...and I will share only four things, the fourth being most important. The first is for you to be prepared for any kind of reaction, including one that is worse than you can possibly imagine. To this day my wife is pissed about the intervention (and the first rehab that followed and which did not work-- but led to the second rehab which, so far, seems to be helping). I just let her be pissed.
The second is to not let your feelings be hurt if the letter you wrote and your "intervention" has no impact or does not get the response for which you are hoping. She has a disease and it is affecting her brain and her thinking-- as hard as it is try not to take her reactions personally.
The third thing, and I can't emphasize this enough, is that when you think she's been drinking she has been drinking. When you think she's hiding or stealing money, she has been hiding and stealing money. Period. You know dang well that she has been, but perhaps your desire for her to be sober, your love for her, the fact that she can still get to work, and her practiced and well-crafted lies help you to pretend she has not been, or to question your own beliefs. Don't question yourself about her drinking. You know what you know when you know it. You are right.
Fourth, get thee to an Al-Anon meeting. Six of them in the next two weeks. If you don't like one, try another. If you don't like any of them, perhaps Al-Anon isn't for you, or isn't for you right now. Unless you go to at least six meetings you haven't given it a chance.
Take care and good luck,
Cyranoak
P.s. If you haven't already lowered your expectations about what will happen after this event, lower them now. Have you lowered them? Now lower them again.
Originally Posted by
hotpeppers 
Well my wife is drinking again. Not sure how long she stayed off, if at all. She's very good at hiding it. She stopped paying with the debit card directly. She now takes cash out at the grocery store so it looks like "groceries" in the bank statement and pays cash for the booze. I had my suspicions she was doing that. I also noticed her mood at night. She very high functioning and I think she spaces out her drinking so that she can still drive the kids to their activities and not be under the influence (but I'm not 100% sure of that). I think she drinks about 1L of wine a day (starting from around 3:30pm) but again not 100% sure because she hides it well.
Recently I had a day off. She had forgotten about it which meant she could not openly drink with me around. She was okay from 3:30pm (when she comes home from work) until around 7pm when I started noticing she looked miserable (cranky). She always kept a brave smile on pretending nothing was wrong. "Just tired" she would say. We usually go to bet around 10pm. She did not want to go up just yet. She wanted me to go up to bed 1st and she'll join me afterward. I knew she needed a drink. I tried to say that no it's okay you go 1st, I'll stay up ... I'm not tired anyways. She did not like that. Anyways, I did go up and she did have a drink because she was much happier when she came upstairs.
I've been going through so many emotions. I've been crying alot ... sometimes even at work where I head for the bathroom. Imagine a 40yr old guy crying his eyes out. It's scarring the crap out of me.
I've decided to confront her this weekend (Sunday morning) because she will be sober for sure. I've written a 3-4 page letter with my thoughts feelings, etc... because I can't just say it without getting confused, especially if she interrupts me. I'm afraid of what she will say or react. My biggest hope is that she admits she has a problem. I want to hold her and hug her and tell her all will be okay. When I think of my kids, that's when the tears usually open up.
I'm prepared to let her know that I will take the kids everywhere from now on. I'm prepared to create another bank account and have MY pay deposited into it. I'm prepared to tell my kids (that will be so hard). God forbid, if I see she still does not want to admit there's a problem and I see no "real" effort to get better, I will have to ask her to leave. I love her so much but I'm going crazy. I need help too.
My letter (that I will read to her) will also contain tons of info on how to get better (websites, phone numbers, etc...).
Hopefully, my next post will be good news. (hugs, good thoughts and prayers welcome).
big sigh .... sorry for my mixed up jumbled thoughts ... I was typing as ideas came in my head with no thoughts to organization.