Drinking socially?
Member
Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: Wizard Land Downunder
Posts: 2,615
Agree 100% with post by all the others. My P has tried just having a couple of beers a few times and managed it for only 2 weeks. I was stressed out inside the whole time, waiting for it to blow out. Almost a relief when it did. Last time he ordered a beer because there were "friends" at the bar and he figured he could handle having 2 or 3 then leave the place.
He rang me at 3.35am next morning, couldn't find his house key, had no shoes on and had lost his glasses, transistor radio, tobacco and wallet, would I pay for cab if he came to my place? Got NO for answer, so sat on his front steps and got eaten by mosquitos until he found his key about 7am. That was small part of turning point in his decision to finally quit. So far sober for 12 days, under treatment and counselling now and I hope he makes it THIS TIME, for both our sakes. If not ten he is on his own, I will be gone.
He rang me at 3.35am next morning, couldn't find his house key, had no shoes on and had lost his glasses, transistor radio, tobacco and wallet, would I pay for cab if he came to my place? Got NO for answer, so sat on his front steps and got eaten by mosquitos until he found his key about 7am. That was small part of turning point in his decision to finally quit. So far sober for 12 days, under treatment and counselling now and I hope he makes it THIS TIME, for both our sakes. If not ten he is on his own, I will be gone.
Member
Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: Middle of the U.S.
Posts: 85
My AH has tried this on too many occasions to count. He hangs onto abstinance / moderation by sheer willpower, but it always falters at some point. It's like Russian roulette. That is why I gave him the choice to either remain married to me or continue his so-called "moderate" drinking.
He is moving out because I "refuse to accept his lifestyle." So be it.
He is moving out because I "refuse to accept his lifestyle." So be it.
Member
Join Date: Feb 2006
Location: Recovery
Posts: 3,229
An alcoholic can never be a social drinker. Yet, many pursue this idea to the gates of hell and insanity ending in jails, institutions, and death. Alcohol is death for the alcoholic.
Social drinking is impossible for a real alcoholic.
I have seen people who were hard drinkers (not alcoholics) be able to drink socially but social drinking cannot occur in the alcoholic.
Social drinking is impossible for a real alcoholic.
I have seen people who were hard drinkers (not alcoholics) be able to drink socially but social drinking cannot occur in the alcoholic.
Member
Join Date: Sep 2008
Posts: 65
Originally Posted by GrowingPains 
He is moving out because I "refuse to accept his lifestyle."
Sorry, that really made me laugh! This is exactly the kind of thing my stbxAH says. It took me a while to see the funny side but thankfully now I can. Glad you sound like you are coping well with all the craziness.
Member
Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: Middle of the U.S.
Posts: 85
Thanks! Laughter is one of the things helping me cling to sanity through all this.
Sadly, coming here is what forced me to acknowledge that what I'm going through with him is not unique, but fairly stereotypical. I've read whole posts that could have been written by me at one time or another.
Sadly, coming here is what forced me to acknowledge that what I'm going through with him is not unique, but fairly stereotypical. I've read whole posts that could have been written by me at one time or another.
Member
Join Date: Apr 2005
Location: state of confusion
Posts: 351
There was a newly formed national group about 12 years ago organized by former alcoholics, that attempted to convince those with alcohol addiction and their families that alcoholics could be conditioned to only have several drinks socially and be okay. The eventual consequences of this group beliefs proved catastrophic and deadly ....
Arrest trips up 'moderate drinking' crusader's cause
Unfortunately, around the time this organization was emerging, my AH and I had the great misfortune of seeing a poorly trained marriage counselor that misinformed us that this organization was affiliated with AA (it absolutely wasn't) and if my husband could have just 2 drinks and stop ... that is was okay and she implied that spouses of drinkers were possibly overreacting to harmless moderate drinking. This woman should never have been allowed to counsel anyone ... especially those with addictions. These sessions turned out to be a nightmare and played into the alcoholics game of "I just had 2 drinks" and then proceed to secretly drink excessively in private all while proclaiming I had only "2 drinks" ... all while the spouse was made to feel like an overly sensitive idiot with an active imagination - which is exactly what the alcoholic wants their spouse to believe. By having 2 drinks, the alcoholic no longer had to try and hide the smell of alcohol on their breath and allowed them to openly continue down their destructive path with their tormented families by their side.
