Alcohol treatment (Split from other thread)

LegacyUser

hi my partner is practically perfect in every way
but he drinks every day and finds it difficult
not to do so
he does not always get drunk - he seems to just want
an anaesthetic - is he an alcoholic?

MagicMarker

He is the poster child for alcoholism I'm afraid.

Does he recognize he has a problem? Does he want to get help?

LegacyUser

I have to agree it sounds like he has a problem.

No one should have to drink everyday. I have a friend who has just left the father of her child for the same reason. She also did not know for years if he was an alcoholic but has finally woken up to it.

You need to tell him what you think and ask him to either give up drink alone or seek help. If he carries on drinking i would get out of there and start a new life..it will only get worse.

LegacyUser

Hi loneliness,

Was married to an alcoholic for years. Ex didn't always get drunk either. He used to change

when he was drinking, and the changes became more obvious over time. When sober he was a very good person. But it was no way to live and once I had babies it was even worse as I was like a widow, very very lonely indeed...your Name says it all. Ironically we split years later after he fell in love with someone "who understood him"

I found Al-anon brilliant.

Victor

Paragraphs added to posts.

Can you lot learn how to use paragraphs please? Paragraphs involve a full blank line between text?

Jane Doh!

Al-anon is a good place to start. He will need support but he will also need to seek help and admit he has a problem.

Al-anon meetings will give you the tools to get through it with him, if you choose to stay.

Grawns

I used to have 2 glasses of wine everyday before I got pregnant. Guess that makes me an alcoholic then :rolleyes: It's been nearly 8 months now since I had a drink and I am really looking forward to one.

You should post this in after hours and see what everyone there has to say.

MagicMarker

Grawns wrote: »

I used to have 2 glasses of wine everyday before I got pregnant. Guess that makes me an alcoholic then :rolleyes:

If you stopped then obviously not, no.

But if you read the OP again....

loneliness wrote: »

hi my partner is practically perfect in every way
but he drinks every day and finds it difficult
not to do so
he does not always get drunk - he seems to just want
an anaesthetic - is he an alcoholic?

Are you really so blind to insinuate that the OP's BF doesn't have a problem?

Why anyone would want to drink wine everyday for the sake of it is beyond me anyway, seems pretty stupid.

leadinglady

If your drinking is interfering with your everyday life (family, friends, work etc.) then its a problem. It needs to be dealt with. Dont dwell on the word Alcoholic though, people see stereotype here, but there is no steroetypical alcoholic, there is a wide range of them...some people only need to be drinking once a week to have a problem, if it interferes with their lives.

I agree with Jane doh. Im afraid you will get nowhere until he is ready to accept that he has a problem.

Grawns

MagicMarker wrote: »

If you stopped then obviously not, no.

But if you read the OP again....



Are you really so blind to insinuate that the OP's BF doesn't have a problem?

Why anyone would want to drink wine everyday for the sake of it is beyond me anyway, seems pretty stupid.

My valid opionion is that she is the one with the problem! She says he is practically perfect and yet she wants to change him. She doesn't say that his alcohol intake is having any detrimental effect on his life or behaviour. he's not an alcholic - he's a habitual drinker. Like me and my stupid wine!

spurious

Being an alcoholic is not about how much you drink or how often you drink, or even whether it has an obvious detrimental effect on you or those around you.

It's about the individual's 'relationship' with drink and by the OP's description, her partner has a dependance on alcohol and some issues about facing reality.

MagicMarker

Grawns wrote: »

My valid opionion is that she is the one with the problem! She says he is practically perfect and yet she wants to change him. She doesn't say that his alcohol intake is having any detrimental effect on his life or behaviour. he's not an alcholic - he's a habitual drinker. Like me and my stupid wine!

Who's drinking are you trying to defend here? The OP's partner or your own?

Read the OP's post again, and again and then one more time. It's blindly obvious her partner has a problem with drink, if he finds it hard to stop and drinks to repress certain feelings or emotions (which it sounds like he does) then he has a problem, and drink is not and never will be the answer.

