I think you're being very judicious with your use of the word "boundary" here - these are not boundaries by MY definition. You don't "allow" others to have boundaries, you don't put up a boundary today & negate it tomorrow because it's a holiday & then reinstate it.... this goes beyond the concept of bending your boundaries or restating them over time. What you all are doing is negotiating ultimatums, IMO.

You said in one response that all you're looking for is honest opinions by posting here but then you work overtime to justify, argue, deflect & explain.

The truth is that you are trying to convince yourself that this situation is acceptable by willfully ignoring red flags. You don't need to convince US, we have nothing vested in this situation. You have every right to stand by him but his propensity toward violence is what scares us for YOU. I think you are sitting on a ticking bomb & you know it & your family has already moved themselves out of the line of collateral damage as much as they are able.

You know the funny thing about our gut instincts is that they get scrambled after significant exposure to dysfunction, they become affected & inaccurate when we work so hard to convince ourselves to accept unacceptable behavior. It took me a while in recovery to correct this imbalance inside myself; I had gone so far down the rabbit hole that my own gut instincts weren't dependable any longer.

So "not drinking" is not a real boundary either?

I could understand how the man might be getting confused by all of this.
It sounds like you may or may not be allowing things, extending mercy and forgiveness if he does in almost a god-like manner.

Do you get how convoluted and crazy your "organizing" his drinking is?
Please quit being so defensive about your statements / actions and look at them honestly.
We are just trying to help and mirror what we see to you, and remember our help is based on many years
of experience of being both drinker and codie and living with it--there is some collective wisdom which could help if you would let it.

I don't have a horse in this race--it is your life and your choice, but man you really are setting yourself up here. :a043:

I think FireSprite has really spelled it out clearly and well.
Please reread her post.

I think the more you try to control your husband the more he is going to be angry. I would go on the cruise tell him you don't want him to drink, if he does drink that is his choice and if it gets out of hand then he and only he is responsible for it. What you don't want is to have him angry the whole time and to keep reminding you of him wanting to drink.

If he is sober except for a week a year on vacation, then I guess it is what it is. But he becomes a mean a@@hole when he drinks then, it pretty clear, he should not drink especially when you are on vacation.

Neat thing about a cruise is you don't have to be around him when he is belligerent. Go to the room, up on deck, go onshore without him. If dinner is a problem then eat before or after in the lido.

Speaking from the perspective of my wife, this is how she dealt with me when I insisted on drinking. She continued to have a great time, I was hungover in the room, but I did not have the sense at the time to back off the booze.

good luck to you and remember it is your vacation too.

Get separate cabins. On different levels.

I will share an experience I had with a little deal like this. My mom, sister, and my girls went on a little trip summer before last. My X basically knew I did not want him to come, but finagled to come anyways. I was weak at that time and not strong enough to say no, this is a girls trip. I digress....

When we got there we did some things separately, some together. He is not a swimmer, so if the girls and I went swimming or down to the lake in the day he would not go, just hang out at the cabin, whatever. He asked me if he could have just a couple of drinks on this trip when we were gone for the day. I said OK just b/c I knew he would anyways and I felt as though if I agreed he would hopefully just have the one or two he promised. He did do that, I never actually saw him drunk and it was OK.

This did kick off his drinking when we returned home to a new level. So while it did not ruin the trip thank God, it was the catalyst to drinking in a way he had not been before. While he did drink some before, it became much more frequent and more after the trip.

I will say that on a cruise there will be security around if they were to be needed, which is a good thing. I think it's wise not to look for trouble at this point but to take it a day at a time and get through the holidays.

I am not trying to give you more anxiety by sharing my story, just sharing what happened in my case as I do think you should be mentally prepared....in March, not now.

XXX

One of the things I really like about Al-anon/ AA/ SR forum is that you can SEE the results. There is tangible evidence that certain methods work and certain methods don't. I love talking to the old timers because they are WISE. There is a difference between smart and wise. A lot of those people are very wise in this area.
Of course your A is different and unique. You are different and unique. But I notice that alcoholism is not unique. We seems to struggle with a lot of the same things across the board....just different situations.
I think my point is that you can talk yourself into believing anything, but there are a lot of valuable resources around you from WISE people who have been there, done that. Take advantage of that.
I'm sorry you are going through this. I'm glad you are taking it one day at a time.

From my experiences, past and very recent, holidays and vacations are the most difficult for AH to navigate in a rational manner. He does his daily drinking and I've been able to sidestep that, but it's extremely difficult to have expectations met when the routine is broken for an activity that is inherently "fun." AH sees this as, "what's fun without alcohol?" And it always leaves me holding my breath. I have never been wrong in my fears that things will get out of hand on vacation, no matter what he promises about controlling his drinking.

