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Hi. I am in need and uncomfortable discussing this with anyone in our community. I am not sure my situation is appropriate for this board so I apologize if it is out of place. My wedding dress is hanging right here in this room, which is locked because my fiancé is passed out drunk in the living room. We have been together for 5 years, and living together for a year and a half. He has been a bartender the entire time. I rarely drink. I am used to most of my friends drinking more than me, so it has been hard to gauge what is healthy. And we live in a resort town where drinking is a part of the culture. But the past six months or so I have been really worried about his drinking. We have a wedding planned for this summer and I can't tell what is going on with him. He makes a lot of money at the bar where he works, but everyone there, including the employees, drinks to excess. After a couple weeks of him coming home every night glass-eyed and incoherent, I asked him to tone it down. He showed up at my work the next afternoon to watch a game (I work at a sports bar) and ordered a beer, and I blew up. Then he didn't drink for a few days but the past 3 days he did, and tonight he was really quite drunk. I put a box on his head a flower behind his ear and took a video on his phone so he could see how intoxicated he was. He never seems to understand how obviously drunk he is, so I thought it would enlighten him. Addiction runs in his family (alcohol, painkillers, heroin). He did have a history of tobacco and Percocet abuse, but successfully quit those years ago. I am just trying to determine if this is a problem of addiction or if he is just in a drinking culture. And I am trying to decide if it is worth calling off the wedding for. I would be devastated, as would he. But I cannot imagine a lifetime of hanging out with this drunk guy. I really prefer his sober self. I left him a letter expressing how worried I am and that we need to discuss his drinking. I covered him up with a blanket and left him a glass of water. And I've been up all night worrying.
Hi welcome, you have come to the right place. Alanon is for people affected by someone elses drinking and it sounds like you are affected. There are meetings that take place in most towns and cities. Check the Alanon website. I would recommend you get to a face to face meeting where you will eventually gain some clarity on your situation.
Welcome Alias. You've come to the right place..this is a place where people -- who are affected by someone's drinking -- can come to help make sense of it all. If your fiance is an A or not, it seems you are being affected by his drinking. Please read the stuff here, get Toby Rice Drews' book "getting them sober" and I really like Melody Beatties work "codependent no more" --- we can SO relate to your situation..
keep coming back...and try some face-to-face meetings --
It might be hard to take, but those little signs you are getting are your gut instinct. Something that makes us uncomfortable is not right. The good thing is you don't have to focus on him...he may have a problem...but what are you willing to do for yourself??? Try some alanon meetings, read as much of the alanon books and slogans you can, it's worth it.
A non-alcoholic doesn't really have a problem giving up booze when there is a serious request or need to. So I don't know for sure if he's an alcoholic, but signs would point to there being a problem. Either way, it's a problem for you and that does merit you participating in alanon.
I want to be say what my gut is saying, but that is for you to decide. Here is my experience. I had the same struggle before I got married to my second husband...is he an alcoholic or is it the culture? Well, the culture was alcoholic and so was he. I KNEW in my gut I should not get married, but talked myself out of it because the plans were already made, family was coming in and I needed to just stick with my decision. Fast forward 26 years, we both are now in recovery after living in hell and creating a hell for our children. Find al anon meetings, go as often as you can, get a sponsor, then you will be clear as to what kind of life you would like to live. Having said that, you have attracted this individual to you and if you don't get healthy you are most likely going to attract the same kind of individual over and over....that doesn't paint a very rosy picture, does it? You are worth having the most loving, caring, compassionate people in your life that you cannot even imagine at this point...go for recovery! It is so worth it and there many of us that can attest to that. Keep sharing with us..I hope I have given you hope and not scared the bejeebies out of you! hugs
I wish I would have found Al-anon and MIP way before my life became insane. But now that I have it I have come a long long way in recovery.
I found in my learning I had to set boundaries and stick to them. Not give in like I used to.....be firm and step back and watch what happened. It gave me a good indication with my AS and if he wanted sobriety or not. He always said I'm so sorry I won't drink over and over but when the boundaries were finally put in place then the true feelings came out in him. SCARED.....and oh I better get it together or I will be homeless and have nobody in my life.
I don't know what the future hold but I do know he will either drink or he won't.......what am I going to do. Al-anon
I am just trying to determine if this is a problem of addiction or if he is just in a drinking culture.
