desertsong

When I first got sober, my still-alcoholic husband was very supportive. I understood why ... when I was drunk, I was not a nice person and he was the main recipient of all of my drunken rampages. He has told me how nice it is to see the changes in me ... how good I look now, how positive I am, how much nicer I am to be around. All fine and good.

But lately, he has been leaving alcohol around the house where he knows I will find it. In the beginning, I had asked him to take his booze with him whenever he left the house so I would not be tempted. He did that for awhile. But over the last week or so, he has been leaving it in plain view whenever he goes somewhere. He spends a lot of time (still) at his favorite bar, and he used to take his booze with him and/or hide it from me when he left. Now, he leaves it here and NOT in small quantities either. Full bottles of Crown Royal, beer, whatever, right where I can see it.

I am still holding strong but this is not helping me. I'm frustrated enough that he is continuing to drink (a LOT) but he knows that I don't need this temptation staring me in the face every night. I know he probably misses his "drinking buddy" but I'm starting to feel like this behavior is intentional. One night, I took his full bottle of Crown and dumped it down the sink so I wouldn't be tempted ... boy, did I ever get an earful for doing that. I explained to him that I did it because I didn't need the temptation but he didn't seem to give a crap ... his point was that I threw his "money" down the drain. What that heck?

I have felt for awhile that my sobriety is threatening to him on many levels ... he's afraid I'm going to leave him for someone sober, he feels bad because I'm sober and he's not, and etc. etc. etc. But this is getting to be too much. No matter what I say, he leaves it laying around anyway.

How should I approach this? I mean, I realize that it is my choice whether to drink or not but it is NOT helpful to have someone leaving alcohol in plain sight of me with no supervision night after night. Help!

BASEjumper

Start tossing it in the trash, if you feel safe touching it. He won't leave it around if he knows you're going to throw it out

Dee74

Don't throw them out if it's going to cause drama or put you in any kind of abuse or danger.

If you've talked to him and he persists, and you're sure this is deliberate I'm not sure what you can do...

perhaps the best defense would be to do nothing...show that it's not getting to you?

D

BASEjumper

Good point thanks Dee, I hadn't considered that.

reggiewayne

Discuss it with him and see what he does. If he does nothing about it then you have a choice to make. I think you may be looking for "how do I change my husband so he doesn't do this anymore". I don't have an answer for that

All you can do is bring it up to him and hope for the best. Just look at the facts.

Best of luck.

Live2Run25

Maybe for some strange reason, he is trying to sabotage you, or see how serious you are about giving up alcohol. I would just act like you don't even see it. Smile, play nice. Once he notices that you are serious about not drinking anymore, I think it will stop. Maybe he just wants to start an argument to convince you to start drinking again.. don't give into it.

flutter

Do you have a cabinet/closet that's not smack dab in the middle of everything that you can request he keep his stuff? My dh is a normal drinker, he has beer and probably some liquor in the house, in the basement in the wet bar I never even see.

aeo1313

I'm so sorry you are going through this. My husband has booze all over as well. I don't think he's an alcoholic, but it's still all over. Please stay strong and don't give in to temptation. Him getting his drinking buddy back is not worth giving up your life for.

Saliena

I agree with Reggie the only thing you have control over in this situation is how you act/react. Walk through it and allow yourself your feelings there is allows going to be boozes around and accessiable in our lives. Don't let it bother you and allow it to roll off your back. You are stronger then the temptation to drink.

Your husband is going to have to have his own recovery process in losing his drinking buddy. I was lucky in that my husband didn't drink alot... and once I stopped he will every now and again enjoy a drink out at dinner. But, I discovered his need for his own recovery process about 3 months into our new lives together.

Good luck!

RobbyRobot

Marriage is an agreement to have each other's back, to be there when things go south, to understand one to the other, that love is the greatest gift between each other.

I know you're hurting, desertsong. So is your husband, you know?

I'd start again with what worked earlier. He was the recipient of your drunkeness, and that mattered to you, when you first sobered up. Can you get back to it mattering? Can your sobriety make a difference? Can your new life sans-alcohol be a benefit again? Can you be positive again about your marriage?

I mention these things only because you have said they had mutual importance to you both. I hope you, and your husband, have a better day with each other, sooner than later.

Veritas1

You know I had an AA sponsor that talked about fear.

He said everything was fear based.

Resentments and fears.

He was big on having me make lists each day of fear and resentments.

I would just ask you to consider the fear.

He would frame it like this:

I have a resentment at ______, because I have fear ______.

ex.

I have a resentment at my husband because I have fear him leaving alcohol in my line of sight threatens my sobriety.

