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I think my husband may have a problem. We have been married for 6 1/2 yrs and we have two children. When he was younger, he got into a lot of trouble because of alcohol. He has two DWIs and an MIP from before I met him. For years, we never drank at all. Within the past two years, we both started drinking socially. Within the past 6 weeks, though, he has started drinking more at home. It started as a couple of drinks a couple of times a week. It turned into a couple of drinks every other day, and then a couple of drinks every day. Now he won't let me make his drink for him because I don't make it strong enough. I went out of town over the weekend and returned to find that a LOT of rum was missing. He claimed to have purchased a small bottle to refill our big bottle and that he actually didn't purchase a new bottle. I dug through the trash and found the old bottle that he claimed to have not drank all of. He lied right to my face about it. He never drinks to drunkenness, but he does drink a little more and a little more every day. I am worried that he is just beginning a very bad cycle that can get no better until it is dealt with. He has a history of being violent when he gets very drunk, so I am very worried that he will eventually start drinking to the point of drunkenness and endanger my kids and me. I love him so much and do not want this to hurt our relationship but I can see nothing good happening. I know he will be angry, but I have to confront him. I know he will refuse to get help. I think I am going to have to ask him to leave home but it will be hard for me to not be with him every day. He is a great Daddy and husband so it will be hard to not have him here but I cannot risk things getting out of hand. I cannot tell anyone I know because I know people will judge him and he is a good person. I feel so lost. I am so sad. I am so scared.
You have every reason to be concerned...however, you're assuming that he's going to revert back to his prior behavior. Now you may turn out to be right, but remember we are not fortune tellers. Alanon teaches us to prepare for things we fear, but not assume that it will happen.
Thank you. That was very helpful for me. I do know I need to confront him about lying, though. It is not the first time I have caught him lying to me recently but it is the first time I've caught him lying about his drinking.
Hello and welcome , please find an Al-Anon meeting for yourself ,it dosent matter how often or how much he drinks what matters is how it affects you when he does . Al-Anon will help u with that . If you think their is a problem there probably is . I am sure u have better things to do than dig thru the garbage looking for empty bottles - yuck . not scolding relating I did the same thing for along time before I got to this program and figured out how futile it was for some reason I just had to know how much he was drinking , just to prove to myself that I wasnt crazy I guess and how sane is digging thru garbage ??? sheeeeesh Love will not cure this disease it has nothing to do with love . Ultimatums dont work , tears dont work , threats dont work , anything we do is doomed to fail because we are trying to solve a problem that isnt ours its thiers and they are the only one that can fix it .
When I first came to Al-Anon several years ago I was told that I couldn't change the alcoholic in my life, I could only change myself. I didn't quite understand at first because you see....I didn't have a problem...my alcoholic was the one with the problem. I continued attending my f2f Al-Anon meetings, reading the literature and staying after the meetings to talk with some of the old timers who had walked in my shoes. Nothing I had tried over the years had worked. I had tried to be a fixer and a controller......and yes I cut my finger wide oven digging through the trash can checking to see how many beers my AW had drank that day. Like you I had to know. But who was the crazy person, my AW, or her husband down on his knees digging in the trash after midnight.......WAKE UP CALL FOR ME !!!
I needed to change. Nothing I had done or tried worked. Why? Because I am the only person I have control over. The program gave me tools and slogans. I was at meetings with members who were walking in my shoes, and understood as perhaps none others could. They told me what had worked for them and what they had seen work for others. I listened and applied what had worked for them in my own life. Guess what? My life started getting better. This program works and has worked for over 60 years. There are 1000's of success stories world wide. I'm one of them.
Keep coming back and posting...your in the right place...and most important...Your "Not" alone anymore.
Aloha Melanie and welcome home I hope you decide to make MIP a resource as there are years and years of experience here and the solutions you receive come from what has worked for many. Abbyals suggestion of Al-Anon face to face meetings is very primary and you will find that the majority of us are members. What you and your husband are dealing with is a major life threatening disease and it alters everyone it comes into contact with...that is what alcohol does; it alters mind, body, spirits and emotions we become abnormal and having said that I had to leard that I was married to two very different women. My spouse was a good person,humorous, good caring mother and hard dedicated worker...and...she was alcoholic. I had to learn which one was present at anyone time and place. Alcoholics Anonymous and Al-Anon talk about the Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde personality changes and that is real. The disease is progressive and can only be arrested by total abstinence so from my experience unless he arrests his compulsion to drink and the drinking what you are getting now will get worse like it already has...He's drinking more; you're getting more concerned and afraid. The first thing I did that saved my life was to contact the Al-Anon Family Groups and then get to the meetings as quickly as I could. I suggest you do the same...the hotline number is in the white pages of your local telephone book. Call and ask for help. Keep coming back here again cause you are now not alone.
I can so identify with what you have written because I could have written it myself. My husband went down just the same path, and the first time I realized it was when part of a bottle of rum went missing and he lied about it. What I found out was that alcoholics lie as a matter of course -- it goes with the other kinds of insanity. For a while I was begging him, "I don't care what you do, just be honest with me about it!" And he still wouldn't be honest. I finally realized that he couldn't even be honest with himself. They think "If I I don't admit it, then it isn't true."
I hope you can get to some face-to-face meetings too -- try several because each one has a different feeling. Learn all you can and you will be in the best place to make the most helpful decisions and to take care of yourself and find happiness, whatever happens.
I'm glad you found this site. You're in the right place. And, as others have suggested, if you can get to a face to face meeting I think that would be very helpful. Alanon literally saved my sanity. I do believe I was insane when I came into the program - some of the things I did to try to get my AH sober were definitely over the top. And, NONE of it worked!
I've been where you are. My AH is a good person too. But, he has a horrible disease that caused him to lie, cheat, steal, whatever he had to do to get a bottle. I would literally walk around in my own house carrying my purse because he would steal money from me every chance he got. Alcoholism is a progressive disease - it will only get worse without treatment. And, we are powerless to do anything about it.
Please take care of you, and know that you are not alone.
