Can I FORCE my AW to quit?
 

Hi,
I'm new at the forum - and would welcome your comments
My wife drinks half a bottle to a bottle of hard liquor almost every day – much of it during the morning and early afternoon when she is alone at home. She’s built a high tolerance and manages to function reasonably OK while drunk. She takes care of the kids (4 and 5 y.o.) when they return from day care, cooks, cleans the house, and occasionally makes a sporadic effort to find a job. She is a good person, but clearly in a self destructive spiral and half the person she could have been.
We talk about her problem from time to time. She knows and readily admits that she is an Alcoholic, and often promises to control it – but only to continue as usual the next day. She did go to AA a couple times (but says she didn’t like it) and managed to stay dry for a several days on a few occasions – but then reverts back to old habits.
So far I’ve only tried soft persuasion in all its forms, with at most non-specific comments like “if you don’t quit – we’ll end up divorcing”.
Now, after 2-3 years of this, and with the children soon to catch on (BTW – at what age would they understand that mommy has a problem?), I believe that I am not doing her any favor by not coming on stronger.
I’m thinking of giving her a hard choice:
“Either we divorce now OR you let me essentially control your life until YOU regain control”
The second option would mean that
I would take away her bank card – so she will not have the ready cash to buy the booze
I would bring a breathalyzer home and monitor her. I she fails the test I would impose a “punishment” (for example – demand that she then and there do some unpleasant chore around the house).
I would provide an activity schedule for her to do every day, and call home several times a day to make sure she does what I asked her to do (e.g. for example – spend a solid couple hours on the internet to look for work, or spend sober quality time with the children).
Now here is where I’d like your comments – obviously, my demands would be controlling and unreasonable under normal circumstances. But given the current situation – would I be out of line taking control of her life? Would it likely to succed?

Wow, I am sorry that you are going through this, especially with young children to take care of.

It's great that you have found us, and wiser folks than I will be along soon. Read the stickies at the top of the forum...very helpful. Reading the AA Big Book was helpful for me too in understanding the disease that is Alcoholism.

We did not CAUSE it...
We cannot CONTROL it...
We cannot CURE it...

The only thing we have any control over is ourselves. Most of us here thought we could influence our A's drinking...we bargained, we begged, we yelled...mostly we made ourselves crazy...literally. But none of us can change the drinking habits of an A, nothing but their own desire to change.

Stay, read, post. SR has changed my life for the better. And I hope we can help you too :)

You are not her parent, she is not a child, and you cannot force her to quit drinking. You don't have that right. She is an adult and if she chooses to drink, then that is her business. If you want to control something, why not control your own actions and either remove yourself and your children from the situation, or give her a choice of getting help or getting out? There are many options rather than attempting to force your will on another adult.

Sorry to sound so harsh, but your post kind of upset me. I have a problem with control freaks as I was once married to one.

You can only control yourself. Period. Sending you peace.

You cannot force her to quit. If we could, nobody would be here, on this board.

On the other hand, you need not enable her drinking in any way.

Enabling, in a nutshell, is to do for another adult what they should be able to do for themselves. It is anything that supports, directly, or indirectly, her drinking, or her escape from HER consequences from her drinking.

If she wants to drink, she should provide herself the money, transportation, location, (reliable) childcare and other things she "needs" to drink, apart from your home and children. If she is not able to provide herself these things, to continue drinking, you need not take it on as your problem, with the exception of keeping the children safe. (Keep in mind, though, that if she is legally married to you, and drives drunk, and gets sued for any reason, you are legally liable as her spouse for the expenses she incurs.)

And finally, the children need your protection, above all else. She is utterly unreliable, drinking actively, whether she "looks" functional, or not.

Your choice is whether you want an active, unreliable alcoholic in your household, and near your children. You have choices about that.

Welcome to SR, keep coming back! As you read around, you will learn many things.

