22red

I don't really even know why I am writing this here. It seems so silly to open up to a website or group of strangers.

I believe my husband is an alcoholic. He drinks beer every single night and most nights he drinks until he is drunk. When he is drunk he usually wets his pants and gets up in the middle of the night either not knowing where he is or stumbles about the house making himself food. He purposely delays eating dinner after he gets home from work because it increases the affects of the beers he'll drink. He usually does not have dinner until he's had at least 3 beers and by then he's already pretty drunk (he's a small man). He has been drinking like this for about 4 years.

I went to see a counselor at my workplace to talk about whether or not this really is a problem (duh) and what I can do about it. She confirmed that he is an alcoholic and she suggested that I give him an ultimatum. She wanted me to tell him that he either needs to stop drinking and/or get professional help or he needs to leave our home. Well, I tried this and it backfired. He just simply dug his heels into the ground and said - NO. He didn't want to get help, didn't think he had a problem and would not leave. Since I didn't know what else to do at that point, when he promised me that he would be better and would stop over-drinking I had to believe him. Obviously since I am writing here, this did not work out so well.

Whenever we discuss this problem he always promises to be better, but it only lasts for a week or two (pretty typical for an alcoholic, I am guessing). He refuses to see or believe he has a problem.

We have a 5 year old son and I am pregnant with our second child. My due date is only 15 days away. I would have thought that by now he'd have shaped up his act because 1) we have a new baby on the way who he is very excited for and 2) eventually someone is going to have to drive me to the hospital and help me through labor (HIM) and if he isn't sober he can't do that. These things don't seem to change anything and I can't understand why.

When things are good with us (in other words, when he is sober) things are REALLY good. When he drinks, they're awful. I don't want to divorce him or leave him permanently, but I do want him to seek help and to see that this IS a problem - a problem that we can fix.

I am done trying to control his drinking and I am done with sleeping on the couch at 9 months pregnant, making sure he doesn't wake our son or wander into a room where a guest is sleeping, cleaning up the mess in the kitchen in the morning, losing sleep and just generally feeling resentful toward our situation.

But - what do I do? Here is where my own problem lies.

We have no family that lives near us and no friends who I would feel comfortable staying with. I need to be close to home because I am going to be giving birth soon, but I don't know what to do.