I apologize in advance.  I am EXTREMELY long winded, especially when I'm trying to paint an entire picture.  This is everything that contributes to my fear that my husband is an alcoholic or at least is heading in that direction.  Do you think he has or is developing a problem, or am I just scared because of his family history?  Thank you in advance to anybody that actually makes it all the way through this.

Addiction of all kinds runs rampant through his family.  His dad is an alcoholic and drug addict.  Both of his dad's brothers are alcoholics, his dad's sister is an addict (this accounts for ALL of the siblings), his dad's mom is an alcoholic, all but about two of his dad's nieces and nephews have ended up alcoholics/addicts.  His mom is definitely an addict and likely an alcoholic.  She was adopted, but we have reason to believe there was at least some alcoholism/addiction in her birth family.

His mom has admitted to giving him Nyquil (I'm pretty sure...could have been Benadryl) as a young child as a means of hopefully settling him down on at least one occasion.  His parents also gave him a benzodiazepine (Valium, maybe?  Don't remember which.) prior to telling him his pet cat had been hit by a car and killed.  I'm 99% sure he would have been younger than 10, definitely not more than 12.

Apparently did some drinking as a teenager.  My understanding is that it was always to get drunk and it was generally somewhat large amounts, but that it wasn't particularly often and only over a short period of time.  He was more of a "pot head."  He's never done any other drugs (he smokes cigarettes).

He was 16 when I met him.  Within that first year he smoked pot once, and that was the last time.  At around 18, he drank a handful of times.  I didn't worry about it.

At around 21, we were married.  When the subject of alcohol would come up with other people, he would make comments like, "Everybody in my family is alcoholic, so I just don't drink because I'd probably end up one."  But around the same time, he's sometimes (not really often, but not extremely rarely either) bring up wanting to drink.  This kind of rubbed me the wrong way, as if he was already lying and covering up something he wasn't even doing yet.  Given his family history and this, I was paranoid about the idea of him drinking, and would manage to find excuses for him not to.

Around that same time or immediately after it (our first child was an infant), he did go out with some guys once, got completely trashed, and got into a car with a similarly drunk driver.  He says now that it was completely stupid and he was young, that he wouldn't do something like that now.

At 24 he had his first major manic episode and was diagnosed with bipolar disorder.  During this time he started drinking pretty regularly.  It was almost always liquor and almost never in a social setting.  When his cousin (one of the alcoholics) found out he was drinking liquor, his comment was, "I don't even drink liquor.  I can't."  One night he drank with this same cousin, and the cousin told him, "You don't drink right."  I wasn't present, but I guess he basically was chugging it.  This happened to be the night after I miscarried our second child.  He was absolutely awful to me that night.  I don't feel this was the alcohol, but the mania.

During this time there were two specific incidents that worried me the most.  On one occasion, he was out and called me and asked, "How do you like your Jack Daniels?"  He knows that the only time I've ever drank liquor has been a few shots at a wedding (we've been to two in all the years we've been together), and there was a very short period (a month or two) where I would get a shot or two at a bar.  I have never once bought or asked him to buy liquor to bring home.  I don't like it in my house.  When I told him I liked it on the shelf in the liquor store, he got nasty and said it was too late, he already bought it.  I am 100% convinced that this was similar behavior to things I've seen from his parents.  He either wanted me to drink too thinking that I wouldn't have any room to talk if I did, or he wanted to make it seem like it really was for me, like that would make it okay.  Both were just a means to take to pressure off of him.

The other thing I didn't find out about until years later.  Apparently for a time he had a bottle of Jack Daniels hidden in the basement.  To my knowledge, it was one bottle, and it was down there for a while.  He would sneak down, take a shot or two, and then go out and putz around in the garage so I wouldn't know.  When I tried to point out that this was blatant alcoholic behavior, his mom (the addict) defended him saying that alcoholics only hide alcohol so they always have some around in case they run out.  He basically agreed with that, that he was only hiding it to avoid the argument because I'm so "overbearing and paranoid and judgmental" about his drinking.

For the better part of a year, he hadn't found the right combination of meds and was manic and utterly not himself.  Due to this, we were separated off and on.  I know there was at least one occasion where he drank a bottle of whiskey alone at home when I was staying with my mom.

