Expert: Rebos - 1/5/2007

Question
Hi:

I need answers, I think I already know the answer to a lot of questions I have. My husband, who is a great person in many ways is in denial about his drinking. He drinks 12 cans of Miller Lite a night, and has drank that amount for a number of years now. He is 50. He claims that his habit began when he had difficulty sleeping, being able to sleep only 3 hours without beer. He has admitted to a problem, sought help, but didn't stick with it, and I have left him at least five times over our four year marriage because of it. We got back together over his promises to stop. He is now being defensive when I tell him he needs to deal with it. I do not know what else to do, but I am getting to the point of no return with this. Any feedback would be appreciated.  

Answer
Good afternoon Cheryl: Thank you for your question. I hope that my answer will help you.

It seems as though you are at your wits end concerning your husband’s drinking, and it is too bad that you have also been in denial over the past four years. As a true alcoholic your husband is becoming defensive about his drinking because he realizes that you are coming to the end of your putting up with his drunkenness. If drinking causes problems then it is a problem!

First; if your husband drinks a lot of beer then he drinks a lot of alcohol. For every 12 ounce can of beer that your husband drinks it is the same as him drinking 1-1/4 ounces of hard 80- proof whiskey! So if your husband drinks 12- twelve ounce cans of beer then he might as well have drunk 15 ounces of 80- proof Whiskey. Almost a full pint every day or 3-1/2 quarts a week! Of course that doesn’t even figure in what he drinks that you don’t know about! You do realize that your husband isn’t falling asleep…HE IS PASSING OUT!

Not everyone recovers from this dreaded disease, and your husband (at present) appears to be one of those types that can not and will not get honest about their alcoholism. There are some of those poor souls that their bottom is as low as they can go…plus 6 feet! Your husband appears to be one of those who cannot be honest enough about their alcoholism to want to get help and recover from it. Unfortunately, there is no “good fairy” that will come down, tap your husband on the shoulder and make him “all better”.  It just doesn’t work that way!

Alcoholism is cunning, baffling, insidious and powerful. It has no cure…once an alcoholic always an alcoholic! So to speak…“once you make 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 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. You husband needs to get some distance between him and alcohol for a while, and I therefore recommend that he turns himself in to a Detox Clinic to get some space between him and his last drink. After his detoxification unless your husband seriously enters a program like AA (and strictly follows their suggestions) he is destined to die a drunk's death, get involved negatively with the law, or end up in a mental institution and destroy you in the process. You haven’t mentioned if you have any children in the picture If you have children you must think of your them who will suffer the most, but have the least to say in the matter of their father’s drinking. Their father’s drinking will affect them for the rest of their lives.

From your question I would say that over the years that you become an “enabler” in that you have never seriously held your husband responsible for his behavior! It is very easy for those who are close to an alcoholic to become “enablers”. Many enablers are impelled by their own anxiety and guilt to rescue the alcoholic from their predicament. If you have no special knowledge about alcoholism 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.

You have to learn and believe that you are totally powerless over your husband’s drinking, it is not your fault, and that you, his doctor or even AA or the detox can help him if he does not have a desire to stop drinking. With that being said…If you intend to stay married to an alcoholic husband for your well being I would recommend that you go to Alanon. 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 proper 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 and accountable 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 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. For some insane reason your husband believes that he will get a free ride from you because he thinks that you will never divorce him! SO HE REALLY HAS NOTHING TO LOSE BY CONTINUING TO DRINK! Your track record of continually getting together with him over the years is giving him that free ride! You can be sure that if he does nothing about his drinking that your life will get worse as time goes by. You spoke of your wits end, which is what I call your anger…as an example; anger disguises itself in many different ways (either that you can’t face up to your anger in general, or you don’t want to look at your situation as it really is). Some of the ways that anger disguises itself are…intolerance, contempt, envy, hatred, snobbishness, rigidity, cynicism, discontent, tension, sarcasm, self-pity, malice, distrust, anxiety, suspicion, jealousy and the grand-daddy of them all…FEAR. So, you can see that you may have a lot of work to do on yourself! Fortunately in Al-Anon (which I hope that you go to) you have to do it just “one day at a time”. Families of alcoholics often have special emotional, social and financial problems. Tense emotional situations often make people say things that they don’t mean. If you can, concentrate on your own behavior, and become aware of your own emotional and mental attitude you will gain an advantage over your husband’s disease. Everyone who lives with an alcoholic is bound to be affected. Your thinking may become distorted and confused, and you may resent your husband and the conditions that his drinking creates.      

Stopping drinking is not a matter of willpower. Alcoholism is a disease. Drinking alcoholically is but a symptom of a deeper underlying problem that must be faced up to in order for an alcoholic to recover. Without learning what that problem is, trying to stay away from a drink is known as “white knuckle sobriety”. It isn’t very long before the alcoholic has to drink again. FOR THE ALCOHOLIC THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS CUTTING DOWN, trying to control his drinking, drinking only on weekends, changing what they drink, or even switching to “near beer” with 0.05% alcohol. For the alcoholic nothing will work short of total and complete abstinence from any thing that contains alcohol or other mind-altering substances (drugs). Of course the exception is a medical doctor’s prescription as long as the doctor understands that he or she is dealing with an addicted person.

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, BUT WHATEVER YOU DO NEVER MAKE ANY THREAT TO HIM THAT YOU ARE NOT WILLING (100% WILLING) TO FOLLOW THROUGH WITH YOUR THREAT!

If you do decide to have an intervention for him just make sure that the person that the person who performs the intervention is certified at doing alcoholic interventions! That person will give you instructions as to the procedure.

I wish that I could tell you more, but I don’t have enough details. Get to Al-Anon, join a group, get active with your group, ask one of the old timers to be your sponsor, work on your 12 steps of recovery, and above all ask your Higher Power for help. Remember that dirty four letter word…TIME. Give it time to work…don’t be discouraged. If you work at it, it will work for you. I would wish you good luck but your recovery will have nothing to do with luck…it will however have to do with hard work and discipline. If I can be of help to you during your recovery feel free to contact me again. Thank you, Rebos.