Expert: Rebos - 12/27/2006

Question
My husband went to a substance abuse program in August and then joined an AA group.  During this time he was also taking Antabuse.  For a few weeks he went faithfully to meeting after meeting.  Then, his eagerness to go to meetings tapered off.  His company sponsors trips to all inclusive resorts, so he stopped taking the antabuse in enough time to allow himself to be able to go on the trip and consume non-alcoholic beer.  We had a small fight about this, because he was doing so well and he stopped taking the antabuse to be able to drink during this trip.  Still, non-alcoholic beer was better than the cases of Bud Light that would come into the house on Friday and be finished by Saturday night.  We separated in November and have been seeing each other on occasion.  He has stopped going to any and all of his meetings and says he is "in control" of his drinking.  He will at times come to the house and bring a glass of wine.  I will have 2 glasses (at most) and he will polish off whatever is left.  I believed him when he said he could control his drinking, so I didn't make too much fuss about it.  Last night, we went to our friends' house for the holidays and he had 3 small glasses of wine.  I had 2.  When we came home, he became a little distant and separated from me by staying int he living room while I went to bed.  I woke around 1AM and my husband was not at my side in the bed.  I found him passed out on the couch in the living room.  I knew it was alcohol.  The next morning when he left for work, I found the empty glass where he had made a potent rum and coke.  He made and drank the drink alone, while I was in the bedroom asleep.  At this point, I am certain there was no "contol"...if there was he would have been content with the 3 small glasses of wine (like me).  I emailed him later that morning and asked him what was wrong; that I found the glass.  He immediately became defensive stating that I had been in control of his wine-drinking earlier, but didn't not being in control with him drinking a rum and coke.  Anything I said, he justified that he was in control and I was the one over-reacting.  Up until that moment, I had the most hope for our relationship and getting back together, but now, I am devoid of all hope and am seriously considering divorce since I've explained time and time again to my husband that it's either alcohol or me.

So, 2 questions:  Can an alcoholic be "in control" and can they drink in moderation?  And am I doing the right thing by giving him this ultimatum?

Answer
Good afternoon Kat. Thank you for your question.

I will answer your specific questions while taking the liberty to editorialize some additional thoughts that may be of interest to you. As you already know 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”. In addition once a person has to think about controlling their drinking they have already lost control! What I am trying to explain is that an alcoholic can no longer drink in safety. No matter how much he may lie to you about his drinking your husband cannot love you before his addiction to alcohol. His addiction will not allow him to have anything come between him and his next drink.

With regard to giving your husband an ultimatum…My answer is “Yes”, absolutely! However, “NEVER MAKE ANY THREATS TO HIM THAT YOU ARE NOT WILLING TO FOLLOW THRU ON”. If you do not follow through with your threats then he knows that he has you right where he wants you … that he is not being held responsible for his unacceptable behavior.

If you allow your husband to continue on the path that he is headed, and not go back to his AA meetings (every day seven days a week) then he is planning on continuing to con you into believing that he can do it on his own willpower. As they say in AA, just getting by, by doing enough “to get back into the big bed”.

It doesn’t matter how much your husband drinks, what he drinks, who he drinks it with or where he drinks it. What matters is; what does it do to him when he drinks it? For sure it is causing you problems, and if drinking causes problems…then it is a problem! If you want him to stop and he does not, then your husband has a serious drinking problem, and if he does nothing about it (and you stay with him) you can plan on a lifetime of misery and unhappiness. Alcoholism never gets better on its own…it always gets worse.

I’m sorry to tell you that you are totally powerless over your husband’s drinking, if he does not have a desire to stop drinking because HE WANTS TO, and not because you want him to. He has to get to the point of being sick and tired of being sick and tired. 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 lie about their drinking, or find excuses to continue drinking.

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. Unless your husband goes back to AA he is destined to die from one of the many complications of drinking alcoholically, or get involved negatively with the law, or end up in a mental institution plus destroy you 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.

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...thinking about the drink in between the drinks…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 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 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, 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 hope that I have helped you with my answer to your question. If I can be of further help feel free to send me a follow-up question. Thank you, Rebos