grunter375

Hope this is the right place to post this,

i have a wife who acknowledges that she has a problem, yet she lies to her councillor (will not tell her she smokes dope flat out) and still pushes for us to have a drink on friday and sat nights..

the doctor has increased her dosage of meds and at about 4 o'clock every night she is exhibiting the signs of being drunk (i have checked no hidden bottles and even been with her for the day) seems like the meds are sending her into this state..

Tonight she has had only three shots of whisky and passed out at about 9 pm...


Any suggestions ?

grunter375

Sorry should have said drinking problem

tbeit

What meds is she on? If she is on meds for depression they wont work if she is smoking dope (pot ?) and drinking. I was on antidepression meds for years and couldnt understand how they worked for everyone else but not me. Finally my shrink said look your spinning your wheels if you think you can drink on antidep meds. Alchohol and pot are depressants they negate the benifits of the meds.
Once I stopped using I no longer had depression issues! If she admits she has a problem maybe its time for treatment. Either way you should goto alanon it helps.good luck

Hopeworks

If your wife is taking benzodiazepines they act on the brain in a very similar manner as alcohol - they will greatly magnify the effects of alcohol and can be a dangerous combination. Alcoholics LOVE benzos and the effect they bring mixed despite the warning labels that warn they should not be mixed.

There are tons of meds out there and benzos are just a good guess because they are a very common prescription ... take a look at the label and post what she is taking as well as google the drug and its side effects and how it mixes with alcohol.

Just because you are with your wife doesn't mean she can't drink on the sly .... it is so very easy for a determined alcoholic to feed their addiction undetected. Heck... on alcoholic I knew from AA had alcohol in his windshield wiper container under the hood of his car and had a hose piped in under his dash! His wife... also in recovery and sharp as a tack never did find this "stash" and found out about it along with everyone else at AA!

m1k3

Hi Grunter and welcome to SR. I'm sorry you have to be here and yes you are in the right place. One of the big things you will see posted here is the 3 c's.

You didn't cause it.
You can't control it.
You can't cure it.

There is nothing you can do that will cause her to stop the drinking and the pills. She will quit only when she is ready to quit and not one second sooner.

But, and this is a big but, you can work on yourself. You can get better from the effects her drinking on you. I found that my going to al-anon improved the quality my life greatly. When I first started posting her I was in a very dark and ugly place. I had been through multiple rehabs, detox's and visits to the emergency room due to her alcoholism. Several good people here saw my pain and suggested al-anon. By attending al-anon and posting here I have gone from that dark place to being calm, centered, serene and even happy.

Al-anon is not about you helping the alcoholic to get better it is about you helping you to get better.

Please consider attending and continue to post here. There are huge amounts of experience and wisdom here.

Your friend,

grunter375

Well it's been a while since I have posted here as I have been busy, my work ties me up being that my wife does not work, kids, housework, cleaning, gardening you get the picture. Thanks for the info posted so far, she is slowly on the mend but still sneaking a hip flask in every few days. I have now stopped giving her money, this seems to have stopped her buying booze only problem is now I have to go shopping with her and this is time consuming. She has also fallen into a real lazy mode I have had to hire a house cleaner just to keep on top of a reasonable tidy house for the kids. She seems to spend most of the day in bed even after she has picked the kids up from school she is back in bed, and waits till about 8 o'clock to start dinner meaning the kids sometimes (most) don't start eating dinner till 930 they are only 8-9 if I have to get someone in to cook as well this would mean she does nothing except drop the kids at school and picks them up. Her sex drive is also 0 only got it once sice my last post and even then she was saying come on finish. Sorry if I sound like I'm ranting but she is just on a downhill slide and the more I try and help the worse it seems to get, she will not follow through on anything as far as seeing someone. Oh nearly forgot we had some friends over the other night and she had a few and I mean just two drinks then proceeded to one of our rooms in the house and just squatted and urinated on the floor ?

