iamtony wrote: » Hi lads, I'm part of a drinking tag team event with my missus. Usually I try to quit and try to drag her along with me but we usually end up blaming each other for making the other one drink. Or I say please if your drinking go and get some yourself, dont be sending me to get them. But I think she likes me to fail with her so she doesn't feel as bad. She doesn't think we have a problem, I know we do. So basically I'm looking for advice from people in the same situation, in sure its common?
s1ippy wrote: » I know that this is definitely the case with couples who take cocaine. A few of the lads briefly went with wans who were already married to the bag. Invariably they used the lad's own want for it to justify getting it every night of the week and it got very difficult to say no. I know alcohol is less addictive but it's easier to get. The routine gets built around the habit. You're very sensible to have noticed the pattern, OP. I hope you manage to get the help you need. Your girlfriend needs to come to the realisation that she has a problem, maybe join a programme and she might be inspired by your good example, although the way you describe her wanting you to fail to justify her own lapses is a worryingly familiar tale to me.
tdf7187 wrote: » Yes have heard this regarding coke too. Fortunately have no direct experience. Seemingly it is psychologically v addictive. Don't know if it's more addictive than booze but will take your word for it. Personally I drank for three decades and didn't become properly alcoholic until probably the last 7 or 8 years of it. But the amount I drank would have turned anyone into an alcoholic. I wasn't addicted from the first drop, no way. I drank my way into it. I rarely hear of anyone who used cocaine or heroin for thirty years. They wouldn't have lasted that long. There might be the odd exception.
s1ippy wrote: » Fair few of the lads are 5-6 years on it fairly bad. I never tried it, I don't like people on it so I can't imagine it would suit me. I'm already a cúnt, I don't need an accelerant
s1ippy wrote: » You're right about the chemical addiction versus behavioral dependence. It's not as easy to buy five bags every day as it (was) to go out every night and have about forty five pints in about two hours. But if you have somebody suggesting you do it as the excuse for 50% of the time you can justify it to yourself and blame them. I'm curtailing my drinking at the moment so I'm only having stuff I brew myself. It's a good way of limiting the intake and by feck do you enjoy it when you've waited for so long. My partner is going for most virtuous prick of the year and doesn't seem to be bothered by not drinking so it's my way of showing that I have a modicum of self control while knowing that I'll get the chance to have a blow-out down the line. It's kind of still a form of passive aggression around drink though because I can't envisage a life where I completely quit.
s1ippy wrote: » The cokey fellas invariably end up owing a shedload of money. Three people I've known who borrowed money off everyone had to leave the county, one disappeared off the face of the earth entirely. A costly hobby to have. Also know one lad whose entire respiratory system is destroyed from it, he can hardly breathe now without bleeding from the face, and another whose stomach ulcers got so bad that he got organ damage. After a few months straight going wrong off the cha you might as well do a key of powdered acid.
tdf7187 wrote: » Would you consider showing her this thread or would that likely be antagonistic?
Hey Tony, know it’s been a long time since the thread was active but how have you got on with the drink? I’m trying to stop and read your thread and curious how it’s been
I see you a deleted user but I've just seen this now so hopefully it reaches you.
So since 2020 when I originally posted this thread I've progressed steadily and drink more and more.
We have a baby now who is almost 2(and a 15&21 year old) and when the now wife was pregnant I drank once a week and enjoyed it, she didn't drink thankfully. But since the we have slipped back into old habits.
It totally controls our life's and everything we do has to fit around a few cans in the evening. I drive for a living and was stopped and breathalyzed at a check point at 11 am a few weeks ago and it scared the life out of me. Luckily I didn't have any alcohol in my system.
So you would think that would be enough to make me stop at least when I have work the next day but nope. I went and bought a breathalyzer instead! Very handy to have I must say and a couple of mornings I did get a reading and didn't go to work till I was clear.
Anyway I've now put on a considerable amount of weight, spend nearly all our disposable income on booze and fast food and feel crap about myself all the time.
I do hate the lifestyle I'm living but keep saying tomorrow I will stop but I've been saying that for a long time.
Just hope someone reads this and it might help them see a bit of sense and gets off the rollercoaster. Oh I'm partially blind in one eye now caused by high blood pressure which is caused from the weight gain and the drink and it could happen again. I am on medication for the blood pressure now. All for few cans. Well it's progressed into quite a few cans most evenings. Maybe one sober night every other week.
Sad times!
OP,
You're clearly an alcoholic. Say it to yourself, it will focus your mind. You are playing a very dangerous game here with your job and your health and with such a young child you need to have the strength to go get some help. You need to go to AA and go through giving up drink and for good. I'm not sure we're your wife is in all this, but ideally she would need to make changes to if she is enabling the situation.
Oh yes. Don't worry I know what I am:) I forgot to say it in the message. Thanks for your feedback!
How are you getting on with everything Tony? I hope you're doing okay. I wish I could offer you some good advice, but I'm in a similar situation myself, as my wife and I are now drinking together most nights. A lot has happened between us in the last couple of weeks, so I've come on here anonymously to share my thoughts.
Bit of background. My mother and her violent father were chronic alcoholics, my dad could also often be violent with drink taken, and when rowing my parents would end up in violent physical alterations, so as a child I was always deeply suspicious, resented, even hated the idea of alcohol. Moving to Ireland at 18, I began literally just to have a couple of pints to be sociable, but for most of my adult years I always preferred smoking hash with friends instead of drinking. I still don't like or enjoy the way drinking makes me feel, both while getting drunk or the next day. I've never been able to relax and enjoy it the same way I see others do, but since i gave up smoking because of COPD, its been a way of socialising thats becoming more intense over time, to the point where I've had a couple of blackouts which are extremely scary. My wifes family have had their fare share of problems with alcohol too. Her father and her brothers have all had to quit drinking due to alcoholism. She is the one who every week, keeps our home bar and (we even have a separate beer fridge) stocked with all the beer, cider, wine and spirits etc. that we tend to indulge ourselves in most days. Then there was a horrendous incident recently, after which I asked her to quit drinking, she managed to go two nights (probably because she felt so bad about what she'd done) before saying "look, we're going on holidays in a few days and it won't be the same if we can't have a couple of drinks by the pool, or a glass of wine with a meal, we can look at packing it in when we get back". I of course being the enabler agreed, and its been back to regular drinking nearly every night since. She'd also started taking cocaine for a short period last year, but I quickly put a stop to that.
I love my wife very much, I think we're still best friends, we always got on well until recently, and we've raised a lovely family together without ever fighting in front of the kids or entertaining violence in any manner in our home, but she becomes a different person when drinking now. I simply don't trust her anymore and I've begun losing respect for her. Last night we had another row about her drinking and lying, so this morning I told her my honest thoughts about the whole situation and gave her the ultimatum, she said okay, that she loves me and only wants to be with me, and that she'd stop drinking on Monday. I'm very happy to be quitting myself, and will be over the moon if she sticks to her word this time. This afternoon she went shopping and came home with a range of different non-alcoholic wines and beers. Not sure what to make of that.
But we'll just have to wait and see how it all goes from Monday.
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