Shortly after the mania settled down, I got pregnant and had our second child.  The mania was finally gone, but instead he had become debilitatingly depressed.  He would easily sleep 14 hours a day.  He was having trouble getting to and staying at work.  We fought so much because I didn't know what to do with him, how to get him to be a part of our lives.  I was dealing with the hormonal change after giving birth and going on little sleep and trying to take care of a newborn who wanted to nurse around the clock because ultimately I wasn't producing enough milk for her.  I had no support from him.  So after one particularly bad argument, he felt bad and went to his parents' house for the night because he thought I didn't want him here.  I found out a while after the fact that he drank a bottle of Southern Comfort while there.  I look at that like, "Oh, you're having marital problems?  Drink them away."  (I think this may have happened twice around the same time, but I don't remember for sure.)

He finally found a combination of meds that worked better for him, though apparently his brain is medication resistant...meds don't seem to work as well for him as your average person.  So, he's never really been totally level, but he found something that kept him reasonably controlled.  Over the next three-ish years, he drank maybe once or twice.  It wasn't liquor.  It wasn't some unreasonable amount.

About a year ago (at 28), he started talking about wanting to drink again, but I managed to talk him out of it.  Then one night he said he just wanted to have a couple drinks and watch the football game.  At this point I didn't feel that I had much of a valid argument anymore even though I was still pretty terrified of the potential repercussions.  So he drank.  Just beer.  He did have only a couple.  He paced himself.  It was no big deal.

I don't remember the exact timing, but it did start happening a little bit more often maybe once or twice in the following six-ish months.  Again, only a couple, just beer, paced, no problems.

But in the past six-ish months, things have gotten worse.  It was becoming more often.  Once a month, two or three weekends in a row, every other weekend.  It varied, but it was always at least once a month, even though I'd try to get him to not drink.  On one occasion, we got a six pack to split.  He drank his fairly quickly, and I hadn't even started mine.  He asked for one of mine, and I told him no, I wanted them.  (If I'm being honest, I moreso just didn't want him to have more.)  He got angry and poured the rest of them down the sink basically in a "If I can't have more, you can't have any" gesture.  The following day he admitted that was immature, and he could see why that kind of reaction would worry me a little.

This drinking continued.  When I'd try to tell him that I didn't want him drinking that night or that he was drinking too often, he'd say that he thought it was because I don't let him get to where he wants to.  "I don't want to get drunk, but I want to catch a buzz.  I just get sleepy."  Maybe if I let him do that once, he wouldn't want to drink again so soon.  Like an idiot, I caved and agreed for him to have his own six pack if he agreed to go at least a couple months without drinking.  He agreed.  He says he made it a month, I'm pretty sure it was only three weeks.  Either way, he didn't go the couple months.

On one occasion, he got me a six pack on a Friday night with the intention of getting himself one the following night.  (If we both drink, we keep it to a minimum so that somebody is sober or very close to it in case there would be some kind of emergency with the kids or something.)  Well, the next day he was running numbers, and we didn't have nearly as much money until the following payday as we had thought.  I foolishly assumed it was a given that he wasn't going to get his six pack that night because we really didn't have the money for it.  He came home with one anyway.  When I got upset with him and pointed out the financial factor, he came back with, "Well, you did it last night."  I don't see how I can be blamed for that when we didn't know the financial situation at that point.  Unfortunately, he handles almost all of the money.  I never know what we have until he mentions it.  How could I have known we couldn't really afford it at the time?

That was pretty recently, and the drinking has continued at that once a month or more rate since.  Last week he was away for work (he drank the weekend before leaving), came home for the weekend, and is back there for another week now.  Friday afternoon I got word that a childhood friend had died.  He called me after work on Friday to let me know he was heading home...a five plus hour drive.  I told him about my friend when we talked.  He asked me what happened and said, "Well, I'll be home soon" basically meaning that he'd be there for me.

Two hours later, he called to let me know there had been a lot of traffic and he still had longer to go than he should.  And he mentioned that while he was in a convenience store, he picked up three cans of Mike's Harder Lemonade.  All I wanted was my husband to come home and hold me and let me cry about my friend, but there was the alcohol again.  (For the record, he was bringing it home, not drinking it on his way or anything.)  I more or less hung up on him.