We are trying to figure out Christmas plans with my 4 adult children, DDIL and DGS. Well, DS36 is opting out of Christmas with the family for the first time in 36 years. He wrote an email to his dad, copying the family, outlining all the holidays and vacations that were tainted or ruined by his father's drinking, using specific facts that are indisputable. It was actually a wonderful letter, confirming his love for the family and his dad, but saying in no uncertain terms that he has no desire to expose his son to such craziness.

This makes me proud of DS, but sad. And I only mention it because I want to emphasize that while your experience may be different, I think there are way too many triggers at holidays and vacations and cruise ships to expect that a newly sober person is going to act any differently than you might expect him to act when actively drinking.

He's not my AH, so forgive me for projecting my own experience, but I know I've been in your shoes, and the front part of my brain always naively believes what my AH says the day before vacation, but the back part always is whispering, "I don't think so" and thats the part that is always right.

Just Breathe,

I am going to be a worrier here and suggest that since you have decided your husband can drink on the cruise that you educate yourself about maritime laws, the laws of the country the ship sails under and any countries you may visit. You say you can only afford five drinks a day onboard but what about ports of call? I imagine draft beers are cheap just like they are everywhere. If your husband gets into a bar fight, caught with pot, or a dv situation. Your legal troubles could be catastrophic

so he's already planned out his next drunk. he's already said that on YOUR SHARED vacation he is going to the do the ONE thing you do not want him to do. the ONE THING. and in fact, he'll make sure you are miserable if he can't drink. so you are going to LET HIM. and see how it goes.

if you understand anything at all about the progression of alcoholism, you'd understand the concern many share here. it gets worse, even when you don't drink. that is why it gets harder and harder to come back after relapses...the disease progresses AS IF you had continued to drink the whole time.

he won't have just one or two and be fine.

YOU are playing with fire and you seem determined to stay right by the edge of the flames. which is totally your right. you think you've got a handle on things now....and he'll behave.

remember, once you are on that cruise, you really can't ask them to please take you home, or drop you off at the next port. YOU'RE STUCK for the duration.

Will he be drinking 5 drinks per day or the monetary equivalent of 5 drinks per day? I remember the cruise we went on the bottles of rum bought ashore were a far better bang for our buck than buying drinks on board. Then we'd make our own drinks in the room and carry them around.

I don't want to be in a relationship with an active alcoholic means that there is zero tolerance for alcohol when living together. I am choosing to make an exception for the week cruise, but after that it must stop again, or I won't want to be in this relationship. Slippery ground, I know, but we will see what happens.

I am making an exception for the cruise.

Like someone who is on a strict diet is allowed a week of splurging on their vacation. But he told me he does not want to splurge on alcohol in the cruise, that he will limit his intake. Does not matter anyways, as we don't have the budget for splurging.

For whatever reason (maybe because of past positive experiences on vacations), I have a boundary with alcohol while living at home, and I have another boundary when it comes to our annual vacation. If that second boundary does not work out, then I will alter it next year.

Yes, I agree. As long as I stay sober, I can get through this.

I am not trying to justify and explain his drinking behavior on the cruise. As a recovering alcoholic myself, I know that you cannot take breaks or vacations from abstinence, or else I would do the same thing! My husband has told me that he wants to drink on the cruise. I am choosing not to leave him over this, so I ultimately have to accept it and have a plan if he becomes belligerent. But I will not accept him coming back from the cruise and continuing to drink. He is the one taking a risk with this, and that is his choice.

I am not trying to justify and explain his drinking behavior on the cruise. As a recovering alcoholic myself, I know that you cannot take breaks or vacations from abstinence, or else I would do the same thing! My husband has told me that he wants to drink on the cruise. I am choosing not to leave him over this, so I ultimately have to accept it and have a plan if he becomes belligerent. But I will not accept him coming back from the cruise and continuing to drink. He is the one taking a risk with this, and that is his choice.

I have stated that I do not want to be in a relationship with an active alcoholic. Someone asked me what would happen if he was to have one beer. I will assess that situation when it happens. There are always shades of gray.

Yes, finally someone gets it! This is where I am at. By the way, my husband is very "fortunate" to not get hangovers. He always wakes up the next morning feeling fine and okay.

Yes, that is my fear that the vacation will go well, but then he will return to drinking when home which I would not be okay with. But I am powerless over his drinking, and he needs to make this decision for himself.

I hear what you are saying, but the irony for me is that we have had few problems with his drinking on vacations because he is happy. He becomes belligerent when drinking at home and an issue arises. Those same problems don't seem to come up and trigger him when on vacation.

Yes, and those will be his problems, not mine. It would be an expensive lesson for him, but I will still survive.

This is all a risk I am taking.

Okay, I thought about how to respond to this and the only thing I could come up with is this....

I would suggest you go back and re-read your posts from the last month or so and if you still think this is a great idea, then do it.

Not quite sure yet.

