I found this site about six months ago -- and for some reason I keep putting off posting, even though I know being able to talk freely about all of this junk could help. Perhaps part of it is just that when I get upset enough to feel the need for help, I'm generally too upset to write too. At any rate...deep breath, here goes.
I've been around alcoholics or recovering alcoholics my entire life, and when I finally left my mom and stepdad's home (both alcoholics) at the age of 15 I thought I was done with it. Nearly three years ago I met my (second) husband. It was a long-distance relationship to start, and maybe it should have raised flags for me that he volunteered the information that he doesn't drink...hearing it was a reassurance at the time. For the first three months we lived together everything was fine, he was looking for a job and didn't have the money to drink. After he got a job, he started bringing beer and the occasional bourbon home on the weekends. No problem, right? Uh-huh...he'd neglected to tell me he'd had alcohol problems in the past, and I didn't see a thing wrong with having a drink or two with him every now and then. Then it started getting worse.
About six months ago our daughter was born, and he lost his job two days later after yet another random UA turned up way too much alcohol in his bloodstream at the beginning of the work day. Now he's up to about a fifth of whatever cheap 80-proof he can find and a 40oz or two of beer per day, every day, regardless of what other needs there are in the household. Just in the past two years I have seen his alcohol tolerance plummet significantly and he has suffered three concussions (the last one was on Sunday...four days ago) and a cracked rib from drunken falls. In addition, he's gotten increasingly verbally abusive while drunk and has threatened physical violence, though aside from grabbing me by the throat once he has never acted on those threats. Worst of all, he has shown a number of signs suggesting decreased liver and kidney function (he often takes HUGE doses of Ibuprofen while drinking) and I am beginning to worry that he won't live many more years at this rate.
Thankfully, we're in the process of moving into a house that is set up in such a way that my craft room, office, and kids' rooms (my 5-year-old from a previous marriage and our 5-month-old daughter) are on one side of the house while the living room and master bedroom are on the other side, with the bathroom easily accessible from either side. This helps alleviate the fears I've had that his stumbling around will injure one of the kids, and also gives me my "safe space" when he's drinking and I need to refocus. My best friend also lives just upstairs so I have somewhere easily accessible if he gets too mean.
Unfortunately, while these changes may make his drinking easier to cope with, it doesn't bring me any closer to understanding it or to helping him. He doesn't want help, he's made that clear, so the latter bit probably isn't an option anyway. I guess I just wish that I could somehow understand how someone could lose two wives, at least one due to drinking, and lose contact with four kids -- and still be adamant about continuing the behavior with the third wife and two more kids. Obviously if I knew this information beforehand then I may have thought twice about getting involved, but the fact is that I love him very much and want to stay if it's possible to be healthy for me and my kids in doing so. Maybe I'm dreaming, but it is at least worth trying.
One thing I'm curious about -- does marriage to an alcoholic always end in divorce? Has anyone here ever had someone refusing help of any kind, but eventually got it and at least tried to sober up? He has admitted that it is a big problem, he drinks way too much, that it is killing him, and the other night he told me that he just couldn't stop. It completely confounds me that someone can have a beautiful young family (he treasures the time he spends with our daughter -- I don't have primary custody of my son -- and we are both stay-at-homes since I am self-employed and he has his unemployment for now), to know that the addiction is hurting both the family and yourself, and not even attempt to get help.
I want to stay with my husband, and I want to raise a family with him -- and for the first half of most days that can happen. Other days it's like he deliberately drops things in my lap and hides in the bottle so he doesn't have to act like an adult. For instance, tomorrow we were supposed to be moving the rest of the household to the new place, yet he went back to the liquor store and bought more just 10 minutes before bedtime and has enough left to keep him passed out all day.
I know some of it is very likely PTSD, some of it is what can only be described as a midlife crisis, and some of it is the unshakable belief he has that he's supposed to be able to save the world and that anything and everything is his responsibility or fault. While I've always been around alcoholism, I've never really had to actually deal with it -- I dealt with it by leaving when it was just my parents, so actually understanding and being able to co-exist with an alcoholic is a talent that seems far beyond my grasp.
At any rate -- that's probably more than enough for an introduction. I usually try to introduce myself with positive things, but I don't think there really are any that apply...and probably not something the good folks on this board really expect, I'd imagine
. I'll likely be lurking around the boards quite a bit, and look forward to meeting others here who are undergoing/have undergone similar challenges.