When he finally got home, we argued about it right away.  He said that he got them thinking about me, that my friend died and he thought I might want to drink a little.  Well, that's healthy.  I tried to tell him that I didn't want to drink away the pain.  I didn't want to be comforted by alcohol.  I wanted to be comforted by him.  And I wasn't sure that I bought that anyway, so I specifically asked him if it was all for me.  Of course the answer was no.  He thought I'd drink one that night, and he'd drink the other two the next night.  So not even most of it was for me.  Throughout the course of the argument, he was angry and defensive.  Multiple times he told me, "I'm not an alcoholic; stop treating me like one."  My response was, "stop acting like one."

He left Sunday night to go back out of town for work.  We talked on the phone, and he then admitted that he did get it for both of us, but really only because he wanted to drink.  And he said that he "panicked" (his word, not mine) when I started fighting with him and just said that he thought I might want to drink because my friend died because...I don't know why.  He thought that sounded acceptable?  I can't even grasp whatever logic he thought he was displaying there.

So he did drink Saturday night, and now tonight (Monday) he went out with these people from work.  He claimed he didn't intend to drink at all, but then somebody ordered a Scottish ale and he was curious so he got one.  But he didn't drive his own car.  I really think, if he truly had no intention of drinking, he would have taken his own car.

They weren't out long...only about an hour.  He called me when he got back to his hotel room.  He said he only had the one (in this instance, I do believe him), and the guy he rode with didn't drink at all (I doubt he was drunk, but I don't know that I believe the guy didn't drink any alcohol).

We had a long talk.  Many of the points I brought up, he would kind of agree that they weren't quite right, that maybe it was unhealthy, but somehow when you add them all together they seem to equal totally normal, responsible drinking.

Because of his parents' alcoholism and addictions, my husband was neglected and verbally and physically abused throughout much of his life.  We even put a stop to his parents being allowed any contact with our children in an effort to protect them.  He always says that his children are his number one priority, that he would do ANYTHING for them, that he would NEVER hurt them.  So I try to ask him, "Do you want to take even the TINIEST chance that you will end up like your parents and hurt your kids the way they hurt you?"  His response is, "That won't happen."  That won't happen.  I don't know of any alcoholic that took their first drink and thought, "Yep.  I'm going to be an alcoholic."  It's more often the people that think "it won't happen to me" that it happens to.

When I ask him how he knows it won't happen, he says because he has a good head on his shoulders and because he has a wife that won't let it happen.  So I tried to say that I'm fighting now to not let it happen, but it's not doing any good.  He's saying I'm overly sensitive about the subject and scared and that's it.  So, even if it's not happening now, why would he believe I wasn't just being overly sensitive and scared if it started to happen?  For these kinds of questions, he doesn't have an answer.  He sometimes says something that is pretty irrelevant or just tries to drop the issue.

Ultimately he agreed that he would stop drinking more than every couple months at the most.  I'll believe that when I see it.  His reason for this is because, while I had quit smoking for five years, I started smoking again about three years ago.  He hates that I started again and wants me to quit.  (I quit easily when I quit before, and feel I can quit easily again, just haven't had the desire to.)  So he made the deal that if I quit, which I said I'd stop right now, he would cut the drinking back at least that much.  Well, I still don't really have the desire to quit smoking, but I got rid of the last few cigarettes I had, and I actually don't really have any money to buy more until Friday anyway.  My point is, he still says he doesn't have a problem.

My opinion, even more so after typing all of this out, is that he either is already an alcoholic or is on the road to becoming one.  And either way, I think he needs to just completely give up drinking.  I told him I'd do the same, even though I don't feel that I have a problem, and he doesn't have any complaints about my drinking (and nobody else ever has either).

Am I overly sensitive?  I mean, I fully admit I can be overly sensitive about a lot of things.  And I really think when this all started out years ago, I was being overly sensitive.  But I don't think it's that now.  The problem is getting him to see that.

It really dosen"t matter how much he drinks or how often , any reason he may give is just an excuse .what matters is how it effects you when he does drink that Al-Anon can help you with . Until he says what he's doing is causing him a problem , it ISN"T its causing you a problem .