Audrey1

My partner used to do that, but this was even when he wasn't working. And he wasn't cooking. Or cleaning. Or looking after kids... or even himself. So I'm not sure why he thought (and said) he owed it to himself to drink at 5pm.

But the 5pm thing didn't last long. The progressive part of the disease others have mentioned started to rear its ugly head and he was drinking earlier and earlier and finishing later and later, until there was not much of a gap between finishing and starting. Unlike a few of the people who have commented on this site, the difference with him was he never really passed out from drinking. If he fell asleep after drinking he was a dead weight, but he never seemed to fall asleep because of drinking. If anything, it seemed to wake him up. He just had the stamina to keep going on and on and on, and often had long benders with a friend or two where they basically didn't sleep... just drank. I never allowed this to happen in my company, but I found some awful photos from one of those benders on his computer with just him and his dodgy mate surrounded by empty bottles and chip packets, their pants falling down, drunken smudged faces... It was disgusting. My partner saw me looking at them in horror, and snatched the laptop away in embarrassment. Complete turn off... but this was at the beginning of our relationship when we didn't live together so I just wrote it off as a once off. Pfft!

Meanwhile, I had been at my place also not sleeping. But I had been working through the nights to meet a tight deadline on a big project I was working on, not boozing away for no reason. The dodgy mate's lovely wife and kids were at home tearing their hair out as they had no idea where he had disappeared to for three days.

Losing days, weeks, years of your life in a drunken stupor like that is inconceivable to me.

I'm glad his days of doing that are over too.