We wasted precious weeks, money and many frustrating hours trying to deal with a grossly misinformed counselor who unfortunately, because of her occupation, took on an undeserved role of an authority figure when in counseling. She was continually quoting a new untested organization as being affiliated with AA ... when in fact AA had never supported anything but total abstinence. After weeks of seeing her, and feeling like my husband was being giving permission by this counselor to openly drink 2 drinks and continuing on his decades long path of sick mind games of trying to convince me and everyone else that he didn't have a problem .... I finally got fed up and called 4 AA groups to find out if this information was true... and they all confirmed that this had NEVER been a part of their policies and beliefs ... only total abstinence. One person from an AA group was so infuriated by this counselor's approach, that she demanded to know her name so she could personally call her and set the record straight. I called the counselor myself, and told her I had spoken directly to 4 different AA groups in our area and everyone said our counselor was completely wrong in her believe it was okay for an alcoholic to drink 2 drinks ... and that total abstinence was their only policy. This counselor was both dumbfounded and defensive .... however the speech about it being okay to drink 2 drinks we would hear every counseling session, finally stopped. Just 2 weeks later, as a result of her gross misinformation plus encouraging him to take antidepressants, my husband started spiraling out of control that ended with a violent, bizarre, incoherent rage at his office. The police had to be called, he was taken into a mental health facility... and when I later went into his office I found 2 bottles of vodka hidden in his file cabinet. Her idea of an alcoholic being able to drink moderately was proven grievously incorrect ... and to make matter worse, encouraging an alcoholic to take antidepressants proved a dangerous decision with a nightmarish outcome.
However, when I found my AH's hidden Vodka, I felt both horrified and yet finally validated in my belief that the ONLY chance of my AH's life and our marriage improving was total long term abstinence ... and sincerely hoped that this counselor had learned her lesson ...that she was grossly unqualified to give advise where addiction was involved. Hopefully she learned to send those cases elsewhere to someone properly trained to counsel those with the unique problems associated with alcoholism. She took a deeply troubled addicted individual that had only sought her out to attempt to convince me that the only problem in our marriage was my bad attitude about his drinking .... and she played right into it. The truth was I had never wanted to participate in this counseling, but she insisted I be involved to my great regret.
I learned a very important lesson... if you seek out counseling, it is very important to seek one out that is qualified to counsel alcoholics or it could end up like this case.... making a very bad situation so much worse - she basically gave my AH permission to keep drinking openly by implying it was okay to drink moderately ....and destroyed my self confidence in my steps to keep my AH out of our house until he sought total sobriety. It took months to just get back to where we were before all this misinformation further twisted our lives apart ... but in time the truth came out and reality prevailed - drinking moderately does not work for alcoholics and can have deadly consequences. This was confirmed and evidenced in the article with the link above. In the end, my AH's addiction tragically progressed, he became very ill with many alcohol related illnesses ... and eventually lost his life to an addiction he couldn't control.
Arrest trips up 'moderate drinking' crusader's cause
Unfortunately, around the time this organization was emerging, my AH and I had the great misfortune of seeing a poorly trained marriage counselor that misinformed us that this organization was affiliated with AA (it absolutely wasn't) and if my husband could have just 2 drinks and stop ... that is was okay and she implied that spouses of drinkers were possibly overreacting to harmless moderate drinking. This woman should never have been allowed to counsel anyone ... especially those with addictions. These sessions turned out to be a nightmare and played into the alcoholics game of "I just had 2 drinks" and then proceed to secretly drink excessively in private all while proclaiming I had only "2 drinks" ... all while the spouse was made to feel like an overly sensitive idiot with an active imagination - which is exactly what the alcoholic wants their spouse to believe. By having 2 drinks, the alcoholic no longer had to try and hide the smell of alcohol on their breath and allowed them to openly continue down their destructive path with their tormented families by their side.