Jane Doh!

Grawns wrote: »

My valid opionion is that she is the one with the problem! She says he is practically perfect and yet she wants to change him. She doesn't say that his alcohol intake is having any detrimental effect on his life or behaviour. he's not an alcholic - he's a habitual drinker. Like me and my stupid wine!

She wants to change his "habitual drinking" which is having an effect on his life. His partner is concerned about him and says that he is drinking every DAY.

Its not fair to say that she has a problem, the problem is the alcohol and potential addiction.

Grawns

Well I disagree.

And as I said before
"She doesn't say that his alcohol intake is having any detrimental effect on his life or behaviour." She has a problem with his habitual drinking. Hence she has the problem and seeks to change him for the so called better. Good luck!

MagicMarker

Grawns wrote: »

Well I disagree.

And as I said before
"She doesn't say that his alcohol intake is having any detrimental effect on his life or behaviour." She has a problem with his habitual drinking. Hence she has the problem and seeks to change him for the so called better. Good luck!

What is the difference between habitual drinker and alcoholic? What if we replaced the word alcohol with cocaine? Is it a problem then?

I think you're showing incredible naivety tbh, so much so that that I don't think you believe what you think you believe. But if you said otherwise, then you might have to accept the same for yourself?

Just an observation.

mazcon

Grawns wrote: »

Well I disagree.

And as I said before
"She doesn't say that his alcohol intake is having any detrimental effect on his life or behaviour." She has a problem with his habitual drinking. Hence she has the problem and seeks to change him for the so called better. Good luck!

Actually she doesn't mention changing him at all.... she merely ask for opinions as to whether he is an alcoholic or not.
It's a hard one to answer on so little information but I would say he is probably heading for alcoholism if he is drinking daily and using alcohol as an anaesthetic. I would second the advice to check out Alanon if his drinking is causing problems for you.

estar

i dont know anyone who finds it difficult not to drink every day that is not at serious risk of developing a dependency on alcohol. if he is using it as an anaesthetic he is using it as a way of controlling his feelings.

however all you can do is ask him to give it up for a month or two to see how he feels, and if he cannot do that, then yes he does have a problem. maybe its not so serious now, but alcohol is very very sneaky.

he wont seek help until he realises himself. try and support him and reflect back to him how he is making you feel.

iguana

OP, the one thing I'd be wary about is using the word alcoholic. The word alcoholic usually implies a person with an uncontrollable urge to drink caused by the disease of alcoholism. However there is absolutely no conclusive medical evidence that alcohol abuse is a disease. Alcohol is an addictive substance. It also has enjoyable effects.

Your partner is currently enjoying those effects too much to stop. And if he does try to stop he could be getting headaches, sweats, nausea and diarrhea from the withdrawal. So from his perspective why would he stop doing something he enjoys in order to feel like crap? Especially if he is also being told that he has a disease which will follow him about for life and if he stops drinking he can never, ever drink again.

He can stop drinking, and even learn to drink responsibly, if that is what he really, really wants. But you can't make him do that. You can encourage him and support him, but you can't make him do anything if it's not what he really wants.

You need to decide if you are willing to stay with him as he is now. If you are willing to take the chance that he will take control of his drinking at some point. Willing to take the chance that it won't get much, much worse.

If you aren't, talk to him, tell him that you aren't willing to stay with him while he drinks this way. Possibly give him a time-frame in which you need to see a change and stick to it. He may love you more than he loves drinking and he may change his habits. Or he may find it easier to keep drinking and let you walk away. Either way you need to put yourself first.

And remember, even if you feel you aren't ready to make this choice now, that doesn't mean you can't keep judging the situation and be more pro-active at a later point.

leadinglady

'He can stop drinking, and even learn to drink responsibly, if that is what he really, really wants.'

I agree with most of what you said iguana, but this part is not necessarily true, and he may not even know it. He might promise to drink responsibly, but I think you need to be aware that some people just cant do it. These people have the disease of alcoholism. It may be a waiting game im afraid.

iguana

leadinglady wrote: »

'He can stop drinking, and even learn to drink responsibly, if that is what he really, really wants.'