CLMI

Hold on...she cares for the children after having drunk half a bottle of hard liquor? This is dangerous. Your children could become injured. I wonder if this couldn't be grounds for CPS to remove the children from the home...

IMO, your priority needs to be safeguarding your children against an adult who clearly has no control or no desire to control her addiction. If I were you, I would find alternate childcare for your children when they come home from school (perhaps a mother's helper to go pick them up at the bus stop and supervise homework until you get home).

I would also consult a lawyer ASAP about what you could expect with regards to custody and separation. As nice and lovely as your AW (alcoholic wife) is, she is also an addict who isn't in recovery. You could have grounds for obtaining sole custody with supervised visitation for your AW, until she has been in recovery for at least a year.

I agree with catlovermi that you can take steps to stop enabling her to drink, but as previous posters have mentioned, you do not control this woman and you never will. Giving her ultimatums will most likely result in drama, accusations, tears, etc. Focus on the one thing you CAN control: yourself. What do you want in your life? What are you willing to live with and what aren't you willing to live with?

I do hope you keep posting and reading. SR is always open.

As with the others, unfortunately, there isn't a damn thing you can do.

I tried just about all the things on your list. (Well, most of them.) I'd be willing to bet that most everyone here has. They don't work. While a non-addict sees the rationale, the addict won't. So don't waste your time and energy.

Pull up a chair and stay awhile. Read, and learn, and welcome to our sad fellowship. (Well, only sad for some. I left my alcoholic husband, and life is SO much better for me.)

Good luck
D

Hey man,
You’ve really only got two choices in your situation;
1) Put up with her behavior.
2) Don’t put up with her behavior.

I tried to get my wife to quit…didn’t work.
I filed for divorce and got my son out of the situation.

Good luck and as others have said, take care of your kids!

It might be clearer to pose this question differently.

If your wife were a complete stranger:

Would you try to keep this stranger in your household and control this stranger's life in these ways, or remove this stranger from your vicinity while they behaved in such a manner?

Would you give this stranger access to the inside of your home, your bank accounts, your children, knowing they are chugging hard liquor?

Would you hire this stranger to babysit? Drive your children around?

Would you co-sign a loan to this stranger? Extend them onto your auto insurance?

Would you invite them to live in your spare room, on the chance they would change?

***************

Food for thought.

CLMI

You can not control another person like that. It is logistically impossible and not respectful or functional - and we've all been there with trying to control our loved one's drinking to various degrees. It makes for a really crazy life and it simply does not work.

I can be a control freak and when things are out of control I tend to try and control even more - a terrible cycle with all sorts of negative repercussions - but it doesn't work because I'm attempting to control the wrong thing. I can control myself. My decisions, my choices, my actions. I can determine what I will live with, what I will accept in my life and for my family, and what my response will be to various things. Then I add to that reality (not my dreams of what could be) and the courage to act accordingly. I spent many years trying to control the wrong things with the wrong focus and being to afraid to act because I couldn't predict the outcome (form of control).

When I quit denying the problem and when my life became completely unmanagable I began to learn about alcoholism, enabling and co-dependence. I began to learn about my choices and define my boundaries. There are a lot of stickies at the top of the forum that I found really helpful when figuring those things out.

You can take the time to figure these things out. You don't have to know the end answer in order to take the next step. You just have to know your boundaries, focus your priorities (which are hopefully yourself and your children), and do the next right thing.

Consider some kind of childcare arrangements when you aren't home. I have young children too and I finally had to do that and I should have done it earlier.

Why would you want to do that to yourself? Trying to control someone else is crazy making and exhausting. All that checking up on, imposing punishments?! Your wife has an addiction, she is not a criminal or a child.

You can choose to be around her or not. You can't force her to stop. She might go along with it for a while to please you but that isn't recovery.

welcome!

as others have said it appears not, many of us have tried :) repeatedly LOL, before accepting defeat.