But Jb, you aren't just TOLERATING his drinking (which he has announced he intends to do), you've told him it's OK with you. THAT'S what I can't get my head around. If you told him that your boundary holds, and that if he intends to drink, you intend to be elsewhere if it makes you uncomfortable, then you are simply allowing him to do his thing and keeping your own options open. But he's gotten you to say it's OK! AND he is making you even more complicit by allowing you the illusion of control in the form of managing the money on the cruise. NOW you are giving him "permission"--all the while knowing how alcoholism works, and that he will be unable to sustain this.

Can you see how inconsistent this is with your "zero tolerance?" I'm not sure why you SAID "zero tolerance." I'd be willing to bet a large sum of money that if he came home tonight, completely drunk, you'd give him another chance. And that's fine--you have every right to do that--except that you now have zero credibility, rather than zero tolerance. Why should he take anything you say seriously?

I'd suggest you take a good hard look at what your boundaries REALLY are. Because it isn't zero tolerance.

I'm also not telling you what your boundary SHOULD be, just that you need to have it clear in your own mind, and if you communicate it to him (which you don't have to do--nobody is obligated to state his/her boundaries), you should be clear about it. Right now your "boundary" means nothing. It doesn't exist. It's a soggy pile of wet sand that can be pushed around at will.

I used to feel that way with my AH too. He never had become beligerent or nasty around other people. He just saved his ugliness for me at the house, and his mom a couple of times.

So in August we had a camping trip with friends planned, and he was drinking before we even left. I should have left him at home, but I was worried I wouldn't be able to handle the kids and setting up the tent and all that without him, and I figured he would be having fun with our friends so he would be fine.
Well I was very wrong. We had only been at the campground maybe 20 minutes before it started. What seemed to trigger him was that HE tripped over a rock and fell and got embarrassed. You can't control what will trigger them and you just never know.

My friends drove him home and the boys and I stayed and had the best time that we could. They helped me set up the tent. They helped me watch the kids, and it worked out great without him.

I will never go anywhere like that with him again if he is drinking or if he plans to drink.

I hear what you're saying though, Justbreathe, and I understand :)

Right now, my boundary is that I don't want to be in a relationship with an active alcoholic. I don't know what will happen in March and choose not to future trip at this time. My husband has brought up wanting a beer in the past weeks, and I have reminded him about my boundary, to which he stopped talking about beer. Things are going well for now. I am doing well with family, work, and my own recovery with AA and Al-Anon, mostly because I have held my boundary of not wanting to be in a relationship with an active alcoholic. We will see what happens in March when it comes.

Thank you for your understanding.

The "past weeks"???? who are you kidding?
the weekend right before Thanksgiving he was drunk and threatening to "snap your neck".
Today is December 9.

Jbreathe, you keep changing your mind about what you think is acceptable, but I really don't think you know what you want. the reality is that as his wife, you are liable for his damages and could be sued for what little assets you have. IDK, you will have to figure it out for yourself....but you don't seem to see his progression.

This isn't a happy little buzz drunk...this is a person who was drinking before work to cope with what upset he had over his job (that he does not have to use his mind for, your words). He has ZERO mature coping skills without pot or booze. this is not normal and you have bigger problems than how much $$ he is going to charge on the cruise ship...much bigger.

When was the last day he was ACTUALLY SOBER???? no pot, no booze, just him. Can you remember that person? Does he exist.

I understand what some of you are saying about losing credibility if I designate a zero tolerance for alcohol, yet am still unsure what I would do if my husband drank again.

Let me try to explain this. My current boundary of not wanting to be in a relationship with an active alcoholic is working, as my husband has been abstaining from alcohol and we have been having a nice time together since. If he does drink again, I will have to assess the situation, my thoughts, my feelings and everything else WHEN THAT HAPPENS. If I choose to give him another chance like many of you think I will, well then that will happen and we can go from there. May I lose some credibility? Possibly. But the final thing about all of this is that my husband will be taking a huge risk if he chooses to drink again, and he is capable of doing something that I cannot forgive in our relationship. In other words, he can only push me so far before I will want out and say, "I'm sorry, but that is it."

He has been sober from alcohol 2.5 weeks, so I rounded up to three weeks. I have already stated that he is sober from alcohol, and that I don't care that he is smoking pot because it doesn't really affect me. I have thought about being sued, but we don't have a lot of assets in our name. This is why my dad's name is on a lot of stuff to protect against that. What matters most is the PRESENT. And at the PRESENT time, he is sober from alcohol and treating me nicely and respectfully. And today I booked three shore excursions on wonderful beaches that I am very much looking forward to. My sobriety is my number one priority over my husband.

On cruises, I love the weather, the laying out by the pool, the beaches, the 24/7 food, the casino, the shows, the disco and dancing, the ocean view from my suite, walking along the cruise, the cruise activities, etc. My husband's drinking has not ruined my previous two vacations with him, and it won't ruin this one.