Speaking from my own personal experience and opinion, the ''culture'' does not give one permisson to abuse alcohol. I am assoicated with multiple Pubs & required to be on site occasionally, sit with the owners usually in the bar area but I do not partake. I am a recovering A and even tho my jobs requires me to be in that environment, I will not drink....it is not in my job description nor is it in the job description of a bartender.
Glass-eyed, incoherent, passing out, a history of addiction, and he comes from a family in which there is addiction -- I'm afraid these are very big danger signs. There are many, many people who drink responsibly and have never been incoherent, much less passed out -- it does not come with the territory. Another sign is that if you ask a responsible drinker whether he shouldn't maybe cut back, he considers it carefully and if warranted (for instance, if he has been actually incoherent etc.), he does so and it sticks. The signs of alcoholism are that the drinkers don't understand how incapacitated they are, they deny it, they try to explain it away, and/or they blame us for 'not wanting me to have a good time' or 'being paranoid about a problem where there is none.' I have seen dozens of people concerned with loved ones' drinking over the years. I have never seen anyone who overestimated the problem or was paranoid and thought there was a problem when there is none. I suppose it's theoretically possible, but I've never seen it. What typically happens, I observe, is that we become so used to it that we think that excessive drinking is pretty normal, and we doubt ourselves when we have problems with it.
The question I wish someone had asked me is: If you knew for a fact that things would never change, and he would go on with his drinking just as he is now, what decisions would you make? In actual fact this is not likely, because alcoholism is a progressive disease, and it typically gets worse, not stays the same. But ignore that for now. If you knew that things were going to be like this, what decisions would you make? And how would you feel about children growing up in this situation? Because we have a choice, but children don't have a choice.
There is no hurry to make a decision. I would suggest that you consider putting off the decision -- that is, not deciding whether or not to get married right now, but postponing the decision and the wedding until you have some Al-Anon tools and experience under your belt. Alcoholism is so powerful that it drags everyone around it into the insanity and our thoughts can become distorted even without our knowing it. It takes time to clear our heads and get a perspective. Do give yourself that time before committing yourself to anything. I hope you'll find a meeting, and I hope you'll keep coming back.
I hate to say it but it seems to me that the writing's all over the wall as to who your fiance is.
This doesn't make him a bad person, but if you do have a problem with the drinking and it disturbs you, it's a hard question you're going to want to ask yourself: do you want to live with this for years down the road and likewise be legally bound to him through marriage?
It's a really hard thing to do, but in my relationships, I'm really taking a good look with open eyes at who the person IS that I'm dating - and if I like them as they are now, or am I secretly hoping something about them changes later down the road so I'll feel more at peace? If I'm not accepting the person for who they are and how they behave now, then I might be in line for a lot of frustration later down the road if I choose to make this person a part of my life.
I understand hearing something like what I've typed is scary as hell - and I'd be like "oh, great - that means I need to jump ship now or regret it!!"
I encourage you to NOT take any major life-changing actions for right now. (That means don't change your marriage plans right now). The general suggestion is to not make any big life-changing decisions for at least six months.
I'd say for now, get yourself to some Al-Anon meetings - attend at least six as close together as possible before you decide if Al-Anon is for you or not. If you find the program makes sense to you, then find yourself a sponsor and start working the steps. You do not have to get married, nor do you have to cancel the marriage, either. Not until you feel like you've sorted things through in your mind and have come to a conclusion that feels like the right fit for YOU (and only YOUR opinion matters, because this is YOUR life -- not your friends' life, not your family's life -- YOURS so it's your decision. And whatever you decide is going to be just perfect for you at the time.)