I have a resentment at my husband because I have fear he doesn't love me.

I have a resentment at my husband because I have fear he is trying to harm me on purpose.

I have a resentment at my husband because I have fear he doesn't care that I am trying to have a sober home.

etc.

At the end of writing it all out.

You write on the same piece of paper.

Dear God,

Please remove my fears and resentments. I pray only for knowledge of your will for us and the power to carry that out. Love, DS

Try it.

It may be helpful.

My husband keeps alcohol in our home.

I have no right to ask him to cater to me.

We can be sober regardless of what anyone does.

It sounds to me like you are describing fear that you might be tempted as it is so easily seen in your home.

Fear I will cave to the temptation.

Fear I will return to drinking.

Fear the only way I can have fun and old times with my husband is when drinking.

How many times have we said, never again, to them over the years, or made them have no alcohol when our red light was on, and then the light would turn green again, when we decided to drink again?

They had to put up with us and our drinking rules.

Now there are more rules by us and what we demand in our sobriety.

Can you try to put yourself in his shoes?

It sounds like you both want different things for yourself.

Try to get him to join with you to do sober things together.

Sometimes it seems sobriety/recovery puts a split between people because all of a sudden we are getting phone calls, talking on the phone for hours with our sponsor, going to meetings....our mates can feel very left out.

They act out like a child in need of love, and negative attention is better than no attention.

Maybe he just needs your love and time, and you need to sit down and say, look, I am really feeling fragile with the booze in our house. Can you cut it out?

He may be like my husband who says, why, so you can change the rules again when you want to drink again?

I have to not drink until you say I can drink again, when you return to it?

You see, this is what makes them crazy. Us. Our back and forth.

I see though that you have been sober now and this new way of life has taken over, but he is probably thinking, what the hell is happening!!!

If you want to change your life, that is good, but we cannot make other people conform to what we want.

That's kinda selfish, you know? I don't have the right to throw out anything on my husband. Can you imagine if he threw anything out of mine? I would have been furious. It's just not the right thing to do.

One lesson I learned is that it's not mine. My husband's stuff is not mine. His money, his booze, his things, none of it.

I think the key is taking responsibility for myself. I can't blame him anymore.

Hope it all works out.

I think the key is to have fun with your husband. Do some things together. I think he is acting out for your love.

SmittyBittyBoo

Can you move it and put it out of sight?

DisplacedGRITS

I guess the question on my mind is exactly what point is he trying to make leaving the bottles out? Does he want his drinking buddy back? Is he asking for help for himself? Is he testing your sobriety? Has this become some kind of game to him? Like "this is my house too and i'll leave my booze where i want to." I'd ask him all those things and see where he sits. If it's a game to him, it's obviously not a game to you. You're respecting him by staying sober, he can respect you by clearing out the booze. If he wants his drinking buddy back then that's a nasty kettle of fish y'all are going to have to discuss. If he needs help, well...we know how that goes. Point him in the right direction and scoot him off on his path. Right now, it seems you just need to find the right question to ask him. I think he has an answer waiting.

Zee

Use double-layered rubber gloves, put a mask over mouth (or a scarf if a mask isn't available), Place offending alcohol into non-see-through plastic bags, then into a burlap sack, secure with rope, selotape or twine. Tie securely and place in a position which is out of eyeshot. For max effect, do this preferably when he can see you doing it. If not, do the wrapping without the hand/head gear... if he asks where his alcohol is... just casually say...'oh, its over there'... BIG PARCEL! (Made me laugh typing this) Maybe he will get the message that it bothers you! x

Itchy

DS,
I am typing this two rooms away from the cabinet where there is an almost empty 1.75 liter bottle of Scotch and a carton and as half of cigarettes.(I just went and checked) So she will have to stop on the way home and get a fresh one. My AW still drinks and smokes and I quit both. She had some issues in the last year that I do attribute to feeling inadequate in light of my sobriety.

I also covered for my wife here the first year I was posting and called her a normie. We both admitted to each other we were alcoholics a year or two before I stopped drinking alcohol and smoking cigarettes. I don't handle it and she puts it back in the cabinet each time she mixes a drink in the evening. She still drinks only after five. She was really resentful as she was pretty manipulative and would do the escalate to an argument routine of codies before and after I quit almost two years ago. I stopped reacting and then it got worse until I set some boundaries and enforced them by my walking out, as I can drive any time of the day or night but she cannot under the influence, and won't thank goodness, as I would not when I drank alcohol. The smokes are in a cabinet next to my Tervis 24 oz Coffee travel mugs. The Scotch is down at the bottom of the food pantry wall cabinets with the crackers etc. I actually don't see/notice them at all any more as they are not mine.

