Living with a functioning alcoholic

LegacyUser

Long term poster here

My fiancee has come to the realisation that he is a funtioning alcoholic..........and I realise it is a good thing that he has acknowledged there is a problem but life is pretty bleak these days. I am trying to be there as much as I can to support him but between work and our 3 children time for us alone is limited.
Over the years he has always been a heavy drinker, periods of extreme drinking /dabling in other things which has led to horrible fights with us both lashings out to hurt each other but overall he is a really great person. He was never big into keeping a job and happy to drift about when we met so when the kids came along I went out to work. During the day he has the children, drops and picks up from school, feeds them overseas homework ..the works, but once the kids go to bed its like groundhog day. He admits it takes alot more now to get drunk and he drinks everyday too. I'm so sad inside, he can be so wonderful but when times are bad there has been violence and he is a notorious liar, he makes up thinks, makes prominise to people that he cant keep (ill fix that for you etc nothing major)

He says now he cant believe the life he has, no money no job renting a house, I tried for years to make him realise we have to grow up and move on but he has always resisted. And to be honest I cant believe the life I have either.............

Starokan

Is there a chance of him trying to give up alcohol entirely . It might be the start of better things for you both

Miss Fluff

Don't you think your definition of "functioning" alcoholic is a little generous?

He has shown himself to be violent, he is unable to hold down a job and can't keep promises. That sounds like common gardener alcoholism to me as opposed to being a functioning p1ss head.

Just because he contains his drinking to after dark doesn't mean he has less of a drinking problem tbh.

Is he aware that this is a problem? Have you been able to discuss it with him?

Magicmatilda

I'm not sure what your question is here OP. But heres my 2 cents on your situation.

As a previous poster says he is not quite functioning. I would consider a functioning alcoholic someone who can hold down a job and provide a home for themselves and their family. Something tells me that you are providing the home.

Anyway that is irrelevant becasue there are very few, if any, cases of an alcoholic continuing to drink and not becoming worse. If anyone knows of any fine, but its pretty non existent. Any alcholic who continues to drink will get worse. He has already gotten worse, he is drinking everyday, no?

You mentioned he is violent? Or has been? How can that be a good environment for kids?

If he is willing to seek help and abstain from drinking then you should consider supporting him, if you love him and you want to. However if he is not I think you should leave.If you do not you are enabling him. Did you grow up in an alcoholic home? Its horrible, truely horrible and that is the life you are providing for your kids. There doesn't have to be constant violence, its the constant walking on egg shells because daddy is hungover, the knowing that there is something very wrong but all the adults are acting as if its OK, but the child knows its not. The looking at your mother who is unhappy and may even take that out on you. So please don't fool yourself that because he drinks when they ae in bed that they are unaffected.

Either way I think you need to go to Al Anon. You will meet people there who are in the same situation as you and who can help and give you advice.

You are in a difficult situation and I wish you all the best. However it is important that you see that you are in control of your life. If you choose to stay, then so it with full acceptance of the consequences for you and your children.

alex73

If you are not married to him... Think long and hard.. My father was a "functioning alcoholic" that my mother supported.. There is no such thing as a functioning alcoholic, it drains you emotionally physically mentally economically.

Personally If I were you I would leave him, Give him a ultimatum. its either the bottle or me... Alcohol has a bigger price tag than that in the pub. the cost comes home aswell, And an functioning alcoholic father to be honest is no father at all.


Sorry I didn't see the part you have 3 children.. Seek help, there is NO FUTURE in the bottle. Alcoholics are addicts and you risk you children following that path.

LegacyUser

I'm going to echo other posters here. Your partner is not a functioning alcoholic. To be honest I don't think there is such thing.

The drinking doesn't have to be constantly getting worse for him to be an alcoholic. I am the child of an alcoholic and my mother always started drinking at the same time every day, the same amount, slightly more on weekends. To be honest it was scant comfort to think "Oh, well at least she's not waking up and starting the day with Vodka". She was a drunken mess for most of the day regardless.

You say he's a wonderful person and I'm sure he is. Alcoholics generally are under the illness. They can be kind and generous and we can have really great moments with them, but it doesn't change that alcoholics are selfish. They are suffering from a selfish disease and they will not change for anyone else's sake.

Never lie to yourself and say your kids are okay with all of this. Even if they don't seem affected now how do you think they'll feel as they get older and start to realise exactly how and why their Dad is a bit different to everyone else's? An alcoholic brings fear and uncertainty into a household. Children of alcoholics are more likely to become alcoholics themselves. There's only one person in your household capable of breaking that cycle and giving your kids the best chance and that's you.

On a more practical level if he's accepted he's an alcoholic then that's a massive step forward. It means there's actually hope in all of this that wouldn't be there otherwise. All the booze needs to go in your house. Let your fiance pour it down the sink, then don't buy any more. If you want your fiance to get better you'll have to stop drinking too. Second of all he needs to talk to someone. He may not like speaking to a doctor or a counsellor or people at an AA meeting but he needs to do one or the other, that's the price if he wants to keep his family. Last of all set or agree on a deadline for all of this and stick to it, eg, if the drink isn't poured away by tomorrow night, or he hasn't seen a counsellor in three weeks, then tell him you're walking. If you find him drinking again tell him you're walking. That absolutely needs to be done. Empty threats don't work on an alcoholic. If they can, they will always put booze first above everything else, be prepared for that to happen if all else fails.

I'm thinking of you, best of luck.

username123

My father was a 'functioning' alcoholic for many years, held down a number of jobs, had his mortgage paid off in the 80s when times were really hard. He drank every day. The drinking got worse and worse. He admitted frequently there was a problem, but never had the strength to stop drinking. He tried AA and came home to tell us that it was full of scumbags who had lost homes, jobs and families - sure he was better than any of them. The thing is, it just kept getting worse. He stopped working in his early 50s and just drank full time.

By the time he died (in his early 60s) he was not even physically recognisable, had brain damage from the drink, was like a junkie to get to a drink, was violent, half his normal body weight, yellow, mossy stuff growing round his mouth from pouring cheap raw spirits in, would sometimes be comatose for up to 6 weeks at a time on the floor surrounded by his own body fluids with a bottle within reach to knock him back out as soon as he came round, regularly soiled himself, his bed, the floor, wherever he had fallen, regularly collapsed in the street getting to/from the off licence. It was disgusting, he wasnt like a human anymore, he was like an animal who just wanted drink.

But for many many years before the above horrors he behaved like your partner, groundhog day, act normal all day long, start drinking in the evenings.

So read over the above again, is this what you want for you and the kids? Get yourself to an Alanon meeting, learn how to stop enabling this situation and get yourself some support. If my mother had left my father maybe he would have stopped? At least us kids wouldnt have been exposed to it all our lives, but she enabled him until she had a stroke herself from the stress and they both died estranged from family in a drunken accident, her paralyzed down one side of her body and us adult kids left with massive trauma from the upbringing.

Please do something, go to Alanon, leave him, just do something and stop the possible future of what I went through happening to your kids.