copingwife

I'm new to the site. I don't know what to do. I've been married 27 years. I have a 17 yr old and 13 yr old. My hubby has alway drank. I left him last August, but came back becasue my son was missing his dad and felt like he needed to keep an eye out for him. He drinks everyday from 4pm to he goes to bed. I never know how his mood is going to be. I'm always on pins and needles. He use to be able to drink a 12 pack or more a night, now he seems to get drunk on a six pack. When he comes in from the garage he is always stagering. He always drink at home in the garage by himself. Before I left in Aug. I asked him to choose between me or Ms. Budwiser. He told me to do what I needed to do. I left then came back 9 months later. I can't handle him repeating himself all the time. He never remembers what he says the night before. He tells me to cut him somme slack. He reminds me all the time that he is providing for us, and without him I would be nothing. He always wants sex. I can't stand his sloppiness. He some times falls in the shower. He takes 2 beers in with him when he takes a shower. If we go to his mom or sisters for dinner he drinks on the 5 minute ride to their house. We never go out together becasue I got tired of always driving..I want a man that can take me out. His family thinks I'm crazy. He has high blood pressure, high colestrol, takes meds for indigestion. Now he is having Anxiety Attacks. Went to hospital twice last year. Last week I found him on the floor in our bedroom. He must have ran into the door frame and passed out. Has a big cut on his nose. He doesn't know hos any of that happened. Is he an alcoholic or am I crazy. He says he doesn't drink any more then others. He seems to want to start a fight at night. Why is he getting impaired more quickly these days? Can anyone help me?

nodaybut2day

From your post, I'd say "YES", but then, what does it matter if he's an alcoholic or a pink spotted cow? His drinking is a problem for you, right? That's the heart of the issue: YOU.

If you're new here, I'd like to post the 3 C's of addiction:
You didn't cause this.
You can't cure this.
You can't control this.

Time for you and your children to step away from the addict and think about yourselves. It's not you or your children's responsibility to look out for this man. He made his choice: he loves the booze. He keeps making that choice everyday, every time he drinks. Not your responsiblity.

Have you considered going to Al-Anon to get support for yourself?

Have you considered Al-Ateen for your children? They need help through this too!

Please keep posting. SR is a wonderful place.

sb0804

I think over time the A's body has trouble digesting the alcohol as the disease progresses. My XAW had the problem as her drinking progressed.

And to answer your question yes in my opinion he is an alcoholic.

copingwife

Thanks for your post. I have gone to Al-Anon without him knowing. He gets very mad if I talk about his drinking. My kids always ask why I married someone so miserable. I wonder If they think I'm crazy to put up with his comments he makes under his breath. Just loud enough for me to hear.

stella27

Sure, he's an alcoholic.

Is this how you want to live? Are you enjoying your life?

nodaybut2day

copingwife...read this:

http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...lics-make.html

It was eye-opening for me. Suddenly, I didn't feel so alone.

copingwife

I still feel stuck in my situation. He controls all the money. I just started back to work. I was a stay at home mom and loved it. When we seperated in Aug. it was agreed I would get 1/2 of a condo we sold 84K. He closed the bank account an gave me 6k. That is in part why me and the kids had to move back in. I have been trying to detach myself from him. My thought are that I have to wait until my kids graduate to afford to move out on my own. Then I can move out of town. I live in a resort area that is expensive. I could never afford to live on my own. What are the next stages he will go through now that he is intoxicated so quickly with in 2 hours now. I just can't imagine.

nodaybut2day

copingwife...please please please get a lawyer! Or get one of those free over the phone consultations with a lawyer. Or apply for legal aid. You need some legal advice here, because your husband should be paying you child support and from your post, this man should not be around children. He is dangerous and toxic.

Please, take it from me (I left 2 months ago), there IS a way out. You can start saving up cash in a secret stash, you can go to Al-Anon and Al-Ateen with your kids to get support, you can get divorce proceedings started and file for child support. It CAN happen.

Keep us posted!

keithj

Wow, coping, that is an uncanny description of me in the last year with my ex-wife before I got sober with AA. Almost perfect. I can't diagnose your husband, but I'm a chronic alcoholic, and you pegged my former behavior to a T.

