How do you have "the talk"?
 

Its going to change things. Ive been really good about "going with the flow" Im not a complainer about his drinking. I dont ask him to drink less. (Im not saying those are "good" things.. just that in his eyes.. this is how Ive been)

He's a wonderful wonderful man. Very loving, affectionate, responsible, sweet, does whatever he can for me and the kids (my kids, not his).. there is no heartache involved, no pain or bad relationship things going on. He works, makes decent money etc..

He drinks maybe 4-8 beers a night during the week. Always has a beer in hand. Drinks usually from 2:30 pm -7 pm (when he goes to bed-- he works at 3 am)

But he's occupied, mows the yard, cleans the garage, makes supper 1/2 the time, helps with the kids, he's very sweet to me.

On weekends he usually starts around noon. Has maybe 8-12. He's very functional. Never gets stumbly or anything. He knows when he's had "enough' and will say so and quit for the night. (I think "enough" means he's starting to feel ungood)

Anyways-- he's a very good man. We've been together for 7 months. Ive kinda wanted to feel out the situation because tho I know he has an alcohol problem... it doesnt effect life in a bad way. He's such a decent person and is seriously textbook perfect.

However, I dont want my kids to grow up seeing a beer in his hand constantly. I know its going to eventually effect his health (he has said he's drank this way for like 25 years)

What do I say? How do I start? Once I say it he's going to know there is an issue between us.. and feel like there is something BIG I want changed about him . It might change our relationship for good.

You might want something big changed about him but it won't make any difference. He will only stop drinking when he wants to, not when you want him to.

Textbook perfect in my eyes doesn't include alcoholics. If he was perfect you wouldn't have an issue with anything.

Do you enable him at all?

What are enabling things?

I dont take care of anything for him that enables him to drink or anything.

What are some things I might be overlooking tho.

What I mean by "perfect" is..he doesnt do ANY of the things that I would think drunks do. Ive never seen him pass out. He's never thrown up. He's never stumbled. He isnt irresponsible. I dont have to like.. pay a bill because he drank all his money away. Ive never had to go get him somewhere. He's never crashed the car or had it impounded or had a DWI or anything like the other alcoholics I know.

I dont "Hide" anything from people. Dont have anything to cover for. He doesnt fight with anyone so I dont have to police him and smooth anything over with anyone. He doesnt attempt to do irresponsible things while drinking.

He honestly lives like a very very decent person.. who permanently has a beer attached to his hand.

We dont go out a lot, but during the week he has to be in bed at 7 pm so he can get up at 3am and I have kids who have school and stuff, so thats fine. On weekends he can wait until whenever we're home, to drink. He doesnt stop us from going out to dinner and a movie or anything just to sit home. He's a homebody but anytime I wanna go out, we do. and he will think up things for us to go out and do too.

Probably the biggest way I enable him is by being very affectionate and loving to him, telling him he's a wonderful person, all the while ignoring the fact that he is an alcoholic and never bringing it up to him.

But he's so functional that its easy to ignore. know what I mean?

Hi. Welcome. My dad was a functioning alcoholic until the day he died. It was just part of who he was and we had to accept him that way. We had no other choice. And neither did my mom. She had to live with it because he wasn't going to change. Instead she focused on her own life and tried to minimize the effects his drinking had on our family - the unpredictability of living with an alcoholic, the elephant in the living room... all of it. She wasn't very successful. Alcoholism DOES affect children even if the alcoholic functions at relatively high level - maintaining a job, not falling down drunk, etc.

Then why can't you just ignore it and let him drink to his hearts consent? He's going to do it anyway. You painted a pretty rosy picture about your life with him - except that he always has a beer in his hand - and you can't change that. You can only change yourself and your perceptions or the situations that you allow yourself to be in.

Have you considered attending al-anon meetings? Maybe it will help you let go of his problem and start focusing on your own.

You may also want to read a book called co-dependent no more by Melanie Beattie. It will help you learn to identify your enabling behaviors.

The one thing that is always concerning is that alcoholism is progressive. It doesn't get better. It only gets worse. What that looks like, and how long the progression takes, varies from one alcoholic to the next.

I can. and do ignore it. But I have enough common sense, not to mention 5 years of schooling behind me, to know that generally alcoholism is suppose to be a problem, to know that it isnt good, to know that I dont want my kids thinking that drinking ever day is normal, to know that I do not want this most excellent worthwhile loving man to suffer alcohol related medical problems.

Except it really isnt a problem for us. Yet? Is that the keyword? Or, the problems just havent been present during the 7 months Ive known him?

