deafhound

Hello.

I'm new, but have been reading threads for a while. I don't know if my husband (of 10yrs) is an alcoholic. I do know that I cant cope being with him when he gets drunk and I don't know what to do about that. Recently I have suffered panic attacks and I get extremely anxious if there is a prospect of him getting drunk, particularly if his adult RAS is present. I don't know what to do with this feeling, or how to respond.

Right now I am avoiding - I am sitting in the spare room with a stash of food and water. As crazy as this sounds I am counting myself lucky in that I was able to get to the kitchen and get myself some dinner without it leading to a fight (My husband cooks...If I go and get my own dinner he often (when drunk) implies I am only doing it to 'nag')

I just cannot handle drunken behaviour. It is like trying to communicate with a random personality generator - you never know what way it will go. Talking to a drunk is so intense but so meaningless at the same time.

So here I am, an adult woman, hiding in the spare room. wtf?!

yesterday was one of the most significant days of my life...I gained my PhD. When I woke up this morning I said to my husband "I feel that I have achieved something that can never be taken away from me."

Well, come early afternoon I had a sleep (been a hard week!). Seems that someone kidnapped my kind and happy husband whilst I was gone and replaced him with a druken idiot.

I said to him straight (well a bit tearfully TBH..I wish I could stay calmer) "I cant be around you like this. I cant control what you do, and I dont want to have to sleep in the spare room, but this upsets me too much and that is basically how it is"

It's Ok he said. I wont be getting drinking more. I'll make dinner and we can watch a movie.

Yeah right..5 hours later and half the drinks cabinet must be gone.

And that achievement I said can't be taken away from me?
I certainly feel he's doing a b****y good job of trying.
(and yes I know it's not his job to praise me (!), but...Why today?!)

I'm sorry for ranting. It is a jumble, I know. I have been reading some of the stickies/threads. i just wish I could sort out my anxiety...it is like I dont know where my crazy becomes his crazy anymore, if that makes sense?


I just am so grateful to have read all the posts here and feel like I am not alone.

Hollyanne

You are not crazy.
Congratulations Doctor!!!!!!!!

Lyssy

Wow!! What an achievement. Don't let him take anything away from you. You deserve to be proud and you are absolutely correct. He can't take that from you.

I don't claim to understand how the A's brain works, but mine (sober now) says stuff and acts jealous and tries to diminish my accomplishments.

It is really all about the A all the time. Good for you for not engaging, but sorry you are exiled to the spare bedroom

Welcome. Keep reading and posting

deafhound

Oh thankyou so very much. That is so kind.
It has been a long hard road....which is why I feel so sensitive about it.

It is hard when you live with someone not to take their 'stuff' very personally....it is part of the job description really.

EnglishGarden

Congratulations on getting your degree. It is truly a great achievement.

My alcoholic ex-husband also has a Ph.D. But being brilliant made no difference to his drinking. Like every other alcoholic, his life and his personality and his values and his choices were all completely dictated by alcohol. He could not control his drinking. He could not make a promise not to drink and keep that promise. He could not have one drink a day and keep to only that amount.

Birthdays, family vacations, dinners, breakfasts, Friday nights, Sunday mornings, airport pickups, company for dinner, mother for the weekend, first day of school, last day of school, Christmas.......all blown to pieces by his drinking. I always thought surely he would not drink this day, not now. He always drank. Every time I was stunned and gutted.

Your husband is an alcoholic and the life you are living with him today is going to continue. The odds that he will sober up and stay sober are extremely small. You have been waiting for him to change the status quo, but it is you, and you alone, who will have to take realistic action about your life. You can't stay in the spare room blaming an alcoholic for drinking and for making you miserable. You can do it once: the first time it happens. But if you keep doing it, then you alone are the one responsible for your situation and the only person who can change it.

Some people stay married like this for years, and they bury the alcoholic after several decades of misery, and then look around and ask themselves why they just blew three or four decades allowing someone to ruin their lives. I have seen it, many times.

Not only does alcohol control your husband's life, it also controls yours.

You'll need outside, face-to-face help: a counselor, or a support group, or both. Even if you leave him, and divorce him, if you do not get help for the emotional wreckage of having lived with alcoholism, your chances of marrying another alcoholic or becoming involved with another unhealthy individual are high.

Your first step can be attending an Al-Anon meeting and coming home with all the free pamphlets, particularly the one titled "Alcoholism: A Merry-Go-Round of Denial." It will describe him and it will describe you. To a tee.

The book "Getting Them Sober", Volume 1, by Toby Rice Drews is invaluable.

And the support of a no-nonsense realist therapist will give you courage and help rebuild your shattered self-esteem.

You have to do the work. You have to take the action. Soon.

deafhound

Yes, I do wonder if the drunkeness is not a reaction born of insecurity...not jealousy exactly, but there is an element of sabotage there.

But partly I feel to blame...I had several panic attacks in the build up to the viva (final interview exam) and my stress has had him on best behaviour for the past week...he was v.supportive in the final run up....I guess now he feels it can all be about him again. Which is fair enough in a way, although it seems a weird way of going about it.

deafhound

English garden,

yes. Thankyou. there is good advice there, and I am sorry to hear of your troubles.
My examiners took me out to lunch after yesterday and we had a

My husbands son is excatly the type of A you describe...hiding bottles, once he started he couldnt stop, crazy behaviour...our lives revolved around it for years. Couldnt go away, go to family, go out...crazy. He is in recovery and doesnt live with us.

