GoodguyJoel

I feel for the OP here, my Aex did tons and tons of hiding in the last 6 months. She was crafty, but knew I would always find them because I told her I would. I asked her to not bring alcohol in the house for quite some time. Unfortunately, she couldn't stop herself...

Now, I guess I want to pose a question:

Is it wrong to pour out the bottles you find? She drank the small bottles of wine, and when I would find them, I would pour them out, sometimes right in front of her and call her on her lie. I said I told her I didn't want them in the house. I was sticking to my boundaries, but in a way, I don't think I made anything better. Likewise, marking bottles with a pen to monitor their intake. The things we do because we are so mixed up by all this...

Add some thoughts on pouring the alcohol out, and essentially baby sitting. Might help the OP.

Clover71

Once I set the bottles on the table and didn't say anything
I've poured them out a few times
I've marked them with a pen (just did this last night)
I've taken photos

The first time I discovered one (most recent since we moved) my hands were shaking. I confronted him several days later calmly and without anger. Then I decided I wasn't even going to look for awhile. I then started looking again. It's been "easier" for me when I look. I'm not as upset - it's just more or less it is what it is. I also know there has to be more somewhere else.

CentralOhioDad

If you pour them out, they will just get p*ssed and get more. I used to take photos of the vodka bottles and the wine bottles - no more. If AW wants to drink, by golly she's going to find a way regardless of what I do. Plus, it was driving me crazy. I have enough photos of her passed out on the kitchen floor and the toilet - I don't need to monitor her drinking as well - I know it's too much, just by her actions.

Plus, if I pour them out, she buys more and spends more of the household budget, and I'm CHEAP!!!

SparkleKitty

I think the pouring out and taking pictures and lining them up and all that -- if you're doing it all the time, then it's just something you're doing to distract yourself from the elephant in the room which isn't the hiding but the fact that you're living with an alcoholic. It also offers up an illusion of control that is, in my opinon, dangerous to get too attached to.

dandylion

To me, I think that pouring out the liquor or lining up the bottles to show them, or taking photos to show them, etc....is a very shaming thing to do. Like rubbing their nose in it. It is actually cruel...if one considers that alcoholics and addicts are riddled with shame..inside where others may not see it.
They know that it upsets others...that is one reason that they hide it. They know that partners don't want them doing it....and, they feel the monkey on their back. Shaming another person never ever helps a relationship...and, it sure will not change an alcoholics drinking....They have a powerful compulsion to drink...because they are alcoholics...that is what they will do...it has nothing to do with their partner.....they are not drinking AT their partner.....
I know that most all of us h ave done such things, in our ignorance, and because it seemed "logical" to us at the time.....

there are other reasons not to do it, of course....like COD says...they will find other ways to hide it...and they will get m ore. They will turn the shame into anger and hold even more resentment....adding more fuel to a stressed relationship battlefield.
Plus, it drives the detective person even more nuts...trying to control the uncontrollable.....
etc......

honeypig

I'm going to piggyback on dandy's post a bit--to me, bottle hunting and so on is a control thing, an attempt to force the A to see my reality and to admit that it is the "real" one, the "right" one. It is aimed at changing someone else, or at least their perceptions, and thus it's doomed to failure.

Or maybe it's needed as "proof" that things are really as bad as they seem.

Either way, the turning point for me came when I realized that I did not need him to agree on the rightness or realness of my reality. It was enough for ME to know that it was real. And once I got there, I was able to take action.

But yet, in a way, I do understand. When XAH was injured in a hit-and-run 2 years ago and I carted him to the ER, they drew blood and of course checked BAC. Knowing what that number was, using a site to backtrack to what it was when the accident happened several hours before and reading that that level would have normal people passed out, I realized the degree of drunkenness that was simply "life as usual" for him, on a daily basis.

honeypig

Ack, I somehow cut off the last part of my post from above. I just had one more sentence saying that having that knowledge (the BAC level) in the form of a number, an actual measurement, was the final thing that tipped the balance for me.

Where the "search/don't search" thing for me was black and white a few years ago, I now feel there are at least some gray areas. For me, it all depends on what use that information is going to be put to.