Nightowl

My SO and I have lived together for 6 months. I knew he drank a lot...what was I thinking to get involved with him?? but I love him a lot and we are good for each other. We only dated a few months before he moved in.

But now I struggle with the question of staying with him. I'm torn. He is a wonderful man...intelligent, funny, handsome, sexy, sensitive and kind. But sometimes when he drinks he gets moody and argumentative and paranoid. He makes extreme statements. He gets overly angry. He picks fights with my teenaged daughter. These emotions scare me. I am not at all afraid of him physically. For the moment. But what happens if his drinking gets worse??

I think he has drank for a very long time. Damn the military for encouraging drinking so much. It seems like most retired Marines have a drinking problem -- my SO was in teh Marines for 22 years. He uses his war experiences as his excuse to drink...that his beer dulls his pain. He thinks he handles drinking just fine. I don't. He drinks while he drives home from work -- stops at the liquor store to buy a cold six pack for the drive home (he has an hour commute). He packs a cooler just to drive down the road to a restaurant. i have to drive a lot since he has been drinking. And I won't have a drink at the restaurant for fear of being stopped becuase he will always have an open beer in the car. Which is legal in Indiana if the driver is below a .04...which basically means I can never have a drink at all since I always have to drive.

He restricts his drinking to afternoon (or pretty close). He doesn't drink in the morning unlike his son. His son just got his 2nd DUI and has quit drinking completely at our house. It is great...to see SO tell son that he can't have a beer while he has a cold one in his own hand!! SO drinks from the moment he gets off work until bed time. Sometimes in the morning or on the weekends he gets the shakes. It scares me. My girls hate his drinking and it affects how they feel about him. My recycle bin is always filled with beer cans. I worry my ex will find out that I live with an alcoholic and he will try to take my girls from me.

I have talked to SO about his drinking and how I want him to stop drinking and driving. That I don't like to drive every where. I occasionally want a real date...where HE drives. He says that drinking beer is apart of who he is and that he likes himself these days and doesnt' want to change. Am I making a mountain out of a mole hill?? Is he NOT an alcoholic? I have never seen him go ONE day without drinking. His son is a new person now that he isn't drinking. It's wonderful. It is amazing how my SO does not see the very same thing in himself that he sees in his son. The denial is just amazing.

How do you know when to stay and when to go?? I don't want to lose this man I love. BUT....