Lulu39

Hi Grunter

I'm no expert but it sounds like she might be sneaking in a trip to the shops and buying alcohol when you are at work - she's getting it from somewhere.

Titanic

Going to Al-Anon meetings?

Cyranoak

...and here it is:

Al-Anon Family Groups Australia

Keep an open mind, try at least six meetings (some different), and see if it helps you. Remember, these meetings are for you not your wife relative to her drinking. They will help you make the decisions you need to make relative to your wife.

Good luck.

Cyranoak

Hopscotch

Hello Grunter!

May I ask you something?
You are describing my sister-in-law/brother-in-law's situation, almost to a tee. (Hher not doing anything, drinking going to rehabs, detox, him working and running the house, taking care of the kids... she's had multiple affairs and he's even caught her in a few of them).
I've asked my BIL this question but never got a straight answer.

Why do you stay? What do you get out of this relationship that keeps you in it?

No offence intended. I just want to understand that dynamic, because from the outside, it makes no sense to me. Why would he take her back after catching her with another man, again? What benefit are the kids getting from having her around, drunk and adding a daily touch of chaos to their lives?

Many thanks

NWGRITS

And what are you doing to protect your children? Living in a household with an active A has long-term effects on children, and how they turn out in life depends on a lot of things. Don't think that they don't notice or that they aren't absorbing any of this. If you won't get help for yourself, at least get help for those poor, innocent kids.

grunter375

Nwgrits- I agree 100% with what you are saying, I married a lovely lady " for better or worse " before she was drinking she was the love of my life and I would have stood in front of a bullet for her, now I reckon i would duck. But still we are a family and I want it back but she seems to have a way at fooling the so called experts in the field that she is on the mend. Also she has not cheated on me and with her low sex drive this is not in the equation. It's just the booze and dope. Just looking for answers to help me and her to a better lifestyle

sesh

Sorry you're going through this.
I know how it feels.

If you don't mind me, I'll speak from what I've learned in my experience and I'll be blunt, so you take what you like and leave the rest.

The way you're living now can go on forever. Right at this point your wife has no reason to change anything. Everything she does and doesn't do is covered by someone else - you. Don't get me wrong, I understand why you do it, I did it myself for years, but at the end I realized that kind of enabling wasn't doing any good to anyone.

I also realized that for years I was making my life much more complicated than it really was. Turned out it was quite simple. My husband was an A who did nothing but drink, and take some drugs too. Kids were suffering, I was suffering, our whole life was one huge mess. He didn't want to do anything about it. So when I finally clicked and saw the things as simple as they were it wasn't hard to figure out what I need to do.

Your wife is a grown woman, who is perfectly capable to take care of herself. It is only up to her will she do it or not. You can not save her from herself, only she can do that. To do that IMHO she needs to face the consenquences of the life choices. I strongly believe it is only than that she can try to learn if her will for life is stronger than her addiction.

two years ago (after that moment of clarity that came soon after his last relapse - only 4 months after being diagnozed with what docs thought was end stage of liver chirrosis)I asked my husband to leave. He stayed on the path of distruction until he literarly lost everything. It was so painful to watch that from the distance (to hear about it from other people) but I knew it would be much more painful to watch my kids witness it from the first row. Some time later he hit his rock bottom and he phoned me and asked me to help him arrange rehab for him. I did that. I took the kids for visiting days (driving 10 hourse to there and back in one day). I gave the support he needed, but my boundaries were very clear.

He is doing fine for over a year and a half now. But I don't kid myself for one second that is something to do with me. He is sober only because his sobriety is more important to him than anything else in the world. But there is also one more thing I know: if I didn't kick him out, if I kept doing what I always did - enabling, "helping" - I don't think it is really likely he'd be where he is today.

I don't know if any of this helps, I hope it does. Your life can be better, your kids can have a better life too. As for your wife - it is up to her.
I'm so sorry your family is going though this.
I wish you all well.

EnglishGarden

You must feel terribly lonely, grunter, deeply hurt, angry, confused, and desperate.

