Expert: Rebos - 11/14/2006

Question
My husband becomes sarcastic, angry and mean after 2 glasses of wine.  I have asked him not to drink anymore and he says he is tired of defending himself and that I am just beating him down.  His personality does not change if we are with a group of people but it does if it is just him and me at home. What do I do?  He gets mad if I tell him may have a problem with drinking and that it is adversly affecting our family.

Answer
Good afternoon Carrie:

Thank you for your question. I have two suggestions for you to consider:

First, you could tell your husband that you will no longer go out to dinner with him alone or with a group of people until he decides to treat you with respect. The respect that you are looking for, (whether with a group or alone), is that he can no longer order anything alcoholic to drink. If he does order a drink that you will get up and leave the restaurant for home. If you have two cars tell him that you will drive yourself to the restaurant in your second car, or take your keys to the car and leave him there to fend for him self to get home. I assume that you have a driver’s license. If you do not and he orders an alcoholic drink get up from the table and call a taxi cab. You have to show him once and for all that you will no longer be verbally abused by him when you are alone. Above all, NEVER make any threats to him that you are not 100% willing to follow thru with!

My second suggestion for you to consider is to plan on going to 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 you will find out what you can do to help him by first learning to help yourself. Until you are armed with the right kind of information and knowledge of the disease and its implications, your efforts to help him will be for nothing. Alcoholism is deadly and it destroys everything and everyone who comes into contact with it. Your husband should never be rewarded for his irresponsible actions. He must be held responsible for them. Something must be done to stop his spiral downward. As you know it is very common for an alcoholic to lie about their drinking. They will lie at the drop of a hat to protect their right to drink. That is what alcoholics do! 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 (which I hope you do) remember that dirty four letter word TIME. Give it time to work and tell him that you are going to meetings, because of the verbal abuse he puts you thru! Alanon also sponsors another self help group called Alateen for the children of alcoholics. If you have any children they should be told how their father is treating you and if old enough go to Al-Anon with you or Alateen depending on their age.

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! You can however raise your husband’s potential ultimate bottom by practicing what you learn at Alanon.

I hope that I have helped you in some way, but since I have so little information about you and your overall family’s circumstances I did the best that I could. Thank you Rebos