Y2KBronco

...not that the "label" bothers me. But I do love her and my marriage and that is what matters to me. To be honest I am pretty sure I am an alcoholic but that fact really does not bother me. I feel like my current life is pretty good outside of my wife not being too happy with me. I am what people probably would call a "functioning" Alcoholic. (I am not saying that makes it better). But here is my background.

I am a successfull business owner and drinking not only does not effect my work performance but it actually creates oportunites through Happy Hours, Golf Outings, sporting events, etc. I can have a drink or two or three depending on the social situation and stop. Stopping is not my problem. In fact, if I get a DWI my career is over so most of the time I am very careful not to drink if I am driving or in a business or otherwise conservative social situation.

I even have a motorcycle and go on bar hopping rides making sure I do not have more than about a drink or two an hour. (Most of the time I choose not to even drink when I am on the bike).

But so far that is not the issue. What is the issue is that I have a local sports bar about two blocks from my house. And I like to go up there and drink about 2 times a week (Friday Nights after the High School Football game and either for Sunday Night or Monday Night Football). It is my "Blow off steam" time. And when I go up there I do get drunk taking shots with the owner and the wait staff. I have a group of friends up there and we like to watch the local sports teams and "cut loose". Add to that most of my neighbors drink as well and tend to want party on the weekends with me. I am a very fun loving guy (plus I usually have a fully stocked bar) so my house seems to be the hang out. No one drives drunk or does anything to regret. In fact, even the few times someone would get too out of hand we are careful to protect them from themselves. (i.e. no one drives or gets too familiar with someone else's wife. We have a motto "You don't **** where you drink"...lol).

I will drink (party style not just a beer or two) 3 or 4 times a week for a week or two and sometimes even a month straight. And then my body says "what the hell are you doing?" So I will lay off for a week or two and "recover".

Well I am 36 and my wife is like "Enough already!" And I understand her point. I am sure her "Frank the Tank Husband" gets old. But to be honest when I am not drinking for weeks at a time I find my life kind of boring. Going to work, home projects, paying bills, shopping, movies. When I go on "dry dock" (as I call it to my buddies) life is really kind of a drag. I hate to say it but the drinking seems to make living more fun.

My wife tells me I need to grow up and that I am almost 40 and it is time to stop drinking. And part of me agrees with her but the other part of me says
the people who don't drink are not really that interesting. I feels like social situations where everyone is sober is VERY forced and I can not wait to leave. I think to myself "life is hard enough to spend my free time with these people". The idea of doing that for the next 40 or 50 years sucks to me. I know it is morbid but I even think I would rather die at 65 from drinking then live to 85 going to freaking pot luck dinners and church parties. That being said I do love my wife very much and want to make her happy. And leaving her early is selfish and I know it.

I am more afraid of giving up the fun social life more than the alcohol but it seems like they are a packaged deal. Am I just near sighted? Am I just thinking like an Alcoholic and that I can't live without the party? Is there more to a sober lifestyle? Help me! I am afraid I have opened pandora's box and that life without drinking is something to suffer through.

Sikkisirus

I could have written that post apart from the wife thinking im alcoholic bit. to SR by the way. What did it for me was the simple seeing if I could walk away from it (booze) for a time. Which I did and it was fine. In fact im looking at a half drunk bottle of Jager right now (last nights tipple) but I have absolutely no inclination to drink it. That to me is ridiculous, its 7.52am and im enjoying my cup of tea If its not a huge obssession and you can walk away without trouble then I don't see a problem

CarolD

Welcome to our recovery community.

I don't know if you are an alcoholic or not
Obviously your marriage is in trouble
because you are chooseing to drink.

I'm sorry that is happening to both of you.

Wolfchild

smacked

In the year and few months I have been sober, I have yet to find myself at a pot luck or a church party

I have a blast usually wherever I go, doing whatever I do.. only difference is, I can't stand being around drunks, that will never be fun to me again, unless I bring myself down to that level mentally and chemically. Yuck! Maybe being sober makes me boring, but I've yet to be accused of it!

yep, and I was exactly the same way.

ABSOLUTELY! If what you've described is your imagination telling you what sobriety is, boy you're in for a treat lol..

Looking at it from my angle, and after the sober time I've spent so far.. I feel completely the opposite. I feel really BAD for people when I drive by my old bar, how stuck in life they still are, the suffering. I can't imagine stagnating like that again.

Ok, so anyways.. stop getting so ahead of yourself. Yeah, it's a huge huge life change, but it sounds like you have a lot of things in your life other than your drinking buddies and alcohol that motivate you (wife, business, etc.). I'm not friends anymore with my 'drinking buddies', they proved they couldn't give two ***** about me when they kept trying to get me to drink after I told them that I quit. I had to grieve that a little.. and the big changes in my life. In the midst of my drunken fog I really did think my life was "over" when I thought of never hanging out at the bar (most nights for several hours a night) and then I realized what that meant.. I hadn't been living life for a VERY very long time.

