Expert: Rebos - 3/6/2008

Question
My husband and I have been married for 25 years and overall have had a good marriage.  He's always drank, but it was never a problem.  About 2 1/2 years ago he unexpectedly lost his job.  Over the next 2 years he was in and out of work and just recently finally found a job that seems to really make him happy and is finally regaining some self-confidence and self-worth.  Unfortunately, during the 2 years he started drinking more... drinking every day, at home, by himself, often enough that I could see the visible effects and sometimes passing out.  Our daughter, 20 & 23, both recognize the problem and it is effecting our household terribly.  But when I try to talk to him about it he says he doesn't have a problem.  And even when he's willing to talk and to do something about it like agreeing to stop or limit his drinking he always fails.  He drinks everyday, and most days has enough that I can tell he's been drinking even if I don't see him do it. I'm especially concerned with the amount of hard liquor he drinks.  He often drinks an entire 1 1/2 liter bottle of rum, mixed with soda, in 2 or 3 days. He drinks beer also. I'm also concerned about the impact of long-term drinking on his health.  And I know he doesn't eat as well as he should.  He's slowly becoming a different person - has no drive to do anything at home - mainly works, eats and drinks.  I made a commitment to marriage for life, but he's not the man I married. I really need to know if his habits are really a problem, or if I'm making more out of it then I should.

Answer

Good morning Jan and thank you for your question. I am very pleased that your husband has found a job that “really makes him happy”; unfortunately if he continues to drink the way that you described in your question it won’t be very long before he loses his new job! No, you are NOT making more out of your husbands drinking than it is. He, you and your daughters are headed for a life of misery and unhappiness if your husband doesn't get help for his drinking problem!

You are correct when you say that he is not the man that you married… he has become an alcoholic which is the one word that you neglected to use in your message to me. Drinking alcoholically is a symptom of a deeper underlying problem that your husband must face up to in order for him to recover. If your husband does not learn what that problem is, trying to stay away from a drink is known as "white knuckle sobriety", or being on a “dry drunk”. It isn’t very long before he must drink again. For an alcoholic there is no such thing as cutting down, drinking only on weekends, changing to beer or wine, or even switching to the near beer with 0.05% alcohol. For an alcoholic nothing will work short of total and complete abstinence from any thing that contains alcohol or mind-altering substances (drugs). The exception is a doctor’s prescription as long as he or she knows that the patient is an addict!

It is generally believed (in AA which has the best track record for recovery) that alcoholism is a three-fold disease… mental, physical, and spiritual. The “mental part”; deals with the thought that precedes the first drink...thinking about the drink in between the drinks…a pre-occupation with thinking about drinking which is so powerful that the alcoholic must drink. The “physical part” is that once the first drink is downed a physical compulsion takes over and the alcoholic must continue to drink until some outside incident stops them. And last but not least, the “spiritual part” of the illness. Not spiritual in a religious way, but in the loss of values and a willingness to settle for less and less as his drinking continues. Stopping drinking, for an alcoholic, is not a matter of willpower. Alcoholism is a disease; the AMA says it is, but your husband must be held responsible for his irresponsible actions including his disruption of the family unit.

Alcoholism is cunning, baffling, insidious and powerful. It has no cure…once an alcoholic always an alcoholic! So to speak…“once you turn a cucumber into a pickle, you can never change it back to a cucumber”. It has been my experience to have never seen an alcoholic recover on their own willpower for the long haul. No one can scare an alcoholic into stop drinking. All of your threatening and begging will not get him to stop doing what he cannot do on his own. Don't for one second think that your husband does not want to stop drinking… he can't stop when left to his own devices. Don't be fooled into thinking that he will stop drinking just because he says that he will. It's not that he will purposely lie to you… but he will lie to himself because down deep he knows that he can’t stop. Unless your husband gets to goes to a program like Alcoholics Anonymous he is destined to die from one of the many complications of drinking alcoholically, get involved negatively with the law or end up in a mental institution plus destroy you and your children in the process. Counseling may be good for him (if you can get him there) but what he needs is a support group like AA so that he can identify with other alcoholics and change his lifestyle.

Each one of us has a breaking point, especially so when we see a person that we care for destroying their life. It is important to understand that your husband is a very sick person who has a “disease”, BUT YET MUST BE HELD RESPONSIBLE FOR HIS ACTIONS. It is also important for you to hate the disease and not your husband. Alcoholism is a disease that affects not only the alcoholic, but all those who have the unfortunate experience of having any contact with an alcoholic. Alcoholics are self-centered to the extreme. They can’t be good fathers, husbands, wives, employees or real friends; their friend has become alcohol and they will do anything to protect their right to drink. Alcoholics have “victims” and take “hostages” but never lovers or fathers.

I can’t advise you as what to do, but I will say this…If your husband is allowed to continue drinking, and doesn’t continue to faithfully go to a program like AA EVERY DAY you are setting yourself and your children up to living a miserable, unhappy and abusive life.  Alcoholism never gets better…it only gets worse. In any case you have to be strong and insist that he does something about stopping drinking. Measure your words carefully before you say anything to him about him stopping drinking; say what you mean, mean what you say, but don’t be mean when you say it! Remember it is most important for you to NEVER make any threat to your husband that you are not 100% willing to follow through with! I hope that you have not become an “enabler”. It is very easy for those who are close to an alcoholic to become “enablers”. An enabler is a person who allows an alcoholic to continue drinking, primarily by their acceptance of an alcoholic's actions and not holding them accountable for their unacceptable behavior. Many enablers are impelled by their own anxiety and guilt to rescue the alcoholic from their predicament. If you have no special knowledge of alcoholism recovery and try to help, your husband will sense your weakness and continue on drinking because he knows that he will be forgiven again and again.

Unfortunately, all alcoholics must hit their own bottom before they do anything about stopping which doesn’t mean that you can’t take certain actions that may help to “raise his bottom”. One of the ways to (maybe) help to raise his bottom is for you to attend Alanon meetings. I am sorry to say that hitting a bottom for some may mean going as low as a person can go...plus six feet! If you still love him you almost have to ask yourself the question; what are you willing to do to help save your husband’s life? If your husband continues down the road that he is on your life will not get better it will only get worse.

I can’t to tell you what to do, but I emphatically suggest that you and your daughters start going to Alanon. I assume that you know what Alanon is. You can either start YOUR recovery process now – or keep the illness going and destroy your family unit. Your best defense against the emotional impact of your husband’s drinking is to gain knowledge and the emotional maturity to put that knowledge into effect. Alanon can be reached by calling 1-800-344-2666 (United States) or 1-800-443-4525 (Canada). If you decide to not go to Alanon the least that you can do is to stop trying to control a situation that you can’t control.

If I can be of further help please let me know in a follow-up question. Thank you, Rebos.