I know you are desperate, becasue I was desperate and I recognise myself in your post, trying to think of solutions to a crazy situations. but really, how would it play out even if you could force her to stop drinking; her resenting you for controlling her and taking away her choices, eventually hating you? you exhausted with the effort of it, with the worry? would she find sneaky ways of drinking anyway? It is unlikely you'd be able to police her every moment without becoming her jailor and how would you feel about yourself in this situation? not a relationship I'd want.

I wanted him to stop drinking, man up, stop the erratic and abusive behaviour, become reliable, take responsibility etc etc AND be happy about it. Tall order.

that doesn't mean you have to continue as things are, and if you are ready to share with her that unless she choses to become sober you won't continue with the relationship, and are fully prepared to carry through with that, then there is no reason to delay. If some thinking time for yourself is in order so thst you can be fully prepared for any action, then getting yourself some support, al anon or a therapist are good options. A priority would probably be to organise alternative childcare and start shoring up, and if possible seperating your finances, so that no matter what the outcome you are prepared.

I have been in your situation and wished I could force my alcoholic husband to stop drinking, too. I understand the wish. I really do.

I agree with everyone else -- you can't. Even if you were able to force her to stop drinking, at what price would that come? What would it do to your relationship? If she doesn't quit drinking by her own choice, she hasn't really quit drinking, if you get what I mean. It's like a pastor of mine said once -- anyone who can be talked into the kingdom of God can be talked out of it. Any real life change has to come from within.

I can hear the love you have for this woman. I can also hear the desperation in your voice. You want the wife back that you married. And you're willing to take extreme measures to get that. But forcing her to quit drinking wouldn't give you that. It would give you a resentful wife that can't drink anymore because her husband is watching her every step. It would alter the balance in your relationship, and not in a good way.

What I found out the hard way with my alcoholic ex-husband was that he didn't hear me all those times when I said, "if you don't get treatment for your alcoholism, I will leave you." Because he had heard it so many times, and I didn't take action. And when I finally did, he was at a loss, and told God and everybody that he had no clue why I left -- really, our marriage was completely and utterly idyllic.

You have the right to live your life without alcohol abuse in it. And so do your kids. You don't need to protect your kids from the truth that their mother has a problem. You have the right to say to her: "I will not live with alcohol abuse in my home anymore." You have the right to give her a timeline, and say, "I will give you until the end of January to either get yourself into treatment or find yourself an apartment."

That is not controlling her actions. That is controlling your surroundings.

And I second the part about looking into Al-Anon for yourself. Living with an actively drinking alcoholic does a number on you. Lots of love to you and those kids.

Hi there
I"m glad you're here.
This is great, you're asking all the right questions. I'm guessing you don't know a lot about alcoholism, or codependency, but there are "stickies" up at the top of the page when you first get here that are FULL of very very helpful information.

Amazing things can happen when we focus on ourselves and take care of what we actually have control over: ourselves and our children. I was obsessed with my husbands drinking when I came here, and now live a very full, happy life while he drinks. Not my business anymore, actually, other than how it affects my kids, and what a relief!

Welcome!

Boy do I understand where you're comming from. I'm greatful I don't have kiddos to worry about now.

So here goes: I was in hell trying to control my wife's drinking. I tried everything to get her to quit. You name it, I've done it. IT HAD NO EFFECT, except to **** me off because MY SOLUTIONS DID NOT WORK! Nice or heavy handed, it DOESN"T MATTER. Alcoholism is a disease. Until your wife is ready to face it, nothing is going to help.

You write about giving her a choice, she has made a choice to continue drinking and not seek help. Let her face the consiquences of her actions. She is an adult. I would urge you to let her have the dignity to make her own decisions, not that you have to support them nor deal with the consiquences of her actions.

Now, for you: Take care of your kids & YOURSELF. That's the bottom line. Do what you need to-one day at a time. Check into Al-Anon. It has helped me!

