Expert: Rebos - 8/26/2007

Question
I knew my husband of 22 years had a problem but he would always deny it.  I am 40 and he is 42.  We have 4 children together.  His drinking took a doward spril recently with an arrest.  I came to find out that he was also abusing drugs and then also came to find 2 pair of womens underwear in his car.  I am a model by professional and quite attractive, I never would have ever imagined my high school sweet heart would hurt me like this.  I have been devistated by his behavior and so have my children.  I am seriously thinking about divorcing him, because of all the lies that have spilled from his alcoholism and drug abuse.  I am confused, sick to my stomach and feel that all I want to do to him is yell at him.  He is staying with his family, because I can't stand him right now.  Do you think its better if I stay away from him, because I just freak out on him every time we speak and I think that is hurting his recovery.   Also he refuses to tell me the truth about the underwear...he gave me about 10 different versions of some silly story about strippers giving them to him.  I went to the strip club he supposedly went to and claim the strippers just handed him their underwear...that just doesn't happened in reality...or at least at that club..
his lies continue and I hate him.  what should i do.  Will he ever get better and face up to his wrong doings.

Answer

Good morning Lilly, and thank you for your question. Your husband is not an addict because he wants to hurt you intentionally. He is an alcoholic and a drug addict because he drinks alcohol and takes drugs. The “whole family” suffers, so it’s not all about you and him… it’s about the family! Alcoholics can never be husbands or fathers their addiction won’t let them. Alcoholics/drug addicts have “victims and they take hostages”. Their addiction will not allow them to have a normal relationship with another human being.

If you still love your husband you should ask yourself, “What am I willing to do to help save his life”? Whether you stay married to him or not… your husband’s recovery, from his addictions, will have nothing to do with you divorcing him or not! In fact if you divorce him it may even help him, since it could drive home to him, that he has lost another important thing in his life (his family) due to his drinking and drugging. However, he may be one of those poor souls that can’t see the truth about his addiction and rather think that “Now I can drink the way I want to, and whenever I want to with no hassles from my wife and family”.

You have to realize that you are totally powerless over your husband’s drinking and drugging. You and your children’s lives have become unmanageable… and unless your husband stops drinking and drugging you are setting yourselves up for a lifetime of misery, uncertainty, and unhappiness. Never make any threat to him that you are not 100% willing to follow through on.  

Stopping drinking is not a matter of willpower. Alcoholism is a disease. Drinking alcoholically is but a symptom of a deeper underlying problem that your husband must face up to in order for him to recover. Without him learning what that problem is, trying to stay away from a drink is known as “white knuckle sobriety”. It isn’t very long before your husband will have to drink again and again. FOR THE ALCOHOLIC THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS CUTTING DOWN, 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).

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. 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 and drugging 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. It may be a good idea if he turns himself in to a Detox Clinic to get some distance 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 (which he already has), or end up in a mental institution and destroy you in the process. When it comes right down to it your children will end up suffering the most! Their father’s drinking will affect them for the rest of their lives.

I would say that over the years that you may have become an “enabler” and 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. If you are still talking to his family you may want to warn them about becoming enablers. Al-Anon is where you will learn to not be an enabler and how to protect your children.

Your husband may have been in a “blackout” and really can’t remember where the women’s underwear came from. A blackout is alcohol induced amnesia, which is not a good sign of things to come if he doesn’t get help for his problem. They say that 85% of the people in prison are there for something that they don’t remember doing. Each time a person has a blackout it kills off some brain cells and they are not recoverable.

Alcoholism never gets better…it only gets worse. If you are still talking to him you have to be strong and insist that he does something about stopping drinking and drugging or he will never be allowed back into the house. But once again, NEVER MAKE ANY THREAT TO HIM THAT YOU ARENOT WILLING TO FOLLOW THRU ON! You must protect your children at all costs from the effects that their father’s addictions will have on them!

Whether or not you end up divorcing your husband… I recommend that you attend Al-Anon meetings and your children attend Al-Ateen (which is a group that Al-Anon sponsors). I assume that you know what Al-Anon is. Alcoholism is a “family” disease. You can either start YOUR recovery process now – or keep the illness going. Your best defense against the emotional impact of your husband’s drinking is to gain knowledge and the emotional maturity to put that knowledge into effect. Al-Anon can be reached by calling 1-800-344-2666 (United States) or 1-800-443-4525 (Canada).

If I can be of further help to you feel free to send me a follow-up question. Thank you, Rebos