SurvivingAgain

Well this is my first real post......and it's not the post I thought it would be! I've been married for nearly 30 years, 13 of them to an alcoholic with all its ups and downs.

So thought I would let you know about my weekend. AH has been on a 10 day binge so far. Friday afternoon I get a phone call to say he's in the emergency room at hospital, he's drunk of course. I get interviewed by medical staff and police about his extensive bruising - wtf!!! He's been so drunk he can't stand most of the time. The doctors say he can stay overnight in the short stay unit, he's drunk and says no, I'm sober and say yes......guess what he comes home.

Drinks stupidly all weekend, so I make an appointment for both of us to see the doctor, he's too drunk to go so I go on my own and come out with a telephone number for an alcohol counselling service. He's been there before so I call and speak to his counsellor who tells me that due to client confidentially she can't talk to me.

Put the phone down AH says he's off to buy more alcohol, I tell him he's too drunk to drive and if he goes I will call the police. He goes, I call the police....they stop him and talk to him. They call me back and tell me he is definitely drunk......now just wait for this, he can't do anything because its his day off and he doesn't have his testing kit with him (we live in a small town with a part time police station), so he lets him drive back home.

Where do you go next?

LexieCat

Good lord, this cop doesn't know how to conduct a field sobriety test? And if he's off duty, how did he get the call to stop him? This, of course, is a separate issue from your husband's drinking, but I would call the Attorney General's Office to complain--I'd suggest the newspaper, but I'm sure you wouldn't care to be talking to a reporter about your personal life. That's a disgrace.

Sounds like you're not going to get him out of the house. Do YOU have any place to go to get away from this insanity? Are you in Al-Anon? If not, now might be the time...

Mizzuno

Wow! I am sorry to hear of this. Its sounds like a crazy battle that you are enduring. Keep posting. There is a lot of great advice here.

GettingBy

Wow. I like all that Lexie wrote about the police - nothing to add there.

What I can tell you is that when I truly became desperate ... I was willing to go to the ends of the earth for my sanity. I was willing to give it all away - and I did - to get the distance I needed from the alcoholic insanity. I kept waiting for my alcoholic to reach his bottom - I hit mine first, thankfully, because I don't see his anywhere in sight.

I'm sorry you are dealing with such insanity - I hope you have a lawyer or counselor you can talk to. Someone who can help you get a game plan together.

SurvivingAgain

Thanks everyone for your replies. I am thinking of going to al-anon, they have a meeting tonight in my area, but not sure if I will be able to get out of the house while he's drunk. He wouldn't mind me going if he was sober or even half sober but not as he is now. Even if I don't make it tonight it's definitely on my list of things to do.

I don't live in the US and we don't have field sobriety tests here.....perhaps I should get the local police mans work rota so I can when he's at work lol. It just so happened that he was walking in the village when I called.

There are hotels/motels I can go to if things too bad but I can't leave the dog in his care.....crazy eh!!!

For the moment we will keep on keeping on.

Lulu39

Nope. You will keep on keeping on. He doesn't give a fat rat's clacker. He knows that you will hold it all together for him and you and the dog.

I sure the dog would cope if you had to leave for a night.

How does it feel watching him get his drink on without a care in the world while you feel like your life is out of control? I know how it felt for me.

Hopeworks

Oh my... that brings back so many memories of the turmoil and insanity of life with a binger.

Alanon is the biggest key to finding your answers followed by reading books and learning about the disease and codependency. I also had a lot of great counseling and between all of those things my life began to change until it became simply fabulous! I did lose the A along the way but I found myself...

And funny thing... the A is in authentic recovery now and did all by his lonesome after I quit making it possible for him to drink by holding his life together.

Alanon. I can't recommend it highly enough... my XA almost burned the house down several times but in looking back I wished I had gone to more meetings in the early days and taken the chance he might do something insane!

Funny thing... for all my worrying about the catastrophes that might happen if I left his side he never did burn down the house but my house did burn down one day and he wasn't even in the same county!

All that worrying and it burned down anyway... life is uncertain. You just have to go live it fearlessly and deal with everything one day at a time!