I like driving past bars and feeling pity on the folks who think that is living life, or having fun. I'm really not that selfish or mean, and i hope they get the help they need.. but it sure makes me happy that I made the decisions I made when I did, so that I'm not that 50 year old woman in the bar spilling my last drink thinking "this is the life". *shudder*

Fubarcdn

Wecome Bronco
I can totally relate to your story since I am quitting drinking due to an ultimatum that my wife gave me. It is drink or get out and I decided that my marriage of 30 years (it took her that long to issue an ultimatum) is more important so I quit.
At times it does seem to be a chore and to be honest if she issued that ultimatum when I was 40 I do not know what the outcome would be.
I suggest that you try to negotiate your drinking in moderation with her if that is what you choose to do. I would do this now before you are on the quit or get out ultimatum As that one really sucks.
Good luck.

dsc

Go for a month without a drink and see how you think about things.

If that seems too long, try one week or 3 days..

Mark75

Not so... I do cool things... Ski, Hunt, Whitewater Canoe, Fly Fish, Bicycling and Play Guitar. Some of these I do frequently and I don't drink any more.

I saw a couple of red flags there in your post, but that's all they are, red flags. If you are not sure if you are alcoholic, try not drinking for a period of time, or drink one or two every time you drink and then stop...

Life over here in sobriety is not the horrible boring existence you think it is. But you'll never know until you really try it.

Mark

smacked

I just wanted to add, as I was thinking about this in the shower (where I seem to do my best thinking...lol jk), you do mention that you also feel you might be an alcoholic, or at least that alcohol is a problem in parts of your life. That is so critical... if you aren't convinced that this is something you need to change, it's rather fruitless. My husband thought I was an alcoholic long before I'd ever admit to being one.. and I drank myself to death almost trying to prove him and anyone else wrong (duh..). Until it was MY idea, and I wanted to seek help and change, nothing I did would have been permanent or without a bitter taste of resentment towards him (and what kind of equal partnership or loving relationship is that!?). While other people can help to create a 'bottom' for us (like you see in interventions), unless the person is ALREADY at the point of wanting help, change, and a new life.. it's pointless. If I had quit because my husband thought I needed to, my anger, regret and negative feelings would be centered around him (like he's the one with any sort of problem lol.. who can blame him for wanting me healthy?), and that's entirely unfair. It also would have shoved me so much further into denial that I'm not sure I ever would have admitted I had any sort of problem, as I could turn the problem into his, and his 'ultimatum', and continue pointing fingers at other reasons for my bad choices, instead of towards myself. That would be a sad way for me to live.

That did not come out as clear as I wanted, but I hope you get the point I was trying to make

Ago

an alcoholic is defined as someone who once they start drinking can't stop OR someone who can't stop drinking if they try, it's not how often you drink, it's what happens when you do drink

How do YOU feel about your drinking?

seems as if you like it except for the difficulties it causes your marriage

There is a program for spouses/family members of alcoholics, perhaps she could go there for some support, it's called alanon. Living with a drinker frequently causes or exasperates a condition called codependency, which is the uncontrollable urge to run other peoples lives by controlling them and to think they know what's best for others and not be shy about sharing that vast wisdom on a daily basis. They are frequently angry and are easy to identify, as they are busy running the show and telling others what to do and giving unsolicited advice.

Alanon teaches people how to focus on themselves. The downside of Alanon is she will learn new and healthy ways to b*tchslap you to the pavement in a calm and reasonable voice. This is not necessarily a bad thing, I will take a healthy wife with clear boundaries and an ability to communicate over an unhealthy person who nags every time.

if you are worried about whether you are an alcoholic, try to find an open "speaker" meeting of AA, find a big one if possible with a good speaker, it's better then a movie or comedy when a good speaker "pitches", see if you relate

I have a blast in sobriety, I had a blast drinking until drinking stopped working for me. Now I find drunk people tedious in the extreme, they smell bad when they breathe in your face, which they always do as they yell at you from 6" away as they spray spittle in your face when they are repeating the same tedious story I have already heard ten times, I couldn't understand why sober people seemed so boring before, personally I found it wasn't them that was tedious and boring, it was me.

Also couples counseling is actually helpful, the therapist will "shoo" her back on her side of the street, but also help the two of you navigate healthy compromises, which is what being in a relationship is all about.

If you decide to go to a couples counselor, and make a schedule where you are allowed X number of days a week/month to go hang out with "the boys" and you are unable to keep to that schedule, it's possible you will need to revisit that AA meeting with a slightly different emphasis. As in "oh crap, I can't control my drinking, maybe I do have a problem"

Couples counselors are actually surprisingly helpful in my experience, they are like "here Johnny, here's some tools" and Johnny is like "oooooh Shiny!!!!" then the therapist says "here you go Mary, here is a mirror, so you can see some of your own behaviors, controlling and otherwise" and "Mary loses her f*cking mind because the therapist was supposed to validate her experience and help her "fix" her husband and mary decides she needs a different therapist, this one is too mean...and...wrong...and doesn't know what she's talking about.

I have seen this with my own eyes dozens upon dozens of times, it's worth the 100 bux an hour it costs.

