Hubby has drinking problem-need help

LegacyUser

Hi, I've been with my hubby for almost 8 years, only married for two months, but I'm at the end of my tether because of his drinking. When we met, he drank a lot at weekends ("typical Irish lad") but I was young and didn't really take much notice. However, when we moved away from the cosy social scene we had, his drinking got worse, going on binges for a few days at a time. For the past few years, he may be fine for a month or two, all full of talk of giving up drink, and has been for a few counselling sessions and talked about AA, etc.
Unfortunately, he then falls off the wagon and binges for two or three days. Anything can set him off-going to the pub with his mates, having a fight with me (usually about drink), any stress in his life. I work fairly long hours at work so he's usually home before me, and at this stage i can guess what's ahead. He'll be passed out on the sofa, or in bed, and when I question him, he'll deny outright that he was drinking. He hides bottles and cans around the house, almost like he wants to get caught out, but never admits that they're his (we don't share with anyone...) I can't even keep small bottles of wine for cooking with, he drinks those.
I'll give this week as an example. I've been really ill but had to go to work (understaffed) On Sunday, I caught him hiding an empty bottle of wine, and then opening another, but they weren't his of course. Monday, he felt ill, think he was drinking again, so he took Tuesday off work. I told him that I didn't want dinner as I've no appetite, when I came home he went into a sulk because I wouldn't eat the food he'd prepared "just in case". He then screamed at me for 2 1/2 hours solid that I wasn't good at housekeeping or saving money, and "how could we have any type of future?" I tried to reason with him, I shouted back, I cried, I tried to get away from him, I started throwing fruit at him to try to shut him up, in the end I threw my wedding ring at him and said I'd enough. Wednesday he went to the doctor and told her about the drinking, etc, and she again advised him to go to AA. She said that he also had a viral infection and signed him off work for the rest of the week. He was all contrite last night, and kept promising that he was going to change, blah blah blah. THis morning, he was feeling sorry for himself because he was ill, and I had no pity for him, told him that negativity wouldn't help him get better, and went off to work. I talked to him at lunch, he seemed ok, and I bought vitamins and some treats for him. I came home at 9, he was in bed, I woke him to see how he was, and he seemed off. I then found two cans of cider under the bed, he denied they were his or that he had bought them. On a quick sweep of our house, I then found two empty bottles of wine and more empty cans of cider, all from today...I've left them on his bedside locker, he's pretending to sleep now.
What can I do? I want to help him, he says that he knows that he has a problem and wants to stop, but I'm not sure if he believes that. He has a lot of issues from his past, but instead of dealing with them, he wallows in them and uses them as excuses for his drinking (when really drunk he just lists them out if I give out to him) I feel so alone, I'm not close to anybody else, as when we moved to this city, I lost contact with people and found it really hard to make new friends (difficult to have a social life as so much focus is on pubs and dating, I found) He can be quite nasty when drinking (never physically) and my confidence is really low, but I hide it well (people always comment on how confident I am!!!) I think I convinced myself that he'd change when we married, which pees me off coz I'm not a naive person usually. I just got caught up in the fairytale, on our honeymoon we had a fight one night because we'd been for a few drinks, but i knew he was close to his limit so wanted to get him away from the bars, he called me a boring bitch and snuck out of the hotel once I was asleep to get booze. That really made me feel like a princess...
Sorry if this seems like a long rant, I'm just fed up and feel alone, and would love some advice. I do love him, and he loves me, and sober he is the nicest, sweetest person you could meet (yes, it's a cliche...) Just can't handle Hyde along with Jeckell

Xiney

One last talk with him to get him to admit he has a problem and then that's it.

Walk away.

Your husband is a classic alcoholic, and he will not change until he wants to. There is very little you can do to help him until he makes the decision on his own.

MissFlitworth

You can't make him stop, you can't help him to stop, you can't make him admit that he's lying even when you have clear evidence in front of him that he is indeed lying.

He definitely needs help but he'll only get it when he wants to, and it sounds like that point is a long way away for him.

You really have to put helping him on the back burner and start concentrating on helping yourself. Alcoholics bring their loved ones down with them through everything they go through, get yourself some help now. Get in touch with alanon, consider going to your doc to get a referral for someone to talk to. You need someone there to tell you you aren't going mad! (My mam dealt with the same 'I didn't buy that, I don't know who did' lies with my dad and his alcoholism and it takes a massive amount out of you, towards the end she was half convinced that she was buying the booze herself and forgetting about it) Consider travelling to see your family and friends when you have free time, build up your support networks again because you're going to need it.

Good luck & take care of yourself

Beetlebum

Hi Op,

Whenever I see a thread about alcoholics or addiction I always feel compelled to reply cause I've so much experience of it.