Only you can decide how much you are willing to put up with. I've had enough fighting & resentments. I can stand it no longer & I'm taking the steps I need to. As much as I love my wife, it means divorce. In my situation, I'm preventing her form the full consiquences of her actions, and hitting her bottom.

Thank you all for your answers. There seem to be unanimity that what I’m contemplating is the wrong way to go. The thought process that led me to this idea centered around the fact that I would be doing something good for HER by being hard on her. That by my being forgiving –I wasn’t doing her any favor.
I don’t want to tell her “Get out!” because it will go to the core of her fears of abandonment. I want to give her a sense that I’m here for her if she tries to quit.
And with respect to the children – they love her, and she loves them. The drinking affects her into being more irritable, more tired, less attentive to the kids, an occasional burst of anger. But she is not an abusive parent in the more typical sense of the word. And I may not be objective because they are my children – but I think they are growing well and happy and I’m proud of their achievements. They are almost always jovial and boisterous and have no behavior problems that can be attributed to their mom being an alcoholic.

Rhode, I would gently suggest that you check out the ACOA board (Adult Children of Alcoholics) and broach the topic of what it was like growing up with an alcoholic parent, whether they were "abusive" or not. I'd venture to say that however jovial the A parent was, there were *always* repercussions.

Sorry to burst your bubble here, but this is a sensitive point for me. I coparented my XAH (ex alcoholic husband)'s son, from the age of 6 to the age of 12. I saw what effect his father's addiction had on him, and once my daughter was born, I came to realize that she would become like her brother if I didn't do something. So I left and took her with me.

Catloveme suggested
"If she wants to drink, she should provide herself the money, transportation, location, (reliable) childcare and other things she "needs" to drink, apart from your home and children. If she is not able to provide herself these things, to continue drinking, you need not take it on as your problem, with the exception of keeping the children safe."

How would you do it technically? Separate our bank accounts? She has no separate income - so I'd have to give her money -but then she would still use it to buy the drink.
And about letting her fall on her but and face the consequences - I don't know how to do it without it being me that in the end takes the brunt. For example if the health insurance company learns she is an alcoholic and she looses coverage - it becomes MY problem as the bread earner.
And I can't just let her fall. She is the mother of our children.

Well, that does sound pretty harsh. Sounds like control triggers you.

I'd be willing to bet that under "normal" circumstances Rhode wouldn't even consider such measures. After all, he is only "considering" them, he hasn't acted on them.

I'd be willing to bet many of us married to alcoholics have "at least" considered insane ways to cope with, well....the insanity. I know I have.

I'm triggered when some poor guy comes on here and is judged harshly and even labeled a control freak, for responding poorly to living with insanity, and "considering" what many of both genders on here have done under similar circumstances.

I like you Suki, I've just seen men who really, really needed this forum never post again from getting their ba!!s busted right out of the chute.

I probably should learn not to respond to posts that trigger me! :a213:

MOST of the time I don't. Progress not perfection.

Thanks and God bless us all,
Coyote

My ex had the same fears. It was probably the most common conversation we had when he was drunk: how people always leave him, don't like him, don't understand him, and how I was the only one that did. In my marriage, that was what kept me there -- how could I leave a man who only had me in the whole universe.

I think it's a pretty common "tactic" (conscious or not) with alcoholics, to refer to how "you're probably going to abandon me, too, just like everyone else" -- that way, they remove the focus from their behavior and tries to place it on yours. That way, they don't have to take responsibility for their behavior as the cause of you leaving -- you're just doing what everyone has always done to them throughout their lives.

Just one word of warning here: My children didn't seem to have any problems either while we were living with an active alcoholic. Since I left, two of them have been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder -- a very common diagnosis for children of alcoholics. As long as we were living with my ex, they were reining themselves in out of fear -- he was loving and abusive in an unpredictable pattern, and they learned to walk on eggshells so as not to set him off. Do you know what happens when you are not at home?

