Buddacat just offed a great suggestion. Tell your so that if he cannot stop drinking around you, then you will go to an AA meeting to get away because being around someone else who is drinking when you cannot, is a HUGE trigger!

If your s.o. really loved you, then he would show a little empathy toward you and your unborn, since he is half responsible for your situation. I would look at it as a taste of what lies ahead, if he refuses to, at least, compromise with you, by not drinking around you!

Just my humble opinion so I definitely agree with you 100 percent!
If it were me, I would get as far away from another drinker, as I could! I would not want to risk sabotaging my sobriety and harming a helpless, unborn, infant. IMHO.

Just a suggestion but I wish you the best of luck with your pregnancy and will pray for an easy birth, with a healthy child!

God Bless!

if you are the one with the drinking problem, why should he be the one to quit drinking? If your happiness in sobriety is dependent on others not drinking around you, this is never going to get easier for you.

My husband continued to drink around me after I quit. So did other family members and friends. it never occurred to me to ask them to stop drinking because I can't drink.

I have a friend with celiac disease who can't eat gluten. I have no problem eating bread around her and she has never asked me to stop because she misses it. It is the same with diabetics who see other people eat a candy bar. I think you have to learn to deal with it.

I would try to chill about his enjoying a drink. If his drinking is getting under your skin, leave the room, take some deep breaths, and try to let go of your resentment.

And congrats on your pregnancy!

Well rats! I was going to reply but ExJerseyGirl said everything I was thinking. 'Tis true justme. The only alcoholic I can manage is me. And back in the day, my hands were full!

Enjoy your pregnancy. I didn't feel like drinking during both of mine. I kicked into overdrive after they were born unfortunately. But I've been sober for a while now. Maybe since you aren't drinking, you could build on the momentum by not starting again.

Best wishes on your pregnancy. Hugs, Dianna

"he says there is a difference between getting drunk and having a drink"

Not really. He is drinking to get drunk, just like everyone else who drinks alcohol. Maybe he stops before he starts to garble his words or stumble when he walks, but make no mistake about it; he is trying to get drunk to some level if he ingests alcohol. That is the whole point of drinking alcohol. And I hope you can get over the feeling that you are missing out on something when you don't drink. You are simply trying to live a natural and sober life while your husband seems to need the crutch of alcohol. Ask him if he thinks he might try walking along side you for a while without the crutch.

Hi. First of all you can't drink, your pregnant. Second, why are you jealous and envious of someone who is drinking a poison? Would you feel that way if that person was drinking drain or Windex? You wouldn't be jealous or envious then. That is the way you should try to view it. You are not missing out on any "wonderful and experience in life" by not drinking. Would you be feeling like you were missing out if people in the room were shooting dope you weren't? "THEY" would be the outsider, not you. Change your way of thinking, it will be easier.

I think there needs to be a separation of your alcoholism (if you are alcoholic) and your pregnancy.

You shouldn't drink when you are pregnant, but many doctors will tell you an occasional glass of wine is fine.

If you are alcoholic, it shouldn't matter if you are pregnant or not, or if everyone else is drinking.

It comes down to alcohol doesn't belong in your body. That's the overwhelming fact.

I want to add to what I already wrote. I went through an outpatient program and it was like going to school because I learned alot about the underlying causes of alcoholism. There has been alot learned about alcoholism in the last ten years.

One of the things I learned was about triggers. In the beginning they were very important because my sobriety was still in a very fragile state so I learned how to identify and how to deal with or avoid my triggers completely. Of course nowadays, 8 years later, triggers do not bother me so if anyone wants to drink in front of me, go ahead! Knock yourself out!

So I'll apply it to this case.. Your husband drinks daily or often, in front of you. You are an alcoholic. You can see it and you can smell it and you can see how much your husband is enjoying it. Those 3 things flips switches in your brain! Like a computer. When exposed to the same trigger, time and time again, you will eventually give in to that trigger! It's just....a matter....of time!

I will pray for you!

God Bless!

buddhacat I have to agree with Buck. While you are right not everyone drinks to get "drunk", everyone who consumes alcohol does so for the ehenol effect of the drug. Otherwise people would consume items that looked and tasted like alcohol without the alcohol (see diet soda). Now some people are ok with that tiny little subtle buzz one drink may give, while some like a more profound effect, however to insinuate that anyone does it for anything other than the effect of alcohol is misleading.

I thank all of you. I do agree with changing my thinking all though easier said than done. I believe my husband is an alcoholic. He says hes not but slurrs his words and stumbles when he gets up. I have bad Social Anxiety Disorder, which I mask with drinking. I have no self esteem. So with out a drink I just sit there and barely talk. It relaxes me enough to socialize. I'll just pray and try and change.my perspective. I cannot change him. Only how I react.

In my opinion, if it is one drink or ten drinks, we all drink alcohol to get drunk to some level. That is the one and only reason we drink alcohol.

When you say you suffer from "Social Anxiety Disorder" does that mean you believe you can only enjoy the company of other people when you are drunk to some degree? The question then becomes, can you create a new lifestyle that does not include using alcohol as a social crutch? I honestly thought that was an issue for me before I quit. I now think that was a convenient illusion I created because it fit in with my enjoyment of feeling drunk. Sure, being drunk does reduce your social inhibitions but it does so for a price. And you are not really representing your natural and normal self when you drink while socializing.

More than half the adults in our world do not drink any alcohol at all. It is obviously not required for social interaction unless you let the alcoholic beverage industry create that illusion.

Buck it reminds me of last july when I went to my nieces wedding. These are all upper middle class successful people in attendance, and everyone drank to get feeling good! Maybe not falling down drunk (I only saw one person out of several hundred that had to be helped out the door)
but everyone boasted about their favorite "poison" and what it could do for them....everyone!

It seems that drinking socially is all about getting tipsy and losing inhibitians allowing drinkers to do things they wouldn't normally do sober and to take any blame for what they do under the influence of alcohol and place it on the booze and not themselves.

In this post nobody is wrong. It's how we perceive the world around us and is based on our inward condition if that makes any sense.

IMHO

~~~Peace~~~