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Addiction to Alcohol/MY HUSBAND IS AN ALCHOLIC MY CHILDREN ARE BEGINNING TO SUFFER
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Question
WHAT DO YOU DO WITH A HUSBAND THAT REFUSES HELP? AND SAYS HE HAS NO PROBLEM? HE IS 56 AND I AM 40. HE IS ON DISABILITY AND I WORK. HE MAKES SURE THE BILLS ARE PAID AND THEN HE IS DEPRESSED THAT WE HAVE NO MONEY. HE TAKES ON ODD JOBS FOR EXTRA CASH IN CASE ANYTHING UNEXPECTED COMES UP. OUR CHILDREN CANT STAND TO BE AROUND HIM @ TIMES AND I HAVE THREATENED TO LEAVE.THIS DOES NOT WORK. HE SAYS SOMETHING LIKE I'LL LEAVE OR DO WHAT YOU HAVE TO IF THIS IS WHAT YOU WANT. THIS HAS PUSHED ME SO FAR FROM BEING HIS WIFE.HE HAS PROMISED THE CHILDREN THAT HE WOULD NEVER TAKE ANOTHER DRINK. THIS HAS AFFECTED THE KIDS IN SO MAY WAYS. HOW CAN YOU TEACH A CHILD TO SPEAK THE TRUTH WHEN YOU CANT DO IT YOURSELF. HE IS SUSPICIOUS THAT I HAVE A BOYFRIEND BUT I CHOOSE NOT TO. WE ARGUE ALL THE TIME ABOUT STUPID THINGS OR WHO IS RIGHT AND WRONG. HE TELLS ME ALL THE TIME "YOU JUST CANT BE WRONG". HE IS A VERY TALL,MUSCULAR AND PURPOSELY TRIES TO BE INTIMIDATING TO OTHERS AS WELL AS HIS KIDS. HE WENT COLD TURKEY 1 YEAR ON HIS OWN. WE WERE SO IMPRESSED AND PROUD. I DON'T KNOW THE REASON WHY HE STARTED UP AGAIN THIS TIME IT IS WORSE. THIS HAS AFFECTED MY SLEEP THROUGHOUT THE NIGHT AS WELL AS MY HEALTH I CANT DO IT ANYMORE. WHAT SHOULD I DO?
Greetings to you, Alicia.
The first think you should do that will be helpful to you is to read “Alcoholics Anonymous”, the book, especially the chapter “To Wives”. There should be a copy available at just about any public library, or any bookstore should be able to order one for you. Along with that, you would do well to look in a phone book or newspaper for “Al-Anon” and to begin attending at least a few meetings. Many women today are in situations just like your own, and their experience can be helpful to you in many ways.
Overall, your husband knows he has a serious problem, but he has little if any idea as to what that problem actually is, and he could not resolve it even if he did. Hence, he stumbles along as best he can without being able to understand or to do any better, all the while hoping some kind of miracle will eventually fix him.
Threatening to leave and so on is not going to be helpful to anyone. In fact, that kind of thing actually teaches your children to abandon sick people. Yes, I do understand your lives are becoming unbearable, but that is because of your husband’s untreated alcoholism, and he cannot possibly heal himself.
No, it might not be “fair” that you and your children have such a troubled husband and father, but you said you would stick by him in sickness and in health, and now is the time for you to make your best effort to place before him the very help that could save his life and bring and end to the misery he is causing all around.
In much the same way you would attend a sick child without pulling back just because he or she did not like the medicine or treatment, quietly tell your husband someone has suggested you find out a little about alcoholism ... then do the things I have suggested and keep in touch here. Do not try to get him to read the book or go to A.A., just “lead the way”, so to speak, by example as you begin to find out about what you now need even for yourself ... and no, I am not in any way suggesting you are the problem here. Just keep doing as you have already done here by asking still others for some help.
Please write again,
Joseph Lee O.
Email: leejosepho@hotmail.com
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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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