As others have said, what does it matter if you call it alcoholism or not, or what stage it's in? Never know mood, pins and needles, picking fights, etc. Doesn't sound very fun.

I will tell you that my drinking didn't get better when I was at the point your husband is now. Got worse. Much worse.

copingwife

Keithj --- what do you mean it gets much worse? What do you think is going thru his mind?

keithj

Wasn't trying to be overly dramatic, coping. Your post just struck me for how accurately it described my last year of marriage. And who can really say what is going through his head.

I can tell you what was going through my head. I did not see myself as you described, nor would I have recognized myself in your description. I thought everything was fine, and I was kind of ticked that somebody else would be expressing concern or god forbid, critical of my behavior. I thought I was having fun.

Sure, there were little snippets of regret or remorse, shame, knowing I'd made an ass of myself or embarassed my family. But for the most part, I couldn't see the truth of my behavior until after I'd recovered.

It's hard to say where your husband goes from here. I didn't spontaneously get better at that stage. In fact, I've never seen anyone's get better at that point. Always worse. Sure, there were a few hopeful months here and there, but always followed by a disappointing relapse and return to right where I left off.

I don't want to scare you. On this forum especially, it's important to look at what is unacceptable behavior to you, leaving aside the drink problem. Is the behavior acceptable to you as a wife?

By worse, I mean after my wife and I seperated (I was served divorce and no contact order same day-not a bad way of doing things in retrospect), I continued to drink more and more. Drank in the morning, blew off work, smashed cars, spent time in jails, had tawdry affairs, spent time in rehab, spent more time in jails. You get the idea. I was living, you might say, only to drink.

I recovered from that, and haven't had that problem for quite a while. It is possible. But recovery doesn't happen for many, and drinking and it's associated problems seems like a progressive thing. Recovery, for me, required absolute surrender and defeat. I agree with everyone else who said you really have no control over this. The bottle forces that surrender. We surrender and accept spiritual help or we die slowly, ripping out the hearts of those that love us along the way. That's my experience.

Pelican

Welcome to the family, copingwife!

You have found an excellent resource of support and information for yourself and your teens. I also have a 17 yo and a 14 yo living with me. I was also a stay at home mom for 12 years.

I am a recovering exspouse of an alcoholic. I finally got sick and tired of being sick and tired of the chaos. I wanted a better life for myself and my children. I didn't want my children to grow up and accept unacceptable behavior in their relationships like I was doing. I started attending Alanon meetings, reading self-help books and posting here in F&F (friends and family) forum. I also consulted with 2 lawyers about my options.

Today I am divorced, working at rebuilding my previous career, living in a new community, and continuing to grow in my recovery. Today my ex is sober and working on his recovery.

I discovered SR (sober recovery forum) almost 1 1/2 years ago. It has been valuable in my recovery. I am also a recovering alcoholic. Researching alcoholism helped me overcome my personal addiction as well as understand my partner's addiction. I understood that I did not cause his addiction (even tho I'd get blamed), I couldn't control his addiction (tears, bargaining, yelling, silence, etc..), and I would not cure his addiction (it has to be the addicts choice). Those three C's are a lot to accept.

By accepting those principles, I gained the freedom to begin to take better care of myself and my children.

Please make yourself at home by reading and posting as much as needed. We're glad you are here!

Gold

Sounds like an alcoholic to me I am no expert and cannot make a diagnosis. You must think he has a serious problem to join SR



Read and re-read the 3 C's posted above.

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

Yep call it what you like, labels whatever.
Is his behaviour acceptable to you?

Eight Ball

Hi Copingwife and welcome

I had my 'lightbulb' moment with regards to my AH of 22 years about three months ago, when following yet another argument about the amount he was drinking, ended with him saying that he was choosing the alcohol over our marriage. Thats when I realised he had a huge problem and was an alcoholic. I dont know why I hadnt put two and two together before. Now when I look back over the past 22 years, I can identify that all of our 'nasty' unforgettable interactions that left me hurt, upset, depressed etc had one thing in common - alcohol.

My AH has used many excuses for drinking including: He is a trade worker, he asked around at work and many other men drink the same amount, he likes a beer, if I drank, his drinking wouldn't be a problem to me, its because I am sober. He is at the stage of hiding it from me now too and when I get in from work he is sat with a lemonade in his hand but slurring. I am sober - does he think that I wont notice!

