phillypup

Well I see my last visit was in 2010. Things were bad then, very very bad, and while it has gotten better, there is one remaining elephant in the room and that's his drinking. He "cut down" from a half gallon every 1-2 days to "only" a fifth every other day (his words, not mine, it was actually more than that, but... )

Recently he changed his potion to a more potent one - 101 - but is still proud he "is drinking so much less". The only problem is his behavior since switching is back in the old days again.

Personally, I've been in therapy for one year, and am looking to start going to meetings this week.

History - we started couples therapy last year and it turned into a focus shift on the cause of hie behavior - ADHD, Gulf War Syndrome, what have you. He quit cmoking, using chantix (third time, after the previous two times years ago I said I'd leave him if he took it again. This time he was more in control and it wasn't horrible for the 4 weeks he took it.) But of course, the booze. Always the booze.

A few days ago I mentioned to him in a perfectly non-accusatory way that the symptoms he has been having are also symptoms of someone who has been drinking heavily for a long time. Every. Single. One. Today he mentioned that he will only drink on weekends, starting tomorrow. Obviously, today it's still the weekend.

Tonight I asked him a simple question and it turned into me being a bad guy and I reacted badly, asking him is he wanted a divorce since I'm such a bitch. He responded "If that's what will make you happy" which is a crock of **** since we spent most of the weekend talking about doing things together and making plans to actually enjoy life with each other again. (long story, additional contributing factors, but always the booze)

I think the meetings are something that will help me deal with this. At this point I feel as though my well is dry. I have no emotion with regard to him, but I panic at the thought of not having him in my life.

We live together, we work in my business together, (well never together, but we both work there), and he has no friends outside of facebook. I've been his ONLY outlet for a very long time, and I just can't imagine how it feels to be like that.

Not sure what my point is, but it hurts and it feels like it's someone else's pain. I can't put myself in his shoes, because he's blurred by alcohol.

I want to care. But he doesn't seem to, so why should I?

Sorry to dump like this. Hoping someone else can kind of understand where I'm coming from without a massive info dump. Most of my friends, well, I don't know. They have their problems and I have mine. I am way too old to be dealing with this BS, I live a good hard working life, and I am a smart person. How the hell did I get myself into this?

phillypup

Yeah, I noticed that when I did additional research. (I research everything, and need to stop that habit - not my issue to research!) I think also because he didn't do the 12 weeks (but has been smoke free for 4) he avoided the "psycho" part of the chantix. Not towards me, but "on the rooftop with a rifle" kinda rage. It was ugly. Glad it didn't get that far this time, or he'd be sleeping in his (my) car.

Hawkeye13

So what do you want? It sounds like he put the "D" word on the table.

How do you feel about it?

As an alcoholic myself, I can tell you that "cutting back" doesn't and won't ever work
for hard core drinkers, but you already know that.

It sounds as though he may be approaching the time when the physical damage really catches up and goes downhill fast. From what I've read here, it sounds grim when that happens.

I'm sorry you are going through this, but frankly, it sounds like you are coming to some hard choices soon.

Peace to both of you

FeelingGreat

Hi phiily, I agree with Hawkeye, in that you haven't really said what you want. We know alcoholism is progressive, and your AH seems to be back to where he started (weekend drinking has to be acted on), but unless he abstains completely it's all coming around again.
Where does that leave you?

redatlanta

Which will never happen. Talk, talk, talk, quack, quack quack. AH has decided that he will now only be drinking on weekends so I wouldn't put a whole lot of expectation that you two are going to be doing things on the weekends together. If he manages to make it just the weekend i'd expect a humdinger. In the same way that he sees moving to "101 and drinking less" an improvement in the amount that he drinks if he stays sober all week gotta makeup for lost drinking on the weekends.

I'm sorry you are still going through this. Your feelings of realizing you aren't happy, you don't deserve this, yet being unable to move beyond it is normal. Now is the time to work on you and your recovery - have you tried Al-Anon?

How you got yourself into it? Same way I did. Had no idea how bad it could get, how no idea of what ALCOHOLISM really meant. Thought I could help him. Wanted to help him. He finally helped himself.