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My A is trying to quit drinking. However many times she has tried to fool me and she is clearly drunk or at least buzzed. she repeats herself a lot when is buzzed. Clear give away. Anyway should I not call her out on it ? Should I just keep to myself ? I don't want to accuse her but then again I want to know and her reaction usually tells me the answer
Any thoughts or suggestions to deal with this ?
I should add that we have a 2 year old and I really want to know mostly so I can be prepared for the night with our son. I try to keep her away from him as much as possible when she is drinking.
Hi Keaghan We all have different experiences dealing with these things and it is not easy to know what is right or wrong.
In my own experience it did not help me much to call my AH when he started drinking in secret. Instead I commented when he was sober - saying something along the lines of how nice it was to curl up on the sofa and just chat for instance. That said, if I felt uncomfortable, for instance if I thought he was drunk and we were about to go out in the car, I would say how I felt and ask if I could drive. This normally resulted in him storming off in a huff, but at least I did not feel like I was playing russian roulette!
In general I assumed that he was drinking a bit and just got in with my own life - but I suspect that I would have had a much shorter fuse if I had a young child to look after.
One tip to bear in mind before assuming someone is drunk though - my AH's behaviour quite often appears drunk when he is in the early weeks/months of not drinking (I think it is called being a dry drunk). I tend to ignore this if I can and instead I try to behave like someone that I would like to live with. I agree with DavidG - the key is to look after yourself first (when I switched to this way of thinking I became much more relaxed )
Depending on how far her disease has progressed, she may or may not be able to "just quit"
If she is a true alcoholic...My suggestion is don't even ask questions you already know the answer to.
Her sobriety will be apparent when she is going to AA meetings and is really working at being a sober person rather than just feeding you junk about wanting to quit. Not that she isn't sincere probably when she says she want's to quit...it's just that my experience is, it can't be done alone and without a drastic change in the alcoholics thinking, acting, and general being.
Much as I would like to have you two cut to the chase and avoid her trying to quit on her own, lie about it, hide bottles then have some much more intense demoralizing bottom...that is the typical progression until a person enters into recovery for real.
If she has been trying to quit drinking and it has not worked, the chances are very good that she's an alcoholic. Alcoholics need outside programs to quit (and even then it is a powerful disease and many fall along the way). They tell themselves and everyone around them that they can quit on their own, but the truth of that soon becomes apparent. Because they don't. If alcoholics could quit through personal willpower, there would be no alcoholics in the world.
What I learned through many painful experiences is that alcoholics will drink -- that's what they do. Their judgement is distorted and they think they are fine to take care of children, to drive, etc. So they will tell you they are fine. It was not until I came home to find out that my alcoholic husband had put our 2-year-old in danger of his life that I realized how high the stakes were. I had believed my husband that he wasn't drinking any more and that anyway he would never drink while taking care of our child. But he had passed out leaving open a wide open window that went down to the floor. We were on a high story in a tall building. The fact that my toddler didn't crawl out that window and fall to his death is only the mercy of my HP. That's when I understood that without demonstrated long-term success at a formal program of recovery, my husband would never be a safe person to take care of our child. That was when I left my husband, but whether I had left or not, I would never again have left him in charge of our child.
Our children rely on us for protection. Please protect your dear little one. I hope you have a face-to-face Al-Anon meeting? We need all the support we can get in this insane disease.
Hi Keaghan, here is my experience so far. Take what you like out of it.
If it quacks like a duck, it's a duck. You already have gotten the codependent's instinct. Long before I knew my wife was an alcoholic, and long bfore I joined AlAnon, I could tell *something* was wrong. I just fdidn't know it was drinking for awhile. I thought it was chronic fatigue syndrome, low blood sugar, etc. Finally the hidden bottles started rolling out from behind the cabinets, and things became clear. Now, I can walk in a room, and know she's been drinking within seconds.
Calling out my AW does no good. For one thing, she is a binge drinker, so usually she ends up going to sleep. But she usually wakes up part way through, and start either saying "you are so smart, I'm just a dumba$$ drunk", feeling sorry for herself. Then sometimes it escalates into other stuff. Today, I just said I'm not going to participate in that, and left the house. To go pick up our 12-year-old son from school. She insisted on driving, that she wasn't drunk, but didn't have the energy to carry through on it.
Once she is sober, my wife stil has a good amount of shame. She actually is very embarrasssed and hates that she has gotten drunk. Then I have to work with her to try to encourage her that it isn't all hopeless. So now I don't get to blow up at her like I would really like. I have to exercise forgiveness. Man, it is rough...
Next to lastly, I do definitely let her know that I know she has been drunk. She is usually in deinial, so I sometimes have the bottle with me to show her. Other times, I just tell her it doesn't matter, if it quacks like a duck.... then she needs to take it seriously and know I'm not lying to her.
Latly, as noted above, our responsibility is to our children. And could become much more scarey than keeping him away from her. Such as, is she driving drunk with him. Or forgetting to feed him.
Kenny thanks for responding. You might be my clone except my son is 2. Maybe the only difference is my wife is trying to get help, She sees a counselor once a week at a local drug and rehab place. I have been tempted though to make sure she is going because it has helped some.( she isnt completely bombed ) but she still drinks, hence this whole topic.
I completely agree with all the responses given. Thank you so much for all of them as it opens my eyes to see I am not alone. Although I wouldnt wish this on anyone.
I think there is a saying in al anon that they are going to drink no matter what we do. I certainly tried to catch the ex A in all kinds of things. I thought I needed to know in fact I did anyway.
I know for me personally I know the signs of people using and drinking and I adjust my boundaries accordingly. If they are drunk I set limits on my encounters with them. If they are not drunk I make different boundaries. But most of all I watch my boundaries and I do not watch them. After all the three C's prevail. I didn't cause it, I can't control it and most of all I cannot cure it.
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