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Addiction to Alcohol/married to an alcoholic

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Expert: Joseph Lee O. - 5/28/2007


Question
I am married to a wonderful man when he is sober, but when he drinks it  is another story all together.  We have been together over ten years and have two small children.  The drinking has become progressively worse.  It has become a necessity on a daily basis.  Last week I found out after the fact that he drove the kids to the store already drunk in order to buy more beer.  I have never been more terrified in my life than when I found that out.  I told him that if he ever did anything like that again I would not hesitate to call the police.  Today he tried, but I was able to get the kids back in the house, mainly because he was too drunk to realize that he was putting the wrong key in the ignition.  He calls me evil among other things when I take a stand against him in these situations, threatens divorse, and today hit a new low by telling out three-year-old "Mommy doesn't love you."  When he is sober he has no memory of these events and sometimes will say that he doesn't believe me.  I am to the point that I do not know what to do.  Part of me wants to keep trying mainly because he is a great father and husband when he is sober, but the other part says get out.  The problem with that is we have no where to go and are financially dependent on him.  At this point I am more worried about the effect on our kids than anything else.  I still love him and am afraid for him.  

Answer
Greetings to you, Patty.

Yours is a most difficult situation, and you should do whatever is best for your children.  Let your husband know how much you appreciate him when he is sober, and let him know you will immediately call the police or a relative or neighbor every time his drinking causes any kind of disturbance or even potentially endangers your children.  Explain to your children that alcohol makes their father do unacceptable things, let him know you have done that and begin asking relatives and friends to come by frequently, even unexpectedly.  In other words, and without actually trying to make your husband do anything, make it impossible for him to do what he does in secret.  The best you can hope for at the moment is that your husband will catch on that something is greatly out of order with him.

Joseph Lee O.

Addiction to Alcohol

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Joseph Lee O.

Expertise

Greetings to you! Amidst the insufficiency of all the philosophical, religious and “self-help” approaches to relief from chronic alcoholism, I have personally experienced the content of “Alcoholics Anonymous”, the book. Thus, I can now explain at least the essence of the physical, mental and emotional aspects of an alcoholic's inherent condition and plight, and I can show why a spiritual solution is required and how it works and how to attain one.

Experience

The oldest of four boys, I grew up in a religious, Midwestern-USA family. Unable to decline a friendly offer in a social setting, I had "no effective mental defense against the first drink" ("Alcoholics Anonymous", the book, page 43), and took my very first drink ever at age 24 ... and within minutes I had become obsessed with getting more of the effect that glass of homemade wine had given me. Alcohol had just done something *for* me that nothing else had ever done; it had seemingly "fixed" something inside me I had not even known was broken. Over the next seven years of my life, I "drank up" just about everything and everyone ever meaning much to me at all, and I eventually abandoned my young family so I could drink and smoke pot at will. For, you see, alcohol was giving me a good-to-go feeling about life and a sense of control I had never before had, and at least in the early days of my drinking it could kill just about any pain that came along. At age 31, however, circumstances and consequences had piled up all around me in ways that were making it obvious I could not continue on much longer. Life had become too tough, my pains had grown too great and the dangers of continuing to drink had become too undeniable for me to be able to continue believing I might ultimately survive an inescapable drop to the bottom of the pit. I still wanted to be able to drink safely as in days past, but something had seemingly "taken over" my drinking and was dragging me completely out-of-control after just one drink. So, and even while completely overwhelmed by the thought of facing life alcohol-free, I decided to stop drinking altogether ... and I quickly discovered I could not. No matter what I said, thought or did even just "one day at a time", I always ended up drinking once again. Where I wanted to drink safely, I could not, and neither could I remain abstinent for very long at all ... and such is the physical "allergy" (where one drink takes another) coupled with alcoholism’s mental-emotional obsession for the effect of alcohol ... ... but then I met a small group of people who personally understood my deadly dilemma - my complete personal powerlessness - and those same folks were quite able to propose a permanent solution. I accepted, of course, and today it is as if I "could not drink even if [I] would" ("Alcoholics Anonymous", the book, page 57), and for that I now remain unendingly grateful.

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