We wasted precious weeks, money and many frustrating hours trying to deal with a grossly misinformed counselor who unfortunately, because of her occupation, took on an undeserved role of an authority figure when in counseling. She was continually quoting a new untested organization as being affiliated with AA ... when in fact AA had never supported anything but total abstinence. After weeks of seeing her, and feeling like my husband was being giving permission by this counselor to openly drink 2 drinks and continuing on his decades long path of sick mind games of trying to convince me and everyone else that he didn't have a problem .... I finally got fed up and called 4 AA groups to find out if this information was true... and they all confirmed that this had NEVER been a part of their policies and beliefs ... only total abstinence. One person from an AA group was so infuriated by this counselor's approach, that she demanded to know her name so she could personally call her and set the record straight. I called the counselor myself, and told her I had spoken directly to 4 different AA groups in our area and everyone said our counselor was completely wrong in her believe it was okay for an alcoholic to drink 2 drinks ... and that total abstinence was their only policy. This counselor was both dumbfounded and defensive .... however the speech about it being okay to drink 2 drinks we would hear every counseling session, finally stopped. Just 2 weeks later, as a result of her gross misinformation plus encouraging him to take antidepressants, my husband started spiraling out of control that ended with a violent, bizarre, incoherent rage at his office. The police had to be called, he was taken into a mental health facility... and when I later went into his office I found 2 bottles of vodka hidden in his file cabinet. Her idea of an alcoholic being able to drink moderately was proven grievously incorrect ... and to make matter worse, encouraging an alcoholic to take antidepressants proved a dangerous decision with a nightmarish outcome.
However, when I found my AH's hidden Vodka, I felt both horrified and yet finally validated in my belief that the ONLY chance of my AH's life and our marriage improving was total long term abstinence ... and sincerely hoped that this counselor had learned her lesson ...that she was grossly unqualified to give advise where addiction was involved. Hopefully she learned to send those cases elsewhere to someone properly trained to counsel those with the unique problems associated with alcoholism. She took a deeply troubled addicted individual that had only sought her out to attempt to convince me that the only problem in our marriage was my bad attitude about his drinking .... and she played right into it. The truth was I had never wanted to participate in this counseling, but she insisted I be involved to my great regret.
I learned a very important lesson... if you seek out counseling, it is very important to seek one out that is qualified to counsel alcoholics or it could end up like this case.... making a very bad situation so much worse - she basically gave my AH permission to keep drinking openly by implying it was okay to drink moderately ....and destroyed my self confidence in my steps to keep my AH out of our house until he sought total sobriety. It took months to just get back to where we were before all this misinformation further twisted our lives apart ... but in time the truth came out and reality prevailed - drinking moderately does not work for alcoholics and can have deadly consequences. This was confirmed and evidenced in the article with the link above. In the end, my AH's addiction tragically progressed, he became very ill with many alcohol related illnesses ... and eventually lost his life to an addiction he couldn't control.
Member
Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: Middle of the U.S.
Posts: 85
"Unfortunately, around the time this organization was emerging, my AH and I had the great misfortune of seeing a poorly trained marriage counselor that misinformed us that this organization was affiliated with AA (it absolutely wasn't) and if my husband could have just 2 drinks and stop ... that is was okay and she implied that spouses of drinkers were possibly overreacting to harmless moderate drinking. This woman should never have been allowed to counsel anyone ... especially those with addictions. These sessions turned out to be a nightmare and played into the alcoholics game of "I just had 2 drinks" and then proceed to secretly drink excessively in private all while proclaiming I had only "2 drinks" ... all while the spouse was made to feel like an overly sensitive idiot with an active imagination - which is exactly what the alcoholic wants their spouse to believe. By having 2 drinks, the alcoholic no longer had to try and hide the smell of alcohol on their breath and allowed them to openly continue down their destructive path with their tormented families by their side."
This is almost EXACTLY what happened to me earlier this year, minus the mention of the moderation group. It makes me angrier to know I wasn't the only one. How I WISH I'd have come here first...
The counselors were part of the Master's program at our local university. I recently did a little research and discovered that their program basically IGNORES addiction and only has a couple of electives that even touch on it. This makes me think this is common at other universities as well. Horrible.
This is almost EXACTLY what happened to me earlier this year, minus the mention of the moderation group. It makes me angrier to know I wasn't the only one. How I WISH I'd have come here first...
The counselors were part of the Master's program at our local university. I recently did a little research and discovered that their program basically IGNORES addiction and only has a couple of electives that even touch on it. This makes me think this is common at other universities as well. Horrible.
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