My husband...different. Doesnt have the same compulsive look when he has a drink. doesnt always drink to excess only every month or so has a binge. Drinks most days, but it doesn't escalate. Very different in comparison to his son.

deafhound

UPDATE:

Well, that last post was interrupted by the sound of our dog barking.
Went downstairs to find dog hiding behind the fishtank.
Husband blood streaming from his hand holding meat tenderser.
Broken plate on table.
Apparently the dog bit him when he was trying to feed her a chew.

So...should probably update thread title.
"Me & small jack russell hiding in spare room. Drunken Husband downstairs."

deafhound

the bit that was interuppted was just incidental off topic...had a convo with examiners/professor bout drunks in academia...was trying to say something lighthearted but got interrupted...

deeker

Thank you for sharing that, just what I needed to hear. My husband is an addict but only became one about 4 yrs ago I was the real drunk in the family and I can only imagine how he felt when he saw me do the Dr Jeckly Mr Hyde transformation.

I feel for you and I want you to know you have really helped me today cuz I know that picking up a drink would just lead to that insanity and pain I put my family through all over again. You will be in my prayers tonight.

Pamel

deafhound, first congratulations on the PhD!! That is huge

As for your husband, I would bet that he is threatened, and that he is an alcoholic. I don't know how one deals with this; my Mother was a fine pianist (almost concert quality) and over time, ceased playing at all because it "depressed" my Father. Then, I could not understand any of this because I was a young only child, but looking back on it now, what a shame, really, for both of them. My Father was talented in his own right but alcohol destroyed him. My Mother also drank, very little, but continuously, after 4PM to "anesthetize" herself in order to live in that circumscribed world.

My Father died in his early 60s and my Mother lived to 89. She never played the piano again, and at the end of her life, she said: "My life wasn't exciting, but after your Father died it was pleasant."

Sometimes when people can't "grow" with you, you must move on. Be you and all that you can be.

AND, OMIGOSH, I just read what you posted while I was writing. I think you and the dog need to get out of this situation, fast!

deafhound

Pamel that is a very touching story about your mother.
I havent given up hope.
My husband was so genuinely pleased and proud of me....but the flip side is, I suspect, fear I will no longer need him.

I am trying to put in place boundaries...that is something I have learnt from these boards.

Despite the ridiculousness of my present situation, there was a time it would have been much worse. There would have been shouting and fighting.

Just now he came into the room and said he was going to kill the dog and complaining he needed help with his hand.
I said, calmly but firmly, you are not going to kill the dog. You are are are a grown adult and can sort out your hand for yourself. The dog bit you because you are drunk. I dont want you in this room and I will not speak with you whilst you are drunk. I want you to leave now. I will speak to you when you are sober.'
And whilst I had to repear the last bit 2 times, he quietly accepted that and just left.

That is a huge turn around, and I owe that to this forum. Thank you everyone.

deafhound

Pamel...it is I think what you would call quacking?

The dog bites drunk people.
The chasing the dog around after...I think was melodrama for my benefit. It certainly bought me downstairs.

Hammer

Hahahaha. Random Personality Generator.

Speaking as a Class Clown --- THAT is funny.

We say we never know which floor the elevator will open on. Press any button, it may just go anywhere.

Tuned that up a little, because even if he quits drinking -- without a Program, you still have crazy.

Hammer

WITH a Meat Tenderizer.

Have to soften up the dog before you bite them back.

THIS is some great comedy.

Can you get some video for Youtube?

[Hammer pulling up chair and getting popcorn]

deafhound

Hahaha. Thank you Hammer.

Yes, it kind of made me think that too.
An then, like little boy...I need help with my hand.

so, sort it out yourself!

"but its a puncture wound."

You know that dog isn't the best trained hound in the world, but she isn;t stupid. She bites drunks for a reason. lol.

deafhound

This wasn't exactly the celebration I had in mind, but thanks so much for making me laugh. :-)

Pamel

deafhound, I guess the blood and the meat tenderizer freaked me out a bit.

I WILL say that I am quite lucky to have an "unthreatened" man (but then I am the alcoholic in this relationship). At the worst of my drinking he was so angry that he said we "must" split up because he was afraid with the next episode he might really injure me. (We have quite a bit to sort through...) I don't EVER want to be un-sober again and test the situation!

He does get a bit threatened however when I invade his turf too much. I have learned to let him do his things his way. Right now we are both working on the computer, him upstairs and me downstairs, and he just asked me how to do something in Photoshop (quite easy for me, as that is a large part of my business) but when going through the steps with him, I thought: "He will NEVER remember all these steps." Sort of arrogant of me, I think now. I wrote them down, and although it will take him a lot of time, he has the time, and he will do a lot of "quacking" about how awful it is (yes, non-As quack too), but if I just stay out of it, he will get it done and be happy he did.

I am not sure what this has to do with your situation, but I guess I can understand that what appears to be violent may just be "quacking"; the bf does some scary stuff like that too, but I know he won't act on it. At least I think I know...

lillamy

Dr. Deafhound!!! Congratulations!!!!
You HAVE indeed achieved something nobody can take away from you.
Go you!!!!

And that, my friend, is all you need to know.
You don't need to have him diagnosed by 20 international specialists as an alcoholic.
All you need to know is that you don't want to be around him when he drinks.
And that he drinks a lot.

You have every right to a life free from the consequences of addiction.

deafhound

Yes...Pamel: re quacking: I guess we all do it to some extent. I know I do sometimes....

Well, as kind of evidence husband is/was quacking...
Husband has now appeared in tears saying the dog has really hurt his feelings and he doesn't understand why she would bite him...he's really hurt...feels really rejected...blah,blah

all part of the great rollercoaster ride of living with a drunk.