Alcoholism is the one disease in which our normal instinct to nurture and comfort our diseased loved one produces the exact opposite effect that such care should evoke: our nurturing and comforting do not help our loved one find health again but instead keeps our loved one very sick. You are helping your wife stay very sick.

It is not your fault she drinks. It is not your fault she abandons you and your children. It is not your fault you haven't been able to stop her from drinking. And it isn't your fault you have been enabling her. Without knowledge about addiction, all of us enable for a long time.

Enabling is actually easier on us than taking the harder, but correct, actions. When we enable we don't have to fear divorce or breaking up the family. When we enable we don't have to worry about being alone in the world. When we enable we don't have to worry about what others will think when they hear about our family having problems. When we enable we don't have to risk losing someone we just can't imagine living without.

Enabling, we unconsciously believe, keeps the status quo. We will just keep cleaning up the alcoholic's messes, and doing the alcoholic's share of the adult responsibilities, and we will keep trying to hit on just the right words to convince the alcoholic to get sober, and if we keep doing that, then we get to keep the life structure we have built and are unwilling to let go. The family stays together, the house doesn't get emptied out and put on the market, we still get to be respected by our friends and neighbors, and the world thinks we're normal. By force of will and gritting our teeth, by God we will hold this family together, we think.

All the while, grunter, underneath, addiction is slowly destroying everybody. The alcoholic keeps drinking, flooding the tissues, organs, brain and muscles with poison that will produce catastrophic consequences. The children quietly adjust to the feeling of dread and sadness in the house and they lose the ability to truly be themselves but instead wear masks so as not to upset anyone. And you, grunter, you are probably becoming more and more depressed and devitalized, remote, and so painfully lonely, every day.

You are an adult man with a car and you can get yourself to ONE Al-Anon meeting. You can take responsibility for the sickness eating away at your family and your life and you can get to ONE meeting. At that meeting you can get all the free materials which will tell you exactly the right and the wrong ways to deal with an alcoholic. Read them. And start changing your ACTIONS even if your thinking needs time to catch up. Alcoholics listen to what their spouses DO, grunter, not to what their spouses say. And you must DO things differently or there is no hope.

We are glad you found SR. Things can change for the better for you. But first you have to change.

Titanic

Al-Anon, or Nar-Anon, and working the tools of the program is the way out grunter! Hope you find the strength to go.

Looking for answers around the house, looking for flasks and emptying bottles, airing out the pot smoke in the garage, and checking pill scrips doesn't work. It's all incredibly ineffective and insane: http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...st-us-did.html

And, for the kids, it's continued enrollment in the School of Addiction, the family disease that graduates generations upon generations.

WishingWell

Someone here shared this link to read and I've found it really helpful! Maybe it can help you, too!

http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...l-problem.html

Hopscotch

Thank you sesh and EnglishGarden.
Your replies were spot on, incredibly honest and gave me the insight I was looking for.

Sesh, I was nodding my head vigorously when you mentioned the consequences (or lack thereof), YES!!! I agree 100%

EnglishGarden, when you mention worrying about appearances, "what will everyone think about my disintegrating family", you hit another nail on its head for me.

I recognised a lot of my family in your replies, its like a few mores pieces of the puzzle fell into place.

Many thanks for your generosity.

Titanic

Say it again after EnglishGarden. Breathe deeply. Repeat to myself. Repeat. Repeat.

Thanks very much, EG!

grunter375

Amazingly you two described my life...

More to think about..

Thank you all very informative I greatly appreciate all your comments

grunter375

Well I have been to a meeting read more and have been trying to get on with doing the right thing to help the family, but the only way I can get it all to start is to get her to leave.
This in itself is a big problem, she does not know her father (he was an alcoholic) and her mother lives in a shell of deny all and would not take her, she has no job or income and I fear she would just spiral into a downward turn and without family help she would not last long. Very hard choices I need to make but struggling very much with all of this