How to ask AH not to drink around my family
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Join Date: Jan 2011
Location: Saint Louis
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How to ask AH not to drink around my family
Good Morning all and happy Friday to you.
I have a question that sounds simple but is actully hard for me.
We are going out of town this weekend with the family and I want to confront my AH and inform him that there will be no drinking in front or around my family this weekend. My family is quit to judge and the last several years we go out of town he drinks too much, embarasses me and makes an ass out of himself.
How can I ask him to not drink around them? I don't want him to sneak beer or think that is is okay to hid it. I know him better than he knows himself and I can tell when he has had a few drinks.
When i have asked in the past he becomes very defensive and shuts down.
I have a question that sounds simple but is actully hard for me.
We are going out of town this weekend with the family and I want to confront my AH and inform him that there will be no drinking in front or around my family this weekend. My family is quit to judge and the last several years we go out of town he drinks too much, embarasses me and makes an ass out of himself.
How can I ask him to not drink around them? I don't want him to sneak beer or think that is is okay to hid it. I know him better than he knows himself and I can tell when he has had a few drinks.
When i have asked in the past he becomes very defensive and shuts down.
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Join Date: Aug 2009
Posts: 3,443
He is an alcoholic. He'll drink this weekend one way or another IME. It doesn't really matter how you say it, when you say it, or how well the discussion goes.
Asking an active alcoholic to not drink for a weekend (that might be a bit stressful to begin with) is like asking a diabetic to just not get high blood sugar this weekend.
I finally had to choose if I wanted to do things with my active alcoholic, or without him. There was no way to do them with him, without the drinking.
I did that for a long time. I'm sorry. It is a sad spot to be in.
Asking an active alcoholic to not drink for a weekend (that might be a bit stressful to begin with) is like asking a diabetic to just not get high blood sugar this weekend.
I finally had to choose if I wanted to do things with my active alcoholic, or without him. There was no way to do them with him, without the drinking.
I did that for a long time. I'm sorry. It is a sad spot to be in.
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Join Date: Jun 2006
Posts: 756
Originally Posted by mizserenity 
If it were me, I would give him the choice to come and not drink, or not come at all. Is it even possible for him to go and *not* drink? You may have to be prepared to go alone...
That's what I would do, just make the plans without him.
Programmaddict
Join Date: Jun 2011
Location: God's Hands
Posts: 217
Originally Posted by Lunakim
I just asked him politely and he said he will not drink. Lets keep our fingers crossed!
Personally, I would expect to discover at some point during the weekend that he decided to drink. I would also expect to get some grief from the person since they will be unhappy remaining sober and will see it as my fault.
Finally, if my family judges me for my spouse's drinking then there are bigger issues at hand in that relationship. My spouse's drinking is no reflection on me unless I make it such.
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Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: Northeast USA
Posts: 213
Originally Posted by Lunakim
I just asked him politely and he said he will not drink. Lets keep our fingers crossed!
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Join Date: Jul 2010
Location: Maryland
Posts: 33
This is a slightly different take on the situation.
I told AH last Thanksgiving that I won't be his designated driver anymore. So if he wanted to come to my family's Thanksgiving dinner and drink, he needed to be responsible for getting himself there and back. Same with any other event where he wants to drink. And by drink, I mean have so much as a single sip of alcohol.
He accepted this boundary and I haven't had to remind him about it since the initial awkward conversations over the holidays.
He stayed home last Thanksgiving but has participated without drinking in a few other family events. And my family knows about the situation, which helps.
If we go out somewhere and he drinks, I'm prepared to drive off without him or get a cab for myself and the kids. I haven't had to do this yet, but I will if I need to. If he gets drunk and acts like a fool, it's not my problem. And if he gets smashed and hops in his car, I'll call 911. This would have terrified me a year ago, but not now.
So instead of asking him not to drink when we visit family or go out, I made it about my needs (i.e., not being his taxi service or babysitter). I just wish I'd done it years ago.
Take care.
I told AH last Thanksgiving that I won't be his designated driver anymore. So if he wanted to come to my family's Thanksgiving dinner and drink, he needed to be responsible for getting himself there and back. Same with any other event where he wants to drink. And by drink, I mean have so much as a single sip of alcohol.
He accepted this boundary and I haven't had to remind him about it since the initial awkward conversations over the holidays.
He stayed home last Thanksgiving but has participated without drinking in a few other family events. And my family knows about the situation, which helps.
If we go out somewhere and he drinks, I'm prepared to drive off without him or get a cab for myself and the kids. I haven't had to do this yet, but I will if I need to. If he gets drunk and acts like a fool, it's not my problem. And if he gets smashed and hops in his car, I'll call 911. This would have terrified me a year ago, but not now.
