NoAlcoholToday

Hi FreeingMself

He clearly doesn't acknowledge that the consequences of his drinking are serious enough yet. Until he does, there is no real possibility that he will quit. Around half of alcoholics never quit and only 1 in 20 will do so sometime during the next 12 months so it may be best not to hold your breath.

We tend to be vilified because we seem to behave so unreasonably. I have seen so many posts where people say "he is always going to choose alcohol as his first love over you". In my experience, this is simply not the case. Unfortunately there is very little rational choice going on. We are not waking up in the morning and thinking "do you know what, I think I'd really like to be an ar**hole today"

Personally, I do not adhere to the idea that alcoholism is a disease. It seems that about 1 in 10 people are genetically susceptible to alcohol addiction and actually process alcohol differently than "normal" people. I recently read some excerpts from a book about the chemical changes going on inside the vital organs of an alcoholic which explain WHY they appear to get angry so easily and WHY they find it so incredibly difficult to quit etc. I recommend that anyone who is around alcohol abuse should spend half an hour reading this.

Unfortunately ultimatums are like a foreign language to an alcoholic. Actually worse than that in my case, it was almost like an affront. The only thing that worked for me was when my wife did the talking with her feet and just didn't come home one time. Actions would seem to trigger some recognition on our radar. "Crickey, she is actually serious about this. I had thought she was just wanting to chastise me (just like my mother used to)!" It still took me another 2 months before I took action about sobriety and I am still a very long way from being out of the woods.