Expert: Rebos - 6/12/2007

Question
I have been married to my husband almost 9 years but have known him for 20.  When we first started dating we were both social drinkers.  I don't know if he always had a problem as he was a bartender with late hours and perhaps I wasn't fully aware of his alcohol consumption.

Over the past 2 years I've noticed an increase in his drinking.  He buys the 1.75L of vodka or rum every two sometimes three days.  His bill at the liquor store is roughly 200.00 a month.  He pours himself a drink almost as soon as he gets home and continues to drink until he falls asleep on the couch.  
We have two children ages 5 and 6 weeks.  I have within the last week finally accepted/realized he has an addiction.  What has kept me from realizing this in the past is that he works, is never late or never misses work, he helps some around the house with the cooking and is attentive to the kids.  My main complaint is that as the night progresses he becomes annoying so much so that when I hear him laugh it annoys me because it is "drunk laughter".  At family gatherings he has started to embarrass me with his behavior, his repetitive jokes, and generally annoying manner (he tends to pick on people-he thinks this is funny).  
My oldest child adores his father but I'm afraid he will either hear someone talk badly of his father or will soon realize himself and become embarrassed.  
I recently confronted my husband.  I dumped his booze down the sink and told him I thought he had a problem.  He denies this by saying he is a hardworking and helpful and that this is the way he unwinds and that everyone is an alcoholic.  He has since cut down his consumption but has not quit.  I just sense that things will become bad as alcoholism is a progressive disease.  I don't want to wait, but I don't know how to confront him again, I don't know how to begin the conversation without putting him on the defensive.  Like I said I am just now fully acceptant of his disease, I feel like it's come out of the blue although if I'm honest with myself it has always been lurking.   I just don't want to wait until I have fallen out of love with him and we hate each other to do something about it.  I just don't know what to do and how to prepare for the hard road ahead.  I need strength and advise.

Please help.

Answer
Good afternoon Liz, and thank you for your question. I hope that my answer will in some way help you out of your situation.  

You have to understand that you are totally powerless over your husband’s drinking. You must stop trying to control something that you cannot control. It does no good for you to pour his alcohol down the drain, except that just ends up that he buys another bottle. I hope that you realize that not everyone is an alcoholic.. In a pretty stupid way he is protecting his right to continue drinking. I strongly recommend that you start to attend Al-Anon meetings. You may not be able to do anything about your husband’s drinking but you can do something about the problem that has developed in your life by having an alcoholic in it. At Alanon meetings you will find out what you can do to help your husband, by first learning to help yourselves. Until you are armed with the right information about the disease and its implications, your efforts to help him will be for nothing. Alanon can be reached by calling: 1-800-344-2666 (United States) or 1-800-443-4525 (Canada). If you decide to go to AlAnon remember that dirty four letter word TIME. Give it time to work, and NEVER MAKE ANY THREAT TO HIM THAT YOU ARE NOT 100% PREPARED TO FOLLOW THROUGH ON!!!!!!

Your husband should never be rewarded for any of his irresponsible actions. He must be held responsible for them. Something must be done to stop his spiral downward. It is very common for an alcoholic to lie about their drinking. They will usually lie at the drop of a hat to protect their right to drink. That is what alcoholics do! Social drinkers don’t have to hide their bottles, lie about their drinking, or find excuses to continue drinking.

I would suggest that you try to talk him into entering himself into a detox clinic to get counseling, be given some medication that will ease his withdrawals to help that he not have seizures or heart problems during that time and get some distance between him and his last drink. When he is discharged he should then start going to Alcoholics Anonymous regularly! Most insurance plans do cover the cost of detoxification. If he complains that he can’t take time off from work… tell him that he really can’t afford to not go because his drinking is not good for his children and not good for a healthy marriage.

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”. The good news is that there is recovery from the disease and it is accomplished “just one day at a time.” I’m sure that you have heard that saying before. 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 the threatening and begging in the world will not get them to stop doing what they cannot do on their 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 on his own 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 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 the 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.