I agree with most of what you said iguana, but this part is not necessarily true, and he may not even know it. He might promise to drink responsibly, but I think you need to be aware that some people just cant do it. These people have the disease of alcoholism. It may be a waiting game im afraid.

There is no conclusive medical evidence that alcoholism is a disease. That is a misconception put forward by AA, an organisation with a less than a 5% success rate. Alcohol is both mentally and physically addictive and some people can deal with the addictive element better than others. But that doesn't mean that with enough desire to control it that it can't be controlled. For some people it might be better/easier if never drink again, but that isn't true, or necessary, of all alcohol abusers.

leadinglady

Thats what I said. SOME people cant drink responsibly, not all people. Im sure their are people who abuse alcohol for whatever reason at some time and can then gain control and drink responsibly.

BUT, there are some people who can not with the best will and strongest desire in the world control their drinking. Im one of them. Im 12 years sober, but youre not going to tell me that if I desired to drink responsibly that I could, because I know in my heart I couldnt. I also know an awful lot of other people who couldnt. Im not going to argue about whether its a medical disease with you. To me it is a dis-ease of the mind and body but Im not a doctor, im only going on my experience. I have a lot of that.

iguana

leading lady, I'm glad you have found a way to deal with something which was a problem for you. But I take serious issue with telling people that they have a disease which they can never cure but only treat by abdicating personal responsibility to a higher power and that if they drink again they are back to square one. That's a dangerous attitude which means that people who do give up "forever" but then slip up feel as if they have failed and it tends to lead people back into their old drinking habits. Something I have family experience of.

More importantly with regard to the OP's partner, at this point in time telling him he has a disease which means he should never drink again, is likely to make him less likely to attempt to control what sounds like problem drinking. On the other hand if he is encouraged to quit for 2 weeks or a month, and then if he feels ok to slowly introduce alcohol again to see if he can control it he is far more likely to attempt to change.

leadinglady

Absolutely, if you read back my posts, I said the same, dont use the word alcoholic, cos of the implications, it will scare the ###t out of someone. I dont like the word at all, but have got used to it. Im quite proud of what ive achieved so I dont mind telling people, and my friends and family are proud too. I wouldnt even have them if I hadnt stopped. I have also said several times that it is only some people who cant drink again, not all people who have issues with drink - you are right there are just habitual drinkers and you need to be careful of the chosen vocab.

I work with women who have alcohol problems (not as a job), and I try to take the stigma away for them a bit ie,'Im not a down and out in the gutter with a brown bag etc', Im a 'normal' (ish) thirty something modern woman - who happens to be an alcoholic. (When I find a better word I will happily use it!) You see there was no grey area for me, I am terrified of what I became and never want to go back there again, so the title is a small price to pay. Thats all it is though, a word, and Id love to get rid of that stigma, really I would.

Would I be right in thinking that its AA you might have issues with? I personally dont go to AA or follow a 12 step programme with higher powers etc. I did try it but lets just say it didnt suit me at all, and leave it at that on an open forum.

I suppose now that I think about it, I dont really like the word disease either. However, I think in some way, calling alcoholism a disease lets me off the hook a bit, as in its not all my fault, Im not just a useless sod who has no will power or strength...it kind of works both ways actually ...jurys out on that one in my head. I have to admit its easier after 12 years to say alcoholic than it was the first couple!!

iguana

leadinglady wrote: »

Would I be right in thinking that its AA you might have issues with? I personally dont go to AA or follow a 12 step programme with higher powers etc. I did try it but lets just say it didnt suit me at all, and leave it at that on an open forum.

I don't have a problem with the AA as such, they do help a lot of people. What I'd have a problem with is their utter dominance in treatment, the media and in people's minds. Their treatment style doesn't suit the majority of people and I'd go as far as to say they turn a lot of people off and those people find it harder to find an alternative because of their dominance. As an option they suit some people, as the dominant treatment they possibly cause more harm overall than good.

leadinglady

I have no arguement with that!!!