The material presented
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to exchange
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level.
I can't believe I'm the one writing a post about this, but I'm in a pretty bad place trying to figure things out. I think my husband is an alcoholic or at least on his way to be one. We've had a rough few years with infidelity, which happned prior to our 2 kids. This past January he found out the truth and his drinking sky rocketed. He was always a drinker, but pretty much kept it under control. No dui's, just would get a little sloppy from time to time. His father is a recovery alcoholic, who has fallen off the wagon a few times.
My husband says he wants to work on our marriage, but then he says he drinks to deal with me. He says I put him here. He says it's my fault for doing this to him. He gets so drunk and verbally abusive. I had to call a bar he was out to make sure they didn't let him drive home last week. All he wants to do is get drunk and have a "good time". When he is sober he realizes that it's a problem, but doesn't seem to do anything about it.
We have 2 small children and I certainly don't want them picking up on his drinking. I believe he will never do anything to hurt them, but most of the time I feel like a single parent.
I don't know if I'm blowing this out of proportion.
Bailey, let me be the first to tell you - It is not your fault and you don't determine whether he drinks or not, that is all on him. Alcoholics drink because the sun is out, they drink because of traffic, they drink because it's cloudy, they drink because of me, of you, of life - in other words they drink because they are alcoholics, every reason they give us is just a justification. Please read through these boards, everyone's story will probably speak to you. Please find a local Alanon chapter and get yourself to a meeting, I wish I had done that years ago. I have been living with my AH for almost ten years and am watching him deteriorate himself and our relationship with every passing day, I would not wish this life on my worst enemy. My AH is verbally abusive as well and let me tell you, it is still abuse, it has taken me a long time to come to grips with this and I still struggle with it daily. YOu are not blowing this out of proportion, your gut is telling you something is very very wrong and that is becasue it is. Take care of yourself and your kids first and foremost. We all understand and are here for you. Hugs and prayers, ts
You are not blowing it out of proportion and you are not to blame.
Please take care of yourself and your children.
My husband drinks everyday and more at the weekends. he is not aggressive but argumentative and manipulative. He has managed to drink himself out of our marriage too. I'm too am trying to come to terms with the fact that I can not fill the void in his life that alcahol does. At some point I have to make a decision about what I am to do. Stay or go!
He seems to think that nothing is wrong with the way he behaves and that he doesn't have a drink problem. It doesn't help that his family are also big drinkers.
Please keep reading peoples stories on the message board. They have helped me through some dark days this month
Rosie
Hi Bailey and welcome Alanon is for people who are concerned with others drinking.
AA has developed a helpful set of questions for the drinker to anwser to determine if they are alcoholic Here it is:
IS A.A. FOR YOU?
Only you can decide whether you want to give A.A.a try whether you think it can help you.
We who are in A.A. came because we finally gave up trying to control our drinking. We still hated to admit that we could never drink safely. Then we heard from other A.A. members that we were sick. (We thought so for years!) We found out that many people suffered from the same feelings of guilt and loneliness and hopelessness that we did. We found out that we had these feelings because we had the disease of alcoholism. We decided to try and face up to what alcohol had done to us. Here are some of the questions we tried to answer honestly. If we answered YES to four or more questions, we were in deep trouble with our drinking. See how you do. Remember, there is no disgrace in facing up to the fact that you have a problem.
Answer YES or NO to the following questions.
1 - Have you ever decided to stop drinking for a week or so, but only lasted for a couple of days? Most of us in A.A. made all kinds of promises to ourselves and to our families. We could not keep them. Then we came to A.A. A.A. said: "Just try not to drink today." (If you do not drink today, you cannot get drunk today.)
Yes No
2 - Do you wish people would mind their own business about your drinking-- stop telling you what to do? In A.A. we do not tell anyone to do anything. We just talk about our own drinking, the trouble we got into, and how we stopped. We will be glad to help you, if you want us to.
Yes No
3 - Have you ever switched from one kind of drink to another in the hope that this would keep you from getting drunk? We tried all kinds of ways. We made our drinks weak. Or just drank beer. Or we did not drink cocktails. Or only drank on weekends. You name it, we tried it. But if we drank anything with alcohol in it, we usually got drunk eventually.
Yes No
4 - Have you had to have an eye-opener upon awakening during the past year? Do you need a drink to get started, or to stop shaking? This is a pretty sure sign that you are not drinking "socially."
Yes No
5 - Do you envy people who can drink without getting into trouble? At one time or another, most of us have wondered why we were not like most people, who really can take it or leave it.
Yes No
6 - Have you had problems connected with drinking during the past year? Be honest! Doctors say that if you have a problem with alcohol and keep on drinking, it will get worse -- never better. Eventually, you will die, or end up in an institution for the rest of your life. The only hope is to stop drinking.
Yes No
7 - Has your drinking caused trouble at home? Before we came into A.A., most of us said that it was the people or problems at home that made us drink. We could not see that our drinking just made everything worse. It never solved problems anywhere or anytime.
Yes No
8 - Do you ever try to get "extra" drinks at a party because you do not get enough? Most of us used to have a "few" before we started out if we thought it was going to be that kind of party. And if drinks were not served fast enough, we would go some place else to get more.
Yes No
9 - Do you tell yourself you can stop drinking any time you want to, even though you keep getting drunk when you don't mean to? Many of us kidded ourselves into thinking that we drank because we wanted to. After we came into A.A., we found out that once we started to drink, we couldn't stop.
Yes No
10 - Have you missed days of work or school because of drinking? Many of us admit now that we "called in sick" lots of times when the truth was that we were hung-over or on a drunk.
Yes No
11 - Do you have "blackouts"? A "blackout" is when we have been drinking hours or days which we cannot remember. When we came to A.A., we found out that this is a pretty sure sign of alcoholic drinking.
Yes No
12 - Have you ever felt that your life would be better if you did not drink? Many of us started to drink because drinking made life seem better, at least for a while. By the time we got into A.A., we felt trapped. We were drinking to live and living to drink. We were sick and tired of being sick and tired.
Yes No
Did you answer YES four or more times? If so, you are probably in trouble with alcohol. Why do we say this? Because thousands of people in A.A. have said so for many years. They found out the truth about themselves the hard way. But again, only you can decide whether you think A.A. is for you. Try to keep an open mind on the subject. If the answer is YES, we will be glad to show you how we stopped drinking ourselves. Just call. A.A. does not promise to solve your life's problems. But we can show you how we are learning to live without drinking "one day at a time." We stay away from that "first drink." If there is no first one, there cannot be a tenth one. And when we got rid of alcohol, we found that life became much more manageable.
The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking. There are no dues or fees for A.A. membership; we are self-supporting through our own contributions.
A.A. is not allied with any sect, denomination, politics, organization or institution; does not wish to engage in any controversy; neither endorses nor opposes any causes.
Our primary purpose is to stay sober and help other alcoholics to achieve sobriety.
That sounds like alcholism to me. Knowing that doesn't change much though. He can live in pity and victimhood forever if he wants. You dont' have to fall for that act. You can find solutions for you and support through alanon.
Getting cheated on, having a parent die, losing a job....none of those things is reason to totally self-sabotage and go on binges. Those are things that all of us generally have to get through in life. Only an alcoholic will use those things as an excuse to make their life worse.
The AA saying I have heard is "only an alcoholic will find themselves in a hole and keep on digging." A mature, non-alcoholic person would address marital problems with their partner, work it out, go to marital therapy or ultimately get divorced. They would not ruin themselves with constant self-sabotage and ingesting poison on a daily basis.
