MrsA

Hi there,
My husband is an alcoholic and has been for many years. I guess I have been an enabler for quite some time, although always trying to fix him and stop him drinking at the same time, but I have just had a baby and have stopped enabling him. I've told him to stop drinking and lying to me or get out. Instead he has now started drinking outside the house. I don't let him have control of his money because when he has it he is ridiculous and we're broke, but if he does get money I have found him not being at work - he told work he is stressed and they gave him some time off - and with drink on him, which I took off him when I could, AND said you can't be around our baby if you've been drinking.
I told my parents and they said we can come and live with them (me and my baby) if we leave him, although I'd need to sell the house as I can't pay for it on my own.
He is still working (how he hasn't been fired god only knows) so if he moves out he'll have to leave his job as his mum lives miles away, and I don't really want him to leave his job, also his mum won't be much help and I'm worried he'd just get worse if I kicked him out.
I don't know how to help him. He says he'll start going to the AA soon - I hope he does. I asked him to bring proof that he's been there as I can't believe anything he says any more.
I want to help him, I don't want to take his child away from him, but I also don't want to put a baby through this. How should I talk / deal with him?
He used to drink a lot but now it's pretty much what he can get by bugging me enough that I let him have something, ie just one beer or something if he's struggling with a craving. Should I say none at all, or should I let him have this?
Any help would be great!
Also what are the signs that he won't ever get better and I should just leave? I don't want to watch the man I love slowly die with my little one there xxx

theuncertainty

Welcome to SR, MrsA. I'm so sorry that you've had to find your way here, but glad that you're reaching out for support. I'm also so happy that your family is supporting you while you consider your options.

With his bugging you for permission for just one or how-ever-many, he's making you responsible for his drinking. Which will very likely lead to him blaming you for his drinking. "But you said...." At least that's what I got from XAH, when 'we' tried to go that route.

It's really not your responsibility to find a way for him to keep his job, find a place to live. If he's old enough to be married and have fathered a child, he should really be able to figure out that he needs his job and roof over his head. You responsibility is to take care of yourself and your child.

I still can't figure out how to post a link to a topic in the stickies, but there's a thread called "10 Ways Family Members Can Help a Loved One with a Drug or Alcohol Problem" in About Recovery section that has a lot of good information.

Hugs for you and your little one.

feelingalone43

In my experience with being married to an alcoholic, you need to set some very firm boundaries, and be willing to stick by them. I will not "pick him up some beer while I'm out", and he now knows that if he is drunk, he may as well not talk to me because I won't interact with him.

I have been concentrating on my own health and happiness, which seems to make him want to work on his.

You have to let him make the decisions about whether to pick up that first beer or not. I tried many things to make my husband not drink. Guess what, nothing works. If I nag, he drinks. If I don't, he drinks. If the house is clean, or not clean, he drinks. If I cook wonderful meals, or a frozen pizza, he drinks.