Most alcoholics don't decide to get help until they hit rock bottom. What that means is different things for different people. For my ex, losing his job didn't do it. It took my leaving for him to decide that he wanted to get sober. You can't love an alcoholic out of their disease any more than you can love a diabetic out of their wildly swinging blood sugars. As much as we all want to. It is her problem, that she has to choose to deal with.

Re your children. This is not just about their emotional wellbeing. It is also about their physical safety.

What if she needed to go to the ER?
What if she was carrying one of them and fell down the stairs?
What if she decided she needed a little "snooze"?
What if she left the stove unattended?
etc
etc

She should not be caring for them unsupervised at that level of drinking. Please put childcare in place before you do anything else. Like, today. Because CPS will if anyone finds out that this is happening.

Then maybe read the stickies and figure out where your nearest Al-anon meeting takes place.

Rhode, glad you're here. How old are your kids?

Perhaps you could arrange for daycare or after school care till you could get them after work. Then, at least her drinking wouldn't physically endanger them.

Once they're safe, you could relax a little and figure out your next move.

Please stick around, lots of wisdom and understanding here.

Other things I did was read "Codependent No More", it was suggested to me by the DA as he escorted me to the witness stand in our CPS hearing. I also attended Alanon meetings, as court ordered by a fierce CPS judge.

My wife couldn't quit, and we divorced and I was granted sole custody of our 5yo daughter. She's 9 now, and she's been affected. She's also smart, out going, does good in school, and by all out ward appearances, seems to be unscathed. But she's been affected.

Thanks and God bless us all,
Coyote

Hi, Rhode, and welcome to SR. I'm so sorry for what brings you here, but am glad you're reaching out to ask questions and get support for yourself (and by extension your children.

DS was 3 when I left XAH. Did he completely understand the nature of alcoholism? No. (Do I? No.) DS though did know something was up, that something was not quite what it was supposed to be. He saw his daddy's walking become staggering, he heard the slurring in his words. He saw his daddy pass out. I never, never, never what to see his face like that again. He came running back to our room crying and scared and said that "Daddy is sick like Goldfish" (Our goldfish had gone belly-up not long before.)

XAH had been able to 'hold his liquor' and hide his drinking well for a while. His drink of choice, BTW, was vodka, beer if he wasn't hiding it. It's part of a stage of alcoholism - increased tolerance. But the day came when he was no longer to hide it. DS saw it at 3. Kids take in and know so much more than we give them credit for.

The book Under the Influence helped me understand how alcoholism affects a person and how it progresses. (There are excerpts in the Stickies.)

It’s hard to watch the other parent of our children spiral down. As Lillamy noted, each person has their rock bottom, and that applies to us as the loved one of an A as much as it does to the A. Related to XAH’s alcoholism, mine was finding a picture DS had taken with my digital camera of XAH in the tub where he’d fallen and looked like he should have been passed out hours before the picture was taken. That was it, I was ready to leave. I saved part of my paycheck in an account XAH couldn’t touch and then used it for a security deposit for an apartment. XAH’s bottom? I don’t know. I don’t believe he’s reached his yet. It has not been losing his job(s), losing his truck, or even losing his family…

Wishing you peace and strength.

I wouldn't give her any money either, but it can be hard to put that boundary into practise.

Have you heard of the term "enabling"? That is behaviours that enable the alcoholic to continue to drink and not feel the consequences of their actions or behaviours that help them carry on with their active addiction, such as giving them money to buy alcohol.

I used to give my ex money too and then moan when he spent it on alcohol and got drunk. I hated him being drunk yet was facilitating it by buying the booze.

Other actions that could be enabling are making excuses for behaviour, lying for the alcoholic, financially supporting their addiction, putting them to bed when drunk, cleaning up vomit or pee, taking on their responsibilities because they're drunk or hung over...that kinda thing.

Basically she has no reason to stop because it's not got bad enough for her to want to. You earn all the money, pay for the booze and she stays home drinking.