So instead of asking him not to drink when we visit family or go out, I made it about my needs (i.e., not being his taxi service or babysitter). I just wish I'd done it years ago.
Take care.
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Join Date: Aug 2009
Location: The Sunny South
Posts: 1,666
I hope this all works out for you and your family this weekend.
Just a word of caution, if he is a true alcoholic, he may experience some withdrawal this weekend. That may make him a less then personable companion.
In my experience, I tried to not drink at times when I was asked, or I couldn't do to various circumstances. It was very hard and in hindsight, I shouldn't have tried to be in a social setting until I had been alcohol free for a few days.
Just my experience...
Just a word of caution, if he is a true alcoholic, he may experience some withdrawal this weekend. That may make him a less then personable companion.
In my experience, I tried to not drink at times when I was asked, or I couldn't do to various circumstances. It was very hard and in hindsight, I shouldn't have tried to be in a social setting until I had been alcohol free for a few days.
Just my experience...
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Join Date: Oct 2006
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I hope you have a calm weekend.
My AXH would hold off on drinking when his family was around (his family still thought he was a teetotaller when he went into rehab) -- but when we visited them, he'd be sober during family functions and then down a bottle of hard liquor as soon as we got back to the hotel (we always stayed in hotels, not with family, so that he could drink).
I second NewAugust in the caution that he might not be very pleasant if he's suffering withdrawals. I know that my XAH would literally be unable to sit still at family functions that didn't involve alcohol, and I knew that he was counting the minutes until he could pop a bottle open.
My AXH would hold off on drinking when his family was around (his family still thought he was a teetotaller when he went into rehab) -- but when we visited them, he'd be sober during family functions and then down a bottle of hard liquor as soon as we got back to the hotel (we always stayed in hotels, not with family, so that he could drink).
I second NewAugust in the caution that he might not be very pleasant if he's suffering withdrawals. I know that my XAH would literally be unable to sit still at family functions that didn't involve alcohol, and I knew that he was counting the minutes until he could pop a bottle open.
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Join Date: Aug 2009
Posts: 3,443
I sincerely hope you all have a nice weekend and that he manages this social occasion without alcohol - and can do so pleasantly. You deserve to have a nice weekend with your family. It is important to keep your support network strong.
The best predictor of future behavior, is past behavior. Having a plan B is not about expecting the negative, it is about making plans to enjoy your weekend no matter what he decides to do. I make all kinds of plans when I go away for a weekend. When I was married to an alcoholic, I also planned for that. Well, not always, but I learned too. Except I wasn't very smart because looking back my plans didn't protect me and my life/joy, they protected him and his drinking. That is a very subtle, yet very slippery, slop.
So I am here, posting to you, because I wish I would have been here and gotten that message when I was in the same spot as you are in now. i didn't find SR until 16 years later when I was leaving. Make plans that protect you and your joy, not him and his drinking. You'll never regret that.
For instance...I would leave early, I quit planning things that were not compatible with his drinking, I quit hanging out with people that were down on his drinking or my marriage, he irritated my friends because he was hard to talk to when he was drinking - so I quit doing things with my friends, I quit planning boating activities because I didn't always feel safe, I quit planning family beach trips because most of his time was spent driving back and forth to the gas station for more beer and I just got irritated, I quit doing social things that involved alcohol because he over did it, blah blah blah.
We were together for a long time so we did have good times of course, but drinking got in the way a lot too. As the alcoholism progressed the good times faded away. It changed us both.
The best predictor of future behavior, is past behavior. Having a plan B is not about expecting the negative, it is about making plans to enjoy your weekend no matter what he decides to do. I make all kinds of plans when I go away for a weekend. When I was married to an alcoholic, I also planned for that. Well, not always, but I learned too. Except I wasn't very smart because looking back my plans didn't protect me and my life/joy, they protected him and his drinking. That is a very subtle, yet very slippery, slop.
So I am here, posting to you, because I wish I would have been here and gotten that message when I was in the same spot as you are in now. i didn't find SR until 16 years later when I was leaving. Make plans that protect you and your joy, not him and his drinking. You'll never regret that.
For instance...I would leave early, I quit planning things that were not compatible with his drinking, I quit hanging out with people that were down on his drinking or my marriage, he irritated my friends because he was hard to talk to when he was drinking - so I quit doing things with my friends, I quit planning boating activities because I didn't always feel safe, I quit planning family beach trips because most of his time was spent driving back and forth to the gas station for more beer and I just got irritated, I quit doing social things that involved alcohol because he over did it, blah blah blah.
We were together for a long time so we did have good times of course, but drinking got in the way a lot too. As the alcoholism progressed the good times faded away. It changed us both.
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