MrsA

Thank you so much both for your replies. It means a lot that there are people who are willing to take the time and listen to my problems.
theuncertainty, I'm worried to go and live with my mum and leave him, firstly because I worked really hard for our house (although we jointly own it I've always contributed more), and I think he'd just mess it up if I left him on his own here. I think he'd not go into work and end up drinking in the house and god knows what mess it would be in. I guess I could tell him to rent a room somewhere local then he could still work(?) if he doesn't lose his job but I want to kick him out for the drinking do you think that could be a good idea? We are broke but renting a room shouldn't cost too much.
feelingalone43, I know how you feel - he does blame me sometimes. Sometimes he says he drinks because I nag, but then if I don't nag he does it anyway. I might stop interacting with him when he's drunk. Normally I just try and make him go to sleep (in the spare room) if he's drunk. Sometimes he snaps at me, other times he just goes, apologising profusely on the way. I am sick of apologies from him, I want action.
I tell him this - I need action - and he just gets really submissive, starts crying, says I am getting at him too much, pushing him and I should let him do this his own way without my pressure. Often he says he drinks "to get space" which I don't really understand. Other times my pressure is the reason he lies - he lies because he wanted to avoid the argument, but we have a worse argument when I find out he's lied. I hope he hasn't been fired from work, I actually thought he was going into work today (he said he was) but ended up needing something from him (my debit card I had accidentally left with him half an hour before as we had met for lunch - or what I had thought was his lunch break) so texted saying I'm coming to your work, come out in a minute and he rang and said I'm not at work, I've had a longer lunch I'm somewhere else, I said no come to your work, you need to go back there anyway and I was feeding the baby, so I didn't want to keep moving around looking for him. He came to his work, he gave me the card and I looked in his bag, there was a box of cider in it (the inside part of the box), he hadn't had much. I was so angry, I took the cider and threw it in a bin, in front of him. He confessed he wasn't working today, and had just wanted "space" - I get angry that he wants all this space when he has me and a beautiful baby at home - I said you're coming home. He says his work gave him that day off because he was stressed, I just fear he has lost his job. God knows what anyone from his work must have thought if they'd walked by, at least I wasn't loud or drawing attention to us. Thing is, he was going to just walk into work, with that cider, if I hadn't challenged him, wtf?!! How would that have looked?
So he assures me he's going tomorrow and I said I want to meet him at work, I want to see him come out of the building for his lunch and know he really is working. He's also saying he'll go to an AA meeting tomorrow night, and I said can you bring a leaflet or something as proof you've been? He said he understands why I want proof but is it OK to be doing this when he already says I nag him? I just can't believe him otherwise.
I have stopped hiding drink. I used to find things he had bought and hide them in the house because I was upset he'd wasted the money on them but now I make him tip them away so he really knows they've gone.
I think the reason he has started taking days off work to sit in the park and drink is because I've gotten strict at home and stopped enabling him. When I was enabling him he was more functional, went to work, etc, but now I've stopped he is putting his job at risk by drinking at work (I think), and taking days off sick but not telling me about them so he can pretend to be at work but really sit around drinking. So should I just start enabling him again? I even blame myself sometimes...

Pelican

Welcome to the SR family MrsA!

I hope you will make yourself at home by reading and posting as much as needed. We are here to support you, and we understand life with a loved one's addiction.

When I first came here, I learned about the three C's of my AH (alcoholic husbands) addiction to alcohol. They are:

I did not Cause the addiction
I can not Control the addiction
I will not Cure the addiction

It took me some time to accept that concept, but when I did - it was a relief. I gave the addiction back to the other adult in our relationship and let him deal with it and it's consequences. No more trying to chase an adult around with a pamper, broom and fire extenquisher!

I also learned when I joined this site, about wisdom that is stored in the stickies (older permanent posts at the top of the main page). And one of my favorites is the one mentioned above by theuncertainty. Here is the link to that sticky post:

http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...l-problem.html

MrsA

Thank you, I have read that sticky now, and will have a look at some of the others too. That is so powerful, I mean, it seems so harsh to me! I do quite a lot of what it says not to do - does it mean he'd have gotten better ages ago if I hadn't tried to help him?
Pelican what happened with your husband, if you don't mind me asking, did he manage to recover?
I'm so scared if I say deal with it yourself and let him fall apart he will kill himself and our baby will grow up without a dad. He has said to me before that he hates himself and wants to kill himself, and he only stays alive for us.

Pelican

would he have gotten better if you changed your behavior?
I don't think it works that way. That puts a lot of his recovery on your shoulders. I know the only thing that changed in my relationship - when I started following the steps in that sticky post - was ME. I stopped making myself crazy over trying to prevent, shorten or delay the next alcoholic incident. I started focusing more on me and my children, and that made me a less crazy Pelican!

When I started to get healthier, I noticed that I was accepting unacceptable behavior. I also noticed that I was modeling an unhealthy marriage partnership to my children.
I did not want my son to treat his future relationship partners the way my AH was treating me, and
I did not want my daughters to accept the type of unacceptable behavior I was accepting from their future relationship partners.
I needed to be a healthier role model.

I also needed to step away from the downward spiral that my AH was taking our family into. He was drinking and then getting behind the wheel of our vehicles and driving. He drove home from work with an open container of beer, everyday. He was losing control of his body functions in our home at night, and I was having to deal with the mess.
And financially we were a train wreck. I took away his credit cards because he was irresponsible. I limited his access to our family budget so that there was enough to cover the bills. And he found a loop hole!
He rented a P.O. box and applied for new credit cards at his p.o.box address. Then he used those credit cards like they were ATM cards and accessed cash to support his addictions (alcohol, cigarettes and gambling).

I chose to seek legal divorce.

My AH did get sober during our divorce and even found a sponsor at his local AA meetings. The children and I moved to another community 100 miles away. It looked like he was going to maintain his sobriety, and we attempted long distance dating.
Then things slowly started changing, I missed the early signs, but my gut told me he was lying about his sobriety. My HP (higher power) finally did what I couldn't do for myself and showed me my alcoholics truth of drinking and partying and lying.