Could you tell her if she wants cash for booze she'll have to earn it herself because you won't be paying for it any more?

Actually, by preventing her from "falling" or from reaching that all important bottom, you are denying her the dignity of finding recovery for herself. It is obvious you love this woman; doesn't she deserve that dignity?

To be more specific, I think you need to address certain issues:
a) Childcare after school: either daycare or a mother's helper.
b) Finances: removing her access to the money you bring in, and perhaps purchasing certain services directly from the vendor instead of giving her money to do so (and to spent on booze).
c) Removing yourself and the children from her presence when she drinks

At this point, it would be a good idea to figure out your boundaries and start enforcing them.

Welcome to the SR family!

Glad you found us and hope you will make yourself at home by reading and posting as much as needed.

I am sending you one of my favorite sticky (permanent) posts. It contains steps that have helped me and many others here while living with an addicted loved one:
http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...l-problem.html

Let us know how we can support you.

Rhode, the best thing I did for myself, my child & my AH was remove myself & our child. I felt helpless (and guilty) as things took a worse turn for my AH *until* he hit his bottom. He couldn't so long as I was enabling & controlling. My leaving was not only the best thing for me & our child but for him. He has been sober & in recovery for 9 months. I did a lot of what you did. I was the last enabler standing in my AH's way to his eventual path to recovery. Sometimes, the most loving thing we can do is to release them. (I love the saying about "giving the addict his/her dignity" to follow his/her path, make their choices, etc. As long as I was enabling, controlling, treating him like a child, I was not giving him the dignity he so deserved (regardless of his active alcoholism & its devastating effect on us as a family).Now I feel I can be of support to my RAH (by letting him do his own recovery--though I do want to "butt" in sometimes. )

I so feel for you. You will find lots of wisdom from those who understand how you feel. Iam learning so much from everyone here.

Hi Rhode-welcome to SR. It really is a fantastic place and I have learned so much here.

I am an ACoA and yes, it impacted me greatly. My mom was a 1/2 to full bottle a day scotch drinker--but never until after 5:00 so in her eyes she had no problem--sure. . .

I married 2 alcoholics and I have divorced 2 alcoholics. Until I came here I was a raging codependent. I really did not know what normal was. I would ask questions and people would pull things out of my post--and I would read it and suddenly a light bulb would go off and I would realize nope, that is not a normal reaction. We accept the unacceptable and try our hardest to control the chaos that is going on around us. It is like trying to catch running water in your hands-you can't. It just slips through.

It is hard when you have kids because you feel like if you leave you will be taking your children's mom (in my case dad) away. As people pointed out to me--he is still around. You are not taking them away. You are making them safe.

For me leaving was the only option. xah did occasionally admit he had a problem but he was unwilling to give up his first love-alcohol (well drugs too). My oldest son would cry and ask me why he would just not stop. Didn't he love them enough. Well, when you are an active alcoholic that always comes first. But since the divorce xah has gotten better around the kids. If he is drinking it is minimal (my oldest watches him like a hawk because he is hyper-vigilant). My life is pretty normal now. I am living peacefully with my children in my own house. I am working on my own codependency stuff. The kids live someplace that does not require them to tiptoe around.

Would I have chosen divorce. No. But nothing was changing and when I started to see some of the things I used to do as a child in my own kids it scared me. Also, we really were living in an unacceptable situation. Me and my kids deserve better. So do you and yours.

If no one has recommended it maybe hit the library and check out Codependent No More by Melody Beattie. Although my situation was not as extreme as hers--I recognized myself and realized what I am. It is hard to think clearly when you are in the middle of a crazy situation and are codependent.

Have you found an AlAnon meeting? That may be helpful.

Keep posting. There are very wise and knowledgeable people here.

you know I just reread that sticky pelican..once I did every single thing on that list all the time I felt better and my daughter sought recovery within 6 monts..I know there are no guarantees, but I know me getting out the way shortened her bottom..those are kinda the recovery 10 commandments!