I'll keep this short and sweet (well, not sweet!)

I grew up in an alcohilc household and it was pure hell. I used to dread going home from school cause I never knew what was in store for me. Sometimes I wouldn't be able to open the front door cause my mom would be passed out in front of it. Many times she overdosed on a mixture of pills and alcohol and I have been in A&E and St. Pats more times then I care to remember. She died a few years ago when I was 23. I came home one Saturday afternoon and found her dead on her bedroom floor. The toxicology report was acute alcohol poisoning. She had only been a heavy drinker for maybe 7 years but it killed her so the danger of it should never be underestimated.

I tried everything in my power to help her. I mean everything. I remeber during my leaving cert begging her not to drink just for exam week so I could get some peace. She promised and gave me a big hug. I believed her. I always believed her. Well, I found bottles hidden in the bin, in the hotpress, behind the toilet, even in the garden shed. One day coming home from an exam I found her rummaging in teh bins down the alley of out house. She pulled out a bottle of vodka and drank it.

My point is though, no matter what you do, unless an alcoholic wants to stop, they will not stop. We all thought the death of his wife would stop my Dad drinking but it didn't, if anything he got worse. Luckily there is a happy ending there though, he is now sober.

My dad is prove that people can get sober. He was an alcoholic for 30 years and nobody would have believed he could do it. I tried everything to help him to but nothing worked. One day he just decided, that's it. He stopped drinking just like that but he had an amass of destruction along the way. All is forgiven because I know how hard it was for him to stop and I am so proud of him.

What helped me was something I learned in Al-Anon. They call it ABCD and it's the approach you should take to help yourself deal with an alcoholic -

A - Action. You have no control over their actions only over your own. Acknowledge that they are acting in an alcoholic way but choose not to react (stuff liek throing fruit, deep breaths and don't do that).

B- Beware. Alcoholics are liars. They are sneaky snakes. Do not believe a word an alcoholic tells you no matter how sincere they seem. You need prove of sobriety, not words.

C- Care, not for them but for yourself. You are not there carer. They have to take responsibilty for themselves. If you pick up the pieces you are enabling their behaviour.

D- This is the big one that helped me. DETACHMENT. It takes alot of time and effort and a cold heart to do this but it's like tough love. I learned how to detach myself from my folks behaviour so it no longer destroyed my life. I accepted the fact that I could not help them and I learned how to switch off my emotions towards their drinking. Not easy at all but essential.

OP, if you want to PM me do. My heart goes out to you.
Be strong.

LegacyUser

Hi OP and Beetlebum (in particular)

My story is almost the same as Beetlebum's. The only difference is my mother is alive but barely alive. She is brain-damaged due to excessive drinking for 20 years. It is so painful reading your story as your mother is my mother basically. I have gone home to find my mother unconcious on the driveway of our house/ on the floor of the bathroom with blood pouring from her head, her trying to set fire to the house (numerous times), her over-dosing and attempting suicide. All of this because of alcohol.

At this stage of her life she has very very bad memory, she has almost child-like behaviour, she cannot be rationalised with, she is a pathological liar (not only about alcohol but about absolultely anything/everything). I could go on about all the rehab attempts and hospital visits (9 A&E visits this year) but I don't want to take over this thread.

Op, maybe you could print off this thread and get your husband to read it, if you ever get a sober day with him. Ask him if he wants to live his life the way my mother is living hers. Tell him that he needs to make a decision about his life now before it's to late. You can't continue your life in this abusive relationship. Go to Al-anon and speak to people in your situation.

My instinct would be to get out now, leave him (at least temporarily). If it is possible to stay away from the house for a while please do. He needs to wake up to his problem. You need to look after your own sanity for a while. Best of luck OP.

Beetlebum

samestory wrote: »

Hi OP and Beetlebum (in particular)

My story is almost the same as Beetlebum's. The only difference is my mother is alive but barely alive. She is brain-damaged due to excessive drinking for 20 years. It is so painful reading your story as your mother is my mother basically. I have gone home to find my mother unconcious on the driveway of our house/ on the floor of the bathroom with blood pouring from her head, her trying to set fire to the house (numerous times), her over-dosing and attempting suicide. All of this because of alcohol.

At this stage of her life she has very very bad memory, she has almost child-like behaviour, she cannot be rationalised with, she is a pathological liar (not only about alcohol but about absolultely anything/everything). I could go on about all the rehab attempts and hospital visits (9 A&E visits this year) but I don't want to take over this thread.

