I lost many painful years dealing with the ups and downs of this insane roller coaster ride. Promises to not drink, promises to get better ... a few good days here and there, where our lives would improve only to see it come crashing down once again. Each time hurting more than before and the relapses gradually getting worse.
My AH would plead to move back home, swearing he would not drink again. He would badger me until I gave in, and usually within days he would resume the strange behavior, all the time denying he was drinking again. The craziness and insanity would invade our family home again... irrational behavior followed by ridiculous excuses. Anger, denial, blame and lies became a way of life. After a few years I grew so weary of this unstable, unhappy and irrational lifestyle, seeing no long term improvement ... and worried continually about the long term impact on our children. They were unwilling prisoners in this dysfunctional lifestyle.
One of the last times my AH badgered me to move back home, trying to make me feel guilty and always telling me he needed to live at home to stop drinking, I finally realized that he had spent so many years living at home WHILE drinking ... that living at home had actually become a trigger for him. It was an environment he had grown accustomed to drinking in. He used the garage for years to hide beer in, then endlessly found excuses to work on "projects" in the garage. For years, he used any form of stress in dealing with our children and family responsibilities ....and any disagreement with me, no matter how minor, as another excuse to secretly drink. When I finally told him he couldn’t move back home because it had become a trigger (due to his own past behavior patterns) for his drinking - he was stunned. I could tell it had never occurred to him that because he had spent years drinking around our home, it was now almost impossible to separate being in his home from drinking. It was almost like asking an alcoholic trying to get sober while living in a bar they used to frequent during their drinking days.
There was only one time my AH was able to live at home and stay sober, and that was when he fully committed AA and attended meetings at least once a day. His sponsor continually worked with him whenever he felt a trigger to drink. Unfortunately, he eventually found reasons to miss AA meetings and the secret insanity began once more. The almost daily support proved essential to his sobriety ... without it, he quickly fell back into his destructive old habits. It was never a refection of our home, children or me...it was a pattern of deeply ingrained behavior and association he chose through years of excessive drinking in our home environment. Something I eventually found myself powerless to change as long as he lived with us.