If it is freely available for trade in cash within less than 5 minutes of my door by car, having it closer only would be tempting if I was a person who was a hider and did things in private I would not want known in public. In other words I could hide it just as well by hiding my own bottle out in my steel workshop or my little portable outbuilding. My point is that proximity has nothing to do with my quitting. Forever from day one. No conditions. The only struggle for me was during the first year of physical and emotional healing.

For example I also have her underwear here, and since I am not a person who wears women's clothes, their proximity makes no difference to me. I am not tempted because I am alone right now (she is at work) to try on women's clothes not because they are out of sight or far away, but simply because I am not a cross dresser or whatever they call folks who do that.

If I were a cross dresser and was trying to stop cross dressing, it would not be fair or right for me to ask her to take her underwear with her. She did ask if it bothered me to have her liquopr and smokes in the house when I first quit, but I know how after a while the resentment starts, when what was good for the gander is not good for the goose. Or vice versa.

I would not work in a bar because I didn't like them when I drank. On the corner is a neighborhood auto parts biz that after hours all the beer drinkers stop by and drink and tell tales before going home and for two of us who are retired now we stop by. I still stop by and say hi. But when they are already well into their drinking I stay maybe five minutes before I lose interest and need to go. I am not in the least tempted by that or their smoking.

It seems I am in the minority but I am a non drinker, and was from the day I emerged from 7 days medical in hospital detox. I decided it had to end, and for good about a year before I found a detox and rehab I qualified for. I have been relieved since. Not deprived. I can't tell you how relieved I am today. I knew all I needed was a headstart in medical detox to clear the alcohol and the nicotine from my system.

So why AA for three months and here until now? Why Docs and counselors? Because the emotional and physical roller coaster of post acute withdrawal symptoms or syndrome (PAWS) were terrible for me. I drank heavy for decades and was 58 when I finally was able to quit both alcohol and smoking. My body does not heal as fast as before! I needed others who had done this before to reassure me that it was normal, just healing with the blood tests to back that up. I needed their experience and resources for what is good reading and what worked for them to ease some of it.

For me it seemed I had to get worse before I got better. Like a film in reverse. But my determination to never drink again once free, so I would never ever be enslaved and unable to live free without planning my supply, and trying to keep up appearances, has never wavered once. Life still sucks as much as before or as little. It just sucks less sober for me.

Don't mistake that for strength. If I were mentally and physically strong I would be able to drink normally but I can't. My body won't let me, and my mind will go along.

I am a coward. I am weak. And I know it. That is why I won't ever drink alcohol again. Nor smoke cigarettes. It isn't fear of anything but the effects of alcohol, and cigarettes or other tobacco products, on me. Two decades of heavy drinking is enough for me, and at 60 I don't think I have another detox and healing in me. So far no liver/cancer/heart/diabetes/cholesterol issues. Just some weight gained for the first time in my life. I can shed that.

Stop making his drinking and possession your issue. You are a non-drinker now right?

We decide to stop. How we get there differs for each, even within the same recovery community. As far as after recovery? Well those miracles take a decision too. Where you get the inspiration and energy is immaterial;
As long as you do!
Long as you do
As you do
You do
Do!

Dee74

How are you doing today DS?

D

desertsong

I'm doing better today, thanks. Lots of really, really good advice here and some very good points made. This is not my problem - it's his. And I can't ask him to change just because I did. I know that if the situation was reversed, I would probably feel very resentful being asked to change my habits just because my spouse was sober. I would feel like he was being judgmental and self righteous. I guess when I first got sober, the temptation having liquor around was just terrible; he saw that and wanted to help me, so he would make sure he wouldn't have his booze in my face all the time. Now that a few months have passed, I guess he figures I'm doing okay and it's no big deal for him to leave it laying around. I understand his reasoning.

I guess the problem really is ME. I'm still fighting that voice that says "go ahead, just one nip won't hurt you." But I know it will. That's MY problem, not his. And as someone said, alcohol is EVERYWHERE, not just here in my house. If I can't deal with it at home, then I won't be able to deal with it anywhere else. So I'm not going to say another word about it. I remember being where he is right now ... he is suffering and getting worse by the day. His health is starting to get bad. He is hungover every morning and feeling depressed and very down on himself. The last thing he needs is me in his face griping about his bottles laying around.

Love and tolerance ... but with boundaries. I guess I still have a lot to learn about those things.

Itchy

DS,
Yep, you nailed it. Now keep tight hold of that. Sober it is so much easier to decide not to drink alcohol, than it is to stop drinking when we are drinking daily.