Al-Anon has been great for me and a safe, non chaotic place to go, where everyone is nice, welcoming, friendly and relatively sane! I have only just recently found the soberrecovery forums and just finding my feet with that too. I am pleased to hear that you are trying Al-Anon, its the only thing keeping me sane at the moment.

As you read through threads and stickies you will soon realise that you can identify many of your own experiences with others on this site, who are all saying the same thing - that they are living or have lived with an alcoholic. If you go to an Al-Anon meeting you will hear the same too.

I and have left AH in the past and have had advice from divorce lawyers who labeled the behavior I was putting up with as unreasonable but still I went back for more. I am planning to leave once again but this time with the knowledge that my AH is an alcoholic and I didn't Cause this, cant cure this and cant control this.

My daughter who has just turned 19 years is now also having to put up with this mans emotional verbal abuse and bullying directed at her and it makes me so angry that hes treating her this way. He would have to be sick to bully his own daughter. I too feel stuck like you, in this current situation because I cannot afford to move out but am ready for some peace in my life.

As nodaybut2day said there IS a way out. You can start saving up cash in a secret stash, you can go to Al-Anon and Al-Ateen with your kids to get support, you can get divorce proceedings started and file for child support. It CAN happen. I know my own financial circumstance will improve within the next year, but in the meantime I can start making plans.

The first step for me however was recognizing and accepting, what was and had been affecting me and my marriage for a very long time and that was living with an acoholic, maybe you could start there too.

copingwife

Thanks for your post. My AH is going to bed at about 8pm. I thought this was a good sign because he is not drinking later in the evening. But is there more to it? He was terrible night sweats. He has stained all our sheets and mattress with a orange/brown sstain. I'm not sure why it happens to him and not me. It's just on his side of the bed. Even the pillows he uses are stained. What is that all about. He does smoke a pack of cigs a day. Is it cigs or Alcohol? If he is going to bed before 8 and snoring like crazy, does that me it is healthier for him? The next day he drinks a ton of water until 4pm after work until it starts all over again. I'm just wondering what is normal and what isn't.

nodaybut2day

Hon, after being here at SR, I realized that "what was normal" varied greatly from person to person, and that in the end, it came down to what I was willing to deal with. It doesn't matter what he does, how much he drinks, smokes, when he pees, showers, farts etc. You are still caught up in HIM and his actions.

Refocus on YOU.

Do you want to sleep next to this man? Would you like to arrange to sleep someplace else?

copingwife

I guess I want to see some improvement or I want someone to tell me it's not as bad as I think. Just so sad.

transformyself

Hi copingwife
Welcome!
As long as I am worried about what is going through my husbands mind, I'm going to be scared, upset and unable to live a happy life. Living in fear.

The only thing that ever offers me 100% peace is to refocus on myself. I can't, and no longer desire to, read my AHs mind. Control what he does, who he does it with or how he does it. I just keep working on myself. It's a beautiful thing.


Try it. You might like it. It may scare the Bejesus out of you initially, but you're never too old to learn how to take care of yourself.

Welcome again!

nodaybut2day

I completely understand and it's such a hard habit to break, but at some point, you start to realize that it doesn't matter what other people tell you. I just matters that you aren't satisfied or happy with the situation and that you need to make changes. It's obvious from your post that your husband isn't interested in changing right now. Or maybe never.

So what's left now? YOU! Who are you? What do you love? What do you hate? What are yours plans for the next year?

FindingPeace1

I SO SO feel for you! I wanted that, too! Click on my name to read more posts. My husband is so mild mannered generally. I just wanted someone to fix the issue of...blah blah blah. But while you want to see improvement, thinking there is anything you can do that will effect that is magical thinking. You get what you have right here and now. Sucky, huh?

I totally get it. If you are here, you appear to have a problem. Because, ultimately, anything is only as bad as YOU think. And I hear you expressing unhappiness. It doesn't matter what anyone else thinks. Are you happy? If not, are you worth it to get what you want? If you can't get it in this relationship, what are you going to do?
Tough questions!!
Hang in there!
wife