisting AA were based on his dislike of that style of therapy (eg. group), and he hasn't said anything about not being a 'real' alcoholic, although he flinches at the word, and using it makes him irritable.

He has had problems with depression and anxiety before. He pushed his GP for access to support and a psychiatrist then, so I don't think he is generally against receiving help either. For now I am willing to accept that AA isn't the place for him (although I feel that I could possibly benefit from it as I am totally out of my depth here!)

Snorbs, could you please tell me any more about Rational Recovery?

AA is not group therapy.

It is not any sort of therapy. There are certainly no therapists there.

It is former piss artists talking to each other about how they managed to stop being piss artists and rejoin the human race.

Simple and effective.

I am a grateful member, by the way.

BM, I did rehab at the Priory in Roehampton. They make you go to a minimum of 7 Fellowship meetings a week while you're in (a month), and you have to pledge to keep going.

If it's good enough for the rich & famous, it's good enough for him.

BTW if he is an alcoholic, he's not weak. It's a recognised mental illness. He can't help himself - until he recognises he has the illness and starts taking active steps, not just to avoid alcohol, but to manage the illness.

Thank you MIFLAW, and ItsGraceAgain, it is good for me to have an 'insider view' if you wouldn't mind hanging around I'd really appreciate it. He is, in everything other aspect of his life, very strong so I am able to accept that it is a disease rather than a weakness, which makes me feel less cross with him. Although, I feel weak for not being so cross with him now. Feeling cross with him helps me to accept that I may have to walk away - it is like an emotional barrier. If I am not cross with him, then I must feel sorry for him... This is one I need to sleep on.

I have found some downloadable leaflets on the AA website that may be helpful to him. But if I start handing lots of leaflets and trying to find outside support for him (us) then is this me trying to do the fixing on his behalf, or is this me supporting him?

Feeling your anger is healthy and appropriate. With apologies for repeating myself: He loves the drink more than he loves you.
A perfectly good reason to be angry, no?

Keep reading, I think you'll find the answers to your other questions ... Good luck, but don't start trying to recover for him!!!

Absolutely be angry with him - but in the same way you feel angry with a cat for vomiting on your carpet. He hasn't done it to piss you off or because he can't be bothered to do differently - but that doesn't make clearing up any more fun ...

Don't give him any leaflets at all. But do tell him that his drinking is a problem for you; tell him that you have heard AA (or whatever) has worked for people just like him (believe me, he isn't unique); point out that, now he knows this, he has a chance to do something about it if he would like to; and be clear on what you are going to do if he doesn't get his act together. Then follow it through.

PS if it helps, I'm a man - I always think everyone realises this, but then I find out they don't at all! And, yes, AA works for men too.

bemused,

re your comment:-

"I am scared I won't like who he is once he stops and because I am worried he won't be able to stop, if he can't I'll have to walk away and it is going to break my (and his) heart".

As I wrote to you earlier there are no guarantees here. Your heart will be hurt if you walk away but I don't honestly think he will be all that heartbroken. You forget that his primary relationship is now with drink; absolutely everything and everyone else comes a distance second.

For what its worth I don't think he wil ever go to AA either (think only around 4% of alcoholics actually attend AA meetings) and flinching at the word alcoholic makes him sound like he is in denial of his drinking problem.

He also sounds like he has and is self medicating with alcohol for depression and anxiety issues; this will actually make things worse (alcohol acts as a depressant).
He screwed things up badly with his ex wife and he could well do the same to you this time around. What has really changed?.

You made a poor relationship choice but you can move on from this, its not your task to save and or rescue him here. Giving him leaflets is a no as well. You are not responsible for him, you are in danger of acting like a mother figure to him. Stop too with feelings of disloyalty towards him, this is truly misplaced and are of your own making.

Also your children really do not need such a role model in their lives. They need due consideration here too; what does he bring into their lives really?.