ktinbc

Assuming that AH means Alcoholic Husband, right? I’ve been reading posts here for the past couple days, and can’t believe that I haven’t thought about looking for this type of forum before. Exactly what I need right now.
My AH is in a bad way, and has been for the past several months. He is experiencing severe anxiety and thinks he is going to die. He has finally come to the conclusion that he has to quit drinking. And is seriously talking about it. We have been married for 13 years next month and have an 8 and a 3 year old. I knew he liked to drink when I met him, but the thought of him being an alcoholic didn’t enter my mind until we had our first child. We both liked to get really drunk almost every night (I never drank until I met him when I was 28). We would sit at home most of the time, just trying to drink as much as we could. I thought it was fun, for a while. But we started getting into some pretty good fights when we were both drunk. Not all the time, but it was the quality, not quantity. He hit me on 2 occasions, locked me out of the house once, threw me out into the cold rain in the middle of the night and locked the door, left me at Target while he was supposed to be waiting in the car but drove home instead and then lied to me that he thought I decided to walk the 5 miles home. Those were the major fights with just a few lesser incidents thrown in. I quit drinking when our first child was expected. He didn’t, but we didn’t get into any fights after that, except for some yelling and cussing once in a while. I started drinking again after about a year after my son was born, but very light drinking. He kept heavy (12 pack a day). We used to share a 12 pack before my son, but after he took up the slack of what I wasn’t drinking. I think he just wanted to finish what was in the house before he went to bed. This was during the week when he would work until 6pm. On the weekends he could down a case by himself. I nagged him about his drinking. Especially about how proud he was that he trained our son to get him beer from the fridge. He didn’t like my nagging, and wouldn’t stop drinking. Sometimes he would tell me how proud he was that he slowed down to a six pack on week nights for a couple of days, and I would encourage him. But it would never last, and he would binge after a couple days in celebration. I quit drinking again when we were expecting our daughter, he didn’t. He quit his job and we sold our house, so we had some money to keep us going without him working. He would go thru a case in 2 days. During this time he was working on building our dream home while we lived in a RV trailer. We lived in a trailer for 1.5 years, the 4 of us and a large dog. It shouldn’t have been that long, but his drinking started at 11am after only a couple hours of work on the house. Finally the $$ ran out and he had to get a job. We bought another house in another city where he was finally able to find work. Things were going pretty good, until he got laid off 5 months ago.
I have learned to live with his drinking. He doesn’t get violent like he used to, and I still drink (a six pack a week). So I don’t nag him too much because I drink too. But I still nag.
About a year ago AH went to the doc because he was complaining of chest pains. For him to go to the doc means he’s in some serious pain. He says that he told the doc how much he drinks (and I believe he was being honest as he is not ashamed of his drinking at all). The doc ran all kinds of tests and xrays and told my AH that it’s all anxiety. And told him that it would be dangerous for him to quit drinking. Because he drinks so much, cold turkey would be dangerous (I thought the advice was BS, until I started reading about it here). So the doc told him to record how much he drinks in a week, and cut down one drink a week, which never happened. On the contrary, when he was laid off 5 months ago, he started drinking more. I felt that the doc’s advice fed right into AH’s addiction. It made it okay to not quit drinking and AH felt justified.
About 1.5 years ago after a night of AH binge drinking, he woke up coughing blood. A lot of blood. This scared him, for a couple days. Since then he has not had a blood coughing episode, but he is complaining of: hot/cold spells, numb hands and feet, chest pain , racing heart, high blood pressure a few times a day, dizziness, and extreme anxiety. He’s been to the doc a few times in the past 6 months trying to get a different diagnosis. It’s always the same, anxiety. He has been prescribed psych drugs like xanax and some others. He doesn’t like the feeling he gets from them, so doesn’t take them. There is one he has been taking when he gets really bad, I don’t know what it is right now. He says that when he gets these anxious/dizzy/heart racing feelings, that a beer will help relieve them. He can’t sleep so he has started taking otc sleeping pills. These feelings started out at once a week, and for the past 2 weeks have been every day.
3 nights ago we talked seriously about what he thought was going on with him. He says he knows that he needs to quit drinking, not just cut down. He knows that it’s the alcohol that is messing him up. But he hasn’t put it together totally. He thinks they are withdrawl symptoms, but he hasn’t quit. He has, for the first time in his 30 year heavy drinking history, been experiencing bad hangovers. He has been slowing down his drinking for the past 2 months, but binging every few days. So he has a hard time realizing that his complaints are withdrawls when he hasn’t quit. Now he is reading up on his symptoms and how to solve them. He’s buying vitamins (magnesium and niacin) and trying to treat himself while claiming to cut down on his drinking.
I don’t think it will happen. Without help and maybe with help. I do have some hope because he is finally ashamed of his drinking, realizing it’s hurting him physically, and is so afraid of dying when he has an episode. I’m thinking that maybe he will turn himself around because he’s aware now, but it has been so engrained in him I don’t know if it’s possible.
Has anyone experience something similar to my story, or his? Has anyone had a good outcome from this point?