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 family gatherings. Drinking alcoholically is a symptom of a deeper underlying problem that your husband must be face up to in order for him to recover. Without your husband learning 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 an alcoholic 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!

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 HE 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.

I can’t advise you as what to do, but I will say this…If your husband is allowed to continue drinking, doesn’t turn himself in to a detox clinic, and then continue to faithfully go to AA EVERY DAY after his detoxification is over, you are setting yourself 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! Once again 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 do 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 the alcoholic's actions and not holding them accountable for their unacceptable behavior. Any verbal or physical abuse by him toward you should not be tolerated at all. If this is so a restraining order against him would be in order to remove him from the house. Many enablers are impelled by their own anxiety and guilt to rescue the alcoholic from their predicament. If an enabler has no special knowledge of alcoholism recovery and try to help, your husband can sense your ineptness and weakness and continue on drinking because he knows that he will be forgiven again and again. I hope that you do not turn into such a person.

Unfortunately, all alcoholics must hit their own bottom before they do anything about stopping. I am sorry to say that hitting a bottom for some may mean going as low as a person can go...plus six feet!

The following is what the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism suggests when dealing with an alcoholic.

“Getting an alcoholic into treatment can be a challenging situation. An alcoholic cannot be forced to get help except under certain circumstances, such as when a violent incident results in police being called or following a medical emergency. This doesn't mean, however, that you have to wait for a crisis to make an impact. Based on clinical experience, many alcoholism treatment specialists recommend the following steps to help an alcoholic accept treatment:

Stop all "rescue missions." Family members and friends often try to protect an alcoholic from the results of their behavior by making excuses to others about their drinking and by getting him out of alcohol-related jams. It is important to stop all such rescue attempts immediately, so that the alcoholic will fully experience the harmful effects of his or her drinking--and thereby become more motivated to stop.

Time your intervention. Plan to talk with the drinker shortly after an alcohol-related problem has occurred--for example, a serious family argument in which drinking played a part or an alcohol-related accident. Also choose a time when he or she is sober, when both of you are in a calm frame of mind, and when you can speak privately.

Be specific. Tell the family member that you are concerned about his or her drinking and want to be supportive in getting help. Back up your concern with examples of the ways in which his or her drinking has caused problems for both of you, including the most recent incident.

State the consequences. Tell the family member that until he or she gets help, you will carry out consequences--not to punish the drinker, but to protect yourself from the harmful effects of the drinking. These may range from refusing to go with the person to any alcohol-related social activities to moving out of the house. Do not make any threats you are not prepared to carry out.

Be ready to help. Gather information in advance about local treatment options. If the person is willing to seek help, call immediately for an appointment with a treatment program counselor. Offer to go with the family member on the first visit to a treatment program and/or AA meeting.

Call on a friend. If the family member still refuses to get help, ask a friend to talk with him or her, using the steps described above. A friend who is a recovering alcoholic may be particularly persuasive, but any caring, nonjudgmental friend may be able to make a difference. The intervention of more than one person, more than one time, is often necessary to persuade an alcoholic person to seek help.

Find strength in numbers. With the help of a professional therapist, some families join with other relatives and friends to confront an alcoholic as a group. While this approach may be effective, it should only be attempted under the guidance of a therapist who is experienced in this kind of group intervention.

Get support. Whether or not the alcoholic family member seeks help, you may benefit from the encouragement and support of other people in your situation. Support groups offered in most communities include Al-Anon, which holds regular meetings for spouses and other significant adults in an alcoholic's life, and Alateen, for children of alcoholics. These groups help family members understand that they are not responsible for an alcoholic's drinking and that they need to take steps to take care of themselves, regardless of whether the alcoholic family member chooses to get help”. (End of suggestions)

I don’t want to overburden you with any more details than I have already written, but remember that whether or not your husband does anything about his drinking problem… you should go to Al-Anon! I hope that I have helped you with my answer. If you have any specific questions feel free to write me again. Thank you, Rebos