Op, maybe you could print off this thread and get your husband to read it, if you ever get a sober day with him. Ask him if he wants to live his life the way my mother is living hers. Tell him that he needs to make a decision about his life now before it's to late. You can't continue your life in this abusive relationship. Go to Al-anon and speak to people in your situation.

My instinct would be to get out now, leave him (at least temporarily). If it is possible to stay away from the house for a while please do. He needs to wake up to his problem. You need to look after your own sanity for a while. Best of luck OP.

Your story is so so sad but stay strong and know that you will get through it as will you OP.

My mom went the same way, she was crazy by the end but not only that, she was nasty when drunk too.
She would throw things at me, piss in my bed, hide my passport as I was leaving for the airport, rip up bank letters etc.

She used to be so kind and she became a monster. Needless to say there was a sense of relief when she died. Imagine saying that about your own mom who you love. It's awful. You don't want to say that about your husband OP.

Move out, if only temporarily as said above. Our cases may be extreme, but alcoholic stories rarely end well.

The very best of luck. I'm so glad he's not violent and that there is love there. That helps but it's no cure. Alcohol is bigger then him now. You don't mention if you have kids but if you do, please please leave. No questions about that.

LegacyUser

Hi OP,

i can't give you any advice but to leave this marriage.

if another person chooses to spend their life drinking cheap wine and frosty jacks and smelling of p1ss that's their look out (and yes, i do mean 'chooses'. if alcoholics have to 'choose' to stop drinking, then they choose to continue drinking by not choosing to stop), and not your problem.

get out, talk to a lawyer, see how quickly you can get divorced, and get it started.

my mother was an alcoholic, she started when i was about 12. lots of white wine and 'middle class' drinking, by 16 she was drinking anything she could lay her hands on and pawning anything of value to generate the cash to do it. at that stage my dad divorced her (we live in the UK so it was 'relatively' easy) and i've not seen or heard of the foul tramp since i was 18. i'm 35. i have no idea if she's dead or alive and wouldn't piss on her if she was on fire.

by making a decision that her choices were her choices, and not wanting to share them we left her to it, my family recovered. my dad is in a long-term, very happy relationship, and both i and my brother are happily married with kids. we did not get destroyed by her alcoholism - though coming home from school to find her smeared in her own **** and fighting with an ambulance man in the street was pretty humiliating - precisely because we all decided that it was her choice, and her problem.

i have nothing but utter contempt for her and other alcoholics, they can smell the urine on their clothes, they can see themselves stealing from their loved ones (my brothers wrapped Christmas presents were pawned to buy White Lightning) and yet they choose to continue drinking. that's their choice, we made ours.

my advice? leave cash around when you go to work - €20 will buy an awful lot of very powerful cider - do that for a few weeks and your 'how the hell do i get out of this?' problem will go away. its cheaper than a divorce, and much quicker.

if that doesn't float your boat and you choose divorce and get a bad financial outcome, northern Cyprus has a very nice climate...

good luck.

Oh The Humanity

Hey OP,

Sorry to hear you are going through this, I've been through it with a partner too. The worst part is when you love and pity them. They fill you full of mixed emotions. I was always thinking to myself, if I just get through this or that, x y z can change. But nothing changed. Anyway, I never went but Im sorry I didn't but I hear http://www.al-anon-ireland.org/ is great for the spouses and families of alcoholics.

I wish you all the best x

username123

Hi OP,
For you and anyone else suffering the effects of someone elses drinking - please go to an Alanon meeting, you will get support there and learn how to look after yourself and gain the tools to deal with this awful disease.

Im sorry for the posters who have posted their awful experiences, I have been through similar.

My father was just like your husband except he had a bullying aggressive streak in him as well - never physical but he'd shout you into a corner and physically intimidate you. My mother was totally co-dependant and over years of his alcohol abuse she had no job, no friends, no income, was totally dependant on him and totally cowed by him, every action she performed was done with a view to 'what was he gonna think'.

She eventually had a stroke in her early 50s - likely brought on by the stress she was living under for so long. Both of them died shortly afterwards, he had descended into an inhuman condition after her stroke - took it as an excuse to drink ALL the time, I dont think I saw him sober for the last 4 or 5 years of his life and the man that died was a kind of monstrous half human thing, he had fungus growing around his mouth from pouring so much raw vodka down his throat, was down to less than 8 stone (no food, only vodka for weeks on end), hair was all patchy, eyes rolling in his head and I believe had actual brain damage from the amount of alcohol he had consumed over many years - he quite literally looked like Father Jack - all jokes aside, its not good to see a human in such a condition.