I do know some very bad things that have happened in his life because of alcohol.

1) He's always had a decent job and taken care of his responsibilities. He has 3 kids, and owed child support after his divorce. This left him with little money, so he lived with an older man as a room mate. Not an optimal situation, but, I cant hardly think horribly of him for it. This older man was an alcoholic.
My BF found him dead one day. The guy was 71. The story is: The old man was sick, went to the dr. for it (a cold and stuff) later that day, in his overly drunken state he drank every bit of his codeine cough medicine and took some other meds. BF was at work and came home to him dead. He assumes it was caused from the guy being drunk and not being in his right mind/ not remembering that he took the meds and retaking them again and again. That hit BF hard.

2) Couple years later, his long term GF, who was also an alcoholic, died. Ive seen the death cert. it lists cirhosis as an underlying factor. He told me she had very little control over her drinking. At one time (not her time of death) she went into the ER with a BAL of .56. He found her dead, too.

These are major major life altering things. It should be his rock bottom or something, right?

I KNOW how horrible these things sound.


But daily life really IS as I have said. He is a most excellent wonderfully good man.

Or do I have rose colored glasses on or something?
I have never dealt with alcoholism before.

Im left wondering to myself, w..t...f??? this guy treats me like Im golden. He is wise (minus the alcohol consumption), responsible, talks to me about all of lifes responsibilities and he's a do-er/ go getter. Besides drinking beer, he takes good care of himself, his house, even on weekends he's up by 6-7am. He's fixing things around the house, mowing, taking care of the yard, planning what we'll grill or cook... In all my 39 years, I do not know a better man than him. and it's not that Im use to trashy men. He's motivated. He's sweet, considerate..


One thing I wonder is... I feel pretty confident that he has very good control of himself and would be a good candidate for choosing to not drink. maybe THAT is where my rose colored glasses come in.
He has came to me once and talked to me about quitting. I think I did the wrong thing and said that it was up to him. That was pretty much that. Later he said, did you hear what I was really saying? I was saying that quitting would be a good idea.. and that your support would really help. He wasnt saying it like its my responsibility and that he cant if I dont bend over backwards to eagle eye him (though he has made no attempt since that conversation), he was saying like he was reaching out and that now that he does not live with an alcoholic and that I am not an alcoholic like his last GF and that he has his own home and totally different lifestyle/ environment now... NOW would be a good time to make the change.

I havent really explored the idea of quitting with him.
But I know he has good common sense. I know he cares about me and has said that he knows its not good that the kids see him with beer all the time. I know I have nothing to fear about bringing it up.. he has told me, several times that he never wants to lose me and that if I have any problems to make sure I let him know right away.

I honestly feel like he's one of those people who have lived life hard in their younger days, and being 44 now.. he's ready to be settled more and give up his past demons. Then again, who knows, maybe thats wishful thinking.

Hi, incognito, and welcome to SR.

This is a really good description of what I thought about my STBXAH when we first started living together. Well, except the take care of his house part - STBXAH's own place always kind of reminded me of a college dorm room (some times it looked decent, others fairly messy) :).... Looking back to those times, he always had a beer in hand or nearby.

Also what I thought about my STBXAH's drinking when I realized he might have problem. And in my case, a serious case of rose-colored glasses. Problem is that, like Hello-Kitty pointed out, alcoholism is a progressive disease. It gets worse. My STBXAH became some one else as the alcoholism progressed and he can't stop on his own. Each alcoholic's progression is different...

It does sound like a good time for a change. However, 'good time to change' for those affected by the alcoholic's drinking and 'good time' for an alcoholic can have vastly different descriptions. Definitely true in my situation.

IMO, it's probably good that he's approached you about quitting. You were right that it's up to him - only he can work his recovery. It sounds to me like he knows you're aware there's a problem and wants to talk about it. Relationships require open communication. Arm yourself with information about alcoholism, its affects on those around the alcoholic, and recovery, so that when he is ready to talk, you are too. (Al-Anon, reading and posting here at SR, there are great books available - there are several lists in the stickies...)

Best wishes.

Hmmm, well, I never had "The Talk". Instead I had "the change" (no, not menopause!), meaning I started to gradually change my attitude with regards to XAH drinking. I never had the money to buy him beer. When he drank, I left the room and didn't engage him. He noticed the change and HE came to me to ask what the heck was my "problem". That's when I squeaked out that I wasn't happy and was working to find my own happiness.