It has been three years since my divorce.

I have forgiven him for not being what I wanted him to be.

I set him free to live life as he chooses. We are content.

I don't mind sharing my experiences. I have benefitted from the experiences of others and am glad to pay back the kindness and encouragement that was given to me.

If I may, I'd like to share with you my experience on something your AH has said to you:

The part I bolded in your above quote, about him stating that you are the reasons he stays alive - that is master manipulation. A common technique of alcoholics.

Also beware of frequent blame-shifting, denial, minimizing, justifying, and lies. Those are also common techniques used by alcoholics to keep others in-line.

Marytherboo

I can only say this. My AH threatened and unconvincingly attempted suicide probably a dozen times, each time when I threatened to stop enabling his drinking. When I finally threw him out and filed for separation he "tried" three times in three weeks. Then went to rehab.

MrsA

Pelican, thank you so much for sharing your story, I'm so sorry to hear what you had to go through, and it makes me determined not to go through that but I'm also worried I'm not strong enough to follow those "10 steps". I already do a lot of what it says is enabling. It says look out for emotional blackmail, and you identified the suicide threats but if he says that, or does an act that looks like he's trying to kill himself (for effect and to take the focus off me wanting to leave I guess) what should I say, should I just say "go right ahead" or walk away and ignore him. What I've done before is "oh no don't do it, I love you", comforting him etc, but is this the wrong thing to do and what is the right thing? I don't want him to really do it!!!
I want to focus more on me and my baby, but it's so hard to just let him get on with it - if I don't be a bit nice to him he'll lose his job and I don't know if he'd be able to get another one. Then I'd feel like it was my fault. Basically, what I'm saying is, if I did what it says in those steps and he DID get worse, I think I'd feel such huge amounts of guilt. It does make sense but - gah! How did you avoid those feelings of guilt? I know you shouldn't feel guilty as you are not the alcoholic but I think - I know - I still would feel guilty, does that make sense?
It makes sense being a healthier role model for your children, I don't want my daughter to have to go through this either. But I also don't want her to grow up without a dad
Sorry if this is a newb question but what is a sponsor?
How did you end up making peace and do you still worry what he's up to now you're divorced? Does he still see your children or doesn't he want to now you're not an enabler? When I read those 10 steps I thought "is my husband only staying with me because I'm an enabler and not because he loves me?" Is that what those 10 steps are saying?
Thank you again for helping. I hope when I get through this to be able to help others too xx

Pelican

Good morning,

I'm just off to work, but wanted to share what has worked for others in your situation.

When an addict (or anyone) threatens suicide, it is not up to us to determine if they are serious or not. We are not trained professionals. Therefore, the recommended course of action is to call emergency services (911) and tell them that there has been a suicide threat. Let the authorities determine if he is serious and get him the professional assistance he needs.

If he is not serious, the chances of him repeating this behavior are slim.

I recommend taking things one day at a time. Take small steps. Do one thing different today. See how YOU feel about your change.

Keep taking steps to take better care of you and your daughter and you will be amazed at how you begin to understand more and more.

Oh, Sponsors are people in recovery groups (alanon, AA, Naranon, etc) that have more experience than ourselves. They mentor us through our recovery process and accept our intimate revelations about ourselves, without judgement. They allow us to share and grow in a safe environment. The recovery process in the mentioned groups is a 12 step program that each individual works through at their own pace.

kudzujean

Great post, and this needs to be shouted from the rooftops:

"When I started to get healthier, I noticed that I was accepting unacceptable behavior. I also noticed that I was modeling an unhealthy marriage partnership to my children.
I did not want my son to treat his future relationship partners the way my AH was treating me, and I did not want my daughters to accept the type of unacceptable behavior I was accepting from their future relationship partners.
I needed to be a healthier role model."

feelingalone43

My AH has never blamed me for his drinking. And I actually think that is a healthy sign. He knows he drinks because, quite simply, he likes to drink. It was always me thinking that my actions dictated his consumption. Now that I know better, my anxiety and stress levels have come way down.

Mrs. A. You in no way, shape, or form, will be able to make a decision for an alcoholic. In my experience, forcing them to make a choice will only be a temporary fix because of the resentment it causes. Some alcoholics choose sobriety to keep their families in tact and healthy, but that choice only sticks if it is THEIR decision.

