Originally Posted by clarity888

My AH has been in rehab for 5 weeks while working full time. It's outpatient, and he has to attend several AA meetings as part of the program. He is rarely home. He is tired, and I wonder if this route will end up making him resentful of quitting rather than help him. He does say he is done drinking, though. At times it's clear how tired he is and that he is struggling without that usual crutch to relax with.

So it's been five or six weeks since he came to me and told me he was weaning down from 10 to 5 beers a day. This was after I saw the severe physical signs of withdrawal and told him he needed a doctor (at the time I was not sure if the signs/symptoms were alcohol withdrawal or something else, he hid the consumption so well). He had learned how to hide bottles, consume them while working from home before I got home, and alter the smell which used to be there and he made go away.

Today I sit here and wonder just how in the hxll I didn't know how severe it was. I guess because he was functioning at work, never missing work, and I was unavailable a lot due to an intensive school program 5 days a week like a regular job, plus studying at night. But the thing is, I feel like I failed him in many ways. Yes, guilt. I was emotionally distant, dominated by homework, our child (whom he helped with greatly), my own father who had a near fatal stroke and remains bedridden and paralyzed (so I went up to visit him a lot in the last year). My AH lost both his grandparents three and two years ago; he is 47, and that's when he says the increased consumption really kicked in. But I still can't believe I didn't realize more or try to put a stop to it. I knew he drank, I would ask him to go a day without, I accepted it was something he did and that I couldn't count how many he had each day, but I saw little clues and just didn't know how bad it was. We didn't sleep in the same room due to his sleep apnea that he refused to buy the C-pap for until I gave him an ultimatum about right before he told me how bad his consumption was. I just thought he was tired and cranky and depressed about his job, mostly, and just unhappy, though I didn't know why. And now here he is still on "light duty" per the doctor who is monitoring his liver function. The doctor is "totally cool"; acts like the liver will regain normal functioning, yet my AH will be on Naltrexone possibly for another year or two. Does that mean he is really far gone down this spiral?

I dealt with so many weird things the last two years of school (I had a career before but needed a better one so I returned to school). It was stressful and hard and I have my own anxiety issues. AH has at times felt like he was responsible for making me happy, which we know is not the way to think, but I still feel like my own issues contributed to his. I am definitely caught in the guilt vs blame him cycle. I keep going to Al Anon but haven't been able to as much as I'd like.

I still don't know what to do about the future. I know it's one day at a time. Once I have work, I could move with my son somewhere else to let AH try sobriety and see if it works. Our relationship feels too damaged to work in this setting even though we love each other. I wonder about asking him to leave, since our son loves his school and now has several good friends on this street. I have no idea where I am going with this post. I had to get this out. Thanks for letting me do so. All your posts really do help when I read them daily.