The difference is that my XAH always knew that I had an issue with his drinking. I told him so many times and we had many arguments.

In the case of your AH, it seems that he's not really aware of your issue with drinking. Perhaps it could be feasible to have a short and to the point discussion with him, informing him that you have a problem with his drinking. You could even point him to the nearest AA. Beyond that though, there's really nothing you can do to make him change.

If you do not want your children to grow up thinking that having a beer permanently attached to one's hand is normal, then perhaps you can think of introducing them to Al-Ateen, if they're old enough. It would certainly help to have an honest discussion with them.

Keep posting. There's a lot of wisdom to be found here on SR.

So how do you know he's an alcoholic? What's your definition of an alcoholic?

I've been following your threads, incognito, and I wonder this same question myself.

I come from a family of "alcoholics" ... or do I? My grandfather, my father, my uncle, my aunt, my brother ... my entire family says they were/are alcoholics.

I don't remember my grandfather too much, as he died when I was 14 and we weren't close, but apparently he was terribly abusive and drank too much. He died of emphysema and complications from diabetes when he was 60-something years old.

My dad, that I can remember, always drank, but it wasn't until after my parents divorced that it became a problem. My dad was never abusive to my mom or to my brother/me. And I never saw him falling down drunk or unable to function. He died at age 58 in 2002 from prostate cancer.

My uncle was probably the most influential man in my life, since my parents divorced when I was 12 and my dad was never around after that. My uncle ALWAYS had a drink in his hand, starting around 4-5pm until he went to bed. He drank Jim Beam and coke, Seven & Seven and beer. He was a country boy who had an 80-acre ranch, livestock, a house he built himself, and worked for an offshore oil rig for 30 years. He never missed a day of work due to illness or drunkenness. This was a guy who would pour himself a drink for the 30 minute drive to town. I think I saw him "drunk" maybe twice in my life, and that was only when a party was going on. He was never not able to function ... EVER. He died in 1996 at age 52 from kidney cancer, as he was born with only one kidney and it became diseased, and by the time it was diagnosed it had spread to his lungs. His cancer was caused by smoking and constant bladder/kidney issues from only having one.

My aunt drank alot when she was young, then stopped almost completely (except for a margarita very occasionally with Mexican food) for about 15 years. After her divorce, she started drinking again. Hers was probably the most affecting. She drank wine constantly, would get drunk and obnoxious, and she had untreated mental issues as well. She committed suicide at the age of 42 in 1994.

My brother is extremely irresponsible and drinks too much. He has been jailed and he has a couple DWIs. He gets into horrible arguments with his girlfriend and drinks to escape his crappy life. He doesn't know when to stop drinking once he starts. He's a great father to my niece, but he and I are not close, just never really have been. He is still alive and is 36 years old.

I am not an alcoholic, and neither is my mother (the side of the family where the majority of the alcohol issues come from).

My point is that some people abuse alcohol, some people drink too much, some people are alcoholics. But one can drink too much and still not be an alcoholic. Some people can occasionally abuse alcohol and not be an alcoholic. Other people NEED it, CRAVE it, and can't control their intake at all. I will admit that I used to "binge" drink on weekends to go and have a good time, get drunk, party. But I didn't drink at home, I never craved it, if I didn't go out on the weekend, I didn't drink. It was a "going out" thing, not something I regularly did.

You say your boyfriend knows when he's had enough and will stop. I know that alcoholism is progressive, and he may get worse, and he may not. To me, the true test of whether a person is addicted to alcohol is if they can go without drinking at all and it not phase them. I've had maybe 5-8 alcoholic drinks over the past 8 months --- all single drinks at different times. If someone were to tell me today that I can never drink another alcoholic beverage again, I'd be fine with that. It's not an issue to me.

Alcoholism defined is the addiction to alcohol. If it is controlling his life and he is not controlling his drinking, then he's probably an alcoholic. But just because he drinks alot doesn't automatically make him an alcoholic.

Good morning and thank you all for your responses.

I admit I am naive and unaware of things about an alcoholic, which is why being here and reading everyone's posts has been great for me. :-D

I guess I do not know a true definition of "alcoholic" besides "someone who needs alcohol"

I wouldnt say he "needs it to function" because I am 99.9% sure he never drinks during the day (during the week) and he functions fine. I have seen one day and one day only where he drank nothing. He told me more than once that he felt really good that day and he would rather feel that way and that he's tired of feeling the after affects of alcohol.

There ARE some times, one or two days a week maybe (sometimes less) where he does not drink 'much'. Maybe 4 beers after work and doesnt seem like there is ANY affect really.

