Expert: Rebos - 8/20/2007

Question
I am concerned about my husband. I don't believe he is an alcoholic. But, I really don't know. I have never been around an alcoholic. He does not need a drink all the time. There are times he goes the whole week and does not have a drink except on the weekends. Then there are times he has one every night. The problem is that at times, he does not know when to stop. He does not do this during the week, only on the weekends and usually if we are going out with friends. He actually does not even seem to have that many drinks. But, he turns into a person I do not even know and don't like. He has called me names, pushed me and acted so ugly to me. This is not like him because he treats me like a queen otherwise. He is a wonderful father and husband. But, this is driving me away from him when he acts like this. I don't like him when he acts that way and usually he does not even remember what he said or did. What does this all mean, why does it effect him so bad and cause him to act that way and why cannot he not control the amount he drinks. His father was an alcoholic, could this be why? I have asked him over and over again to stop drinking and he said the last time that he would try because he loved me but, he was scared he may not can. Any advice? Thanks.

Answer
Good evening Dana and thank you for your question.

If drinking causes problems then it is a problem. From the brief description of your husband’s drinking pattern there is no question in my mind that he is, although he has not admitted it… an alcoholic. There is some question as to whether or not alcoholism is heredity or genetic, but that is not the question that you should be concerned with! If he is an alcoholic the question that you should be asking is… what is he going to do about it?

When a person has to think of controlling their drinking… they have already lost control!
There are all kinds of alcoholic drinkers; binge drinkers, weekend drinkers, and daily drinkers etc. You say that he doesn’t seem to have too many drinks, but do you really know how much he is actually drinking? Alcoholics will do anything to protect their right to drink, and will usually revert to lying about how much they do drink. They can be very sneaky about it, especially when their alibi system has been caught on to.

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 (and all of his promises) will not get your husband to stop doing what he cannot do on his 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 your family unit 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. Your husband will not want to go to AA because addiction to alcohol is a disease of denial. It tells you that you are ok when your life is falling apart.

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... 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 force or 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. Drinking alcoholically is a symptom of a deeper underlying problem that must be faced up to in order for your husband 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 an alcoholic is a very sick person who has a “disease”, BUT YET, MUST BE HELD RESPONSIBLE FOR THEIR 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. Think carefully before you say anything to him about his stopping drinking; say what you mean, mean what you say, but don’t be mean when you say it! It is most important for you to remember NEVER make any threat to your husband that you are not 100% willing to follow through with!

I hope that you have 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 of you should not be tolerated at all. Many enablers are impelled by their own anxiety and guilt to rescue the alcoholic from their predicament. If an enabler has no special knowledge about alcoholism and try to help, the alcoholic can sense the ineptness and weakness of the enabler 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!

I strongly suggest 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 you will find out what you can do to help him by first learning to help yourself. Alanon can be reached by calling: 1-800-344-2666 (United States) or 1-800-443-4525 (Canada). Al-Anon is where YOU will get better. What you need is to listen to others who are or have been in a similar situation that you are in now and have found an answer to their problem. I guarantee that if you attend Al-Anon regularly, and work on your self…you will get better. That’s not to say that your husband will get better because you go to Al-Anon, but you will learn how to detach from his illness with love and learn to hate the disease and not its victim. You have to give Al-Anon a chance to work for you…there are no quick fixes to your problem. I would specifically tell your husband that you are going to Al-Anon because of his drinking.

I am sorry to say that your husband is having “blackouts” which is alcohol induced amnesia. Brain cells die as a result of blackouts and cannot be regenerated! Many alcoholics end up like a prize fighter who gets hit in the head too many times, and develops a wet brain. My concern is that his pushing you will evolve into something much worse like striking you, since he is having a Dr. Jeckel and Mr. Hyde personality change. As long as he is blacking out he may rationalize such behavior because if he can’t remember it then he didn’t do it. If you have any children that are still living at home his drinking alcoholically will be devastating to their proper development.

In closing; knowing what you now know I hope that your opinion as to your husband being a wonderful father and husband has somewhat changed. The real test for him being a wonderful father and husband will be if he gets the required help to solve his drinking problem. There is no shame in being an alcoholic… the shame is in doing nothing about it.

I hope that I have not offended you by my directness, but I have passed on to you the truth and it sometimes hurts. Don’t for a moment think that an alcoholic has to be the skid row bum who wears a sneaker and a shoe with a brown paper bad sticking out of his pocket. It can happen to the very best of us. If you have any further questions I would welcome your follow-up. Thank you Rebos