Aloha Alias and welcome to the board. My experience is similar to many here. I should have stood of the decision of No when given the invitation to and then to my absolute surprise...I married the alcoholic/addict. Would I have answered and done differently if she was solely a prostitute? Fact was and is that alcohol is a culturally accepted "beverage" and not under moral judgement while infidelity and drunkardness is. Alcoholism isn't a moral issue it is a disease. Alcohol is a mind and mood altering chemical which is addictive. Alcoholism can never be cured; only arrested by total abstinence. If not arrested by total abstinence is progresses into insanity and death unless the alcoholic seeks and attains life time abstinence and change. I didn't know that when I "gave in and caved in" to the obsession I had to my alcoholic/addict wife...that is my addiction and what continued then was that the problems we had before the vows got worse beyond my wildest imagination. The disease of alcoholism and other drug addiction needs "enablers" to support it to grow and run unchecked until it destroys absolutely. Alcohol isn't a benign "beverage" and there is absolutely nothing as powerful as it is for the demonstrations of it's destruction. The chemical has taken down entire cultures and populations of people. It has taken down governments and businesses. It is not benign. Once entering the body it will occupy ever cell in the body no matter the organ. If your fiance has reached the point where he is basically near stage comatose (passed out drunk on alcohol) from drinking there is no other fantasy behind that which produces a "magic wand" to change it. How long has he been practicing this stage drinking? It has progressed to "this stage". He has had to increasingly poison his body to get to this stage. He isn't sleeping because he is tired...He is unconscious because he is anestethized much as a person before surgery. He is vunerable to the chemical...which is an intoxicant...which means a poison. If he stops breathing, the level where alcohol overcomes the subconscious functions of the brain, his heart beat will also stop and his marriage will fail before he even gets to the church...of course so will yours.
The Al-Anon suggestion for me was the very very best I got. A call to the paramedics to attend to the alcoholic was the very very best I ever did whether they liked it or not. You are left with a person who's live depends on others who hopefully haven't been drinking.
I pray and hope you take all of the ESH you have received here to heart...it all comes from the heart. Most of us have been where you are at now to some degree and we are really praying and pulling for you. What we would do today for your alcoholic is something we are always learning. Given the choice of having the paramedics attend to my alcoholic/addict wife...I chose not to. I chose to try to fix her myself...it's a miracle that the last time I saw her she was alive and sober and clean.
The Al-Anon hotline number is usually in the white pages of your local telephone book. Call that number to find out where and when we get together in your area. Take care...prayers. (((((hugs)))))
When I married my stbxah I also had concerns about his drinking but I didn't really do any research into alcoholism and hoped that my love for him would be enough for him to want to quit. I won't tell you not to marry him because that is totally your decision. And if anyone had told me not to marry my AH I would not have listened. Just know that alcoholism is a progressive disease and things can go horribly wrong at a shockingly fast pace. I understand not wanting to be embarrassed by delaying the wedding but you should be confident that getting married is the right thing for you now. Going through a divorce is an experience I would not wish on my worst enemy.
The best advice I can give is if you have ANY doubts about getting married...listen to your gut. Marriage is huge, you shouldn't feel any trepidation only love, excitement, and happiness. if you don't then, think it though carefully. It is much easier to fix problems before your are married, and there is no shame in postponing something. I agree with what one of the other posted said, if the present level of drinking continued would you be happy?
You deserve to be happy and you don't need to settle for something your not ok with. If your gut tells you there is a problem, listen. Keep in mind you can't force him to see he has a problem, or make him quit. If he doesn't admit it on his own, it doesn't mean a problem isn't there. your instincts are just as valid. Keep comming and learning I have found there is a lot of colletive wisdom on this page.
It took me a long time to realize that my hubby had a drinking problem. He rarely drank at home, and when he did, he could stop with one or two. The problem was the bar. He went to the bar almost every day. Once there, he wouldn't leave, often coming home hours after he said, missing dinner, etc. I couldn't understand why he HAD to be at the bar ALL THE TIME. I believed him every time when he promised that he would quit once we were married...once we moved to a different town...once he went part time at his job. None of the other factors yielded a change in him. Then, I realized what the problem really was. We seperated a little over a year into the marriage after he started becoming physically violent when drinking & being extremely nasty to my teenage daughter. I couldn't take it any more & got him out via a protection from abuse order. I ended up paying spousal support to him, because he got laid off from his job. I was so blind & in denial myself. Take your time & don't rush it.
You are going to marry this guy? Really? I'd save the dress for someone who deserves you. This is not advice...just my opinion. But, yes, you are in the right place. Come back often. Very best wishes,
Diva
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"Speak your truth quietly and clearly..." Desiderata
I have repeatedly told my (now grown)children that the most important decision that they will make in their life is who they marry. I firmly believe that....the person you choose to walk through life with will, in large part,help dictact the path you take and the quality of your life. i urge you to consider carefully if you are willing to trust these important life decisions to someone who has, at the very least, a severe drinking problem..and remember that alcoholism is a progressive disease....
take care dear girl...I wish you courage and belief in yourself when considering your choices.