Most days I DO see an affect. He gets more chipper, his eyes are glassy.

Another thing that maybe I have rose colored glasses about is, he doesnt seem to be on a down ward spiral. He seems (from what he tells me) to be improved.

It sounds like he was a major party boy all through his younger days, he's got story after story of car accidents (never him driving and his record is clean), and bad things that happened. Drinking was always going on and a lot of it.

8 years ago he settled into a non-partying lifestyle, but still.. he lived with the alcoholic old man and had an alcoholic GF. The drinking was still around, just no chaotic partying.

Over time, they both died.

He has since bought a house and he's pretty into and proud of "making it" even tho he made some choices earlier in life that affected how his next years would go.

1) bad marriage- that eventually ended.
2) 3 kids- he gets along with them well and always made sure child support was paid and his balance is $0. They are all over 18 now.
3) relationships- he says he has learned his lessons well and isnt going back to ever being in a bad dysfunctional relationship.

He's in a really good place in life now. He has more money since he doesnt owe child support anymore. Has a house. Same job. Associates with no one who is an alcoholic. He counts it as 'better' that he drinks nothing hard, that he never gets up and drinks like he would when he lived with other alcoholics.

Maybe the next step is just giving up the beer for good? He seems to have progressed over time towards better.

I've found for me, that if I am thinking someone else needs to change in order for me to be comfortable, I really need to evaluate where I am at, and what my current relationship is with that person. :)

I had a lot of questions about whether my mom was an alcoholic. She died a long time ago so there is no 'progression' to see or not see - just hind sight.

I denied that out right and just didn't think about it or question if for years. Until very very recently actually.

So, I'm trying to look at it through my eyes. Why exactly would I buy a 6 pack on my way home from work every night? Why would every day off be consumed with drinking? I'm not socializing, I'm not enjoying a drink with a meal, I'm not partying, I'm not anything out of the ordinary, it is just another day in my life. I don't drink a 6 pack to hang out with my kids. I don't crack open a beer in the car on the way home from the grocery store. I don't drink 12 beers when spending a Saturday with my family. What would it say about me if I did that? Why would I ever do such a thing?

I married an alcoholic too. He was a binge drinker/all the time get drunk drinker at first and then eased off into a beer drinker a little like you describe and while it seemed better, it was really just a different phase. Anyway...

I have a lot of compassion for why some people might start to drink or find themselves in such emotional pain that they would need that beer in their hand all the time. But the end result for *me* is that, when it reaches the point where addiction is in charge, the beer is the primary focus. I'm great to have around and they loved me and all, but I really just needed to stay out of the way of the fridge. As long as I knew my place in the hierarchy of life, all was well. The sneaky part is that pretty soon my role demands more then just acceptance - I am 'needed' to pick up pieces, provide emotional support, financial support, understanding, the need about sucks the life out of a person, all sorts of emotional and physical enabling. It was different with my mom then it was with my husband but I'm beginning to be honest that it was a bit soul destroying in both cases. As a child I just assumed I was not enough. I didn't even know why. I remember my mother as a great, loving, fun, dedicated mother. Others do to and she was all those things. She also drank to much. She had tons of her own ACOA issues un-addressed depression and probably PTSD. As an adult, I just thought I needed to work harder, smarter, longer and be better, to get the family I wanted. I did all kinds of mental gymnastics trying to live with denial while managing my life and eventually I hit a mental bottom before my xah did.

I'm not sure why I was so long winded other then a preface to saying - tread carefully. You made your last statement like quitting the beer was the final step and it would be so easy. Nothing about this is easy, even if he isn't an alcoholic he is drinking a lot of beer as a matter of course - and why would he be doing that? No matter what the answer to that question is, quitting isn't going to be easy.

A clearer explanation of how he is:

Gets up at 3 am for work.
Gets home, if he has nothing to do, at 2:30.
Most days will crack a beer right then.
Always in bed by 7 or 8pm, drinking never causes him to change this.

I dont know if he is a homebody or if the drinking rules this, but if he has things to do he will do them quickly after work. He is ALWAYS home by 4. He doesnt ever NOT do what needs to be done, so that he can come home and drink, but he doesnt ever spend any great amount of time out running errands and stuff.

He's an early riser and the type who doesnt sit around much, so he's always up by 7 at the latest on weekends. He gets all his errands out in the world done then. Maybe thats so he can be home to drink, I dont know. He's always done running errands by 10 -11 am and home after that.