OP - I would implore you to go to Alanon (and anyone else reading this in a similar circumstance). You cannot change your husband, but you can change yourself and you will learn how not to enable him, how to live your own life (maybe with him in it maybe not), how to cope. I can promise you that if you stay and dont get help for YOU, you will end up sick yourself, I was hospitalised myself with stress related illness over my fathers drinking, I looked like an anorexic and was hyped up to the eyeballs on nervous energy ALL the time - I honestly believe if I had not gone to Alanon I would have died myself.

If you think the things you see now are bad I can assure you they get worse if the alcoholic doesnt seek help. My father would lie in his own $hit and pi$$, he would vomit anywhere in the house and stagger away, bottles hidden everywhere, lies, lies, lies, fighting in the street, falling in the street and blood everywhere, smearing it along walls as he tried to stagger into the house, aggression, cajoling, wheedling, stealing, bullying, chaos all around him, destroying any bit of love anyone had for him and turning himself into a monstrous 'thing' that didnt even look human.

I wish you all the best and any of the rest of you who have suffered or are suffering as a result of someones elses alcohol abuse.

LegacyUser

Alcohol is like any other addiction in that the addict needs help of some sort to stop and I was in that category. Addiction isn't voluntary or about weakness -it just is.There can be other causes too like untreated depression etc which can mean he self medicates.

What I did was with my partner attended the Stanhope Centre Clinic which is free for a morning a week for 4 weeks and its information course and they are contactable on

Stanhope St. Alcohol Treatment Centre, Stanhope St., D. 7 01 6773965

I did this in conjunction with Alcoholic Anonymous and the world didn't end but my drinking did.

Alcoholics Anonymous 01 8420700

I still have my job and my relationship. At the start it was stop and start for a few months 3 or 4 days and then a night on the booze and 3 or 4 days and the abstentions increased. Others I know got stuff from the doctor to take the edge off but I did it on my own.

Its easier if you have support to quit as its a big deal.

The AA number above will put him in touch with local members and he can get to beginers groups. They also have some open meetings you could ask about.

Getting in touch with his GP is also handy and its not such a huge deal as lots of people quit except some of us need help.

LegacyUser

Heya, thanks to everyone for the replies. It's funny that alanon kept popping up, I had been looking at their site before posting this, I'll definitely give them a go now. I did leave him once before, when he went on a bender at my parents' house, but it was so hard, and I took him back after a week, he then went for counselling but didn't stick at it (he seems to have thought it would be an instant remedy, silly boy) I can't walk out after two months of marriage, i just can't (though Cyprus is tempting...!) so I have to stick my chin up and take care of myself. Somebody mentioned that "Under the Weather" book, I'd forgotten that his counsellor gave him that, must search it out.
Thankfully, I've just come home and he's in bed, feeling miserable, but sober. I'm off tomorrow so i'll see how we get on.
Again, thanks so much for the replies, I certainly feel better about myself. A problem shared, and all that!

LegacyUser

totothedog wrote: »

I can't walk out after two months of marriage, i just can't (though Cyprus is tempting...!)

Hi OP,

i'm not trying to ram it down your throat, but its not giving up after 2 months of marriage, its giving up after 8 years of a serious relationship (or, in my view, deciding you've had enough after the alcoholic has been pissing on their 'loved ones' for 8 years). big, big difference...

(the Northern Cyprus thing; <snip> - and it has beautiful weather...;)

i hope it works for you OP, i really do, but its not where the smart money is, and i'd have a cut off date.

username123

OP - you dont have to end your marriage, but its not helping your husband if you just stick around and allow this behaviour to continue. If you leave him until he sorts the drinking out you can always go back when he is better. It might give him the fright he needs if you leave and wake him up to what he risks losing. And if it doesnt, and the alcoholism continues unchecked for the next 40 years - is that what you want for yourself?

I hinestly believe leaving him now would be best for both of you - its important that you set boundaries for his behaviour and one boundary is that you wont hang around while he is not helping himself.

CDfm

Addictions are the business because the person has no control over it and its not a lifestyle choice as its an addiction. You mention that the GP said AA so why dont you ring them and ask them to get someone to call up and see you.Thats something you can do.


There is a non drinkers thread on boards. You might get some ideas from that.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=1015



It seems to me that you have gone to your family GP for a specialist area. So you need to do your research on it.Find a GP that specialises in it and if he needs to see a specialist and get medication -if thats what he needs.

So you need to get to the specialist centres that deal with it and the HSE has those services for free. So check those out.

The other thing that struck me is that he is not drinking openly around you. He is an adult and when he is drinking he should do so openly.

If you are tackling this as a couple, you should tackle it together like any other illness. It seems to me that if he has issues or depression that is an underlying problem you need to tackle these too.

Thats my 10 cents worth but if you are serious about it you will take some action.