Alcoholics can't "moderate", or if they can, it's only for a short period of time, then the drinking returns to it's previous patterns, so a good way to check all this "alcoholic/relationship" stuff out would be come up with a compromise amenable to both parties, if you are unable to keep to the agreed schedule you have a problem, in more ways then one.

Good luck.

Oh, yes I am sober and attend AA

Found

Hi Y2, interpreting your story, interacting for you is forced when your body hasn't been kept at saturation (tolerance-intolerance) point with alcohol, and the bike expeditions are topping up between your larger bar sessions.

Is drink something you have to suffer through? I don't hear about a social life or togetherness with your wife in your story. Nearly everyone lasts till 85 nowadays unless there are certain illnesses, so would you want to inflict the current position (which will be progressive anyway) on not only her but above all yourself all that time?

If your body won't metabolise alcohol safely, after the physical craving has gone (some days), the mental obsession about how many weeks it is going to be till the next one, won't leave us unless we progress on a spiritual programme with the assistance of a sponsor.

Then life will start looking very different indeed. When the time came for us we grasped it unceremoniously and not only got used to not looking ahead to the next drink but I have started to change my outlook, in company with wise friends, so I can deal with life's pain better. (In my case medication also helps with certain specific health problems, which others may not have) I bet your colleagues / customers will notice a general improvement in time even as you say your business performance 'isn't too bad' yet. Don't wait any longer for it to 'be too bad'.

Mere fear of becoming "stupid, boring and glum" is a false reason to remain hidebound, all too predictable and anxious when we are among those that can't safely use alcohol.

Hoping this helps, and that you make careful choices,

Russelrb

Well it seems to me by asking the question you already have the answer. Most of us started down that road. Then you will find yourself unable to pass the liquor store on the way home. Live how you want, it is really up to you. If your wife says she wont stay with your unless you quit...well that is your decision also. Obviously she is seeing something that bothers her (perhaps you can't see it while your drinking?) And...trust me you don't want to die of alcoholism at 65 or any other age. I have seen it, and it aint pretty.

sailorjohn

Welcome!!!

Golf? That's really....interesting.

Jfanagle

Years ago I was told, "People for whom alcohol isn't a problem don't think about controlling their drinking." That statement did make me pause.

Like so many before me on this thread, I have no idea if you are an alcoholic or not, however the best way I know to determine if alcohol is a problem is to look at your life and decide if you find yourself planning your actions around drinking. If you HAVE to have alcohol involved in order to have fun then you may want to consider just how much of your life and situational enjoyment is real and how much is poured out of a bottle.

Jon

JohnnyZ

A lot's been said already, all spot on. But I have a couple. You say you're "a very fun loving guy". Your friends and business associates who you drink with probably think so too. Or, do they? Think about it.

"...(plus I usually have a fully stocked bar) so my house seems to be the hang out." Do your hang out friends really REALLY like you, or just your booze? Think about this too.

I always considered myself a fun-loving guy too. I was also funny, like the "class clown". I was a clown alright- usually a pretty pathetic one. Then I sobered up...

Hope this helps.

totfit

If you truly have no problem stopping at any given amount you decide to stop at then you are NOT an alcoholic. That being said, MOST often our view of our drinking and ability to control it is so skewed it often borders on fantasy. I just really myself did not want to believe I could not control my drinking. Now it is no big deal. There are a lot of differences among us human beans. One of my differences from about 9 of 10 others is that I do not react to alcohol normally. There are others that can't eat strawberries, peanuts, etc. Mine just happens to be alcohol, so no biggie. The stuff is literally poison anyway. Now back to you. You may want to take a closer look at your drinking. If really after closer examination you truly have no problem with stopping at any point, then you will be able to moderate to please everyone. If not, abstinence may be in order. Wish you the best.

barb dwyer

what CarolD said.

welcome!

rondfw777

I hope your wife has the love and patience for you like mine did. I never was a bar fly,but enjoyed working in the garage sucking down those Buds. My wife left me alone and did not ding me about it,because she new I was just using the alcohol to cover up stress and crap from work and just needed to chill from the days same Ole crap. But she loved me enough to pray for me and in her heart she knew that it would pass someday,and it has. It's the time we spend away from the one we love that can be unhealthy and my buddies are not gonna be there for me all the time,like my wife will be.

Hope it works out well for you.

Ron

Pinkcuda

Near sighted?? I know I was. I was afraid of the very same thing. Would I have to give up my social life if I gave up drinking? Time would tell.
Let's fast forward to find that I did give up my social life. Not because I gave up drinking but because I had drank myself out of friends.
Near sightedness told me that wouldn't happen. Experience says it did.
Still doesn't mean you're an alcoholic. Try 2 drinks every third day for 2 months and tell us how it goes.

hps

I get the point that you are open about your drinking, careful about how much you drink, make an effort to see your wife's point of view... but your post raises a few questions for me:
1) You mention that in your crowd (at your house) no one drives drunk or does anything to regret. But you think being a "Frank the Tank Husband" gets old.
2) You mention that you drink to the point where your body says "what the hell are you doing?"
3) On the social life aspect, why can't you go to the sports bar and not drink, or have people over to your well-stocked bar, but you don't drink? Why are they a packaged deal?