How do you know?
Hi all,
I wasn't sure whether I should go through the newbie section of SR first rather than jumping in here, but I could use some input, so I guess I'm just jumping in. I've been in counseling for about 2 months, and my therapist feels that my problems/situational depression can be boiled down to husband's drinking. I don't at all deny or excuse the fact that he drinks way too much, but yet in the reading that she's asked me to do, and in tooling around the internet in sites like this, he doesn't always fit all the usual parameters of an alcoholic. How do you come to the decision that it's beyond problem drinking, and that your spouse or other loved one is officially an alcoholic? I can't get past the seeming gray area here, maybe it's a cop out, but it almost seems like decisions would be easier for me if things were more clear-cut.
So husband has been an active drinker in all the time I've known him - we met in our 20s in a bar, go figure, but socializing at bars where there was live music was the thing to do at that age in that time. I've known for years that he drinks too much, but I guess I always thought/hoped that he would slow down to a more "responsible" level as we aged. I don't know exactly how much he drinks, but it is every day, and I'm guessing he's closer to two six packs a day than one. But he doesn't go out to drink, he doesn't pass out drunk on the front lawn, there are no physical messes because of his drinking that I clean up or try to control... We don't have highly emotional fights due to the drinking, there are no promises extracted that he'll stop, but there is also no escalation of drinking more and more, his weekend consumption is pretty close to weekday, and he is functional. I know lots of alcoholics manage to function and hold down jobs, etc, there are just a lot of usual descriptions that husband just doesn't fit. On the other hand, he falls asleep at the drop of a hat in front of the tv, but it doesn't seem to matter whether he's had 2 beers or 10, if he's tired, he'll fall asleep (his father, whom I would not guess to be an alcoholic, does this too). My main complaint over the years is that he's fairly absent from our relationship, and I pretty much removed myself as well to protect myself (yes, I'm reading Codependent No More), and there's just not much relationship left.
But how do I even begin to talk to him that the drinking is a problem when I can't point out specific harm it does to our relationship or to him? I appreciate any advice or thoughts! Ser