I would suggest making a list of your boundaries (behaviors you will not tolerate), and then talking to him calmly when you know he is stone-cold sober. Just make sure you are confident in being able to take action if he crosses your boundaries. Don't make idle threats, as an alcoholic can see right through those. As far as the threat of suicide, I think it is a manipulation attempt on his part as most people who commit suicide don't broadcast it first.

I have not been coming here to SR very long, but in the short time I've been a member, I have received the most incredible support and advice. Sometimes the words from others are hard to read, let alone accept, but there is nothing but care from these wonderful people. So keep posting. It helps!

FlyerFan

in the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous there is a chapter titled "To Wives" You may find some comfort in that, you can find it online for free i'm sure. Perhaps it will help you better understand things and figure out how you should handle your particular situation.

MrsA

Last night my husband said I've decided to go to the AA tonight. YEARS of me nagging couldn't make him go but he suddenly decided to go on his own - I was so pleased! He came back with a copy of the book as well so I'll ask him if I can read that chapter. Thanks for letting me know about that. xxx

FlyerFan

No problem. Very glad to hear that he went. Just remember don't pressure him, he will feel so much better if he makes himself go on his own, because he will feel like he can control his recovery. It is so hard for our partners to understand how we are feeling sometimes it is impossible to explain it to a non-alcoholic. But love and support are the two most amazing things to have when you are recovering.

silkspin

I know how you feel - things came to a head for us when our daughter was a baby and I get your frustration of having a beautiful family and baby and them turning away towards drinking instead.

I did many of the things you did - I never worried too much about the job because he was largely a weekend binger and didn't miss a lot of work, but I nagged, tried to control etc. I heard something powerful one time here - what if the time you decide to 'bail' him out of a situation would have been the time that he could have hit his rock bottom and sought help?

This really shows us that we are intervening where we shouldn't. It means we are overstepping our relationship boundaries to create or manage someone else's life, and that first off, never works, but also creates a terrible dynamic because that therefore can no longer be blamed for their behaviour because after all, they're not the ones calling the shots! Do you see how this is a vicious cycle? We are their partners, not God. It feels like we want so badly to step in a take over when we see them falling (and it affects us like their job) but in the end you have to let it all go because it's an illusion that you have any control whatsoever over this situation.

In the end, I knew in my heart that if I left, I would be ok. I have family, support, a good education. Somehow I would make it work even though it would be heartbreaking to accept it couldn't work. If you go that path and want your investment then sell the house, take your cut and move ahead. Whatever he does from that point on, whether it be moving towards recovery or moving towards drinking, is squarely his business. It would be sad and tragic but ultimately his choice. The absolute best thing you can do is control what you can, and that is the experience of your baby - they are the one who truly do need your intervention and it's better for them to have one healthy parent than none.

Not only does it not work, but I can only imaging how your life is currently consumed by him and his behaviour - asking for proof of being at work? Watching his office from the car all day to see if he goes in and out? Being his 'drinking higher power' and bestowing alcohol on him when he begs enough? Try to think about this out of your context - what if you saw a friend of yours doing this - would you think it overbearing and strange and not a healthy relationship? I know your motivation is fear but in order to have any movement in this situation you must deal with those feelings on your own and must un-mesh yourself from him. While you're living his life, who is living yours?

You said it was better when you were enabling and worse now when you've stopped (which I don't think you really have - you just put some limits on it that he doesn't want or like, and essentially he's right because he's an adult and should be able to live his own life). Usually when we actually do stop enabling, they will get worse, because they've come accustomed to you taking over and it allows them to keep drinking. So you've rocked the boat, and they will do anything to get you back on board so they can go have a cocktail. It is once they've realized that you are serious and you don't cave, that they realize that their drinking is their problem, and that could set the stage for recovery. As long as his recovery is yours things will likely remain the same.

Read about detachment. Really hard at first but once I started doing it, I actually felt better and it motivated me to keep at it. Very tough to get out of the bad behaviours we have fallen into because of addiction. He is an addicted person, everything he says and does is coloured by it. Even the promises of getting better in absence of actual action to get better. Promises buy time to continue addictive behaviours until the person to whom the promises are being made calls the bluff.

Al Anon is a great starting place for venting and support. And here. Learn about addiction, read Co-dependent no more by Melanie Beattie, take care of yourself and your child as priorities. If you put all the efforts that you were directing at him towards you and your baby, you'll be amazed at how your situation will start to change.