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Addiction to Alcohol/my husband is an alcoholic
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Question
My husband is an admitted alcholic. He has told me over and over again that he is not going to quit drinking even if he loses everything and everyone he knows and loves. He say's he loves me and before 6pm treats me well. It's after he has had his first 6pk that things start going from bad to worse. I dont remember the last time we had sex or the last time we even slept in the same bed for that matter. Unless we have sex in the morning then we have no sex at all because he is just unable to maintain an erection. Recently over the last three months or so he has not been able to maintain one in the morning as well. I have asked him over and over again if he just wants a divorce and he tells me no but how much am I expected to take of this. He is verbaly abusive when he's drunk. Very suspicias of me with other men when he knows that I would never cheat on him and always tells me that the next morning. I love him so much and I waited for 16 years to have a relationship with someone after my first divorce. We have been married for 5 years and have been together for 7 but I dont know how much more I can take. I am unhappy all the time and more and more often now he refuses to have anything to do with the family and avoides outsiders all together. Am I being a fool to hang on to something that I know is going nowhere? Our plans that we had together in the beginning have now all changed because of beer.
Greetings to you, Billie.
You have written:
>> I don't know how much more I can take.
>> I am unhappy all the time ...
>> Our plans ... have now all changed ...
>> Am I being a fool to hang on to something I know is going nowhere?
Some people would certainly say that, but I know of a woman who had a marriage similar to yours for nearly 30 years before her alcoholic husband ultimately died and I would not call her a fool. However, neither would I have criticized her for packing her clothes and leaving long ago.
You have written:
>> ... how much am I expected to take of this.
I do not believe you are "expected to take" any of it at all. As I understand things, you have a right to expect to be treated with respect, decency and honor, and especially from your own husband. It is at least possible his talk about drinking ‘til he dies even if he loses everything is some manipulative behaviour he will reconsider if he begins losing things now.
>> I love him so much and I waited for 16 years to have a relationship with someone after my first divorce ...
You might consider attending some Al-Anon meetings where other people in situations like yours can share with you their first-hand experience in learning to live satisfying lives in spite of their alcoholic family members and spouses. But either way, please know you are always welcomed to write.
Joseph Lee O.
Email: leejosepho@hotmail.com
Forum: http://xsorbit28.com/users5/restored/
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Answers by Expert:
Joseph Lee O.
Expertise
Greetings to you! Amidst the insufficiency of all the philosophical, religious and “self-help” approaches to relief from chronic alcoholism, I have personally experienced the content of “Alcoholics Anonymous”, the book. Thus, I can now explain at least the essence of the physical, mental and emotional aspects of an alcoholic's inherent condition and plight, and I can show why a spiritual solution is required and how it works and how to attain one.
Experience
The oldest of four boys, I grew up in a religious, Midwestern-USA family. Unable to decline a friendly offer in a social setting, I had "no effective mental defense against the first drink" ("Alcoholics Anonymous", the book, page 43), and took my very first drink ever at age 24 ... and within minutes I had become obsessed with getting more of the effect that glass of homemade wine had given me. Alcohol had just done something *for* me that nothing else had ever done; it had seemingly "fixed" something inside me I had not even known was broken.
Over the next seven years of my life, I "drank up" just about everything and everyone ever meaning much to me at all, and I eventually abandoned my young family so I could drink and smoke pot at will. For, you see, alcohol was giving me a good-to-go feeling about life and a sense of control I had never before had, and at least in the early days of my drinking it could kill just about any pain that came along.
At age 31, however, circumstances and consequences had piled up all around me in ways that were making it obvious I could not continue on much longer. Life had become too tough, my pains had grown too great and the dangers of continuing to drink had become too undeniable for me to be able to continue believing I might ultimately survive an inescapable drop to the bottom of the pit. I still wanted to be able to drink safely as in days past, but something had seemingly "taken over" my drinking and was dragging me completely out-of-control after just one drink. So, and even while completely overwhelmed by the thought of facing life alcohol-free, I decided to stop drinking altogether ... and I quickly discovered I could not. No matter what I said, thought or did even just "one day at a time", I always ended up drinking once again. Where I wanted to drink safely, I could not, and neither could I remain abstinent for very long at all ... and such is the physical "allergy" (where one drink takes another) coupled with alcoholism’s mental-emotional obsession for the effect of alcohol ...
... but then I met a small group of people who personally understood my deadly dilemma - my complete personal powerlessness - and those same folks were quite able to propose a permanent solution. I accepted, of course, and today it is as if I "could not drink even if [I] would" ("Alcoholics Anonymous", the book, page 57), and for that I now remain unendingly grateful.
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