He will drink starting around noon-1 on weekends.

On Fridays, he'll work and not drink until after we go out, if we go out that night. It never seems to be a problem. Latest we've been home is 9 pm.. We never do any partying, just dinner and a movie or something. He never seems jumpy or anything because he hasnt drank. But he always WILL crack a beer when we get back. Many times those are short lived drinking nights and he doesnt act like 'woohoo its friday I should get trashed!'. He'll have a few and we go to bed.

So, in a way, it seems like he doesnt let it RUN his life, but maybe that he has adapted his life to accomodate it in some ways.

He never cared if anyone is drinking at the same time as him or not, he still does.

Examples: some weekends I will drink with him. I never ever start during the day and never do until I know driving will not need to happen. Since he's started around noon.. (and is a morning/ daytime person) by the time I want a beer (7/8/9 at night) he's winding down and the drinking time together is 1 or 2 beers for me and he's done with it for the day so I drink 1 or 2 and he drinks 1 or 2 during that time and we both stop and the days over. So it isnt a big social thing we do together. I never drink during the week.

Ex: For a month or so his friend came over every Saturday to help him reside his garage. His friend wouldnt drink or would drink very little. BF would drink beer the whole time.

During the week I have none, he never asks me to, he still drinks.

I would say, yes, he IS an alcoholic, because its always present in his life. He just seems to have enough control to not let it control him in serious bad ways.

I dont know why he does it. I dont know what he gets out of it. He doesnt seem less confident while not drinking or more confident while drinking..I have no idea why he does it.

Look at how much thought, time and energy you are expending trying to figure out what the hell is going on with this guy. He seems too good to be true AND you have some unease. You are posting to a Recovery website, you instinctively KNOW there is something wrong here, but you can only identify your concern for your children. This is all typical of what we ALL have gone thru and are going through. Sweetheart, this man has a problem - TRUST YOUR INSTINCTS. Get your bee-hind to an Al-anon meeting. Get yourself a copy of CoDependent No More. And please do not marry him.

Only he knows why.

My point was that for you and I, who do not have issues with alcohol, we really can't think of a reason why we would do that can we? It is unreasonable to us.

He may or may not have a physical addiction. He may or may not have a mental addiction. He may or many not be able to quit. He may or may not be an alcoholic.

He drinks a lot and there is a reason for it. Alcohol is a mood altering substance to every human, alcoholic or not, and he is altering his mood for hours every single day. He alters his mood when he is siding his garage, when he is hanging out with you, when he is with his friends, when he is spending time with children, etc.

This I why I say tread carefully. You are at a point where you can make decisions about this relationship. What is best for *you* right now? What do you want now and for you future? What do you demand from a partner?

He ever misses a day, starts extra early on the weekends because he can... how many bears does he drink a day? you said maybe 4 on a slow day?

I just read your other thread. This man has a long long history with bill board sized red flags everywhere. You have three very young children.

Be very very cautious. If you choose to continue this relationship keep separate houses. Join an Al-anon group!!! Maintain some physical and emotional space between the two of you so that you can maintain a health perspective as things unfold. It is very easy to get entangled and lose perspective. You have so much at stake. Due to the red flags, you want to be able to continue to objectively evaluate if this is good for you and your children and you want to have the skills o look out for yourself first no matter what, and al-anon can help you with that. Al-anon is all about *you*.

I don't think it really matters whether he's a functioning alcoholic, or a problem drinker or gets fall-down drunk everyday. If his drinking is a problem for you, it's a problem for YOU. But it's not a problem for him. And you can't make choices for him. You can't control his drinking. You can't make him stop.

But you can set boundaries for yourself about the kind of behavior you will accept around you and your children.

If you don't like that he drinks around your kids constantly, you can say, "I think it is harmful for my children to see you with a beer in your hand 24/7, therefore, if you are going to drink, don't do it in our home or around are children. If you do, I will be forced to reconsider this relationship and our living arrangements."

Of course it's up to you what you do and that is just an example, but never draw a boundary if you aren't willing to follow through on consequences...

Al-anon meetings would be so helpful for you.

Ok, I've read all your threads. You are spending a LOT of time glorifying and idealizing the rest of this relationship, and this man. If everything's so unbelievably amazing, what's the problem? As you said, it's that he always has a beer in his hand, and you don't want your children to grow up around it. Ok.. so that's a fact. And he's unwilling to change it. What are the next steps for you? Either be ok with your kids growing up in a questionably alcoholic home, or don't. Ball's in your court, ma'am.